"Prompter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was ready to go up again could nowhere be found. "Frederic! where is Frederic?" the distracted manager would cry. Frederic was down stairs in the cafe under the theatre playing games where the stakes were high, and almost always losing. "Monsieur Frederic, the curtain is up!" the prompter would rush in to say. "Ciel! What can I do?" the imperturbable actor would reply. "I can't leave here, my dear fellow: I must win back what I've lost." Poor Harel had to pay again. As the receipts ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... instances Heminge and Condell reprinted the earlier quarto impressions with a few changes, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse; and it is most probable that copies of those editions (whether surreptitious or not) had taken the place of the original prompter's books, as being more convenient and legible. Even in these cases it is not safe to conclude that all or even any of the variations were made by the hand of Shakespeare himself. And where the players printed from manuscript, is it likely to have been that of ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... gran'pa, if I'm to quarrel with Stevens or anybody else, 'twouldn't be your pistols in my pocket that would make me set on, and 'twouldn't be the want of 'em that would make me stop. When it's my cue to fight, look you, I won't need any prompter, in the shape of friend or pistol. Now THAT speech is from one of your poets, pretty near, and ought to convince you that you may as well lend the puppies and say no more about it. If you don't you'll only compel me to carry ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... desertion, aggravated by breach of trust and by gross falsehood? That Cornbury was not a man of brilliant parts or enterprising temper made the event more alarming. It was impossible to doubt that he had in some quarter a powerful and artful prompter. Who that prompter was soon became evident. In the meantime no man in the royal camp could feel assured that he was not surrounded by traitors. Political rank, military rank, the honour of a nobleman, the honour of a soldier, the strongest ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "The prompter's bell tingles and then tingles again. The bearded Germans of the orchestra hush their music, and the big field of green baize shoots to the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... work of uniting the individual soul with God's purpose that Spirit is our Helper. In the work of righteousness He is a Partner with us. In the life of faith and prayer He is our unwavering Prompter and Guide. In the submission of our wills to God and the chastening of our spirits He is the great Co-worker with us. In the bearing of burdens and the enduring of trial and sorrow He joins hands with us to lead us on. In the purifying ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... dismayed whisper to himself, "a duelist couldn't be prompter." He walked to the door, gazing at the superscription. "It feels like my letter sent back. Ah, well! that's just what it ought to be. Confound the women, all; I wonder how it feels for a man just to mind his own business and ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... undergone a pitiable experience as prompter at head-quarters, and no one has a better appreciation of the value of such services than myself; and it is particularly in a council of war that such a part is absurd. The greater the number and the higher the rank of the military officers who ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... Id., ibid., pp. 223, 231, 233. (The copy of "Athalie" with the erasures of the police still exists in the prompter's library of the Theatre Francais.)—Id., ibid., p 244. (Letter of the secretary-general of the police to the weekly managers of the Theatre Francais, Feb. 1, 1809, In relation to the "Mort d'Hector," by Luce de Lancival.) "Messieurs, His Excellency, the minister-senator, has expressly charged me ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... had intolerance for nothing. Though he could see but little religion in many professing Christians, he nevertheless saw that the motley players, "made up of mimic laughter and tears, passing from the extremes of joy or woe at the prompter's call," were not so godless and impious as the world ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... but the renowned Mr. Timothy Turbot, of the Corn Law campaigns, Reform agitations, and all manifestly popular movements requiring the heaven-endowed man of speech, an interpreter of multitudes, and a prompter. Like most men who have little to say, he was an orator in print, but that was a poor medium for him—his body without his fire. Mr. Timothy's place was the platform. A wise discernment, or else a lucky accident (for he came hurriedly from the soil of his native isle, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... very serious; "do I jest, Carlisle?" And turning to Mr. Cross, the prompter, who stood by, "Fetch me the St. James's ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of the old St. Charles theater, called "old Drury," are rich with history. Practically all our great players from 1835 until long after the Civil War, appeared in this theater, and an old prompter's book which, I believe, is still in existence, records, among many other things, certain details of the appearance there, in 1852, of Junius Brutus Booth, father of Edwin Booth, and mentions also that Joseph Jefferson (Sr.) then a young man, was reprimanded ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... Plot of the Plays of Frederick and Basilea, and of the Deade Man's Fortune, the original papers which hung up by the side scenes in the playhouses, for the use of the prompter and the acter, earlier than the time of Shakspeare. 11 ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... on the scene, and reciting, should prepare their parts so as to know them by heart and in every detail of place and time follow the music with all care as to time. It will not be a bad idea to have a prompter to aid the ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... manner. 