"Theatrical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... made an opportunity of talking to him. I should like to read his "Travels" to see what he made out of the riddle. In similar circumstances, and without explanation, I had fun talking French and swapping boulevard reminiscences with a member of a Parisian theatrical troupe making a long jump through northern Wisconsin. And once, at six of the morning, letting myself into my own house with a latch-key, and sitting down to read the paper until the family awoke, I was nearly brained by the butler. He supposed me a belated ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... newspaper, did as a fact look at a picture-newspaper, The Daily Film, which from pride she insisted on paying for out of her own purse, at the rate of one halfpenny a day. Now The Daily Film specialized in theatrical photographs, on which it said it spent large sums of money: and Edward Henry in a vision had seen the historic group in a future issue of the Film. He had also, in the same vision, seen his mother conning the said issue, and the sardonic curve of her ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... in their several sorts and degrees, but in their several sorts and degrees they all decided that there was something romantic, sentimental, theatrical in the girl's words, like something out ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... may well gather that Blois is the foremost chateau of all the Loire in popularity and theatrical effect. Truly this is so, but it is by no manner of means the most lovable; indeed, it is the least lovable of all that great galaxy which begins at Blois and ends at Nantes. It is a show-place and not much more, and partakes in every ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... remarked, coldly; "I shall be glad to have my diamonds though, in my own possession, I acknowledge, but why does he make any parade about it at all? They are mine all the same, whether in his hands or my own. Every thing that man does seems theatrical ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... being a theatrical man, has drawn the long bow in his effort to impress us," said Patsy. "I've been thinking over some of the pictures I've seen recently and I can't imagine a moral, however intangible or illusive, in connection with any ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... urraghts, and brehons; but the children can always be shifted from one role to another, and Benella and the Button Boy, although they are quite unaware of the honours conferred upon them, are often alluded to in our romances and theatrical productions. ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... books which are sent out in such numbers, often very cheap, have likewise an artificial cityfied air so obviously got up and theatrical, such a mark of machinery on them, all stamped and chucked out by the thousand, that they have no attraction for a people who live with nature, and even in old age retain a certain childlike faith in honesty and genuine work. The reprints of good old authors, ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... foreboding in her heart. She felt constrained and awkward. The unusual and expensive gown Joyce wore acted as an irritant upon her, now that she considered it. It seemed so vulgar, so theatrical for the girl to deck herself in this fashion; and the very gown itself spoke volumes against any such lofty ideals as Ralph Drew had depicted in the woman. Evidently Joyce was expecting Gaston back; the statement as to her going to ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... Mrs. Phillipetti's costume, the Beauties of the Harem were expensive to clothe. She had more silk, gold lace, and tinsel strung upon her ample form than would set a theatrical costumer up in business, but the star feature of her costume was her turban. It was a gorgeous creation, and would have been a comfortable piece of headgear in midwinter, although slightly heating for a hot June day, but it ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... in the success of the movement. I allude to the brilliant demonstration that took place in December, 1816, when an amateur performance was got up in aid of the distress experienced in Liverpool, a distress felt in common with the whole nation. All the leading theatrical and musical amateurs in the town took part in that performance. I dare say that, at this distance of time even, it is well remembered by those who assisted at it, if there be any of them still amongst as. I am quite certain that the patriotic feelings ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... recognized her. A girl traveling alone. We had brought her from Grebhar, last voyage but one. I remembered her. An alluring sort of girl, as most of them are. Her name was Venza. She spoke English well. A singer and dancer who had been imported to Greater New York to fill some theatrical engagement. She'd made quite a hit ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... theatrical awaiting Theodore Roosevelt. The "depot" was deserted. Roosevelt dragged his belongings through the sagebrush toward a huge black building looming northeastward through the night, and hammered on the door until the proprietor appeared, ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... columns that this year the festival, in this particular, has afforded as melancholy and unquestionable proof of distress as the last, while it bore other evidence, which though trivial in itself, is not unworthy of notice. Last year two theatrical shows visited us, displaying their "Red Barn" tragedies, and illuminated ghosts, at threepence per head, at which they did well; as also did a tremendous giantess, a monstrously fat boy, and several other "wonderful works of nature:" this year only one show of any description attended, and ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... woodcuts. For this new edition adds to the original merits of the work the very substantial charm of abundant illustrations, first-rate in subject and execution, and of three kinds—copper-plate likenesses of actors and other personages connected with theatrical history; a series of delicate, picturesque, highly detailed woodcuts of theatrical topography, chiefly the little old theatres; and, by way of tail-pieces to the chapters, a second series of woodcuts of a vigour and reality of information, within very limited ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... played. The king himself was appealed to, and confirmed the decision of his officer, and it appeared after his fall. This was the play which Dumas stole. When this play was rejected by the censor, Hugo wrote another for the theatrical manager who had engaged it, entitled Hernani, which had a splendid success. The opposition which he met from the actors and actresses was at first great, but he conquered all obstacles. The king, as if to appease him for the conduct of his censor, gave him ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... was red and my old Stetson sombrero was crooked on the back of my head and even my hair was caked with mud. She called to me, rather imperiously, so I went stampeding up to her, and let Paddy indulge in that theatrical stop-slide of his, on his haunches, so that it wasn't until his nose was within two feet of her own that she could be quite sure she wasn't ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... black as Harlequin's mask, and lighted up by disks of emerald with golden gleams. Enjolras, who was much the handsomest of the three, was remarkable for his broad, leonine head and full whiskers, strong shoulders, and a superb feathery tail. There was something theatrical and pretentious in his air, like the posing of a popular actor. His movements were slow, undulatory, and majestic: so circumspect was he about where he set his feet down that he always seemed to be walking among glass and china. His disposition was by no means stoical, and he was much too ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... by theatrical people, "such an arrangement is all very well in French vaudevilles, where one scene lasts through an act; but it will not do for English plays, with their constant scene-shifting." I grant it is less convenient to the stage-manager than the present wretched ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... Rue de la Paix and the Place Vendome, and saluted, in passing, the only familiar figure he had yet found in Paris. The new costume of Napoleon on the column did not displease him in any way. He preferred the cocked hat to a crown, and the gray surtout to a theatrical cloak. ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... care whether they are milliner's manners or theatrical, Mrs Lupex, as long as they're not downright bad manners—as yours are, Mrs Lupex. And now you've got it. What are you going on for in this way with that young man, till you'll drive your husband into a madhouse ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... but I, being of peaceable disposition, had made no such provision. A worthy friend on shore supplied the deficiency, by lending me a pair of the most formidable weapons one would wish to see. They were of the old style of theatrical horse-pistols, as long nearly as a small carbine, and beyond any ordinary man's power of holding steady. The stocks were deeply incrusted with silver, or something that looked very like it. The only objection to them was, that nothing could persuade ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... Daughter" was to be performed at night, in the "unrivalled Sans Pareil Theatre," by "the most talented company in England," before "the most discerning audience in the world." As far as we were individually concerned, this theatrical announcement was remarkably tempting and well-timed. We were now within one day's journey of Piran Round, the famous amphitheatre where the old Cornish Miracle Plays used to be performed. Anything connected with the stage was, therefore, a subject of particular interest in our ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... these glowing descriptions, far inferior to the pretty and high-sounding original chaumiere.) That is how we do the tropics when we want to work upon the emotions of the reader. But it is all a delicate theatrical illusion; a trick of art meant to deceive and impose upon the unwary who have never been there, and would like to think it all genuine. In reality, nine times out of ten, you might cast your eyes casually around you ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... the semi-theatrical position in which she found herself, had hitherto felt perfectly at her ease, because, with the exception of Charlotte and a few members of the household, no one had witnessed this devout piece of artistic display. She was, therefore, in some degree annoyed when in the interval she learnt ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... came a telegram from Craig Farm. It covered three typewritten pages and read like a theatrical manager's ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... dashed up on to the verandah, smote the frail form of Mr. Glass between the shoulders, and flung his own massive one into a chair. His name was Obanjo, but he liked it pronounced Captain Johnson, and his profession was a bush and river trader on his own account. Every movement of the man was theatrical, and he used to look covertly at you every now and then to see if he had produced his impression, which was evidently intended to be that of a reckless, rollicking skipper. There was a Hallo-my-Hearty atmosphere coming off him from the top ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... contrast it with the woman, prominent in the theatrical world, who had been doing a little dusting—yes, they do, but it is never published—before coming to lunch with me. She walked into one of the largest of the New York hotels, hatted, veiled and sable-ed, and wearing tied around her waist a ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... clings to his velvet cushion with either hand, keeps his eye rivetted on his book, speaks of the ecstacies of joy and fear with a voice and a face which indicates neither; and pinions his body and soul into the same attitude of limb and thought, for fear of being thought theatrical and affected. The most intrepid veteran of us all dares no more than wipe his face with his cambric sudarium; if by mischance his hand slip from its orthodox gripe of the velvet, he draws it back as from liquid brimstone, and ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... his hand to Remenham, with a kind of pathos of appeal that the other, though I think he did not altogether like it, could hardly refuse to entertain. It was theatrical, it was un-English, but somehow, it was successful. And the whole episode, the closing words and the incomparable gesture, left me with a sense as though a curtain had been drawn upon a phase of our history. Mendoza, somehow, had shut out Remenham, even more than himself, from ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... has been excavated in one of the upper terraces whose whole front side is open, and forms a high-arched hall. In the fine summer evenings there is music, dancing, and even theatrical performances. ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... sport; a mirth mildly reflected by her companion and which, for Hugh, suddenly shed a ludicrous light on every one: on himself and Basile; on the pallid Lucian as he peevishly, vainly, ordered Ramsey off the scene; on Julian as he posed in a tragical disdain more theatrical than the actor's—who also saw the game; on the captain's dumfounded young folk; on the senator, the general, and the Californian, standing agaze, and on the two men with them, whose extra—eagle-eyed, stallion-eyed—solicitude told him they were the lenders ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... their architectural beauty. But do not think that when you have attended a dozen such places as the Hofoperntheatre, the Hofburgtheatre, the Deutsches Volkstheatre and the Carltheatre you have sensed the entire theatrical appeal of Vienna. Far from it. No city in the world is punctuated with so large a number of semi-private intimate theatres and cabarets as Vienna—theatres with a seating capacity of forty or fifty. You may know the Kleine Buehne and the Max und Moritz ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... readers than play-goers, and were most ready to enjoy an appeal to their feelings when that appeal reached them in book form. In the playhouse they came to expect bustle and pantomime rather than literature. This decline in theatrical habits prepared a domestic audience for the novelists, and accounts for that feverish and apparently excessive anxiety with which the earliest great novels ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... and debased their dreams. He never conceived a single new melody, but substituted instead, sadly mauled and pinched thematic fragments of Liszt, Berlioz, and Beethoven, combined with exaggerated fairy-tales, clothed in showy tinsel and theatrical gauds, the illusion being aided by panoramic scenery; scenery that acted in company with toads, dragons, horses, snakes, crazy valkyrs, mermaids, half-mad humans, gods, demons, dwarfs, and giants. What else is all this but old-fashioned Italian opera with a new name? What ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... I recommend theatrical representations to you; which are excellent at Paris. The tragedies of Corneille and Racine, and the comedies of Moliere, well attended to, are admirable lessons, both for the heart and the head. There is not, nor ever was, any theatre comparable to the French. If the music ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... this he looked—or tried to look—knowingly at Mrs. Detlor, for, the Prince desired greatly to appear familiar with people and things theatrical, and Mrs. Detlor knew many in the actor ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... smiling cunningly as he did when I passed him talking to Clavering, and the sense of expectancy. It's there. One could hear it in their voices, even if one had not seen their faces, and when I met your father at the head of the stairs he almost frightened me. Of course, he was not theatrical—he never is—but I know that set of his lips and look in his eyes, and have more than a fancy it means trouble for somebody. I suppose he has not told you anything—in fact, he seems to have kept curiously aloof from both ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... when he and Mary were being avoided by society for openly defying its laws, they might well reflect whether they could afford to avow the new complication which had sprung up in their small circle. Claire, in hopes of finding some theatrical engagement, had called upon Lord Byron at Drury Lane Theatre, apparently about March 1816, during the distressing period of his rupture with his wife. The result of this acquaintance is too well known, and has been too much a source of obloquy to all concerned in it, to need much comment here, and ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... the tragedy is very true. Decoration appears very theatrical to me, but you might take it quietly and put it in your pocket. I have got quite a collection of such ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... do to us, my boy. Shouldn't wonder if they are all theatrical scenery, or else we shall wake up directly both of us and say, ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... eight-and-twentieth) we lived seduced and seducing, deceived and deceiving, in divers lusts; openly, by sciences which they call liberal; secretly, with a false-named religion; here proud, there superstitious, every where vain. Here, hunting after the emptiness of popular praise, down even to theatrical applauses, and poetic prizes, and strifes for grassy garlands, and the follies of shows, and the intemperance of desires. There, desiring to be cleansed from these defilements, by carrying food to those who were called "elect" and "holy," out of which, in the workhouse of their stomachs, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... many detectives have a silly habit of doing, and so gave little heed to the hand he lifted in warning. The boys knew little about Gates at that time, and so may be pardoned for the uncomplimentary thoughts with which they noted his theatrical conduct. ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... "It's the theatrical which pays," said Gorman. "I didn't think those fellows in Belfast had brains enough to grasp that fact, but apparently they have. I must say that this gun-running performance of theirs is good. It has the quality which Americans ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... armor and plumes and gold ornament, crowns and swords. They are burdened with weapons; they send forth gleams of light; magnificent they roll. The antiquated movements of the warlike ride divide the clouds like the painted fierceness of a theatrical scene. ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... who interest themselves still in Victor Hugo's political attitudes, in his orations on the balcony of the Hotel de Ville; in his theatrical visits to the barricades where "he could be shot, but could not shoot"; in his diatribes against Napoleon the Third; in his defence of the Commune from the safe remoteness of Brussels. There are persons who suffer real disillusion when they discover how much of a conservative and a courtier he was ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... evening went to the French comedy, which was directed by a noted harlequin, who had found means to flatter the Dutch taste so effectually, that they extolled him as the greatest actor that ever appeared in the province of Holland. This famous company did not represent regular theatrical pieces, but only a sort of impromptus, in which this noted player always performed the greatest part of the entertainment. Among other sallies of wit that escaped him, there was one circumstance so remarkably adapted to the disposition and ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... college society to which he belonged, it appears that he was interested in their theatrical performances. These were not discouraged by the college government, and made a recognized part of the amusements of the college and the town. Many of the lighter plays brought forward on the English stage were thus produced by the pupils of Yale College for the entertainment ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... she threw herself, pressed Caroline close to her heart, while Rosamond, to whom she had given her hand, held it fast, and stood motionless between surprise and sympathy. Caroline, to whose usual manners and disposition every thing theatrical or romantic was so foreign, seemed, as soon as she recollected herself, to be ashamed of the excessive emotion and enthusiasm she had shown; withdrawing her hand from her sister, she turned away, and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... coup de theatre is not everything, As well he's aware, that tragedian troubled Who is gliding so gloomily off at the wing. Hope's cup at his lips lately brimmingly bubbled, Now "foiled by a novice, eclipsed by a boy!" Is the thought in his mind. The reflection is bitter— Theatrical taste often craves a fresh toy, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... commonly lasts a whole month; during which they do nothing but divert themselves, chiefly in dancing, which they do in a strange manner, running round about to the sound of gongs, flutes, and trumpets, which do not form a very agreeable concert. They use the same music at their comedies, or theatrical diversions, of which they are extremely fond: These comedies consist of a strange mixture of drama, opera, and pantomime, as they sometimes sing, sometimes speak, and at other times the whole business of the scene consists in gesture. They have none but women players,[1] ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... Commission, one group, the Library Department, supplied the enlisted men of the navy stations, as far as possible, with books, another with lectures, another with music, vocal and instrumental, another with theatrical entertainments, including moving-pictures, and another subcommission ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... remarks, showing that he was a person of education and taste. He had been an avocat at Milan, and, compromised by the insurrection, “You see,” said he, “what I have been driven to,” throwing a napkin, over his shoulder with somewhat of a theatrical air. “But a good time is coming; meanwhile, not having much to do here, I employ my time as well as I can. You shall see my little library;”—and he brought in some volumes, mostly classical, the Odyssey, Euripides, Sophocles, ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... events confronting him; the mingled significance and unreality of the decisions; levity, blindness, insolence, confused cries from without,—all the elements of ancient tragedy were there. Seated indeed amid the theatrical trappings of the French Saloons of State, one could wonder if the extraordinary visages of Wilson and of Clemenceau, with their fixed hue and unchanging characterization, were really faces at all and not the tragi-comic masks of some ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... study and recreation, in addition to the more solid requirements of comfort and accommodation. The rooms were spacious and elegant, and comprised one large apartment perfectly adapted for musical or theatrical entertainments. But, just as there are not a few of us who, in choosing a residence, are drawn towards the garden before proceeding to investigate the dwelling itself, so Felix's delight was first of all expressed with regard to the beautiful surroundings of the ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... has of recent years surrendered to theatrical management, but there is to his credit a substantial accomplishment of lyrical verse that George Meredith would have approved. Mr. Colum's verse I have spoken of below, incidentally, in considering his plays. A distinct talent, ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... "Normals" held the Fort. The aim had not been to foster theatrical tastes, nor to produce startling dramatic effects, but to render in a natural and easy manner, historic, patriotic and practical selections, both of poetry and prose. Music, vocal and instrumental, lent its ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 08, August, 1885 • Various
... hope it is not impertinent in a stranger to express his unbounded gratitude for that delightful and most humorous dialogue, in which the history of the Elzevir Press (starting from Le Pastissier francois) and the tragedy of the rotifer are so adroitly interwoven with the theatrical scene of Fingal's Cave and its unusual visitors, the whole adventure ending in the happiest laughter over the expulsion of the dramatist. I may not have any right to say so, but I throw myself on the mercy of my hearers: I remember nothing in any chronicle so mercurial or jovial ...
— Sir Walter Scott - A Lecture at the Sorbonne • William Paton Ker
