"Actor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they showed a striking resemblance to the real article, perfect in beard and walk and attire; but in life and conduct they belied their looks, read your lessons backwards, and degraded their profession. Then I was wroth; methought it was as though some soft womanish actor on the tragic stage should give us Achilles or Theseus or Heracles himself; he cannot stride nor speak out as a Hero should, but minces along under his enormous mask; Helen or Polyxena would find him too realistically feminine to pass for them; ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... classes. There is no doubt of this, that very seldom does any good thing arise, but there comes an ugly phantom of a caricature of it, which sidles up against the reality, mouths its favourite words as a third-rate actor does a great part, under-mimics its wisdom, over- acts its folly, is by half the world taken for it, goes some way to suppress it in its own time, and, perhaps, lives ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... same time object of any experience. Its whole meaning lies in its being the passive spectator. That of which consciousness becomes aware in self-consciousness is the idea of the personality, which is certainly a content. The personality, the actor of our actions, is thus never anything but an object in psychology, and consciousness never anything but a subject. Consciousness itself is thus in no way altered when the idea of the personality is changing. Only if all this is carelessly ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... fall Basil, with careful carelessness; no actor he. 'And the vile Theodahad—what ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... In his sketch, which has won so wide a fame and given a lasting association to the Kaatskills, there is not a suspicion of the immense pathos which the skill of an industrious playwright and the genius of that rare actor, Mr. Jefferson, have since developed from the tale. The Dame Van Winkle that we now know is the creation of Mr. Boucicault; to him it is we owe that vigorous character,—a scold, a tyrant to her husband, but nevertheless full of relentful ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... praise with faint damnation? Yet we can lay hold of nothing. It was not Buffon's intention that we should. An ironical writer, concerning whom we cannot at once say whether he is in earnest or not, is an actor who is continually interrupting his performance in order to remind the spectator that he is acting. Complaint, then, against an ironical writer on the score that he puzzles us, is a complaint against irony itself; for a writer ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... unusual; so almost absurd," still demurred the acting woman. The eavesdropper from the closet felt that it was an instance of diamond cutting diamond. How hard and polished and finished, he thought, actor ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... were posted to Gregorig at his place of business and could have been read by all his subordinates; the others were posted to Gregorig's wife. Lueger did not say—but everybody knew —that the cards referred to a matter of town gossip which made Mr. Gregorig a chief actor in a tavern scene where siphon-squirting played a prominent and humorous part, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... que, cansados de la vida, Enfermos de pesar, muertos de tedio, Hacen reir como el actor suicida, Sin encontrar, para ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... argument. There is no logical answer to a guffaw. This sense of the ridiculous is merely a bad, infantile habit, in itself grotesquely ridiculous. You may see it particularly in the theatre. Not the greatest dramatist, not the greatest composer, not the greatest actor can prevent an audience from laughing uproariously at a tragic moment if a cat walks across the stage. But why ruin the scene by laughter? Simply because the majority of any audience is artistically childish. This sense of the ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... for an engine if possible. During these days Mrs Elmira Baldwin came from San Francisco to spend the summer with her sister-in-law, Mrs. Baldwin. She was a beautiful woman and talented, and capable of taking a part in anything. We also had a friend of Mr. Baldwin's who was a splendid actor in comedy or tragedy, Mr. I.B. Binney. He was enlisted in the good cause, and through his efforts and Mrs. A. Baldwin's we were enabled to collect all the talent necessary. After the performers were secured, the next question ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... 26 and as children were usually baptized three days after their birth we infer he was born April 23. We know that he married Anne Hathaway, a woman eight years his senior; that in early manhood he went to London; that he became an actor, dramatist, manager of a theater; that in 1597 he bought New Place, the stateliest residence in Stratford; that he lived in Stratford during the last years of his life as a highly esteemed and worthy man, and that he died in 1616 ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... jiggling wail of the violin was succeeded by a shrill babble of tongues and the clatter of cups and spoons. "Get me an ice, please—strawberry," she ordered John during one of these forced intervals in manual flirtation; and when he had steered laboriously to and fro, he found a young actor beside her their hands dispart. He stood over them with a sickly smile, while Winifred ate her ice. When he returned from depositing the empty saucer, the player-fellow was gone, and in remorse for his mad suspicion he stooped and reverently lifted her fragrant finger-tips ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... his blue cape, with his soft black hat on his head, the astrologer entered, made a bow, like an actor taking a curtain call, nibbed his great knuckles against his massive rings, and asked where the ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... visit I made to Drury Lane Playhouse with my Lords Carlisle and Grantham and Comyn. The great actor received me graciously in such a company, you may be sure. He appeared much smaller off the boards than on, and his actions and speech were quick and nervous. Gast, his hairdresser, was making him up for the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... adjoining theirs, where the invalid actor lay, and where lately there had been minstrelsy and apparently dancing for his solace, there was now comparative silence. Two women's voices talked together, and now and then a guitar was touched by a wandering hand. Isabel had just put up her handkerchief ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... plays to express their approval or dislike of a statesman. In a letter to Atticus, written in the summer of 59,[501] the first year of the triumvirate, Cicero describes with enthusiasm how at the Ludi Apollinares the actor Diphilus made an allusion to Pompey in the words (from an unknown tragedy then being acted), "Nostra miseria tu es—Magnus," and was forced to repeat them many times. ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... office never can be. Dickens could only write of natural people, so he wrote of common men: 'You will find him adrift as an impecunious commercial traveller like Micawber; you will find him but one of a batch of silly clerks like Swiveller; you will find him as an unsuccessful actor like Crumples; you will find him as an unsuccessful doctor like Sawyer; you will always find the rich and reeking personality where Dickens ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... years since I entered public life, I have experienced many exciting hours under the influence of reformer, orator and actor, but, in this mood of retrospection, I do not know that I have ever passed through a more thrilling, terrible, and yet hopeful experience than last evening, while I listened to your interpretation of ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair
... command,—the statements of friends, rivals, and enemies, furnishing a wholesome counterpoise to each other; and also, in the general course of events, as they actually occurred, affording the best commentary on the true motives of the parties. The actor, engaged in the heat of the strife, finds his view bounded by the circle around him and his vision blinded by the smoke and dust of the conflict: while the spectator, whose eye ranges over the ground from a ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... most, their entrance giving an the Loggia dei Lanzi, their exit exactly opposite. The loggia was itself divided into two by a partition, so that each champion had a kind of room to make his preparations in, just as in the theatre every actor has his dressing-room; but in this instance the tragedy that was about to be played was not a ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... have been originally acted about the year 1682. "Pierre and Jaffier," says Jackson, in his History of the Scottish Stage, "in the estimation of the theatrical world, are equal in rank, and excel each other in representation only, as the particular talents of the actor elevate or lessen, in the idea of the spectator, the importance of whichever part he assumes. I have seen Garrick and Barry alternately in both parts, and the candid critic was doubtful where to bestow ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... as a play, isn't, doctor?" said the baronet. "You didn't know how I could come out like one of those actor fellows. Well, now, come; at last I'll tell you why I have sent for you. Before that last burst of ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... were axactly performed, by the influence of spirits of different spheres. Every actor in the great drama was influenced by spirits for whose inspiration he was best prepared. But all that took place under the vigilance of the highest order of spirits for the accomplishment of prophecies. In Revelation, xvii: 10 the seven mountains ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... a new actor came to the front. General O'Higgins, a man of Irish descent, whose father had been a Spanish viceroy of Peru, was put at the head of affairs in November, 1813, and the Spaniards, who had won their way to the capital, were forced by ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... the chief parties engaged in the transactions it records, being no doubt unpalatable to those high in authority. From the notes, which are valuable as appearing to emanate from an eye-witness, and sometimes an actor in the scenes he describes, I send the following extracts for the information of your correspondent; premising that the letter to which they are appended is dated from the "Camp at Inchin, April ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various
... the reference of pronouns is well illustrated by Burton in the following story of Billy Williams, a comic actor who thus narrates his experience in riding a horse owned by ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... have progressed noiselessly in the world, and rather as a spectator than an actor on the broad stage of life, it has been no unprofitable task to trace the career of those with whom I formed an intimacy during the bustle and excitement of my boyhood. Not many months after my introduction into the mysteries of law, tidings reached my ears ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... Borrow adored his mother, who seems to have developed into a woman of great strength of character far remote from the pretty play-actor who won the heart of a young soldier at East Dereham in the last years of the eighteenth century. We would gladly know something of the early years of Ann Perfrement. Her father was a farmer, whose farm at Dumpling Green we ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... occasionally broken by the excitement of an expected attack, or by amusements of various kinds that were calculated to keep the men in good spirits. Toward this result much was contributed by Mr. James E. Murdock, the actor, who came down from the North to recover the body of his son, killed at Chickamauga, and was quartered with me for the greater part of the time he was obliged to await the successful conclusion of his sad mission. He spent days, and even weeks, going about through the ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan
... must convince us, that people of strong conceptions and of warm passions may work themselves without much difficulty, where their hearts are by no means truly or deeply interested. Every tolerable actor can attest the truth of this remark. These high degrees of the passions bad men may experience, good men may want. They may be affected; they may be genuine; but whether genuine or affected, they form not the true ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... at the folly of mankind, his wife asked, "How about the others? That woman with the hair? and that man with the velvet coat? Jessie says Jock told her that he was a mere play- actor!" ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... banquet. He does not, however, instruct me to say what I do say heartily—that Mr. Toole fitly represents in any assemblage, his own particular department of the drama; more fitly represents his department than I do mine. I know of no actor who stands higher in the esteem, who exists more durably in the affection of those who know him, than does ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... hoisting of the ensign with a salute of twenty-one guns. After this impressive solemnity, Mr. Busby lived at the bay for six years. His career was a prolonged burlesque—a farce without laughter, played by a dull actor in serious earnest. Personally he went through as strange an experience as has often fallen to the lot of a British official. A man of genius might possibly have managed the inhabitants of his Alsatia. But ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... by Booth (Jno. Wilkes), an actor. I suppose his purpose is to live in history as the slayer of a tyrant; thinking to make the leading character in a tragedy, and have his performance acted by others on ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... heard anything of the kind," answered Hsi Jen. "It was because Mr. Secundus forcibly detained an actor, and that people came and asked master to restore him to them that ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... slender foot and the fingers frail,— I may act till the world grows wild and tense, But never a flush on your features pale. The footlights glimmer between us two,— You in the box and I on the boards,— I am only an actor, Madame, to you, A mimic king 'mid his mimic lords, For you are the belle of the smartest ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... the whole he could muster having been expended in paying his passage. I had fifteen pistoles; so he borrowed occasionally of me to subsist, while he was looking out for business. He first endeavored to get into the playhouse, believing himself qualify'd for an actor; but Wilkes, to whom he apply'd, advis'd him candidly not to think of that employment, as it was impossible he should succeed in it. Then he propos'd to Roberts, a publisher in Paternoster Row, to write for him a weekly paper like the Spectator, ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... drawing-room, and shut the door behind him, he was aware of a respite from alarms. The room was quite dismantled, uncarpeted besides, and strewn with packing cases and incongruous furniture; several great pier glasses, in which he beheld himself at various angles, like an actor on a stage; many pictures, framed and unframed, standing, with their faces to the wall; a fine Sheraton[15] sideboard, a cabinet of marquetry[16], and a great old bed, with tapestry hangings. The windows opened to ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... Beatrice of "Much Ado about Nothing"; but in this I think Coleridge goes too far. Unformed as Biron is, he is Shakespeare in early youth, whereas in Benedick the likeness is not by any means so clear. In fact, Benedick is merely an admirable stage silhouette and needs to be filled out with an actor's personality. Beatrice, on the other hand, is a woman of a very distinct type, whereas Rosaline needs pages of explanation, which Coleridge never dreamed of. A certain similarity rather of situation than of character seems ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... and conjectured and speculated upon. And so I found it as long as the regions of childhood and youth detained me. But as I approach the middle scenes, I begin to fear the revival of the old torture; that, from the dispassionate reviewer, I may become once again the suffering actor. Long ago I read a strange story of a man condemned at periods unforeseen to act again, and yet again, in absolute verisimilitude each of the scenes of his former life: I have a feeling as if I too might glide from the ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... many similar festivals in the year," answered the lama, "and we arrange particular ones to represent 'mysteries,' susceptible of pantomimic presentation, in which each actor is allowed considerable latitude of action, in the movements and jests he likes, conforming, nevertheless, to the circumstances and to the leading idea. Our mysteries are simply pantomimes calculated to show the veneration offered to the gods, which veneration sustains ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... dull a book could be written on such a subject. Much about the same time, but little after, Coleridge was employed in writing his tragedy of 'Remorse'; and it happened that soon after, through one of the Mr. Poole's, Mr. Knight, the actor, heard that we had been engaged in writing plays, and upon his suggestion, mine was curtailed, and I believe Coleridge's also, was offered to Mr. Harris, manager of Covent Garden. For myself, I had no hope, nor even ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... dramas in which the actors were continually striving for power and exercising all of those ancient qualities of mind to obtain it. Plots, intrigues, murders and wars, were the active employments of the very ancient rulers of our land. As soon as death laid its inactivity upon one actor, another took his place. It might have continued so; and we might still be repeating the old tragedy but for one singular event. In the history of your own people you have no doubt observed that the very thing plotted, intrigued and labored for, has in accomplishment ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... by his commanding talents. Nor was his influence ever greater than when he supported Necker's proposal for a patriotic loan, a sort of income-tax, in a masterly speech which excited universal admiration. "Ah, Monsieur le Comte," said a great actor to him on that occasion, "what a speech: and with what an accent did you deliver it! You have surely missed ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... long Sylvia dreamed of burning volcanoes springing out of icy southern seas. But, as in the specksioneer's tale the flames were peopled with demons, there was no human interest for her in the wondrous scene in which she was no actor, only a spectator. With daylight came wakening and little homely every-day wonders. Did Kinraid mean that he was going away really and entirely, or did he not? Was he Molly Corney's sweetheart, or was he not? When she had argued ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... your Uncle Sylvester at all!" said Marie vivaciously. "It's some trick that Gabriel is playing upon us. And he's not even a good actor—he ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... florid, as one may say; the sort of man that must have exercise and space and a crowd to admire him, not to mention wine and meats and female society. The Fleet has broken down all that. Even with liberty I wouldn't promise him another year of life; and, unless I'm mistaken, he knows his case. A rare actor, too! It wouldn't surprise me if he'd even deceived himself. But the mask's off. Your offer overjoyed him; that goes without saying. In spite of all your past generosity, this new offer obviously struck him for the ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... Louden's long wait at the window was tragically rewarded, and she became an unhappy actor in Canaan's drama of that day. Other ladies attended at other windows, or near their front doors, throughout the afternoon: the families of the three patriarchs awaiting their return, as the time drew on, with something akin to frenzy. Mrs. Flitcroft (a lady of temper), whose rheumatism confined ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... created heaven and earth," is the first principle of all science as of all existences, in politics no less than in theology. God and creation comprise all that is or exists, and creation, though distinguishable from God as the act from the actor, is inseparable from him, "for in Him we live and move and have our being." All creatures are joined to him by his creative act, and exist only as through that act they participate of his being. Through that act he is immanent as first cause in all creatures and in every ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... actor at the Theatre des Varietes, where he played the part of Jupiter in the Blonde Venus, and the Duc de Beaurivage in the Petite Duchesse. He had a good-natured but somewhat drunken appearance. He treated ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... completely a negative may assume an affirmative character, and become as positive as if it had a real existence. I thought I could see as well as feel my sister's absence from the scene in which she had once been so conspicuous an actor. ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... to be natural, of necessity one becomes the reverse of natural. A clever actor,—or more frequently a clever actress,—will assume the appearance; but the very fact of the assumption renders the reality impossible. Lady Chiltern was generally very clever in the arrangement of all little social difficulties, ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... all. He was equally affable with artists. He talked daily with the painters in the Louvre; and having paid a visit to the great actor Le Kain, whom he had seen the night before in the character of a Roman emperor, he found him ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Garrick to be a candidate for the representation of a borough in parliament. "No, my lord," said the actor, "I would rather play the part of a great man on the stage than the part ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... refuses to protect the plaintiff or grants a privilege to the defendant. I think that commonly malice, intent, and negligence mean only that the danger was manifest to a greater or less degree, under the circumstances known to the actor, although in some cases of privilege malice may mean an actual malevolent motive, and such a motive may take away a permission knowingly to inflict harm, which otherwise would be granted on this or that ground of dominant public good. But when I stated ...
— The Path of the Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... hearts they wound, Or else, like thunder, terrify with sound When the skill'd actress to her weeping eyes, With artful sigh, the handkerchief applies, How griev'd each sympathizing nymph appears! And box and gallery both melt in tears Or when, in armour of Corinthian brass, Heroick actor stares you in the face, And cries aloud, with emphasis that's fit, on Liberty, freedom, liberty and Briton! While frowning, gaping for applause he stands, What generous Briton can refuse his hands? Like the tame animals design'd ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... as he walked on down the corridor with MacHeath. "That man is scared silly! But what an actor! You'd never know he was eating his ...