'Donec cantor vos "Plaudite" dicat,' says Horace. Who the 'cantor' was, is a matter of dispute. Madame Dacier thinks it was the whole chorus; others suppose it to have been a single actor; some the prompter, and some the composer. Before the word 'Plaudite' in all the old copies is an O which has also given rise to several learned conjectures. It is most probable, according to the notion of Madame Dacier, that this O, being the last letter of the ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... much prompter with animals. When compelled to abandon their native land, they undergo such rapid and profound modification, that at first sight they can hardly be recognized as the same race, and cannot be detected in their disguise till after the most careful inspection, and on grounds of analogy only. ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... the dramatic representatives of which listened with a kind of fascination to their own speeches, tripped off lightly and easily by their Seniors. It was more particularly galling as all realized that the whole thing was on a rather higher scale than theirs; it was better staged, much prompter, the actions were more appropriate, and the players less stiff and self-conscious, to say nothing of the superior dresses. In gloomy resignation they sat the scene out, and had the magnanimity to applaud heartily at the end. Then ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... disastrous endeavor to be affable inquired, with an affectation of interest, "How long has your lordship been in town?" The peer's surprise and chagrin were great until the monarch, having received further instruction from the courtly prompter at his elbow, frankly apologized in bad English and with noisy laughter. "Had Lord Hardwicke," says Campbell, "worn such a uniform as that invented by George IV. for ex-Chancellors (very much like a Field Marshal's), he could ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Creator. Women, it would seem, actually have smaller brains than men, though perhaps not in proportion to weight. Their nervous responses, if anything, are a bit duller than those of men; their muscular coordinations are surely no prompter. One finds quite as many obvious botches among them; they have as many bodily blemishes; they are infested by the same microscopic parasites; their senses are as obtuse; their ears stand out as absurdly. Even assuming that their special ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... them all off, and fill their places with my mice. Mercedes, of course, was leading lady; Monsieur and Madame Denis were the heavy parents; and a gentlemanlike young mouse named Leander was jeune premier. Then, in my leisure, they used to act the most tremendous plays. I was stage-manager, prompter, playwright, chorus, and audience, placing the theatre before a looking-glass, so that, though my duties kept me behind, I could peer round the edge, and watch the spectacle as from the front. I would invent the lines and deliver them, but, that my illusion might be the more complete, I would change ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... upon ideas or the fanciful creations of art a passionate affection which he grudgingly withheld from human beings, stubbornly tenacious of a set of political dogmas to which he was ready to sacrifice his dearest friends, morbidly sensitive to the faintest suggestion of a personal slight, and prompter than the serpent to vent against the aggressor the bitterness of his poison, he plays the role of Ishmael among the men of letters in his day. The violence of his retorts when he felt himself injured ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... that they had seen through the philosophic indifference of Lady Garnett's shrug, the gentle irony of Rainham's perpetual smile, the various masks of tragic comedians on a stage where there is no prompter, where the footlights are most pitiless, and where the gallery is only too lavish of its cat-calls at the smallest slip. Beneath it all she saw two people who understood each other as well as any two persons in the world. Did they understand each other so well that they could afford to ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... a fondness for the wisdom of proverbs and familiar sayings, and among his earliest writings were a series of pithy homilies to the people upon questions of morals and manners, published first in the Connecticut "Courant," but early collected into a volume entitled "The Prompter;" a little book which one may trace to a good many different printing-offices and to various sections of the country, certainly the most widely spread of Webster's writings, after his text-books, and the most worthy of a repeated life. If I am not mistaken, it is even now making ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... much embarrassed. After I had been an hour at the play, the manager came around and asked me to go underneath the stage, as they were putting on a ballet of 300 girls, the finest ballet in Europe. It seems there is a little hole on the stage with a hood over it, in which the prompter sits when opera is given. In this instance it was not occupied, and I was given the position in the prompter's seat, and saw the whole ballet at ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... have seriously overstrained his physique. In 1771 the family move to Lochlea, and Burns went to the neighboring town of Irvine to learn flax-dressing. The only result of this experiment, however, was the formation of an acquaintance with a dissipated sailor, whom he afterward blamed as the prompter of his first licentious adventures. His father died in 1784, and with his brother Gilbert the poet rented the farm of Mossgiel; but this venture was as unsuccessful as the others. He had meantime formed an irregular intimacy with ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... to her had pleased or interested her, to wear this wreath that night. After he had done this he trembled; he had courted a decision, when, perhaps, his safety lay in patience and time. She made her entree; he turned cold as she glided into sight from the prompter's side; he raised his eyes slowly and fearfully from her feet to her head; her head was bare, wreathed only by its own rich glossy honors. "Fool!" thought he, "to think she would hang frivolities upon that glorious head for me." Yet ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... that the old governor's rashly timorous edict was, after all, the true source of deliverance. Certainly the question remains, whether even the most sudden and ill-timed concession of rights, if only backed by energetic police action, is not a prompter, surer cure for public disorder than whole batteries of artillery without the concession of rights. I believe the most blundering effort for the prompt undoing of a grievous wrong is safer than the shrewdest or strongest effort ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... clung to its own idea of woman's sphere as to a thing divinely ordered, and to seek to leave which was scarcely less than rebellion against high God. In patriarchal days, when heaven's justice had been prompter, such a disobedient one would suddenly have found herself rebuked into a bit of ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... end of the seventeenth century, was in the habit of telling visitors that he entered the playhouse as a servitor. Malone recorded in 1780 a stage tradition 'that his first office in the theatre was that of prompter's attendant' or call-boy. His intellectual capacity and the amiability with which he turned to account his versatile powers were probably soon recognised, and thenceforth ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... remained. And into the scenery went the actor 'like mad.' Planks and canvas came tumbling down; the manager called his assistants; the house was delirious with joy. The manager rushed on the stage; the actor kicked him over into the orchestra, and seizing the prompter's box, hurled it ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the night before the performance we debated the weather prospects until the moon rose. Lysander said his bit of seaweed which he brought from Bognor was as dry as parched peas and he would back it against any fool barometer. Cocklewhite, our prompter, said he didn't want to depress the company, but he had a leech in a bottle of water which rose for fine weather and sank for wet, and he was bound to tell us it was like lead at the bottom at the present moment. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various
... this: kind prompter, touch the bell! Children of mirth and midnight, fare ye well! The vision melts away, the motley crowd Is veiled by Prospero in a passing cloud; Like his dissolving pageantry they fade, The vap'ry stuff whereof our dreams are made; No more malignant winter to beguile, Nor ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... Besides, the copying of the airs will not cost me much, for a M. Weber who is going there with me has copied them. He has a daughter who sings admirably, and has a lovely pure voice; she is only fifteen. [Footnote: Aloysia, second daughter of the prompter and theatrical copyist, Weber, a brother of Carl Maria von Weber's father.] She fails in nothing but in stage action; were it not for that, she might be the prima donna of any theatre. Her father is a downright ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... that he did not see or hear the boy and Chad, awed by the stern, solemn face, withdrew and, without a word to anybody, climbed into the loft and went to bed. He could hear every stroke on the floor below, every call of the prompter, and the rude laughter and banter, but he gave little heed to it all. For he lay thinking of Caleb Hazel and listening again to the stories he and the cattle-dealer had told him about the wonderful settlements. "God's Country," the dealer always called ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... of morals, of politics, and philosophy, we like each other uncommonly well. He is a great favorite with Sara. Energetic activity of mind and of heart, is his master feature. He is prompt to conceive, and still prompter to execute; but I think he is deficient in that patience of mind which can look intensely and frequently at the same subject. He believes and disbelieves with impassioned confidence. I wish to see him ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... Engena, flourished during Alfred's reign, was a lecturer at Oxford, and the founder or chief prompter of scholastic divinity. The earliest specimen of the Anglo-Saxon language extant is the Lord's prayer, translated from the Greek by Ealdfride, Bishop of Sindisfarne, or Holy Island, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... the men in the room—Baron, an honest, blundering fellow—started toward the window to see who the prompter was, but the host—of intuitive perception—saw that this might not be agreeable to their entertainer and said quietly: "Don't go to the window, Baron. See, Mrs. ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... regarding the lions of the town, she would only acknowledge two,—Bastholm's library, and the English fire-engine. The curtain in the theatre represents an alley with a fountain, the jets of which are painted as if spouting out of the prompter's box; or is this, perhaps, the English fire-engine? I know not. The scene-decoration for towns represents the market-place of Slagelse itself, so that the pieces thus acquire a home-feeling. This is the modern ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... Mrs. Lora Rewbush was again heard from the wings; it sounded bloodthirsty. Penrod released his victim; and the Child King Arthur, somewhat disconcerted, extended his sceptre and, with the assistance of the enraged prompter, said: ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... you see, V.V., why I wasn't prompter answering your letter. I've tried to keep my courage up like you advised, but it's too much for one man to carry. May you never know the awful feeling that you're an outcast, not wanted ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... May, 1899, on the eve of the Bloemfontein Conference, he writes to Mr. Fischer, prompter and organiser of the Conference, foreseeing the results of the policy advocated by ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... blackness. Rain-drops struck the roof at intervals, a shower of apple-blossoms rustled against the window and drifted on, and below the muffled sound of music and shuffling feet was now and then pierced by the shrill calls of the prompter. There was something ominous in the persistent tread of feet and the steady flight of the gloomy clouds, and quivering with vague fears, Easter sank down from her chair to Clayton's feet, and burst into tears, as he put his arms tenderly ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... hand on the door-knob, felt herself obliged to decline this theme so tardily introduced—though the old man's tart tone promised great possibilities. She would have thanked David Marshall for a prompter contribution of conversational material; she felt that her own efforts during this interview had been out of all proportion to his. She made no response, and he stepped forward to conduct her through the outer office to her carriage. "You needn't ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... a given subject, as