... Malo, there was no more crying. There was not another tear. We went to Paris. She spent all her mornings at Notre Dame, all her afternoons with old Monsieur Lanitaux of the Conservatoire, all her evenings at the theatre. She found many of her mother's old friends. In the theatrical world I find much loyalty toward those actually born in the profession. They treated her as though she were a young queen. Lanitaux managed to get her privately before the Empress Eugenie. She sang for the Empress: the Empress cried and gave her ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... Lew Dockstader, the negro minstrel, once in her life, but at the impressionable age, when you see and remember for good. It had been the great theatrical event of her life. "What, haven't seen Lew Dockstader! Don't know who he is!" thus she still would measure a person's ignorance of what is best in drama and song. She loved Lew. When she impersonated him she did not try to imitate him, she simply felt herself ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... of Schedoni is undeniably Mrs. Radcliffe's masterpiece. No one would claim that his character is subtle study, but in his interviews with the Marchesa, Mrs. Radcliffe reveals unexpected gifts tor probing into human motives. He is an imposing figure, theatrical sometimes, but wrought of flesh and blood. In fiction, as in life, the villain has always existed, but it was Mrs. Radcliffe who first created the romantic villain, stained with the darkest crimes, yet dignified and impressive withal. Zeluco in Dr. John Moore's novel of that name (1789) is a powerful ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... not the pun a good one—worthy of Hood? They all mounted the hearse, Panmure being driver; nor could Sandy Morren give to these white-robed spirits, who were so soon to rise in glory from the envious earth, more than a sour-milk horn and half a dozen of snow-white table-cloths for the theatrical property of the great players. So it has been since the time when the shepherd who killed the son of Aebolus, for that he gave them wine which they thought was poison, because they found their heads out of ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... fortunes, just because with those fortunes he has nothing to do. So he lingers on; a revenant, as the French say, a ghost out of another age, in a world too coarse to touch his faint sensibilities too closely; dreaming, in a worn-out society, theatrical in its life, theatrical in its art, theatrical even in its devotion, on the morning of the world's history, on the primitive form of man, on the images under which that primitive world ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... had deserted them. But the struggle in the House of Commons was tremendous. The Anti-Unionists had the advantage of the oratory of Grattan, who, though he had not been in Parliament since 1797, now purchased a seat for L2,400, and entered the House in a theatrical manner in the midst of the discussion. But his vehement and abusive style of declamation could not in debate be compared with the calm reasoning of Castlereagh. The most able speeches against the measure were not those of Grattan, but Foster. Many divisions were taken, the Government ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... decorations of the bridge of St. Angelo; in such works, almost without exception, he chose some moment in the lives of the persons represented that called for a striking attitude and gave an opportunity for an effect that is often theatrical. As a mere decoration such statues have a certain value of an inferior sort; but as works of art, as intellectual efforts, they are worthless. However, this decorative effect, as it is seen on the facade of the Lateran, where the figures stand out against the sky, or ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... have thought it worth dramatizing. Daly and Clemens were old friends, and it would seem that Daly could hardly have escaped seeing the play when it was going the rounds. But perhaps there is nothing more mysterious in the world than the ways and wants of theatrical managers. The matter came to nothing, of course, but the fact that Daly should have thought a story built from an old discarded play had a play ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... governor of Canada most needed—firmness, sympathy, and fair dealing. His arrogance, so conspicuous in his intercourse with equals or with refractory subordinates, disappears wholly when he comes into contact with the savages. Theatrical he may be, but in the forest he is never intolerant or narrow-minded. And behind his ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... hold revival meetings in a distant province, and while he was away I went with my Bible-woman to a certain out-station at the urgent request of the Christians, to preach at a four-days' "theatrical," which brought great crowds. The four days there were enough to wear out the strongest; for many hours daily we had to face unruly crowds coming and going; and at the end of our stay I turned my face ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth
... Exhumation of Pope Formosus, The Interdict, Francis Borgia before the Coffin of Isabella of Portugal), but his vigorous and severe genius never suffers him to fall into overstrained action and theatrical artifice. He does not move us by declamatory gestures and forced attitudes. Nothing can be more simple, yet nothing more affecting, than the Execution of the Duc d'Enghien and the Death of Marceau. Many young ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... trained minds, but with such untrained manners and morals. In their hack of sensation-mongering, in their indifference to social gossip, in their trustworthy and learned comments upon things scientific, musical, theatrical, literary, and historical, they are as men to school-boys compared to the American press. They have the utter contempt for mere smartness that only comes with severe educational training. They have the scholar's impatience with trivialities. They skate, not to ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... a ring. His hair was white and well brushed back like a German's; his face was red, fierce and cherubic, with one dark tuft under the lower lip that threw up that otherwise infantile visage with an effect theatrical and even Mephistophelean. Not long, however, did that salon merely stare at the celebrated American; his lateness had already become a domestic problem, and he was sent with all speed into the dining-room with Lady Galloway ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... proposals to Pisistratus, offering to unite their forces, and to support him in his pretensions to the tyranny, upon condition that the exiled chief should marry his daughter Coesyra. Pisistratus readily acceded to the terms, and it was resolved by a theatrical pageant to reconcile his return to the people. In one of the boroughs of the city there was a woman named Phya, of singular beauty and lofty stature. Clad in complete armour, and drawn in a chariot, this woman was conducted ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Elsie saw a placard tacked on the side of a doorway that read: "Fifty girls, neat sewers, wanted immediately on theatrical costumes. Good pay." ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... Seem," by Bulwer-Lytton, was played at Devonshire House in the presence of the Queen, Dickens taking the principal part. He gave theatrical performances in London, Liverpool and Manchester, for the benefit of Leigh Hunt, Sheridan Knowles and various other needy authors and actors. He wrote a dozen plays, and twice as many more have been constructed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... upon the Mysteries, or origin of our theatrical entertainments, and repeated the plan and conduct Of several Of these strange compositions, in particular one he remembered which was called "Noah's Ark," and in which that patriarch and his sons, just previous to the Deluge, made it all their delight to speed themselves ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... Besides such entertainments as these, the streets of a Chinese city offer other shows to those who desire to be amused. An acrobat, a rope-dancer or a conjurer will take up a pitch right in the middle of the roadway, and the traffic has to get on as best it can. A theatrical stage will sometimes completely block a street, and even foot-passengers will have to find their way round. There is also the public story-reader, who for his own sake will choose a convenient spot ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... tragic absurdity and an outrageous crime to-day among a spirited and sensitive people like the Poles—still more so in a highly civilised national State such as Belgium or France. It is an absurdity that only a theatrical monarch could conceive and a crime that only a military autocracy ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... intrigue and tracked the heroine from untutored savage, wife of the wild Westerner whose excusable suspicions caused him to brand her as private property, to the moment of her triumph as the bejewelled idol of theatrical New York, the conviction grew upon me that here was a tale surely predestined to be the screen that covers a multitude of melodramatics. Presently indeed the suggestion became so insistent that I went further and began to wonder whether ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... the afternoon of the first day of my investigation, after arriving at the results already detailed, I sent a telegram to a personal friend, a fellow of a college at Oxford, whom I knew to be interested in theatrical matters, in these terms: ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... of his army, on the theory, coolly avowed by him, that a large army would subsist by its command of the country, where a small army would starve. But all was subservient to his towering ambition, and to a pride which has been called theatrical, and which often wore an eccentric garb, but which his death scene proves to have been the native grand infirmity of the man. He walked in dark ways and was unscrupulous and ruthless when on the path of his ambition; but none can doubt the self ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... he would mount his horse immediately after Quasimodo [the first Sunday after Easter], to return to France without halting, or staying in any place. But Charles, whilst so speaking and projecting, was forgetful of his giddy indolence, his frivolous tastes, and his passion for theatrical display and licentious pleasure. The climate, the country, the customs of Naples charmed him. "You would never believe," he wrote to the Duke of Bourbon, "what beautiful gardens I have in this city; on my faith, they seem to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... and then in pity for her loneliness, had employed fairies to deck her bowers with all the splendor of earth and ocean. Like poor Amy Robsart, in the solitary halls of Cumnor. Bengal Lights, kindled in these beautiful retreats, produce an effect more gorgeous than any theatrical representation of fairyland; but they smoke the pure white incrustations, and the guide is therefore very properly reluctant to have them used. The reflection from the shining walls is so strong, that ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... not vary much. Quoits, cards, reading, and talking, and sometimes a game of romps, such as "Walk, my lady, walk!" We have tried to form a committee, with a view to getting up some Penny Reading or theatrical entertainment, and to ascertain whether there be any latent talent aboard; but the heat occasions such a languor as to be very unfavourable for work, and the committee lay upon their ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... was a sloven and a misanthrope; inwardly he was simple and rather boyish, but years of experience in a box-office, then as advance man and publicity agent for a circus, and finally as a Metropolitan reviewer, had destroyed his illusions and soured his taste for theatrical life. His column was widely read; his name was known; as a prophet he was uncanny, hence managers treated him with a gingerly courtesy not ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... story with the same dignity of grief, the same marvellous self-restraint, the same courtesy and deference and sorrowful pride. Not one has whimpered—but one. And it turned out that she was a Belgian. It's the breed. Spartan mothers were theatrical and ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... a pretty shrewd guess from what I have heard, as to the identity of some of those hinted at. I'm not sure, but I think the lawyer may be a Mr. Kahn, a clever enough attorney who has a large theatrical clientele and none too savoury a reputation as a local politician. The banker may be Mr. Langhorne, although he is not exactly a young man. Still, I know he has been associated with the place. As for the club-man I should guess that that was ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... hip-pocket of which Billy was so proud. In his third-floor back bed-sitting-room in Judd Street, London, W.C., he had promised himself a moment when that hip-pocket should be referred to, just in that