— Psichopath • Gordon Randall Garrett
... actor in tight-fitting breeches was seated before an object that was meant to represent an anvil. He wore a wig and false beard; his white and manicured hands had nothing of the workman about them; and his easy air, prominent belly, and flabby muscles readily betrayed the ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... discovered by a veteran in the service. In the title-page to this performance we are told (by way of quaint conceit), that it was written by the author; what if it should prove that the Author and the Actor[A] are the same! Certain it is that we meet with the same vein of peculiar humour, the same turn of thought, the same autophilism (there's a new word for you to bring into the next poem) which we meet with in the other; insomuch that we are ready to make ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... heard of an actor, who when playing the lovers' parts, only thought of one of the spectators; he played for her alone, and forgot all the rest of the house; the polytechnic candidate was my her, my only spectator, for whom I played. And when the performance was over, all ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... within his power—to let her think that the wish was not shared—to show even a little resentment and reproach? Max, the satirical critic of human nature, could see clearly the attractiveness of such a course,—knew himself a sufficiently good actor to play the game at least well enough to satisfy his artistic taste. But he did not yield to the temptation; had he done so he would have formed a more moral emblem for the edification of my readers than I am now able to provide; and they must ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... deathly white, and stared at his employer. His eyes were round with real, or assumed horror. If he was "putting on," as Seth would term it, then this farm hand must be a pretty clever actor for a crude country bumpkin, ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... dexterity, and roared for mercy, and still ran and roared, as I ever heard bull-calf." If he did roar for mercy, it must have been a very inarticulate sort of roaring; for there is not a single word set down for Falstaff from which this roaring may be inferred, or any stage direction to the actor for that purpose: But, in the spirit of mirth and derision, the lightest exclamation might be easily converted into ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... and conservatory, was a converted bedroom. Its aspect is familiar to most Dickens-lovers from Sir Luke Fildes's famous picture of "The Empty Chair". In summer, however, Dickens used to do his work not in the library but in a Swiss chalet, presented to him by Fechter, the great actor, which stood in a shrubbery lying on the other side of the highroad, and entered by a subway that Dickens had excavated for the purpose. The chalet now must be sought in the terrace garden of Cobham Hall. When Dickens sat at his desk in a room of the chalet, "up among ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... unworthy interest, regarded the smooth, thick hair under her large poke-bonnet. Debby had an original fashion of coloring it; and this no one had suspected until her little grandson innocently revealed the secret. She rubbed it with a candle, in unconscious imitation of an actor's make-up, and then powdered it with soot from the kettle. "I believe to my soul she does!" said Letty ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... to get Mr. Daly to laugh at an actor's joke; he was too generally at war with them, and he was too often the object of the jest. But he did laugh once at one of the solemn frauds perpetrated on me by this same ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... exercises. Some of these distinguished orators are William McKinley and Grover Cleveland, former Presidents of the United States; John Morley and James Bryce, foremost among British statesmen and authors; Joseph Jefferson, a beloved actor; Richard Watson Gilder, editor and poet; Wu Ting Fang, Chinese diplomat, and Whitelaw Reid, editor and ambassador. At the great dedication of the new building, in April, 1907, the celebration of Founder's Day surpassed all previous efforts, ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... the dramatist in favor of the delicious humor and the compelling veracity with which the chief character was presented. So universal was this type and so broadly recognizable its traits that there were many towns in which someone accosted the actor who impersonated the ever-hopeful schemer with the declaration: "I'm the original of Sellers! Didn't Mark ever tell you? Well, he ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... you here and now that C. Wilbur Todd is a shrimp. Shrimp I have said and shrimp I always will say. He talks real brightly in his way—he will speak words like an actor or something—but for brains! Say, he always reminds me of the dumb friend of the great detective in the magazine stories, the one that goes along to the scene of the crime to ask silly questions and make fool guesses about the guilty one, and never even suspects who done the murder, ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... actor to play Richard tolerably well; we can conceive no one to play Macbeth properly, or to look like a man that had encountered the Weird Sisters. All the actors that we have ever seen, appear as if they ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... was chiefly guided and managed by Henry Garnet, superior and provincial of the Jesuits then in England; and the great actor in this design is Mr. Whitebread, superior and provincial of ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... no laughter, only cries of surprise and murmurings and whisperings of "Yi Yong-ik." Again I folded my arms and stood with a fine assumption of haughtiness. I do believe that I, Adam Strang, had among other things the soul of an actor in me. For see what follows. I was now the most significant of our company. Proud-eyed, disdainful, I met unwavering the eyes upon me and made them drop, or turn away—all eyes but one. These were the eyes of a young woman, whom ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... the big man. "Don't tell me. You've got an actor's face. I'm a manager myself, and I know. I don't mind telling you that I refused twenty-three men and forty-eight ladies ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... Horneck, whose sister Mary had been painted—and, it is said, proposed to—by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who had elsewhere painted these two pretty women together; and when he settled in the country with his young wife, his circle of friends came to include Oliver Goldsmith, the actor Garrick, Hoppner, and Sir Joshua—the latter being godfather to his second son, Henry, and painting his eldest as Master Bunbury in 1781—and last, but not least, Dr. Samuel Johnson." The great Doctor had in fact presented to the young couple their family Bible—a fact which ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... of each compartment tend to believe that they alone are patriotic. This illusion, to be just, is not fostered chiefly by the press, which wants to sell its work to all classes; but it has strong hold of the Government office. The Government does not know the people, except as an actor knows the audience; and therefore does not trust the people. It is pathetic to hear officials talking timidly of the people—will they endure hardships and sacrifices, will they carry through? Yet most of the successes we have won in the War have to be credited not so much to the skill of the management ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... killed my father!" shouted Charlie Jackson. And rising, he hurled forth the story he had told Lydia, years before. Lydia sat with her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her eyes fastened in horror on Charlie's face. A great actor had been lost in creating Charlie an Indian. He pictured his father's death, his sister's two attempts at revenge with a vividness and power that held even Levine spell-bound. It seemed to Lydia that ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Sicilian, who, as an actor, had seen better days ere pirates robbed him of his liberty, had heard many new things, and his hearers listened eagerly; for ships coming from the north, which touched at Pelusium, had confirmed and completed the evil tidings that ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... have endeavoured to turn my wound to some account; and it has given me the opportunity to secure Monsieur le Frere in my interests. You say very truly, that it is of consequence to me to know the character of this new actor on the disordered scene of my adventures.—Know, then, he is that most incongruous of all monsters—a Scotch Buck—how far from being buck of the season you may easily judge. Every point of national character ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Mesdames, ce sont des effets d'un pauvre officier qui est mort. Who will buy?" He opened the hat-trunk, produced an antiquated beaver with a gold cord, and surveyed it with a covetousness that was admirably feigned. For 'Polyte was an actor. "M'ssieurs, to own such a hat were a patent of nobility. Am I ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... meaning, then memorise them, so that the whole attention subsequently may be given to applying the musical part to them and employing with proper phrasing, which means more than knowing when to breathe; it means imparting expression and feeling. A clever actor or orator can, if he possess a high degree of intelligence and a fairly artistic temperament, so modulate his voice as to convey to his audience the passions and emotions while feeling none of them himself; so many great singers who are possessed ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... case we have fortunately the evidence of the ass himself. In Germany, two witches who kept an inn made an ass of a young actor,—not always a very prodigious transformation it will be thought by those familiar with the stage. In his new shape he drew customers by his amusing tricks,—voluptates mille viatoribus exhibebat. But one day making his escape (having overheard the secret from ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... been engaged to an American actor, a Welsh socialist agitator, and a German army officer, Fraulein Furst at last placed herself and her great brewery interests into the trustworthy hands of Otto Ottenburg, who had been her suitor ever since he was a clerk, learning his ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... "the face can wear a mask," that a person may be a good actor and put on a certain expression that may deceive ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... much better, but not act half so well, if it were all written in good English. It seems unreasonable to forbid an author to take advantage of any actor's peculiar abilities that may suit his convenience; and both Johnstone and Emery displayed abilities of the very first rate in the two characters they represented in "John Bull."—But to the author of "John Bull," whose genius may be animated ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... know about this child. He's often talked to me about Yorkburg, knowing you were my cousin. He told me of his sister running away with an actor and marrying him, and dying a year later. Also of his father's death and the sale of the old home, and of many other things. There's no place on earth he loves as he does Virginia. He doesn't come back because ...
— Mary Cary - "Frequently Martha" • Kate Langley Bosher
... encountered and, after a fierce conflict, defeated Beaulieu. It was after gaining this victory, as he himself said many years afterwards, that the idea first flashed across his mind that he might become a great actor in the world's drama. In order to obtain the ends of his ambition, Buonaparte now stretched every nerve. In five days after the action at Lodi he made his triumphant entry into Milan; and all Lombardy was at the feet of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... cried. "Don't cross me here!" And then, shaking his fist at the hills, "To think," cries he, "that I must leave my bones in this miserable wilderness! Would God I had died upon the scaffold like a gentleman!" This he said ranting like an actor; and then sat biting his fingers and staring on the ground, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... be the right word, the actor in uttering it must point to each of the three, with distinct yet rapid motion. The phrase would be a strange one, but not unlike Shakspere. Compare Cymbeline, act v. sc. 5: 'And your three motives to the battle,' meaning 'the motives ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... that fatal column like a stern signal for despair. Lizzie felt conscious of a crisis which almost arrested her breath. Night had fallen at midday: what was the hour? A tragedy had stepped into her life: was she spectator or actor? She found herself face to face with death: was it not her own soul masquerading in a shroud? She sat in a half-stupor. She had been aroused from a dream into a waking nightmare. It was like hearing a murder-shriek while you turn the page of your novel. But I cannot describe these things. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... each other in that first chapter of mutual attraction which is, perhaps, in its vagueness and irresponsibility, the most delightful of all. Dick would have laughed at the idea of feeling himself somehow mixed up with the lover on the stage, who was not only a good actor, but a much handsomer fellow than he was; but Chatty had no such feeling, and with a blush and quiver felt herself wooed in that romantic wooing, with a half sense that the lights should be lowered and nobody should see, and at the same time an enchantment in ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... Smollett has drawn sailors; but neither has intruded upon the domain of the other, nor could he have made the attempt without failure. Some of our living novelists have a limited list of characters; they have half a dozen types which we recognize as inevitably as we do the face and voice of an actor in the king, the lover, the priest, or the bandit: but Cooper is not a mere mannerist, perpetually copying from himself. His range is very wide: it includes white men, red men, and black men,—sailors, hunters, and soldiers,—lawyers, doctors, and clergymen,—past generations and present,—Europeans ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... could not.[85] He must, however, put both man and woman to death at once, when caught in the act; to reserve punishment to a later date was unlawful. The husband was not permitted to kill his wife; he might kill her paramour if the latter was a man of low estate, such as an actor, slave, or freedman, or had been convicted on some criminal charge involving loss of citizenship.[86] The reason that the father was given the power which was denied the husband was that the latter's resentment would be more likely to blind his power of judging dispassionately the merits ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... caused an outburst of joy in the city. Accius' drama of "Telamon" was being acted at the time, and the audience applauded each senator as he entered the Senate, and rose from their places to greet the consul as he came in. But the enthusiasm rose to its height when the actor who was playing the part of Telamon (whose banishment from his country formed part of the action of the drama) declaimed with significant emphasis the ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... times with applications for charity. At last, in came the glorious Fanny Kemble, meeting Mrs. Mott in a manner that clearly showed they were warm and well-known friends; and soon came Frederick Douglass. There sat the millionaire philanthropist, the world-renowned actor, the grandest representative of slavery, and the fearless disciple of Elias Hicks. I doubt if the Quaker City ever unveiled so magnificent a tableaux for the pen ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... are told, had gray eyes; and even she, poor lady, owned not more speaking or history-telling orbs than did this little unknown gossip in gray. But our attention was diverted from the contemplation, by the entrance of another actor on the stage, to whom Annie Mortimer darted forward with an exclamation of delight and welcome. The new-comer was a slender, elderly gentleman, whose white hairs, pale face, and benignant expression ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... the royal actor borne The tragic scaffold might adorn: While round the armed bands, ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... They neither of them noticed him. Up from the stage the triumphant cry of a great actor, carried away by the inspiration of a great part, answered her ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... stage; but though thou shouldst have resided all thy days in those remote parts of this island which great men seldom visit, yet, if thou hast any penetration, thou must have had some occasions to admire both the solemnity of countenance in the actor and the gravity in the spectator, while some of those farces are carried on which are acted almost daily in every village in the kingdom. He must have a very despicable opinion of mankind indeed who can conceive them to be ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... compared with that which has. Everything that perishes and comes to nothing is inwardly nothing in itself. Outwardly, indeed, it is something and appears to be much and to some everything while it lasts; but inwardly in itself it is not. It is like a surface with nothing beneath or like an actor in kingly robes when the play is over. But what remains to eternity is something in itself perpetually, thus everything, and it truly is, for it ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... days Johnson had David Garrick as an unwilling pupil. After the actor had become famous and his prosperity had turned his head, he was wont to "put the table in a roar" by mimicking the doctor's grimaces. There is a story that on the occasion of a certain dinner party where both were guests, Garrick indulged in a ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Lovaina stayed in the garden of the Annexe, gathering a garland of roses for my hat, the Dummy endeavored to narrate to me the tragedy of David. His own part in preventing Morton from shooting, Vava showed in vivid pantomime with a fervor that would have made a moving-picture actor's fame; and when he indicated Morton's abandonment of revenge, though the Dummy could have no knowledge of his words, he gestured with a dignity that conveyed all the meaning of Lying Bill's relation of the incident. In the expression and motion of the dramatic mute the aged uncle had the ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... the relation of Spirit to Matter is a very peculiar one, and confused ideas about it give rise to many misconceptions. If you grasp it, the Bhagavad-Gita becomes illuminated, and all the phrases about action and actor, and the mistake of saying "I act," become easy to understand, ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... manner about him, the manner of a great actor playing his instinctive, spirited part impertinently and frivolously. Shears watched him as a man watches a fine sight of which he is able to appreciate every beauty and every shade. And he absolutely received the strange impression that the struggle was an equal one between those ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... home-made productions in Gaelic and English. All Ireland seemed to be play-acting and play-writing; so much so that Frank Fay was heard to say that "he thought everyone had a play in his pocket, and that anyone in the street could be picked up and shaped into an actor or actress with a little training, Ireland ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... the ceremonies of the Holy Week he is magnificently disdainful and impertinent. He turns from time to time in the direction of the diplomatic tribune, and looks without a smile at the poor ambassadors, whom he cajoles from morning to night. You admire the actor who bullies his public. But when at an evening party he engages in close conversation with a handsome woman, the play of his countenance shows the direction of his thoughts, and those of the imaginative ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... these important data that they might be added to the pages of American history and form a reliable record, it was necessary that some brave, bold and determined man should become an actor on the scenes and among the races described. Such an actor has been, and yet is, Christopher Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains; and, it is the experience, as well as the acts, of his stirring life, which the following ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... to the scene, (audience I say, as say we must, for the sum of the spectators in the second instance, as well as of the auditors in the first,) threw upon each a ridicule not to be effaced. It is in any case impossible for an actor to say words of farewell to those for whom he really designs his farewell. He cannot bring his true object before himself. To whom is it that he would offer his last adieus? We are told by one—who, if he loved Garrick, certainly did ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... and it seems natural enough that he should go on to brag of being a rich fellow enough, "and a fellow that hath had lawsuits" of his own, and actually figured as plaintiff or defendant. Suppose the words taken down from the mouth of an actor, and the mistake would ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 • Various
... merry multitude of cousins, and that the servants were arranging the dinner for the day, or the breakfast for the morrow. So Miss Monro had settled it, discussing every detail and every probability as though she were a chief actor, instead of only a distant, uncared-for spectator of the coming event. Ellinor was tired, and now that there was nothing interesting going on, she had fallen back to her sewing, when she was startled ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... knew that it would be breath thrown away to attempt persuading the Indian to abandon his absurd and superstitious design; and to propose accompanying him, and becoming either actor or spectator in the pagan ceremony, would be equally against ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... will not need to memorize your parts; in fact, it will not be like a real radio broadcast if you do so, and, furthermore, you will not want to, since you will each have a copy of the book in your hands. All you will need to do is to remember that you are taking the part of a radio actor, that you are to read your speeches very distinctly, and that by your voice you will make your audience understand how you feel. In this way you will have the fun of living through some of the ...
— Washington Crossing the Delaware • Henry Fisk Carlton
... manner in which one of the Palmyra Mormons received his call to preach is told by Tucker* and verified by the principal actor. Among the first baptized in New York State were Calvin Stoddard and his wife (Smith's sister) of Macedon. Stoddard told his neighbors of wonderful things he had seen in the sky, and about his duty to preach. One night, Steven S. Harding, a young man who was visiting ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... was at one time protected by the kindness of Steele, who published his story, and sometimes employed him as a literary assistant. When Steele became disgusted with him, he received generous help from the actor Wilks and from Mrs. Oldfield, to whom he had been introduced by some dramatic efforts. Then he was taken up by Lord Tyrconnel, but abandoned by him after a violent quarrel; he afterwards called himself a volunteer laureate, and received a pension of 50l. ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... North Dakota, 1926. OP. The skill of Lewis F. Crawford of the North Dakota Historical Society made this a richer autobiography than if Arnold had been unaided. He was squaw man, scout, trapper, soldier, deserter, prospector, and actor in other occupations as well as cowboy. He had a fierce sense of justice that extended to Indians. His outlook was wider than that of the average ranch hand. Badlands and Broncho Trails, Bismarck, 1922, is a ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... sad childhood passed in extreme poverty. He succeeded in entering the University of Upsala in 1867, but was forced for a time on account of lack of means to interrupt his studies. He tried his fortune as schoolmaster, actor, and journalist and made an attempt to study medicine. All the while he was active in a literary way, composing his first plays in 1869. In 1874 he obtained a position in the Royal Library, where he devoted himself to scientific ...
— Married • August Strindberg |