the father did, is called "recitare a soggetto." When the girls spoke, the father prompted, if necessary, and this they call "recitare col suggeritore"—to speak, with the assistance of a prompter, words that ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... faithful and intelligent friend, suggested that if they sincerely accepted the policy, they would do well to take the politician with it, that the Count of Provence could be best disabled by depriving him of his prompter, that the magic is not in the wand but in the hand that waves it. The queen hesitated, for Mirabeau had threatened her in the last days at Versailles, and it was not yet proved that he was not concerned in the attempt to murder her. She declared that nothing would induce her to see him, and ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... clause I grievously suspect to have been an addition of the players, which had hit, and, being constantly applauded, procured a settled occupation in the prompter's copy. Not that Shakespeare does not elsewhere sneer at the Puritans; but here it is introduced so nolenter volenter (excuse the phrase) by the head and shoulders!—and is besides so much more likely to have been conceived in the ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... musicians were the orchestra and the leader "called out" the figures of the lancers and quadrilles. "Face your pardners," he called out as the square dance was begun. Several sets of four couples were formed ready for the first strains of the lancers music and the prompter. "Forward all," and all the couples advanced to the center. "Swing your pardners," "balance corners," the lady and gentleman faced to the right and took steps to the music. "Swing," and ...
— The Little Immigrant • Eva Stern
... Tripoli by the Bashaw of Fezzan, who it seems must dabble in slave-dealing, notwithstanding his imprecations against the merchants of Ghadames for the same crime. He is from Mandara, and was kidnapped by the Tibboos. This is the captain of all the sham-fighters, and the leader and prompter of all other sports on the way. There is always one who assumes superiority over the rest, in every troop of human beings; so it was in the beginning, and so it will ever ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... praise, Fair Dian, virgin-goddess of the skies! And myriads will raise Their songs, as time yet onward flies, To thee, chaste prompter of the lover's sighs, And of the minstrel's lays! Yet still exhaustless as a theme Shall be thy name— While lives immortal Fame— As when to people the first poet's dream ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... spirits of the age: But, above all, amongst the rest There came a genius who profess'd To have a curious trick in store That never was perform'd before. Through all the town this soon got air, And the whole house was like a fair; But soon his entry as he made, Without a prompter or parade, 'Twas all expectance and suspense, And silence gagg'd the audience. He, stooping down and looking big, So wondrous well took off a pig, All swore 'twas serious, and no joke, For that, or underneath his cloak He ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... success of the mission, the rest of the time being devoted to their spiritual edification; that is, they were employed in repeating Latin prayers and a Spanish catechism, after an old Indian who acted as prompter. Sometimes it was necessary to allow the Indians to go abroad for a time, but then their return was provided for by retaining the squaws and papooses as hostages, in the same manner as they provided for the return of the plantation bulls, by shutting up the cows and calves ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... men hear eagerly; and a string of doleful tragedies, merry Italian tales, and Spanish voyages, which all the London 'prentices know. All the mass has been treated, with more or less skill, by every playwright, and the prompter has the soiled and tattered manuscripts. It is now no longer possible to say who wrote them first. They have been the property of the Theatre so long, and so many rising geniuses have enlarged or altered them, inserting a speech, or a whole scene, ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... more critical, none was more moved than Fleeming. The rest of us did not aspire so high. There were always five performances and weeks of busy rehearsal; and whether we came to sit and stifle as the prompter, to be the dumb (or rather the inarticulate) recipients of Carter's dog whip in the TAMING OF THE SHREW, or having earned our spurs, to lose one more illusion in a leading part, we were always sure at least of a long and an exciting holiday in ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 'Scutcheon drew near it is evident that he feared further losses and would gladly have been released from his promise to produce the play; but Browning failed to divine the true state of affairs. The tragedy was read to the company by a grotesque, wooden-legged and red-nosed prompter, and it was greeted with laughter. To make amends, Macready himself undertook to read it aloud, but he declared himself unable, in the disturbed state of his mind, to appear before the public: his part—that of Lord Tresham—must be taken by Phelps. From certain rehearsals ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... campaign. With the fatuity incidental on occasions to even the shrewdest minds, he had not counted upon independence in the host which he believed slave to him, in thought and word and deed. He rated himself the dictator, the prompter without whose suggestion no one of all the players in this gigantic tragedy could speak his line. As a matter of fact, like all leaders of his class, he could drive his followers forward at will, while totally unable to hold them back. He was wholly master so long as he used the spur. ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... continued none the less to run at the least as dissolute a course as did those that were still bachelors. The young wife, being advised of this, could not keep silence upon it, so that she very often received payment after a different and a prompter fashion than she could have wished. For all that, she ceased not to persist in lamentation, and sometimes in railing as well; which so provoked the young man that he beat her even to bruises and blood. Thereupon she cried out yet more loudly than ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... of that were also open, and through them they heard the scream of the jiggered and tortured violin, and the pump, pump of the oboe, and saw the moving shapes of men and women in quick transition, and heard the prompter's drawl. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... serious air, sung by them all. We got up, and went forward to see them; and though we must have been strange objects to them, they continued their dance, without paying the least attention to us. They seemed to be directed by a man who served as a prompter, and mentioned each motion they were to make. But they never changed the spot, as we do in dancing, and though their feet were not at rest, this exercise consisted more in moving the fingers very nimbly, at the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... all pay it," returned Straws. "He acted as if he were dazed while the play was in progress and I could not but notice it, standing in the wings. The prompter spoke of it to me. 'I don't know what is the matter with Mr. Barnes,' he said, 'I have had to keep throwing him his lines.' Even Miss Carew rallied him gently between acts ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... were commenced with Shakespearian loftiness and ended with the actor's own emendations, which were certainly questionable improvements. Anything but a tragic effect was produced by seeing the swarthy Moor turn to the prompter at frequent intervals, and inquire, "What?" in a hoarse whisper. A running colloquy took place between Othello and his audience, in which he made good his assertion that he was rude in speech. Since then, Shakespeare has not been attempted on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... leave the prompter of Monday night on the table this morning," said Uncle Geoffrey, smiling in that manner which, to a certain degree, removed any feeling of obligation, by making it seem as if it was entirely for his own diversion. Nor could it be denied that he did ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... know, with any degree of spirit?" "Oh! of course," said I; "that's one of the landlord's properties: Miller, you must provide that, you know—send down for some cold tankards now; they will do very well for rehearsal." At last we got to work, and proceeded, with the prompter's assistance, pretty smoothly, and mutually applauding each other's performance, going twice over some of the more difficult scenes, and cutting out a good deal of love and sentiment. The play was fixed for the next Monday night, playbills ordered to be printed, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... where else; and loved the commonwealth as well as ever a patriot of them all; he would carry away the Vice on his back, quick to hell, in every play where he came, and reform abuses' (Ben Jonson's The Staple of News). But our present purpose is with Nichol Newfangle and his arch-prompter. Nevertheless these few general remarks will save us from the necessity of returning to the subject later. The truth of the matter is that here, in Like Will to Like, we have as full a delineation of these two popular characters as may be found in any of ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... back into the game. I gave each of them something. I saw that several of them had on linen dusters, and as I looked about, I noticed that there were perhaps a dozen men in the room similarly clad. I asked the fellow who had been my prompter at the dice table why they dressed in such a manner. He told me that men who had lost all the money and jewelry they possessed, frequently, in an effort to recoup their losses, would gamble away all their outer clothing and even their shoes; and that the proprietor kept on hand a supply ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... not attending to her part," remarked the manager. "Coralie is smitten with our friend here, all unsuspicious of his conquest, and Coralie will make a fiasco; she is missing her cues, this is the second time she had not heard the prompter. Pray, go into the corner, monsieur," he continued. "If Coralie is smitten with you, I will go and tell her that you have ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... sooth, 95 From disappointment, not to find some change In look and air, from that new region brought, As if from Fairy-land. Much I questioned him; And every word he uttered, on my ears Fell flatter than a caged parrot's note, 100 That answers unexpectedly awry, And mocks the prompter's listening. Marvellous things Had vanity (quick Spirit that appears Almost as deeply seated and as strong In a Child's heart as fear itself) conceived 105 For my enjoyment. Would that I could now Recal what then I pictured to myself, Of mitred Prelates, Lords ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... or windjammer. Dey dances out on de grass, forty or fifty niggers, and dem big gals nineteen year old git out dere barefoot as de goose. It jes' de habit of de times, 'cause dey all have shoes. Sometimes dey call de jig dance and some of dem sho' dance it, too. De prompter call, 'All git ready.' Den he holler, 'All balance,' and den he sing out, 'Swing you pardner,' and dey does it. Den he say, 'First man head off to de right,' and dere dey goes. Or he say, 'All promenade,' ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... the cast had been called together for final instructions. When all were gathered Wee laid down the law. The fairies were not to talk in the wings. All were to keep an eye on the prompter, and Blue Bonnet was especially informed that if the wind apparatus got on a rampage, as it did at the dress rehearsal, and drowned what she was saying at her first entrance, she was to raise her voice and compete with the elements, if ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... Both you of my inclining, and the rest; Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it Without a prompter." ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... of surprise to any body. For his apostasy he could not plead even the miserable excuse that he had been neglected. The ignominious services which he had formerly rendered to his party as a spy, a raiser of riots, a dispenser of bribes, a writer of libels, a prompter of false witnesses, had been rewarded only too prodigally for the honour of the new government. That he should hold any high office was of course impossible. But a sinecure place of five hundred a year had been created for him in the department of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... spies and reporters,—no stirring of his finger can escape it here. He has much suspicion to encounter: Papa looking always sadly askance, sadly incredulous, upon him. He is in correspondence with Grumkow; takes much advice from Grumkow (our prompter-general, president in the Dionysius'-Ear, and not an ill-wisher farther); professes much thankfulness to Grumkow, now and henceforth. Thank you for flinging me out of the six-story window, and catching me by the coat-skirts!—Left ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... very badly, nobody was word-perfect and a rasping prompter would not keep ahead as he ought to have done; the scenery and the make-ups were daubs, and I was filled with amazement that having quite wantonly undertaken to do this thing these people could then do it so slackly. Then a certain sudden warmth in the ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... was a marvel of supple, exaggerated grace and the quadrille looked like a free-for-all for unbroken colts. The honor of prompter was conferred upon the sheriff, and he gravely called the changes as they were usually called in ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... away from some youth fathoms deep in love, his favorite partner. Sometimes, too, a lot of them pre-empted all the prettiest girls, and danced a special set with them. Thus were they delivered into the hands of the oppressed—the lads made treaty with the fiddlers and prompter to play fast and furious—to call figures that kept the oldsters wheeling and whirling. It was an endurance contest—but victory did not always perch with the youths. Plenty of pursy gentlemen were still light ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... alive from personal knowledge some oral Shakespearean tradition during the fifty years and more that followed his death. Little of their gossip is extant. But some of it was put on record, before the end of the century, by John Downes, the old prompter and librarian of a chief London theatre. According to Downes's testimony, Taylor repeated instructions which he had received from Shakespeare's own lips for the playing of the part of Hamlet, while Lowin narrated how Shakespeare ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... which only two could be called rehearsals, for the other two were tournaments in which messieurs les artistes exercised themselves in altercation and abuse. Davydov and Glama were the only two who knew their parts; the others trusted to the prompter and ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... case, And plainly told her 'twas a want of grace; Bade her "such fancies and affections check, And wear a thicker muslin on her neck." Abased, his human foes the combat fled, And the stern clerk yet higher held his head. They were indeed a weak, impatient set, But their shrewd prompter had his engines yet; Had various means to make a mortal trip, Who shunn'd a flowing bowl and rosy lip; And knew a thousand ways his heart to move, Who flies from banquets and who laughs at love. Thus far the playful Muse has lent her aid, But now departs, of graver ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... trade union is to keep its feet on the earth, no matter where its head may be; to take one step at a time, and not to trouble about the future of society. This purpose, which has from the first been the prompter of union activity, was clearly enunciated in the testimony of Adolph Strasser, a converted socialist, one of the leading trade unionists, and president of the Cigar-makers' Union, before ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... sway his decision. But, like his more distinguished colleagues, he had to rely upon counsel from outside, and in his case, as in theirs, the official adviser was not always identical with the real prompter. He, too, as we saw, set aside the findings of the commissions when they disagreed with his own. In a word, Mr. Wilson's fatal stumble was to have sacrificed essentials in order to score on issues of secondary moment; for while success enabled him to obtain his paper ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... thou didst cries out, and its avengers still will follow. But here they may not come: nor those, who, tempting, track thy path. Wise counsel take. Within our hearts is all we seek: though in that search many need a prompter. Him I have found in blessed Alma. Then rove no more. Gain now, in flush of youth, that last wise thought, too often purchased, by a life of woe. Be ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... into a deep and convalescent sleep. By the end of the hour, however, Jimsy had decided for natural sleep, urged thereto, perhaps, by that unseen playwright who had decreed another time for the curtain; or perhaps he was kept by Doctor Thayer's professional persuasions, in defiance of the prompter's signal. However the case, the heart slowly but surely began to take up its job like an honest force-pump, the face began to lose its death-like pallor, the breathing became more nearly normal. Doctor ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... green baize, which was to separate the audience for a given time from certain of their fellow-men who were to come forward and pretend those parts. The lights—the orchestra lights—came up a clumsy machinery. The first ring, and the second ring, was now but a trick of the prompter's bell—which had been, like the note of the cuckoo, a phantom of a voice, no hand seen or guessed at which ministered to its warning. The actors were men and women painted. I thought the fault was in them; but it was in myself, and the alteration which those many centuries—of six short twelve-months—had ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... his hands and assuming the attitude and smile of thankfulness, a slight embarrassment checked him, and he paused, still keeping his posture and his look—the prompter made himself heard by every one but the bewildered Malcolm, who still continued mute, every instant of his silence naturally increasing ten-fold his perplexity—Macduff whispered the words in his ear—Macbeth who lay slaughtered at his feet, broke ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... HOLD! Prompter, hold! a word before your nonsense; I'd speak a word or two, to ease my conscience. My pride forbids it ever should be said, My heels eclips'd the honours of my head; That I found humour in a piebald vest, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... in the Old Room," the page answered rather resentfully, but resigned himself as he remembered that, however this curtailed his importance, it left open a prompter return to his game ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... greater security, immensely more of the national viewpoint, much larger and prompter accomplishment where our divisions are along party lines, in the broader and loftier sense, than to divide geographically, or according to pursuits, or personal following. For a century and a third, parties have been charged with responsibility ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... of all nations made it very gay that night in honour of the guests who were coming, chief among them, Miss Cameron, who kept her promise faithfully. The orchestra tuned their instruments with unusual care, the scene-shifters set their stage with lavish elegance, the prompter heroically took his seat in the stifling nook provided for him, and the actors dressed with trembling hands that dropped the pins, and perspiring brows whereon the powder wouldn't stick. Beaumont and Fletcher were everywhere, feeling that their literary ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... This was her idea of a medieval Maffeo Orsini. As Azucena, the mother of a forty-year-old troubadour, she got herself up as a damsel of sixteen, with a much too short dress and a red bandana around her head, from which dangled a mass of sequins which she shook coquettishly at the prompter. The audience did not make any demonstration; they remained indifferent and tolerant, and there was not a breath of applause. The only criticism that appeared in the papers was: "Madame Philips, une Americaine, ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... I have just come back for my pocket-handkerchief. I must have dropped it in here somewhere. (He begins to search for it, and in the ordinary course of things comes upon Isobel on the sofa. He puts his rifle down carefully on a table, with the muzzle pointing at the prompter rather than at the audience, and staggers back.) Merciful heavens! Isobel! Dead! (He falls on his knees beside the sofa.) ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... life, for which, by mine own avowal, you knew that I, albeit cause I had none, did thirst. But God, more regardful of my duty than I myself, has now, in this moment of supreme stress, opened the eyes of my mind, that wretched envy had fast sealed. The prompter was your compliance, the greater is the debt of penitence that I owe you for my fault; wherefore wreak even such vengeance upon me as you may deem answerable to my transgression." But Nathan raised Mitridanes ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... ecclesiastical dignity to dignity, till at last there was only one further height left for him to scale. It could surprise no one to see the vacant mitre set on the astute head of Gloucester's confessor and prompter. ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... "property" storm, While the sheet-iron thunder is rattling its best, And the rosin lightning, and all the rest Of the elements are, for some tragedy-reason, Making the "awfullest gale of the season—" See, at the sound of the prompter's tap, The fiend come up through the "Vampyre trap;" Take a mental photograph then, and there, Of that imp, with his "fixins" all complete— The elfish grin, the tangled hair, The dragon wings and the scaly feet— And you'll have a notion of him I mean, The demon of this, ...
— Nothing to Say - A Slight Slap at Mobocratic Snobbery, Which Has 'Nothing - to Do' with 'Nothing to Wear' • QK Philander Doesticks
... Glibly was incessant, till the tinkling of the prompter's bell, and the rising of the curtain, put an end to his remarks on persons, and turned them all on the piece. I cannot but own the author opened an ample field for the effluvia of critic gall. I know not whether Glibly might influence the tone of my mind, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... of rather as a struggle with the proletariat. Hillar, the producer, has effectually disenchanted the footlights by putting steps down to the audience in the position of the prompter's box. The characters frequently make their entrances as it were from the body of the audience. This is especially striking in the crowding up of the Roman Bolsheviks on to the stage in the opening scene—a remarkable piece ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... kept us and of our daily discipline, the goal for which we asked their help, and the race in which they promised to be our friendly rivals. [37] Remind them also that this day will test the worth of every man. With learners late in life, we cannot wonder if now and then a prompter should be needed: it is much to be thankful for if they show themselves good men and true with the help of a reminder. [38] Moreover, while you help them you will be putting your own powers to the test. He who ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... the stage that folks make a graceful exit, clearing up the little mystery, forgiving the wrongs, boasting with feeble voice of the good they have done—with lowering tone and soft music slowly working together to the prompter's bell. It is not in real life that dying men find much time to prattle about their own souls. They usually want all their breath for those they leave behind. And who knows! Perhaps those waiting on the other side think no worse of the man who ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... "shoddy." It is often just the other way. Perhaps it arises simply from the fact that the good works demand the care, study, attention, and, in certain cases, even the mind, talent, and inspiration of every one in the theatre, from the manager down to the prompter. The others, on the contrary, being made especially for lazy, mediocre, superficial, ignorant, and silly people, naturally find a great many supporters. Well! a manager likes, above everything, whatever brings him in amiable speeches ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... wanted to get away from his house, which was permeated and soaked in association with the other two actors, who in company with himself, had surely some tragedy for which the curtain was already rung up. Some dreadful scene was already prepared for them; the setting and stage were ready, the prompter, and who was he? was in the box ready to tell them the next line if any of them faltered. The prompter, surely he was destiny, fate, the irresistible course of events, with which no man can struggle, any more than the actor can struggle with or alter the lines that are ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... me feel like sobbing. I wondered in my soul how many broken hearts were covered by those lace and velvet garments, and those smiling, superficial faces. The thought absorbed me so that I forgot everything and the prompter thought I'd forgotten my part entirely and ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... same time, the poor wretch was thoroughly courageous in the face of some physical and external dangers. The puniest man in camp could cow him with a look, yet none was prompter than he to face the grave perils of breaking a log-jam, and there was no cooler hand than his in the risky labors of stream-driving. Altogether he was a disagreeable problem to the lumbermen,—who resented any element of ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... tragic tone; A very woman—scarce restrains her own! Can she, with fiction, charm the cheated mind, When to be grateful is the part assign'd? Ah, No! she scorns the trappings of her Art; No theme but truth, no prompter but the heart! But, Ladies, say, must I alone unmask? Is here no other actress? let me ask. Believe me, those, who best the heart dissect, Know every Woman studies stage-effect. She moulds her manners to the part she, fills, As Instinct teaches, ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... the hornet was truer than she anticipated: animamque in vulnere ponit. Internal evidence leads almost irresistibly to the conclusion that he was the author or prompter of "The Sentimental Mother: a Comedy in Five Acts. The Legacy of an Old Friend, and his 'Last Moral Lesson' to Mrs. Hester Lynch Thrale, now Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi. London: Printed for James Ridgeway, York Street, St. James's Square, ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... versification seems to serve the purpose of a prompter. It lets us know in advance just what syllables are to receive the emphasis which shall make the sense clear. There are many lines in poetry which become obscure the instant they are written in prose, and probably the advantages of poetry over prose, or, to express it modestly, the excuse for poetry ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... different parts of the town. Sometimes religious plays were acted in churches before the Reformation; but in Cornwall the people formed an earthen amphitheatre in some open field, and as the players did not learn their parts very well, a prompter used to follow them about with a book and tell them what to say. Coventry, York, Wakefield, Reading, Hull, and Leicester were famous for their plays, and in the churchwardens' accounts we find many entries ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... contrive scenes. It was like playing the whole performance before the actors. These hints of scenes were all the rehearsal. When the actor entered on the scene he did not know what was to come, nor had he any prompter to help him on; much, too, depended on the talents of his companions; yet sometimes a scene might be preconcerted. Invention, humour, bold conception of character, and rapid strokes of genius, they habitually exercised—and the pantomimic arts of gesture, the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... night. The next day it was announced that Mademoiselle —— would take her accustomed place in the performance. I went early to the theatre, and found, to my amazement, there had been some changes made in the orchestra; the prompter's box had been enlarged, and my newly-discovered niche had been rendered inaccessible and almost entirely filled in! In vain did I attempt to find some other position that might correspond to it. I only attracted the attention of the early comers to ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... extraordinary, though by no means obtrusive or offensive, consistency to the enormous world of detail and scenery and general "surroundings" in which their parts are played—are never interfered with by the pointing-stick or the prompter. They are there; they can't help being there, and you have to make the best or the worst of them as you can. Considering the general complexion of this universe, its inevitableness and apparent [Greek: autarkeia] may seem, in some moods and to some persons, a little oppressive; ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... the Nenagh paper, so far as Ireland is concerned. But the pet little joke was in La Vendee. Miss Famine, who is the girl for our money, raises the question—whether any of them can tell the name of the leader and prompter to these high jinks of hell—if so, let her ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... confines of insanity, shouting and driving about, in my own person, to an extent which would justify any philanthropic stranger in clapping me into a strait-waistcoat without further inquiry, endeavoring to goad H. into some dim and faint understanding of a prompter's duties, and struggling in such a vortex of noise, dirt, bustle, confusion, and inextricable entanglement of speech and action as you would grow giddy in contemplating. We perform A Roland for an ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... completed scheme of goodness would rather confuse than ease our daily actions. Science does not readily connect with life. For most of us all the time, and for all of us most of the time, instinct is the better prompter. But if we mean to be ethical students and to examine conduct scientifically, we must evidently at the outset come face to face with the meaning of goodness. I am consequently often surprised on looking into a treatise on ethics to find no definition ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... son; call it by any name you please, only do not interrupt the prompter;" and with this the ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... and so we are educating ourselves up to the emergency,—the whole mighty nation at school, and learning, we are bound to say, with Yankee quickness. Love has been for us, also, a marvellous brain-prompter. Some of our grandest charities—I mean charities in the broadest and sweetest sense, for it is we who owe, not our soldiers—have been the inspiration of a moment's need,—thoughts of the people, who, in crises and at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... apomorphine is injected anywhere under the skin, vomiting surely follows within a very short time. It is well known that morphine is injected under the skin in preference to taking it through the mouth as its action as a pain killer is much prompter. ...
— Prof. Koch's Method to Cure Tuberculosis Popularly Treated • Max Birnbaum |