way. It was a cheap bit of theatrical swagger, but the saloon was full, not of harmless theatrical pretences, but bitter racial antagonisms, seething animosities, fanged and venomed hatreds, only waiting the prearranged signal to strike ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... is straining every nerve to keep him so. She is engaged (in strict confidence) on a grand historical subject, Charles and Cromwell, the finest episode in English history, she says. Here, too, fresh obstacles arise. This time it is the theatrical censor who interferes. It would be dangerous for the country to touch upon such topics; Mr. George Colman dwells upon this theme, although he gives the lady full credit for no evil intentions; but for the ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... me, at various times since, whether, in my opinion, Tolstoi is really sincere; and allusion has been made to a book published by a lady who claims to have been in close relations with his family, which would seem to reveal a theatrical element in his whole life. To this my answer has always been, and still is, that I believe him to be one of the most sincere and devoted men alive, a man of great genius and, at the same time, of very deep sympathy with ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... of imitating, by artificial means, the sound of the rumbling of thunder and the flashes of lightning at night from his palace on the banks of the lake at Alba Longa. He employed, probably, for this purpose some means similar to those resorted to for the same end in theatrical spectacles at the present day. The people, however were not deceived by this imposture, though they soon after fell into an error nearly as absurd as believing in this false thunder would have been; for, on an occasion which occurred not long afterward, probably ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... an eviction which took place at least a fortnight ago. The outgone tenant's bedsteads and wash-hand-stands are piled up against the wall as if crying to Heaven for vengeance against the oppressor. The display strikes me as entirely theatrical, for it is well known that vengeance is not left to Heaven by Pallas people, but confided to Snider bullets. The bailiff's left in charge of the house have been attacked, and yesterday an iron hut for lodging four policemen on the disputed property was brought to ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... very wakeful, for his head began to work upon this scheme and that. When he went to lock the outer door for the night, the sight of his overcoat hanging in the hall made him think of a theatrical newspaper he had bought coming home, at a certain corner of Broadway, where numbers of smooth-shaven, handsome men, and women with dark eyes and champagned hair were lounging and passing. He had got it on the desperate chance that it might suggest ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... his extreme opinions, was especially distasteful to the Irishman. I have seen him slink off with backward looks of terror and offended delicacy, while the other, in his witty, ugly way, had been professing hostility to God, and an extreme theatrical readiness to be shipwrecked on the spot. These utterances hurt the little coachman's ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... called yet? On no account introduce him into theatrical circles. Vitally important. ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... "A little theatrical, perhaps," mused Vernon, when the cover of the wood gave him leave to lay his fingers to his throbbing cheek, "but nothing could have annoyed the ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... it had no power; in that instant he fell, but not at full length, he crouched in falling, so that his head did not strike the stage with great violence. He never breathed after. I think I may venture to say he died without a pang." It is one of the most melancholy incidents connected with theatrical history.] ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... There was a time when a great philanthropic work would be naturally supported by an issue of indulgences promising specific advantages in another world to all who took part in it. In our own generation balls, bazaars, theatrical or other amusements given for the benefit of the charity, occupy an almost ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... had seen, as I then saw, that vast room, papered and hung with brown, you would have felt yourself transported into a scene of a romance. It was icy, nay more, funereal,' and he lifted his hand with a theatrical gesture ...
— La Grande Breteche • Honore de Balzac
... his first play, "The Wife of Bath," Gay made another bid for theatrical success with "The What D'ye Call It," which was performed at Drury Lane Theatre in February, 1715, and published in March of that year. In the preface Gay wrote: "I have not called it a tragedy, comedy, pastoral, or farce, but left the name entirely ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... rocks and lowering skies and holy hermits' dwellings that remind us dangerously of the wonders displayed in the peepshows at gingerbread fairs. The atmosphere of the compositions is so invariably sensational, the gesture so calculated, so theatrical, that much of the truly impressive material, the quantities of original ideas, lose all substantiality, and become indistinct components of these vast mountains of ennui, these wastes of rhetorical and bombastic instruments, these loud and prancing concertos of circus-music. ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... fountain is of the intellectual, dramatic kind. The treatment of this almost theatrical subject is well balanced. While it does not possess any too much repose, it is very effective. In general there are three parts to this fountain; the central doorway of Eldorado, just ajar, disclosing faintly this land of happiness; while on either side ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... all hysterics are deceivers both of themselves and of others. Their symptoms, real enough at bottom, are theatrical and designed for effect. As I shall later show, they are weapons, used to gain an end, which is the whim or will of ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... that the work here proposed as a study, worthy the attention of the philosophical student, is not, notwithstanding a Poem, and a Poet's gift, not to his contemporaries only, but to his kind. What is claimed is, indeed, that it is a Poem which, with all its overpowering theatrical effects, does, in fact, reserve its true poetic wealth, for those who will find the springs of its inmost philosophic purport. There is no attempt to show that this play belongs to the category of scientific works, according to our present limitation of the term, or that there could be found any ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... self-appointed censor and critic— sharp, vigilant, alert, yet commending as well as protesting. The two Parkers, one in America and one in England, made epochs. In point of time Theodore Parker comes first, and his discourses were keyed to a higher strain. Less theatrical than his gifted namesake, not so fluid nor so picturesque, his thought reduced to black and white reads better. What Theodore Parker said can be analyzed, parsed, taken apart. He always had a motif and his verb fetches ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... in vision which describes our Ladies of Sorrow, particularly in the dark admonition of Madonna, to her wicked sister that hateth and tempteth, what root of dark uses may lie in moral convulsions: not the uses hypocritically vaunted by theatrical devotion which affronts the majesty of God, that ever and in all things loves Truth—prefers sincerity that is erring to piety that cants. Rebellion which is the sin of witchcraft is more pardonable in His sight than speechifying resignation, listening with complacency to its ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... disguised as his "uncle"; and then came the entrance of the cave itself, which was done in imitation rockwork. But I knew that it was the way down to the cellar. Either the stairs had been removed, or else covered up with a theatrical kind of embankment, that made a winding path, twisting back and forth under a roof of the imitation rock, and sloping always downward. At the bottom was a screen of spun glass, made to look like a falling cataract of bright water, and until you had passed ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... all immersed in the glowing case, each resting in a shallow metal pan. There were pulsings in narrow gray tubes which led into their under-sides—theatrical evidence that the brains held imprisoned there were, as the Eurasian had said, alive—most strangely, unnaturally and horribly alive. Stark and cruelly naked they lay there, pulsing with life that ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... victory, brilliant as tropical birds in the uniforms so bright and new, in the blue, in the gold, in the fiery, zouave dress, in the Garibaldi shirt, in the fez, the Scotch bonnet, the plume, in all the militia pomp and circumstance of that somewhat theatrical "On to Richmond." With gleaming muskets and gleaming swords and with the stars and stripes above them, they advanced, huzzaing. Above them, on that plateau, ranged beneath the stars and bars, there awaited the impact six thousand and five hundred Confederates ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... whole extent of his Subject into his Divisions of it, he often makes use of such Cases as are imaginary, and not reducible to Practice: He himself declares that such Tragedies as ended unhappily bore away the Prize in Theatrical Contentions, from those which ended happily; and for the Fortieth Speculation, which I am now considering, as it has given Reasons why these are more apt to please an Audience, so it only proves that these are generally preferable to the other, tho' at the same time it ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Emperor of Germany. The theatrical appurtenances were not, however, removed till the year 1798. Adjoining the hall is the Board of Green Cloth Room, of nearly the same date, and hung with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... "do not lie as they were wont, seeming to pray up to heaven; but with their hands under their cheeks, as if they had died of toothache."[112] Venice excelled in this rotund and sweltering sculpture. Yet it cannot be wholly condemned. Though artificial, theatrical and mundane, its technical supremacy cannot be denied. The amazing ease with which these huge monuments are contrived, and the absolute sense of mastery shown by the sculptor over the material are qualities too rare to be lightly overlooked. ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... displayed his rhetorical powers in public debates on the question, and, the strife spreading, the Jews and Pagans, who formed a very large portion of the population of Alexandria, amused themselves with theatrical representations of the contest on the stage—the point of their burlesques being the equality of age of the Father and his Son" (Ibid, p. 53). Gibbon quotes an amusing passage to show how widely spread was the interest in the subject debated between the rival parties: "This city ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... the fullness of his love for theatrical effect. I supposed he would want to go down with as little ostentation as possible, so took him by the elevator which enters the dining-room without passing through the long corridor known as "Peacock Alley," because of its being a favorite place for ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Alcantara, and there discovered her mind to be even more frivolous and unstable than his perspicuity had hitherto suspected. Under stress Lady O'Moy could convey the sense that she felt deeply. She could be almost theatrical in her displays of emotion. But these were as transient as they were intense. Nothing that was not immediately present to her senses was ever capable of a deep impression upon her spirit, and she had the facility characteristic of the self-loving ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... silent audience of gaping, glaring machines had not been in his anticipation. All his supports seemed withdrawn together; he seemed to have dropped into this suddenly, suddenly to have discovered himself. In a moment he was changed. He found that he now feared to be inadequate, he feared to be theatrical, he feared the quality of his voice, the quality of his wit, astonished, he turned to the man in yellow with a propitiatory gesture. "For a moment," he said, "I must wait. I did not think it would be like this. I must think of the ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells |
