"Scenic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... always a refreshment to Elizabeth to be with Sir Temple and Lady Dacre; that morning it was even better than being alone; they were the only ones purely spectators in the drama of struggle and suffering going on under the courtesies that were its scenic accompaniments. When they talked and jested it was out of happy hearts, at least so far as the things about them were concerned, and for this reason the strain was taken from her in their presence. She had only to be gay enough, and there was no need of watching her words lest they should be misconstrued. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... adapted to French society with a degree of felicity belonging to Moliere alone. Omitting "Les Amants Magnifiques," called by Moliere a minor comedy, but which may be rather considered as a piece of framework for the introduction of scenic pageantry, and which is only distinguished by some satirical shafts directed against the now obsolete folly of judicial astrology, we hasten to notice a masterpiece of Moliere's art in "Le Bourgeois ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... together," said Mrs. Bowen, as they passed through the inner door of the vestibule, and the brilliantly lighted theatre flashed its colours and splendours upon them. The floor of the pit had been levelled to that of the stage, which, stripped of the scenic apparatus, opened vaster spaces for the motley crew already eddying over it in the waltz. The boxes, tier over tier, blazed with the light of candelabra which added their sparkle to that ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... one night stands at the Moulin Rouge; Dr. Depew, and he not only got sent to Washington, but got a raise of wages at the Grand Central Depot; yet when I saw him the next day and delicately intimated that I was yearning to view the scenic beauty of his great four track system, his reception reminded me of the lines ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... quite easy for Patiomkin to humbug Catherine as to the condition of Russia by conducting her through sham cities run up for the occasion by scenic artists; but in the little world of European court intrigue and dynastic diplomacy which was the only world she knew she was more than a match for him and for all the rest of her contemporaries. In such intrigue and ...
— Great Catherine • George Bernard Shaw
... play was announced, and the entire population turned out in force. The play was given in Deacon Thomas's parlor, because that had a rear room opening into it that could be used as a stage, but one scenic touch in the stage property doomed the aspiring artists to defeat and the society ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... These grand scenic effects are occasionally seen by ordinary travellers, though the ordinary traveller is for the most part out of temper at 3 A.M. The mountaineer can enjoy them, both because his frame of mind is properly trained to receive ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... effect produced on the spectator. I have seen many fire scenes on the stage, many acts of fire eating and fire handling by civilized jugglers, and many fire dances by other Indian tribes, but nothing quite comparable to this in all its scenic effects. ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... this which embittered him. By nature no person was less inclined to reserve or bitterness, and as a boy he was frank and generous to a fault." In speaking of his poems, Mr. Sully remarked: "He has an eye for dramatic, but not for scenic or artistic effect. Except in The Raven, I can nowhere in his poems find a ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... modern date, the humorous effluence of the day that was now passing. It is a day, however, and an age, that appears to be remarkably barren, when compared with the prolific originality of former times, in productions of a scenic and ceremonial character, whether grave or gay. To own the truth, the Carnival is alive, this present year, only because it has existed through centuries gone by. It is traditionary, not actual. ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... creditable in a past master of diplomacy. So, while the sympathetic part of her was crying out for a chance to talk Winton's threatened danger over with some one, she lent herself outwardly to the Reverend Billy's mood—which was one of scenic enthusiasm; this without prejudice to a growing determination to intervene in behalf of fair play for Winton if she could find ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... Disputes: none Climate: varies from cool summers and severe winters in north to subtropical summers and mild winters in south Terrain: Terai or flat river plain of the Ganges in south, central hill region, rugged Himalayas in north Natural resources: quartz, water, timber, hydroelectric potential, scenic beauty; small deposits of lignite, copper, cobalt, iron ore Land use: arable land 17%; permanent crops NEGL%; meadows and pastures 13%; forest and woodland 33%; other 37%; includes irrigated 2% Environment: ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... sooner entered the dining room and caught the measure of the music than his remembrance was lightened by his old elastic power of claiming the moment, mounting with it, and finding it all-sufficient. The glare and glitter about him, the mere scenic accessories had again, and for the last time, their old potency. He would show himself that he was game, he would finish the thing splendidly. He doubted, more than ever, the existence of Cordelia Street, and for the first time he drank ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... came to a tall, slender structure, hidden among the scenic projections of the cliffs, like a monument in the dark, vaulted ways of an abbey. Surrounding it, were five extinct craters. The air was sultry and still, as if full of ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... picture afterwards, and almost invariably deals with an individual building, which is the essential subject. This building cannot, therefore, be made a mere foil for interesting "picturesqueries," nor subordinated to any scenic effect of landscape or chiaroscuro. Natural accessories or interesting bits of street life may be added to give it an appropriate setting; but the result must clearly read "Building, with landscape," not "Landscape, ...
— Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise • Charles Maginnis
... been furnished her while waking. Master Byles Gridley's penetrating and stinging caution was the text, and the grotesque carvings and the portraits furnished the "properties" with which her own mind had wrought up this scenic show. ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the altar of Dionysus. Greek poetry and music. Aristotle on Greek stage-plays. AEschylus and Sophocles. Euripides. Words, music and scenic effect. Lenaean theatre exhibitions. More costly than Peloponnesian war. Roman dominion. Primitive Christian church. St. Augustine. Mystery, miracle, morality and passion plays. Strolling histriones, etc. Florence "Academy." Vincenzo Galilei. Monody. Polyphonic music. Emilio del Cavalieri. ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... stream that feeds the lake," he said. "It rushes down from the higher mountains, and here we have a beautiful waterfall. Nature has neglected nothing in preparing our happy valley, providing not only comfort and security but scenic beauty as well." ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... in modern agriculture less symmetrical than what was previously employed. The flails were the simplest of instruments, and were always seen with the same accompaniment—the interior of a barn. The threshing-machine is certainly not less interesting; it works in the open air, often with fine scenic surroundings, and the number of people with it impart vivacity. In reaping with the reaping-hook there were more men in the wheat, but the reaping-machine is not without colour. Scythes are not at all pleasant things; the mowing-machine is at least no worse. As for the steam-plough, it is very ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... acres of withered, undulating grass; upon a few rank sedges; upon a score or so of decayed trees; upon a house—huge, bare, grey and massive; upon bleak walls; upon vacant, eye-like windows; upon crude, scenic inhospitality, the very magnitude of which overpowered me. I have said it was cold; but there hung over the estate of Eastover an iciness that brought with it a quickening, a sickening of the heart, and a dreariness that, whilst being ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... words. A noble play, nobly mounted, gives us double artistic pleasure. The eye as well as the ear is gratified, and the whole nature is made exquisitely receptive of the influence of imaginative work. And as regards a bad play, have we not all seen large audiences lured by the loveliness of scenic effect into listening to rhetoric posing as poetry, and to vulgarity doing duty for realism? Whether this be good or evil for the public I will not here discuss, but it is evident that the playwright, at any rate, ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... become to the nobles of England what the miracle play had been to the common people of a previous generation. Milton, with his strong Puritan spirit, could not be content with the mere entertainment of an idle hour. "Comus" has the gorgeous scenic effects, the music and dancing of other masques; but its moral purpose and its ideal teachings are unmistakable. "The Triumph of Virtue" would be a better name for this perfect little masque, for its theme is that virtue ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... An exact scenic reproduction of the war would have shocked all those good people; just as this impossible theatrical deformation, this potpourri of songs, dances and orchestral tremolos charmed and delighted their ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... character of the ancient Dictator had become part of the recognised stock of our modern political comedy, though, as our term of office extends to a quadrennial length, the parallel is not so minutely exact as could be desired. It is sufficiently so, however, for purposes of scenic representation. An humble cottage (if built of logs, the better) forms the Arcadian background of the stage. This rustic paradise is labeled Ashland, Jaalam, North Bend, Marshfield, Kinderhook, or Baton Rouge, as occasion demands. Before the door stands a something with one handle (the other ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... candles everywhere, on a little table, on the piano, and on the stage, everywhere in threes; and the first performance was fixed for the thirteenth, and now the first rehearsal was on a Monday, an unlucky day. All part of the war against superstition! All the devotees of the scenic art were gathered together; the eldest, the middle, and the youngest sisters were walking about the stage, reading their parts in exercise books. Apart from all the rest stood Radish, motionless, with the side of his head pressed to the wall as he gazed with ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... much of the mystery and adventure of their intrigue; but that which was ardent, poetic, and theatrical to the Marquise's imagination had not been lost. Love alone was not sufficient for her. She needed danger, scenic effect, and pleasure heightened by terror. Once or twice, in the early time, she was reckless enough to leave her house during the night and to return before day. But she was obliged to renounce these audacious ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... murky, sullen November day Murglebed exhibits unimagined horrors of scenic depravity. It snarls at you malignantly. It is like a bit of waste land in Gehenna. There is a lowering, soap-suddy thing a mile away from the more or less dry land which local ignorance and superstition call the sea. The interim ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... Taille, do not compensate their deficiency in the qualities required by the theatre. One tragedy alone, La Sultane, by Gabriel Bounin (1561), amid its violences and extravagances, shows a feeling for dramatic action and scenic effect. ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... rocky promontory overlooking the Sundown Sea, where San Francisco's beach is laved by the waves of the Ocean. Since the first Cliff House was erected this has been a place famous the world over because of its scenic beauty and its overlooking the Seal Rocks, where congregate a large herd of sea lions disporting much to the edification of the visitors. Appealing from its romantic surroundings, interesting because of its history, and attractive through its combination ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... as vague of essence as the land of a dream. Near at hand, a cucumber-tree, with its great broad green leaves and its deep red cones, leaning over the rocks, and spanning this illusive gray landscape from the zenith to the immediate foreground, gave the only touch of color to the scenic simulacrum in many a gradation of neutral tone. The jurymen hovered about under the boughs for a time, and then came back, still harassed and anxious, to their den, with perhaps some new question of doubt. For those without could perceive that ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... rapidly becoming unnatural. They performed in the daylight stray clarified bits from Fletcher or Moliere, drama of an era over-ripe; they sang only from an old book of madrigals; their very reading was fragmentary,—now an emasculated Boccaccio, then a curdling phantasm of Poe's, and after some such scenic horror as the "Red Death" Helen Heath dashed ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... Ontario is a wonder indeed—216 miles long, and 90 miles wide—a truly magnificent sheet of water, very rough at times. We arrived at Stone's Hotel, Toronto, at three o'clock, P.M. The country round is flat, and bare of scenic interest; but the town itself is full of life, motion, bustle, and business. The streets are well paved and lighted with gas—the only place in Canada, except Montreal, where gas is introduced; the houses large and good; the shops excellent—many of ...
— Journal of a Voyage across the Atlantic • George Moore
... in the grouping of objects of sublimity and beauty that the Yosemite excels. The narrow valley, with its gigantic walls, which vary in every change of the point of view, lends itself to the most astonishing scenic effects, and these the photograph has reproduced, so that the world is familiar with the striking features of the valley, and has a tolerably correct idea of the sublimity of some of these features. What the photograph cannot do is to give an impression of ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... faster and still faster, to fill our eyes with flying, our ears with rushing, our skins with scurrying, our diaphragms, which are our souls, with the thrill of curves, and straight stretches, of lifts, and drops, and sudden halts—as of elevators, merry-go-rounds, chutes, scenic railways, ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... poverty (according to our notions) of the scenery, which usually represented merely the front of a palace or other public place, and was often though not always unchanged during the whole performance; the total absence in fact, of anything like that scenic illusion which most managers of theatres seem now to consider as their highest achievement; the small number of the actors, two, or at most three only, being present on the stage at once,—the simplicity of the action, in which intrigue (in ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... adjoining, there was little of notable in it; the upholstery arrangements thrifty in the extreme. His Majesty is prone to thrift in this of the Huldigung, as would appear; perhaps regarding the affair as scenic merely. Here, besides this of Berlin, is another instance just occurring. It appears, the Quedlinburg people, shut out from the light of the actual Royal Countenance, cannot do their Homaging by Deputy, without at least a Portrait of the King and of the Queen: How manage? ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... much to the deception. On the whole, the piece went off surprisingly, as I could see by Lord Loudon and the Lt. Governor, both of whom seemed infinitely diverted. Herman Mordaunt smiled once or twice, when he ought to have looked grave; but this I ascribed to a want of practice, of late years, in scenic representations. He certainly was a man of judgment, and must have known the proper moments to ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... the twin Pitons (Gros Piton and Petit Piton), striking cone-shaped peaks south of Soufriere, are one of the scenic ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... a man who witnessed the failure of Miss Baillie's 'De Montford,' notwithstanding the scenic advantages of a vast London theatre, fine dresses, fine music at intervals, and, above all, the superb acting of John Kemble, supported on that occasion by his incomparable sister, that this unexpected ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... development is essential for our expanding economy. We must continue vigorous, combined Federal, State and private programs, at the same time preserving to the maximum extent possible our natural and scenic heritage for ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... a bolder artist than even the daring scenic painters; in front of me was a prairie of flowers, acres and acres of waving, undulating masses of color; thousands of Arizona wyetha (wild sunflowers) mingled with the brilliant tips of the fire-weed and clumps of odorous and delicately colored horsemint. There were other ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... one. But "audaces Fortuna juvat." Powers scouted the notion of difficulty. My mother was to draw up the programme, and he undertook, with the materials furnished him by the museum, and with the help of some of his own handiwork, to give scenic reality to her suggestions. The result, as I have said, was a brilliant success. I have a copy of the "bill" that was issued to the public inviting them to the exhibition in question, which is a curiosity in its way, and which I must give the reader. It is drawn up in high ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... postal stationery. The designs of stamps may suggest many things: the power of nations, the march of history, the glory of victory, the advance of civilization, art, industry, natural resources, scenic grandure, the dead and storied ...
— What Philately Teaches • John N. Luff
... digress.—The connexion of scenic exhibitions with the improvement or corruption of the manners of men, has been universally recognized: in other words, the presence or absence of poetry in its most perfect and universal form, has been found to be connected with good and evil in conduct ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... terrific. Hand-organs, street-pianos, and German bands were all playing at the same time, while people hurried about from one place to another, enjoying the hundreds of games and riding the various scenic railways and carrousels. Archie stood mute with delight at it all, but before five minutes had passed he had shot the chutes, and had ridden over a steeplechase which took him through dark caverns, where dragons glared at him and where electrical ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison
... see, amid the mimic rout A crawling shape intrude! A blood-red thing that writhes from out The scenic solitude! It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs The mimes become its food, And the angels sob at vermin fangs In ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... to the hotel to take Laura for a prearranged excursion. Temporarily out of the bill at the theatre, and a long holiday being hers to enjoy, she had suggested a little trip to Manitou to see the far-famed Garden of the Gods, a place of scenic marvels, where, by a strange freak of Nature, great rocks and boulders, fantastic in shape and coloring, are thrown together in all kinds of curious formations. The plan was to go by train as far as Colorado Springs, and then finish the ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... unregulated amusement parks which are apparently so dangerous to little girls twelve or fourteen years old. Because they are childishly eager for amusement and totally unable to pay for a ride on the scenic railway or for a ticket to an entertainment, these disappointed children easily accept many favors from the young men who are standing near the entrances for the express purpose of ruining them. The hideous reward which is demanded from them later in the evening, after they have enjoyed ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... his stand behind a buttress in the low wall of the garden, from which he could have full view of the balcony, unseen himself. In this watch he had no other object than that of a vague pleasure. The whole grouping had in it a kind of scenic romance, and he stopped as one stops ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The scenic drama. The original meaning of SCENE was a wooden stage for the representation of plays, &c., and it is here used ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... a Whitechapel needle of the finest temper. The appointments and arrangements of the stage reflect the highest credit on the management, and the industry which can labour to surmount the difficulties which we know to exist in the production of anything like scenic effect in the Strand Theatre, deserve the encouragement which we were gratified to see bestowed upon this little ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various
... majestic range of mountains—a trail too steep to ride and which the pack horses accomplished only with great difficulty—emerging onto a high plateau of open parks and small clumps of the darkest spruce. It was, of course, the most scenic part of the journey; and the inclination to talk died speedily from ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... the middle of the last century the house and grounds were converted into a tavern and pleasure gardens, under the metropolitan title of Vauxhall: and for a century they continued to afford healthful recreation and scenic amusement to the busy inhabitants of Birmingham. The amazing increase in the size and population of the town has at length demanded this interesting site for building purposes. Within the last three ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... illustrated in the well-known nakedness of the Elizabethan stage in respect of furniture and scenic accompaniment. The weakness, if such it were, appears to have been the source of vast strength. It is to this poverty of the old stage that we owe, in part, the immense riches of the Shakespearian Drama, since it was thereby put to the necessity of making up for the defect of sensuous impression ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... never-dying interest beyond the lot of ordinary monarchs, than the bare records of historical verity could ever have effected. Still he feels that he had no alternative. He must either have ascertained the historical worth of those scenic representations, or have suffered to remain in their full force the deep and prevalent impressions, as to Henry's principles and conduct, which owe, if not their origin, yet, at least, much of their universality and vividness, to Shakspeare. (p. ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... faithfully portrayed the characters, even displaying a certain fastidiousness as to sundry local details; albeit in the scenic development of the opera they have followed Murger's method of dividing the libretto into four separate acts, in the dramatic and comic episodes they have claimed that ample and entire freedom of action, which, rightly or wrongly, they deemed necessary to the ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... unfortunate pair. These "tombs" are scribbled over with the names of the various persona who have visited them, together with verses and pathetic ejaculations, and sentimental remarks. St. Pierre's story of the lovers is very prettily written, and his description of the scenic beauties of the island are correct, although not even his pen can do full justice to them; but there is little truth in the tale. It is said, that there was indeed a young lady sent from the Mauritius to France, for education, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... is soon filled by regular professional people, trained and equipped for the service. In the case of a fire which is operating upon private property, pity for a neighbor's calamity checks us at first in treating the affair as a scenic spectacle. But perhaps the fire may be confined to public buildings. And in any case, after we have paid our tribute of regret to the affair, considered as a calamity, inevitably, and without restraint, we go on to consider ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... only about ten feet from the footlights, and the rest of the stage is orchard. What is visible of the room would indicate the study of a writing man of culture. ( Note.—If found advantageous for scenic purposes, this section of room can be changed to a broad verandah or porch with pillars supporting its roof.) In the wall, Stage Left, is a curtained opening, across which the curtain is half drawn. Stage Right of the French windows is a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Babs, "so later on you can tell when a writer or a scenic designer tries to put something over on you ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... dolling up will do for that. The women can wear what they've got and the men borrow or rent." With a wave of the cigarette in his hand, Mr. Vandeford dismissed the scenic effects of the play for whose debut Miss Elvira Henderson was concocting a dream costume to adorn the author for ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Goldmark's opera, Its slight connection with Biblical story, Contents of the drama et seq.—Parallelism with Wagner's "Tannhauser," First performance in New York, Oriental luxury in scenic outfit, ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... times a forest of quaint costumes, a pantomime of shifting scenic effects of religious ceremonies. Nothing there, however singular, strikes the eye as out-of-the-way or unexpected, since no one knows precisely to what religious order it may belong, or what individual ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... miles of territory, has an ocean beach extending for three miles on its western boundary and overlooked by automobile highways. Street cars, starting at the Ferry Building, arrive at the beach after traversing residence districts and scenic routes, unfolding views of hills, forests, parks, forts, lighthouses and seals on rocks ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood
... and rooms, places and plays alike, I am quite certain that Charles Kean's productions of Shakespeare would astonish the modern critic who regards the period of my first appearance as a sort of dark-age in the scenic art of the theater. ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... Sais; and the famous Feast of Lights was celebrated there in her honor. There were celebrated the Mysteries, in which were represented the death and subsequent restoration to life of the God Osiris, in a secret ceremony and scenic representation of his sufferings, called the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... bird and blossom, to imagine that the author of Canticles needed or used second-hand sources of inspiration, however little his drama may have accorded with the life of Jerusalem in the Hellenistic period. And as the natural scenic background in each case is native, so is the treatment of the love theme; in both it is passionate, but in the one it is nothing else, in the other it is also spiritual. In both, the whole is artistic, but not artificial. As regards the originality of the love-interest ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... scenic artist Mr. Hepworth proved a great success and a rapid workman beside, for by mid-afternoon he had completed the one scene that was necessary—a view of Mount Olympus as supposed to be ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... about the song, however, as if the scenic suggestion is only a symbol of something greater and more human, and this feeling is ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... old lady I know once came across a remarkable instance of it. She watched a ship-wreck, the real article, with all the scenic accessories, and when a half drowned sailor was dragged ashore she asked him how he felt at that awful moment. And what do you ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... Actually, by the way, Mr. RAFAEL SABATINI has dedicated it "to LEON M. LEON, who told me this story"—which, of course, only strengthens my belief. Anyhow, it has every mark of the romantic drama—a picturesque setting, that of the Peninsular War, rich in possibilities for the scenic and sartorial arts; and a strongly emotional plot, leading up to a situation that could be relied upon to bring down the house. I shall, of course, not tell you the plot. It contains a jealous husband, an injudicious wife, a hero and heroine, a villain ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... Calandra, a play by Cardinal Bibbiena, was performed before the same Pope Leo, Baldassarre made the scenic setting, which was no less beautiful—much more so, indeed—than that which he had made on another occasion, as has been related above. In such works he deserved all the greater praise, because dramatic performances, and consequently the scenery for them, had been ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... given me in the social scale. Nor in the country only did I experience this friendly feeling; most of my vacations were spent in town, at the houses of the parents of some of my schoolfellows. I was now made acquainted with the scenic glories of the stage. I fought my way through crowds of fools, to see a child perform the heroic Coriolanus, the philosophical Hamlet, and the venerable and magnificent Lear. Master Betty was at the height of his reputation; and the dignified and classical Kemble had, for a time, to veil ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... the place of the representations of Christian subjects, which had become blasphemous under the treatment of men like the Caracci. Gods without power, satyrs without rusticity, nymphs without innocence, men without humanity, gather into idiot groups upon the polluted canvas, and scenic affectations encumber the streets with preposterous marble. Lower and lower declines the level of abused intellect; the base school of landscape[23] gradually usurps the place of the historical painting, which had sunk into prurient pedantry,—the Alsatian sublimities of Salvator, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... the Drought./ This is a simple and clear example of rhapsodic writing. It opens with scenic description of the drought; the rest is dialogue between God, Repentant Israel, and the Prophet. The action of the rhapsody consists in the gradual effect of intercession: God at first refuses so much as to answer the sinful People, and speaks only through the ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... Kennedy, and James; while a score of young writers have, in verse and prose, made the early colonial and the modern plantation and waterplace life of the Old Dominion, its historical romance and social and scenic features, familiar and endeared; so that the annals and the aspects of no State in the Union are better known—even to the local peculiarities of life and language—to the general reader, than those of Virginia, from ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... were governed according to their own laws, and had the legislative power and magistracy of autonomic states. Until the third century their municipal decree commenced with the formula, "The Senate and People of—". The theaters were not simply placed for scenic amusement, but were foci of opinion and discussion. Most of the towns were, in different ways, little commonwealths. The municipal spirit was very strong. They had lost only the power to declare war, a fatal power which made the world a field of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... what we see in Lothair. It is airy, fantastic, pure, graceful, and extravagant. The whole thing goes to bright music, like a comic opera of Gilbert and Sullivan. There is life and movement; but it is a scenic and burlesque life. There is wit, criticism, and caricature;, but it does not cut deep, and it is neither hot nor fierce. There is some pleasant tom-foolery; but at a comic opera we enjoy this graceful nonsense. We see in every page the trace of a powerful mind; but it is a mind laughing at ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... match the West won magnificently. How great was the real efficiency of these tactics in affecting the choice of the ruler of a great nation commonly accounted intelligent, it is difficult to say with accuracy; but it is certain that the expert managers spared no pains about this scenic business ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... "The scenic beauty of Quebec has been the theme of general eulogy. The majestic appearance of Cape Diamond and the fortifications, the cupolas and minarets, like those of an eastern city, blazing and sparkling in the sun, the loveliness of the panorama, the noble basin, like a ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... houses are open on Sunday evenings. Two of them received 5500 visitors per week last winter. The most innocent of the favourite haunts of the people are casinos, or music-saloons, where multitudes assemble to witness scenic representations, feats of jugglery, tumbling, &c. Twopence is paid for admission, and for this the value is given in refreshments, most frequently consisting of ginger-beer. These places are comparatively innocent, but ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... finest piece which I saw given there was Glinka's "Life for the Czar." Being written by a Russian, on a patriotic subject, and from an ultra-loyal point of view, everything had been done to mount it in the most superb way possible: never have I seen more wonderful scenic effects, the whole culminating in the return of one of the old fighting czars to the Kremlin after his struggle with the Poles. The stage was enormous and the procession magnificent. The personages in ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... I can believe it. Some women have, however, undeniably an indifference to children, just as many men have, though it must be unnatural and morbid in both sexes. Men often affect it—very foolishly, if they count upon the scenic effects; affectation never succeeds well, and this sort of affectation is peculiarly unbecoming, except in old bachelors, for there is a pathetic side to the question so viewed. For my part and my husband's, we may be frank and say that we have caught up our parental pleasures with a sort of passion. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... shade; and that every thing on the Guadalquivir was as lovely and as poetical as its name. Now, it is pretty widely known that no uglier river oozes down to its bourn in the sea through unwholesome banks of low mud. It is brown and dirty; ungifted by any scenic advantage; margined for miles upon miles by huge, flat, expansive fields, in which cattle are reared,— the bulls wanted for the bullfights among other; and birds of prey sit constant on the shore, watching for ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... have before been coronations surpassing that of Victoria in scenic splendor, if not in solid magnificence-that of the first Napoleon and his Empress, perhaps-but there has been nothing so grand as a royal pageant seen since, until the crowning of the present Russian Emperor ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... Sir Robert Howard and Dryden's heroic tragedy, The Indian Queen, was produced at the Theatre Royal in mid-January, 1663. It is a good play, but the extraordinary success it attained was in no small measure due to the excellence and magnificence of the scenic effects and mounting. 27 January, Pepys noticed that the streets adjacent to the theatre were 'full of coaches at the new play The Indian Queen, which for show, they say, exceeds Henry VIII.' On 1 February he himself found it 'indeed ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... made papers, as well as the imported papers, are very beautiful. The makers are taking great pains to have fine designs and beautiful colors which will appeal to people of knowledge and taste. The situation is much better than it was a few years ago. Some of the copies of old figured and scenic papers are exceptionally fine, and can be used with great distinction in dining-rooms or halls with ivory or cream-white woodwork and wainscoting, and Georgian or Colonial furniture. One should not use pictures with these papers, ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... occasion. This small Dresden Excursion of February, 1730, passed, accordingly, without accident, It was but the prelude to a much grander Visit now agreed upon between the neighboring Majesties. For there is a grand thing in the wind. Something truly sublime, of the scenic-military kind, which has not yet got a name; but shall soon have a world-wide one,—"Camp of Muhlberg," "Camp of Radewitz," or however to be named,—which his Polish Majesty will hold in those Saxon parts, in a month or two. A thing that will astonish all the world, ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... a view to scenic effect. It was not by accident that Mrs. Downey herself was seated at the obscure or sideboard end, and that she gathered round her there the older and less attractive members of her circle. This arrangement was flattering to them, for it constituted an ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... the nine actors who walked in the royal procession, and received a gift of scarlet cloth for the making of a cloak worthy the occasion. Many other honours followed. Great State occasions called for plays; Shakespeare's were chosen, and his company acted them. The scenic art began to receive a rather belated attention—in short, there was all the requisite stimulus for a man of genius, and the poet responded to ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... musical instruments, drawing materials, &c. accompany her into every reverse of situation, in a manner perfectly incomprehensible, but highly amusing and edifying. A miniature portrait of some mysterious relative or friend, seldom or ever seen, nay, indeed, a sacred memento of the dead, is highly scenic and effective in a romance. The heroine ought, by all means, to possess such; it may do good, and it can do no harm. Finally, the lady must frequently faint, be twice or thrice on the brink of the grave, undergo exquisite varieties of suffering, run all hazards, but retain ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... warrant you, on these occasions. No "surprise" parties! You understand these, of course. In the rural districts, where scenic tragedy and melodrama cannot be had, as in the city, at the expense of a quarter and a white pocket-handkerchief, emotional excitement has to be sought in the dramas of real life. Christenings, weddings, and funerals, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... a peculiarity of modern German drama, that it seeks to escape from monotony, which the French classical theatre hardly ever succeeded in avoiding, by calling in the aid of the other arts. Plastic art is often employed for scenic arrangement, and music to produce effects on and behind the stage. Both were made use of by Schiller; and it was under his influence that they were tried by Goethe in his later period—though we find a remarkable sporadic appearance of them even as early as Goetz ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... obvious answer than this is that Shakespeare's popularity with the many is not due to those finer glimpses that are the very essence of all poetic delight to the few, but to his thousand other magnificent attractions, and above all, after his skill as a pure dramatist and master of scenic interest and situation, to the lofty or pathetic setting with which he vivifies, not the subtleties or refinements, but the commonest and most elementary traits of the commonest and most elementary human moods. The few with minds touched by ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... characters into the recesses of their hearts. There are no closed doors for him. His puppets have no secrets from their master. He plagues you with no doubts, no half-views, no criticism. Thus they thought, he tells you; thus they looked, thus they acted. Then, with every opportunity for scenic arrangement (for though his characters are confidential with him, he is only as confidential with his reader as the interest of the story will allow), it is not to be wondered at that the majority of readers ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... of one shilling, for which, however, they received an equivalent of "tea before eight o'clock," or "half a pint of wine during the concert." There was a theatre in the Gardens, in which balls, concerts, and scenic displays took place. The musical department was for some time under the direction of Dr. Arne, and the fireworks under Signor Torre. An allegorical play was performed on June 4, 1772, in honour of the ...
— Hampstead and Marylebone - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... before the trusting public, simple as they were, were invited down to see the exhibit. Madison's dramatic instinct, which was developed to a keen sense of what the public craved for, rebelled against any faux pas in the scenic effects. He fell to designing a costume that would more ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... point of immorality and obscenity, are still infinitely worse; so vulgarly indelicate and so filthy, that the European part of the audience is sometimes compelled by disgust to leave the theatre. These are such as will not bear description, nor do I know to what scenic representations they can with propriety be compared, unless to those gross indecencies of Theodora, which Procopius has described to have been exhibited on the Roman stage, in the reign of Justinian[11]. The people who encourage them must be sunk very deep in intellectual grossness, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... lover's tenderness there was always the doubt of the Emperor's faith or in her interviews with Titus—reproaching him and adoring him, with all the magic of her voice and smile. It was a triumph for them both, and their splendid talent. With no decor, no room, no scenic illusions of any kind, they held their audience enthralled. No one minded the heat, nor the crowd, nor the uncomfortable seats, and all were sorry when the well-known lines, said by Mme. Bartet, in her ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... frequent occurrence of fires in theatres, particular precautions have been taken with the theatre of the Port St. Martin, at Paris. A thick wall of hewn stone separates the audience part from the scenic part of the house; all the doors in it are of iron, and may be shut instantly, in case of fire; finally, the insulation of the spectators from the stage is made perfect by means of a screen of plates of iron, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... assemblages had assumed their proper station, and had unfolded their capacities, as true auxiliaries to the same general functions of intellect—otherwise expressing themselves and feeding themselves through literature, through the fine arts, and through scenic representations. A new world of pleasures had opened itself, offering new subjects of activity to the intellect, but also presupposing a new discipline and ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... Range. Behind us stretched the winding gullies by which we had climbed to this mountain tarn, and Mr. K——'s little hut and scrap of a garden and paddock gave the one touch of life, or possibility of life, to this desolate region. In spite of all scenic wet blankets we tried hard to be gay, and no one but myself would acknowledge that we found the lonely grandeur of our "rink" too much for us. We skated away perseveringly until we were both tired and hungry, when we returned to Mr. K——'s hut, took a hasty meal, and mounted our chilled ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... school-room during the hours of instruction, and, on my alluding to the tact which the pupil referred to had of reading my face, he expressed a wish to see it tried. I requested him to select any event in Greek, Roman, English, or American history of a scenic character, which would make a striking picture on canvas, and said I would endeavor to communicate it to the lad. 'Tell him,' said he, 'that Brutus (Lucius Junius) condemned his two sons to death for resisting his authority and ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... place seemed rather satisfactory from a scenic point of view, so I made up my mind to try and film it, as I wanted scenes of heavy bombardment which I could get if Fritz was concentrating upon the wood, for the Hun is a tolerably safe person to deal with if he has a target to fire at; he is ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... she died she bequeathed that programme to her daughter). The day after the concert, she heard a Pater Noster of his sung in the church. Liszt talked of his plans for compositions. He said he wished to express in music his impressions of Dante's "Divina Commedia," with a diorama of scenic effects. To fit out the diorama, it ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... mind.* However, even as regards verses, my experience has been far richer and more successful than that of Coleridge, the only product of whose faculty in this direction was the poetical fragment Kubla Khan, and there was no scenic dreaming on the occasion, only the verses were thus obtained; and I am not without hope that at some future time, under more favorable conditions than those I now enjoy, the broken threads may be resumed and these chapters ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... d'oeuvres endangered the rest of the menu. The dinner-committee, however, struggled manfully with their difficulties. They had a Churchman in the chair, and Priestley was not present. The loyalty of the diners also received due scenic warrant in the work of a local artist. The dining-hall of the hotel was "decorated with three emblematical pieces of sculpture, mixed with painting in a new style of composition. The central was a finely executed medallion ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose |
