"Histrionical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... suffering neither the sound doctrinal sermons of her husband nor the saintly gossip of weekly tea-parties offered any remedy. There was a little theatre at the episcopal city, at which performances were given now and then; but the histrionic talent of the strolling players being of the slightest, and the Right Reverend Dr. Marsh objecting, moreover, in a subdued manner, to give his immediate patronage to the Punch and Judy of the stage, the lady often felt time hanging heavy on her hands. In this ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... Oh, won't you play with us, Mother? I'll—I'll let you be Mrs. Fatima." And then, as her mother's face showed signs of doubt as to her histrionic ability, "If you were my little girl, I'd do ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... mask and in a well-sustained rle let it aspire for human applause; as is the custom of my young friend Nietzsche, who lances such vehement tirades against actors and comedians, but does not seem to perceive how much he himself, like all poets, is an histrionic artist. ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... mentioned his determination to win literary glory she was always greatly interested. Dreams of histrionic achievement were more coldly received. The daughter of a New England country clergyman, even in these days of broadening horizons, could scarcely be expected to look with favor upon ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... "to regard woman as an enigma. Now, without professing any unusual acuteness, I believe that this is a mistake. Woman is an enigma certainly, because she is human, but that ends it. Her conditions have tended to cultivate in her the power of dissimulation, and the histrionic quality, just as the peaceful ilex learns to put forth thorns if you expose it to the attacks of devouring cattle. It is this instinct to develop thorns in self-defence, and yet to live a little behind the prickly outposts, that leads to ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... love of liquor, which he took merely to quiet him, but unfortunately the dose required strengthening every now and then. He was mostly in debt; prided himself on not dishonouring virtuous women—a boast, nevertheless, not entirely justifiable; and through his profession had acquired a slightly histrionic manner, especially when he was reciting, an art in which he was accomplished. He found out that Andrew had a sister, and he gave him a couple of tickets for an entertainment which had been got up by some well-meaning people to draw the poor to his church. They were ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... frenzied tension. To do full justice to what in Webster's style would be spasmodic were it not so weighty, and at the same time to maintain the purity of outline and melodious rhythm of such characters as Isabella, demands no common histrionic power. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... had a fondness for watching them as they marched up to the front looking unreal in their steel helmets which they wore in place of the broad-brimmed hats. There was a sort of warlike intensity about them which may come from the sunlight of an island continent reflecting the histrionic adaptability of appearances to the ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... Waterman's histrionic sense responded to the demand. With arm uplifted, he deliberated, turning slowly from side to side. He was a master of the niceties of insinuation. Innuendo he had always found more effective than direct statement. He shook his head deprecatingly, reluctant ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... in the often dull round of my daily task, for in matters of the stage your Majesty, being, as we often say among ourselves, the greatest actor of us all and having from the earliest years imbibed the love of the footlights and the limelight, is an incomparable judge of the true histrionic art, and a word of praise from you is worth columns and columns in the newspapers. It is to us as when a cobbler's boots are praised by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 22, 1916 • Various
... old habits of speech)—'we are only Indians, but I have read in your Bible that if one smite on the one cheek'"—here Shiva Lal, who has now what he loves most in the world, an audience, and is easily histrionic, smites his face mightily on the right side—"'one should turn to him the other. Why ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... rayonnante, l'etoile de ma vie!"—the phrases sounded ridiculous enough when uttered by this histrionic person; but even his self-conscious gesticulation did not offend Brand. This man, at all events, had loved the mother ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... programmed as Henri Dumay—said to be an American "monsoor" at that. This actress affects French plays for reasons that have never been explained, and that certainly do not appear. As a "star," she is of course entitled to treat herself to any luxury that may seem to tempt her histrionic appetite, and the Gallic siren evidently appeals to her. It is not likely that there will be international complications, although the provocation must at times ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... imitation of his master's voice may have fallen of histrionic perfection, it pleased the company. The ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... precisely the state in which I had been during my drive with the Marquis to Paris. This wretch, I knew, was about to rob me. The whole drama, and the Countess's role in it, I could not yet comprehend. I could not be sure—so much more presence of mind and histrionic resource have women than fall to the lot of our clumsy sex—whether the return of the Count was not, in truth, a surprise to her; and this scrutiny of the contents of my strong box, an extempore undertaking of the Count's. But it was clearing more and more every moment: and I was destined, ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... trip, for, as the advertisements say of patent sweepers and the Encyclopaedia Britannica, "no party is complete without" her, so every one was glad to hear that she had agreed to accompany the northern pioneers. Those favoured ones who have seen her "on the boards," whisper that her histrionic genius is marvellous; we, who are not among the fortunate number, can only say that if her acting equals her talent for giving (when required) a really concise, lucid description of anything, it must indeed be wonderful. Her quotations, ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... whenever he was hard up for money, went to his nearest relatives and threatened them with the publication of a volume of his original poems. This threat never failed to open the paternal purse. I do not know what effect the intimation of my histrionic aspirations would have had; but one fine day I found myself on my way to Rochester, in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... agency is conducted on business principles and does not look for histrionic talent or general versatility. As one of the heads of a prominent agency said to me ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... even very mild-mannered and matter-of-fact men who go out shooting are apt to carry an excess of arms and accoutrements in order to impress upon their own imagination the seriousness of their undertaking. These huntsmen are also prone to a histrionic, prancing gait and to an elaborate exaggeration of the motions, whether of stealth or of onslaught, involved in their deeds of exploit. Similarly in athletic sports there is almost invariably present a ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... bright spring day at about four o'clock in the afternoon. A large number of guests was assembled at the house of Madame d'Avrigny. The performance had been much talked about beforehand in society. The beauty, the singing, and the histrionic powers of the principal actress had been everywhere extolled. Fully conscious of what was expected of her, and eager to do herself credit in every way, Jacqueline took advantage of Madame Strahlberg's presence to run over a little song, which she was to—sing between the acts and in ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... arms rested, and looking steadfastly into his face with eyes moist—just moist, with a tear in each. Whether Edouard was too unfeeling to be moved by this show of affection, or whether he gave more credit to his sister's histrionic powers than to those of her heart, I will not say, but he was altogether irresponsive to her appeal. "You will be back again before ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... in the ears of old Wilkerson, who had remained back in the road, and at the same instant he heard another shout behind him. Mr. Wilkerson had not shared in the attack, but, greatly preoccupied with his own histrionic affairs, was proceeding up the pike alone—except for the unhappy yellow mongrel, still dragged along by the slip-noose—and alternating, as was his natural wont, from one fence to the other; crouching behind every bush to fire an imaginary rifle at his dog, and then springing out, with ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... perfect shirt of the perfect shape of the hour, the tie in the correct mode, the collar of the moment, the thick, well-oiled hair, profuse and yet well in hand, the right flower in the buttonhole at just the right angle—so he would stand, with lips pursed in histrionic manner, gazing quietly before him, smiling, to casual friends, little smiles which were nothing more unbending than dignified acknowledgment. Then he would stretch a godlike arm to the rail, climb into his chair, and spend another half-minute in settling ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... that it is not well to be mercenary, he, again, goes through a long course of dissimulation, and does some admirable comic business in the character of a miser. I say it boldly, I do not believe Mr. Boffin possessed that amount of histrionic talent. Plots requiring to be worked out by such means are ill-constructed plots; or, to put it in another way, a man who had any gift for the construction of plots would never have had recourse to such means. Nor would he, I think, have adopted, as Dickens did habitually and ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... Jew-manager and gentile ruled the histrionic destiny of the United States—here where art, letters, service, industry, business had each developed its own species of human prostitute—two muddy-brained torrents of humanity poured in opposite directions, crowding, shoving, shuffling along in the endless, hopeless ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... look at Friths and O'Neils than that they should never look on any painting at all. Now the stage paints rudely, often tawdrily; still it does paint. It is better than nothing. I take it that the excellence, as the end, of histrionic art is to portray, to the minds of the many, poetic conceptions which, without such realistic rendering, would remain unknown and impalpable to all save the few. Histrionic art is at its greatest only when it is the follower and the interpreter of literature; the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... play of which she herself was the author; they might even, for the happy appearance they continued to present, have been such figures as would, by the strong note of character in each, fill any author with the certitude of success, especially of their own histrionic. They might in short have represented any mystery they would; the point being predominantly that the key to the mystery, the key that could wind and unwind it without a snap of the spring, was there in her ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... greater work. "I was often stopped, in my expeditions," he told Dr. Baker, "for the want of a hundred pounds." He was always writing: in the house, in the desert, in a storm, up a tree, at dinner, in bed, ill or well, fresh or tired,—indeed, he used to say that he never was tired. There was nothing histrionic about him, and he never posed, except "before fools and savages." He was frank, straightforward, and outspoken, and his face was an index of his mind. Every thought was visible just "as through a crystal case the figured hours are ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... I'm not talking of the box-office. What wealth of dramatic, of histrionic production have we to meet that enormous demand? There will be twenty theatres ten years hence where there are ten to-day, and there will be, no doubt, ten times as many people "delighting in them," like Florentla. ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... years?—yet instinctively she shrank from their contact. Doubtless, while absorbed in some stirring part, she forgot companions, audience, all, and enjoyed what she performed,—necessarily enjoyed, for her acting was really excellent, and where no enjoyment there no excellence; but when the histrionic enthusiasm was not positively at work, she crept to her grandfather with something between loathing and terror of the "painted creatures" and ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dowdy, were already "billed," as infant phenomena, for a performance that night at the Pavilion, where our attendance, it was a shock to feel, couldn't be promised; and in gazing without charge at the pair of weary and sleepy little mountebanks I found the histrionic character and the dramatic profession for the first time revealed to me. They filled me with fascination and yet with fear; they expressed a melancholy grace and a sort of peevish refinement, yet seemed awfully detached and indifferent, indifferent perhaps even to being pinched and slapped, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... was a small, thin man, dark and with regular features, clean shaven like a priest or an actor, vaguely resembling both, inclining towards the hieratic rather than to the histrionic type. He dressed always in black, and the closely-buttoned jacket revealed the spareness of his body. He was met often in the evening, going to dine at the Cock; but was rarely seen walking about the Temple in the day-time. It was impossible to meet any one more suasive and agreeable; ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... Catholic Religion so called! How long must these wretched Monks go on doing their lazy thrice-deleterious torpid blasphemy; and a King, not histrionic but real, merely signify that he laughs at them and it? Meseems a heavier whip than that of satire might be in place here, your Majesty? The lighter whip is easier;—Ah yes, undoubtedly! cry many men. But horrible accounts are running up, enough to sink the world at last, while the heavier ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... submit to Cyriacus, and keep up the anniversary of the Finding of the Cross. Finally, for those who keep the day is proclaimed a benediction so unmeasured and profuse as to leave behind it an air in which the solemn evaporates in the histrionic. ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... his efforts to kill off the whole corps of army scouts. He would pass himself off as a fellow-scout, as a deserter from some military post, or as an Indian trader, for he was a wonderful actor, and would have achieved histrionic honours had he chosen ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... his theory of art. He studied whole libraries of antiquities and vainly imagined it to be the most "Greek" of all his works. Nothing, however, could be farther removed from the tranquil self-restraint and noble simplicity of Greek art than these self-conscious, histrionic groups of figures, without one touch of naturalness. The old preoccupation with classic models inherited from Poussin and the Roman school, still dominates even this revolutionary artist, who best displays his ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... avoid common service; (4) why there is no promotion from the ranks; and (5) why their artillery is too rigid and not quick enough. It also showed me something intimate and fundamental about the Germans which Tacitus never understood and which all our historians miss—they are of necessity histrionic. Note I do not say it is a vice of theirs. It is a necessity of theirs, an appetite. They must see themselves on a stage. Whether they do things well or ill, whether it is their excellent army with its ridiculous parade, or their ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... past half-hour in that doorway hoping that Mr. Westmacott would not depart this evening from his usual custom. Another thing that Mr. Westmacott was not to know—considering his youth—was the singular histrionic ability which this old rake had displayed in those younger days of his when he had been a player, and the further circumstance that he had excelled in those parts in which ebriety was to be counterfeited. ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... of royalty during the First Empire. In her manuscript memoirs, addressed to the children of her brother, "Citizen" Edmond Charles Genet, who was then living in America, and of which I have an exact copy, she dwells upon the histrionic performances by her pupils, among whom were Queen Hortense and my husband's aunt, Eliza Monroe, daughter of President James Monroe and subsequently the wife of Judge George Hay of Virginia. She gives a graphic account of the Emperor attending ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... had only to step out from behind the curtain and run him through before he could rise from his seat. The plan had great charms, and doubtless he might have put it into execution had not Adrian's histrionic instincts stayed his hand. If he killed Ramiro thus, he would never know why he had been killed, and above all things Adrian desired that he should know. He wanted not only to wreak his wrongs, but to let his adversary learn why they were wreaked. ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... type, do, it cannot be denied, I think, that such people attain to a vividness of aesthetic living not reached by others. They appreciate beauty with their bodies as well as with their souls. And in their case too, as has been shown, aesthetic appreciation is more strongly histrionic—they not only put themselves into the work of art, but the idea ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... travelling companies have altered all that now-a-days. Still I think I must say that I've got a very fairly good repertoire for my people. Did you ever hear how I took to the stage?" he continued. "I used to be clerk in a wine merchant's office, and I was also a member of the City Histrionic Club. Well, one night I went to the Pavilion; one of the actors who used to give imitations of popular favourites didn't turn up, and so I was persuaded by a man, who knew that I had been in the habit of giving imitations myself to ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... intellectual nimbleness, homely common sense, shrewd insight into men, a keen wit, with vivid perception of the comic and absurd. For a satirist so variously endowed, the stage was the best field, and for Moliere especially, gifted as he was with histrionic genius. The vices and abuses, the follies and absurdities, the hypocrisies and superficialities of civilized life, these were the game for his faculties. The interior of Paris households he transferred to the stage with biting wit, doubling the attractiveness of his pictures by comic hyperbole. ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... indissolubly associated with French art—Francois Delsarte, of Paris. My curiosity had been deeply excited by what I had heard of him. I was told that, after long years of patient toil and profound thought, his genius had discovered and developed a scientific basis for histrionic art, that he had substituted law for empiricism in the domain of the most potential of the fine arts; and when the names of Rachel and Macready were quoted in his list of pupils, I was eager to behold the master and to learn ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... of proving their prowess by conspicuous waste, and no time to convince the world of their excellence through conspicuous leisure; consequently, for histrionic purposes, a schoolteacher's cosmos is a plain, slaty gray. Schoolteachers do not wallow in wealth nor feed fat at the public trough. No one ever accuses them of belonging to the class known as the predatory rich, nor of being millionaire malefactors. They have ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... faculty are against it," sighed Patty. "You see, they didn't discover my histrionic ability before examinations freshman year, and after examinations, when I was asked to be in the play, the faculty thought I could spend the time to better advantage studying Greek. At the time of the sophomore play I was on something else and couldn't ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... London. Some years before she had come on a starring tour to Cheltenham, a town much affected by the notorious Colonel Berkeley, who being passionately devoted to the stage, and possessed moreover of some histrionic ability, gallantly offered to perform for her benefit. The colonel was notorious for his gallantries; under a promise of marriage—which could not then, he said, be carried into effect, inasmuch as he was then petitioning the Crown to grant him the dormant ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... the very few friends who cared a rush for his welfare, that he was still in the state of a six-day-old puppy, and as unable to take care of himself. More than half-ruined, he preserved his illusions; still believed in the sincerity of fashionable acquaintances, in the fidelity of histrionic mistresses, in the disinterestedness of mankind in general, or at least of that portion of it with which he habitually associated. The bird had left half its feathers with the fowler, but was as willing as ever to run again into the snare. And at Paris snares were plentiful, well-baited ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... as an actor has yet to be written. When the ancient Greeks crowded the theatres to hear and see the masterpieces of dramatic and histrionic genius, their "women, slaves, and children" were for the most part left at home, though we do find that later on in history, front seats were provided for the chief Athenian priestesses. No voices of children were ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... been limited, what it is not. It is not a theatrical association whose benefits are confined to a small and exclusive body of actors. It is a society whose claims are always preferred in the name of the whole histrionic art. It is not a theatrical association adapted to a state of theatrical things entirely past and gone, and no more suited to present theatrical requirements than a string of pack- horses would be suited to the conveyance ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... November, 1836, he had married Wilhelmina Planer, the leading actress of the theatre in Magdeburg where he was musical director of opera. Her father was a spindle-maker. It is said that her desire to earn money for the household, rather than the impetus of a well-defined histrionic gift, led her to go on the stage; but, once on the stage, she discovered that she had unquestionable talent, and played leading characters in tragedy and ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... ruses were invented to avoid the legal obstructions placed in the way of play-acting. "Histrionic academies" tried to sneak in on the stage; and in 1762 a clever manager gave an entertainment whose playbill I present as the most amusing example of specious ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... the absurdities connected with this national weakness, stands that of the public prints. So much importance is given by the newspapers to every thing relating to the histrionic art, that we are daily informed of the whereabout of all the third-rate performers of the minor theatres; that "Mr. Smith, of Sadler's Wells, is engaged to Mr. Ducrow for the ensuing season;" or that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 531, Saturday, January 28, 1832. • Various
... stiffness and elegance, is no exception, as a reflection of the "good old time" to which it belongs, and as an expression of German taste at a time when there was still a "German taste," which was a rococo-taste in moribus et artibus. Lessing is an exception, owing to his histrionic nature, which understood much, and was versed in many things; he who was not the translator of Bayle to no purpose, who took refuge willingly in the shadow of Diderot and Voltaire, and still more willingly among ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... thing left?" I asked quietly, at last—weary as I was of this histrionic performance of his, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... Memon and Rangari is fond of the native theatres where he rewards Parsi histrionic talent by assiduous attention and exclamations of approval. He and his friends break their journey home by a visit to an Irani or Anglo-Indian soda-water shop, where they repeat the monotonous strain ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... of the labouring class have hardly any ideas which their young brains could play with, other than those derived from their own experience of real life in the valley, or those which they hear spoken of at home. Hence in their histrionic games of "pretending" it is but a very limited repertory of parts that they can take. Two or three times I have come upon a little group of them under a hedgerow or sun-warmed bank, playing at school; the teacher ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... his bowed back, and spoke to him fiercely in harsh, guttural Huron. Robert did not understand the words, but they sounded like a stern rebuke for poor work with the paddle. The blow and the words stimulated him, keyed him to a supreme effort as an actor. All his histrionic temperament flared up at once. He made a poor stroke with the paddle, threw up much surplus water, and, as he cowered away from Tayoga, he corrected himself hastily. Tayoga uttered a sharp rebuke again, but did not strike a second time. That would have been too much. Robert's next ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... us up; therefore 'National' seems a proper one as to the arts of design. These are painting, sculpture, architecture, and engraving, while the fine arts include poetry, music, landscape gardening, and the histrionic arts. Our name, therefore, expresses the entire character of our institution ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... had remembered the Irishman tearing bricks from the fireplace in a spasm of histrionic zeal, she might have distrusted the steadiness of his level, kindly glance. She might have guessed that again he was reckless and on his mettle. But she did ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... front—Charles I. was a masterpiece of conception as to the representation of a great gentleman. His Cardinal Wolsey was the most perfect presentation of greatness, of self-abnegation, and of power to suffer I can realize.... Jingle and Matthias were in Comedy and Tragedy combined, masterpieces of histrionic art. I could write volumes upon Irving as an actor, but to write of him as a man, and as a very great Artist, I should require more time than is still allotted to me of man's brief span of life and far, far more power than that which was given to those who wrote of him in a hurry during his ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... staging; theater, playhouse, arena, boards; degree, step, point; drama. Associated Words: histrionic, histrionism, histrionicism, proscenium, postscenium, parascenium, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... "Dramaturgie des Schauspiels," I, 209, who has some excellent remarks upon the dramatic qualities of the play and the histrionic problems connected ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... scenical applause, (vos plaudite!) in that valedictory injunction he expressed inadvertently the true value of his own long life, which, in strict candor, may be pronounced one continued series of histrionic efforts, and of excellent acting, adapted to ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... wonderful subjugators. Their like I think breathes not on the globe. Housemaids, decide! It was a waste of histrionic ability though; for the landlady had heard, and did not at heart disapprove, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... messenger, an ex-monk from a great monastery in Punaka, the capital of Bhutan. This man, Tashi, before he wearied of the cloistered life and fled to India, had been always one of the principal actors in the great miracle plays and Devil Dances of his lamasery, for he was gifted with considerable histrionic talent. He delighted in teaching Wargrave to play his various roles, for he found the subaltern ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... adventurers, with many plans in their heads, and very little money in their pockets; we see them both rising to the pinnacle of fame; one the majestic teacher of moral virtue, and the other delighting by the versatility of his histrionic powers. Go one step further. They are consigned to the tomb, and these men, whom friendship had united whilst living, death has not divided. Near Shakspeare's monument, in Westminster Abbey, they lie ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XIII, No. 370, Saturday, May 16, 1829. • Various
... of the two colored men in a class of a hundred and twenty-eight, yet at the close of Freshman year he was unanimously elected class auditor for the ensuing year. He was a charter member of the Ruskin Society, a society for the cultivation of the histrionic art in Dartmouth College. In 1897 Dartmouth gave him the degree of Bachelor of Letters. Says President Tucker of Dartmouth: "He is a man of clear and earnest purpose, possessing tact and ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... who used to journey every winter as far south as Savannah, performing in the intermediate cities as they went and returned. The Jeffersons, the Warrens, and the Burkes belonged to this company, in which their children were trained for histrionic fame, and President Adams first saw the elder Booth when that tragedian accompanied one of these dramatic expeditions as its brightest star. On another occasion he saw Edwin Forrest, then unknown to fame, and enjoyed the finished acting of Cooper, as Charles Surface, in the "School ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... is a species of the histrionic art unknown to us, and running counter to that critical canon which our great poet, but not powerful actor, has delivered to the actors themselves, "to speak no more than is set down for them." The present art consisted in happily performing ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... typically Irish in temperament. Celtic in vivacity and charm, feminine in sensitiveness, Canning was dowered with virile persistence and pugnacity. In histrionic and versifying power he rivalled his countryman, Sheridan, who never forgave him for deserting the Whigs and going over to Pitt. The loss was indeed serious; for the young orator was far more than a frondeur. As editor of the "Anti-Jacobin," conjointly with ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... itself was obvious enough. I laughed to see them. The affair did not come to blows, but it did come to black looks on meeting, muttered oaths, growls of enmity every time they happened to pass each other on the deck. Perdosa was not so bad; his Mexican blood inclined him to the histrionic, and his Mexican cast lent itself well to evil looks. But Handy Solomon, for the first time in my ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Archimandrite lay off Funchal. "M. de C." was, always on behalf of his country, a Madeira Portuguese fleeing from the conscription. They discovered him eighty miles at sea and bade him assist the cook. So far this seemed fairly reasonable. Next day, thanks to his histrionic powers and his ingratiating address, he was promoted to the rank of "supernumerary captain's servant"—a "post which," I give his words, "I flatter myself, was created for me alone, and furnished me with opportunities unequalled for a task in which ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... from weariness and chagrin than anything else, but a sort of amused patience on Miss Judd's part caused her to cut short any histrionic display. As they prepared for bed she began to regale Miss Judd with spicy descriptions of the yachting ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... the free-lunch counter. He caught a fleeting glance from the bartender's eye, and stood still, trying to look like a business man who had just dined at the Menger and was waiting for a friend who had promised to pick him up in his motor car. Curly's histrionic powers were equal to the impersonation; ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... been prescribed by the sovereign or by custom, and should not have been selected by the wearer. In regard to speech a man may study all that which may make him suasive, but if he go beyond that he will trench on those histrionic efforts which he will know to be wrong because he will be ashamed to acknowledge them. It is good to be beautiful, but it should come of God and not of the hairdresser. And personal dignity is a great possession; but a man should struggle for ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... projecting into the yard, with a tiring-house at the rear, and a balcony overhead. The details of the stage, no doubt, were subject to alteration as experience suggested, for its materials were of wood, and histrionic and dramatic art were both undergoing rapid development.[66] The furnishings and decorations, as in the case of modern playhouses, seem to have been ornate. Thus T[homas] W[hite], in A Sermon Preached at Pawles ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... better acting of the Edinburgh company failed to satisfy me now. The few plays, however, which I saw enacted chanced to be of a rather mediocre character, and gave no scope for the exhibition of nice histrionic talent; nor were any of the great actors of the south on the Edinburgh boards at the time. The stage scenery, too, though quite fine enough of its kind, had, I found, altogether a different effect upon me from ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... that Helen alone could cook. He saw himself trotting up and down the streets of Bursley with the finest, smartest lass in the Five Towns by his side. And scarcely a penny of extra expenditure! And all this happy issue due to his diplomatic and histrionic skill! The fact was, Helen really liked him. There could be no doubt about that. She liked him, and she would not leave him. Also, she was a young woman of exceptional common sense, and, being such, ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... Gangsters.' In such cases our bourgeois paterfamilias waves his hands and exclaims: 'What a terrible thing! If only their abilities were turned to good—their inventiveness, their amazing knowledge of human psychology, their self-possession, their fearlessness, their incomparable histrionic powers! What extraordinary benefits they would bring to the country!' But it is well known that the bourgeois paterfamilias was specially devised by Heaven to utter commonplaces and trivialities. I myself sometimes—we thieves are sentimental people, I confess—I myself sometimes admire ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... his companion for the moment that it was a revelation of his inmost soul. It was this charm of impetuous sincerity which had fascinated Ingram himself years before, and made him cultivate the acquaintance of a young man whom he at first regarded as a somewhat facile, talkative and histrionic person. Ingram perceived, for example, that young Lavender had so little regard for public affairs that he would have been quite content to see our Indian empire go for the sake of eliciting a sarcasm from Lord Westbury; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... toward the close of her career, she even ventured to appear as Cardinal Wolsey, obtaining great applause by her exertions in the character, and the skill and force of her impersonation. But histrionic feats of this kind trespass against good taste, do violence to the intentions of the dramatists, and are, in truth, departures from the purpose of playing. Miss Cushman had for excuse—in the first instance, at any rate—her anxiety ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... the hotel. The landlord demurred stoutly; he was an inn-keeper, not the proprietor of a play-house. Were not tavern and theater inseparable, retorted Barnes? The country host had always been a patron of the histrionic art. Beneath his windows the masque and interlude were born. The mystery, harlequinade and divertissement found ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... he grew into the idea of murder. It became his business thought. It was his recreation and his study. He had not worked half so hard for histrionic success as for his terrible graduation into an assassin. He had fought often on the boards, and seen men die in well-imitated horror, with flowing blood upon his keen sword's edge, and the strong stride of mimic victory with which he flourished his weapon at the closing of the curtain. He embraced ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... too liberally and too frequently, was destroying the very element upon which its popularity depended. Her entertainment had been good in its conception, and partly good in its execution; yet her success had but little to do with that goodness. Indeed, what might be called its badness in a histrionic sense—that is, her look sometimes of being out of place, the sight of a beautiful woman on a platform, revealing tender airs of domesticity which showed her to belong by character to a quiet drawing-room—had been primarily an attractive feature. But alas, custom was staling this ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... jealous self-watchfulness of his noble nature, he feared might hurt his mind.[215] The long subsequent line of actors admirable in private as in public life, and all the gentle and generous associations of the histrionic art, have not weakened the testimony of its greatest name against its less favourable influences; against the laxity of habits it may encourage; and its public manners, bred of public means, not always compatible ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... sound of the opening door, and he still sat, leaning forward in the low chair in an attitude of startled expectancy. There was no outward and apparent change on his face as his eyes fell on Blake's figure. He showed neither fear nor bewilderment. His career had equipped him with histrionic powers that were exceptional. As a bank-sneak and confidence-man he had long since learned perfect control of his features, perfect composure even ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... fearful one to some of the children, for their faces whiten'd with fright. It seem'd, as it slowly dropp'd away, like the minute which precedes the climax of an exquisitely-performed tragedy, when some mighty master of the histrionic art is treading the stage, and you and the multitude around you are waiting, with stretch'd nerves and suspended breath, in expectation ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... thrillingly realistic performance; the costumes—designed, long ago, by the Good Duke himself—varied with every tableau. Vociferous expressions of approval accompanied the performance. The Saint's encounter in the grove of Alephane with the golden-haired lady was a masterpiece of histrionic art; so was his solemn preaching among the black natives. Tears flowed freely at his violent death—a scene which was only marred by the erratic movements of his venerable beard; that mill-stone, too, of ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... Archduke Charles; she had played it with Henry of Anjou; she had already played it with Alencon once; yet every time she started it afresh, potentates and ambassadors, her own ministers, and the wooer she selected, took the thing seriously, played into her hands, and were cajoled by her boundless histrionic ingenuity. Either she treated the world to a series of successful impositions, carried through, unaided and unsuspected, with the supreme audacity and skill of a consummate comedienne; or she was a contemptibly capricious woman whose inordinate vacillations ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... of the South, no doubt, came legitimately (or, at least, naturally) by his dignity. His career, for a man of his blood and antecedents, has been wonderfully successful, and is justly due, I am convinced, since I have seen him, to his histrionic talents. Both black and yellow skins are sufficiently rare in Europe to excite a particular interest in those who wear them; and I had surmised, up to this time, that much of his popularity might be owing to his color. But he certainly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... of these men, the compulsion of examples which were set up in this place. And of what do their examples remind us? They remind us not merely of public service but of public service shot through with principle and honor. They were not histrionic men. They did ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... the entire army depended upon his private exertions. I respected this style of mule; and, had I possessed a juicy cabbage, would have pressed it upon him with thanks for his excellent example. The histrionic mule was a melodramatic quadruped, prone to startling humanity by erratic leaps and wild plunges, much shaking of his stubborn head, and lashing out of his vicious heels; now and then falling flat and apparently dying a la Forrest; a gasp—a squirm—a flop, and so on, till the ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... several members of the theatrical profession; amongst others, with Munden and Miss Kelly, for both of whom he entertained the highest admiration. One of the (Elia) Essays is written to celebrate Munden's histrionic talent; and in his letters he speaks of "Fanny Kelly's divine plain face." The Barbara S. of the second (or last) series of essays is, in fact, Miss Kelly herself. All his friends knew that he was greatly ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... statement that "The TSAR has left for the theatre of war" has caused the keenest satisfaction in histrionic circles, where it is hoped that this illustrious example will cause the fashionable world to revert to its habit of patronising ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... it, that I shouldn't possess a little histrionic ability. You'd think it would be in my ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... of Calvinistic Methodists, who has been called the Demosthenes of the pulpit, was born at Gloucester, England, in 1714. He was an impassioned pulpit orator of the popular type, and his power over immense congregations was largely due to his histrionic talent and his exquisitely modulated voice, which has been described as "an organ, a flute, a harp, all in one," and which at times became stentorian. He had a most expressive face, and altho he squinted, in grace and significance of gesture he knew perfectly how to "suit the ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... TOOLE, but MOZART's Italianised Spanish Don. A propos of Mr. TOOLE, it has always been the wonder of his friends, to whom the quality of his vocal powers is so well known, that he has never been tempted to renounce the simple histrionic for the lyric Drama. It is said, and "greatly to his credit," that, had it not been for his unwillingness to rob his friend SIMS REEVES of the laurel-crown he wears as first English Tenor of his age, he would long ago have set up a most dangerous opposition to that sweet singer, and have ridden ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 16, 1891 • Various
... Miss Henrietta Vinton Davis perform on various occasions, and it is my candid judgment, reached after mature deliberation, and a fair knowledge of the merits of nearly all her set who essay to excel in the histrionic art, that she has no superior in the race as a master of the profession of her choice. (John ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... silvery tone to her voice, such as I have rarely observed in persons of her race. In pressing her claim, she grew wonderfully eloquent, and would have elicited the admiration of an educated audience. Had there been a school in that vicinity for the development of histrionic talent in the negro race, I would have given that woman a ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... guilty. He surveyed us in silence a little while, and then he said, 'My young friends, you have played your little game pretty well, especially you, Zoe, that are a novice in the fine arts compared with Miss Dover.' Histrionic talent ought to be rewarded; he would relent, and take us abroad, on one condition: there must be a chaperone. 'All the better,' said we hypocrites, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... main points, says Grumkow, reporting next day; and the reader must interpret them as he can, A Crown-Prince with excellent histrionic talents, thinks the reader. Well; a certain exaggeration, immensity of wish becoming itself enthusiasm; somewhat of that: but that is by no means the whole or even the main part of the phenomenon, O reader. This Crown-Prince has a real affection to his Father, as ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... brother, the young soldier, speaks volumes for her. They say she is going to marry a son of Keppell Craven's, Lord Craven's uncle. They met first, I believe, at the acting of Lord Leveson Gower's play of Hernani, at Bridgewater House, when Mr. Craven reaped much histrionic fame as an amateur. Of one thing we are quite sure, Miss Kemble will act well wherever she may be ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... is systematic and philosophical, may reveal to us what that error is in us as well as in himself. We do not state it as if it were a splendid truth; we merely act upon it. He stated it for us with such histrionic and towering absurdity that we can laugh at his statement of it; but we must not laugh at him without learning to laugh at ourselves. All this talk about the iron will, about set teeth and ruthlessness, what does it mean ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... Wilkins took neither of those courses, for he knew his audience, and was aware that his connection with the stage was an affair about which he had better say as little as possible. Instead of appealing to their generosity, or boasting of his histrionic eminence, he threw himself broadly on their sense of humor. Drawing himself up to his full height, the big, burly man advanced to the marge of the platform, and extending his right hand with an air of authority, requested silence by the movement of his ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Carlton house. What was the fame acquired by his cockleshell curricle, (by the way, the very neatest thing seen in London before or since;) his scenic reputation; all the applause attending the perfection of histrionic art; the flatteries of Billy Finch, (a sort of kidnapper of juvenile actors and actresses, of the O. P. and P. S. in Russell-court;) the sanction of a Petersham; the intimacy of a Barrymore; even the polite endurance of a Skeffington to this! To be classed with the proud, the noble, and the great. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... Romanticism brought about in 1815. Like that, it in no way changed the ideas of the nation, it had no influence upon the political and social destinies of Gaul." With regard to the fondness of the ancient Gauls for histrionic and spectacular performances, we may quote M. Reinach again: "The qualities and the defects of the present inhabitants of France may all be found again among the Gaulish contemporaries of Cato and Caesar. ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... better than he did,—and high words resulted in mutual severance. Aubrey was hardly sorry when his theatrical career came thus untimely to an end. At first he had imagined it possible to become supreme in histrionic art,—one who should sway the emotions of thousands by a word, a look or a gesture,—he had meant to be the greatest Shakespearean actor of his day; and with his knowledge of French, which was as perfect as his knowledge of English, he had even foreseen ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... ended by histrionic effects in language which would have been marvellous had they ever been spoken, but which seem to be incredible to us when we know that they were arranged for publication when the affair was over. "O me wretched! O me unhappy!"[61] But these ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... They realized that they had been taken in, but it had been done so cleverly, and, as they expressed it, Inez showed herself such a splendid actress, that they wondered if she had not extraordinary histrionic abilities which could be utilized. (It remains to be seen whether anything constructive can be done by following this lead. We feel that previous psychiatrists who gave earlier an unfavorable prognosis in this case were perhaps quite right. But perhaps ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... sacred and aristocratic a mantle to fling around an obscure actress, of whose pedigree and antecedent life you know nothing, save that widowhood and penury goaded her to histrionic exhibitions of a beauty, that sometimes threatened to subject her to impertinence and insult? Put aside the infatuation which not unfrequently attacks men, who like you are rapidly descending the hill of life, approaching the stage of second childlike ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... and if possible to mislead their fellow-creatures as to their identity, was their chief aim in life. Here, the "prettiness" that in his proper person Buz deplored and abhorred came in useful. He made a charming girl, his histrionic power was considerable, and on both accounts he was much in demand at school theatricals; moreover, his voice had not yet broken, and when he desired to do so he could speak with lady-like softness ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... and with an expression of such utter ignorance of her meaning in his face as did infinite credit to his histrionic powers. ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... to right nor left, but simply at his geese, and thus the quidnuncs of the market-place and the supporters of shop-fronts were unable to catch his eye. He tried to feel like a gooseherd; and such was his histrionic quality, his instinct for the dramatic, he was a gooseherd, despite his blue Melton overcoat, his hard felt hat with the flattened top, and that opulent-curving collar which was the secret despair of the young dandies of Hillport. He had the most natural air in the ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... last month, has given a very interesting series of readings from Shakspeare, in which he has displayed not only the finest capacity for histrionic effect, but a critical sagacity, and a thorough knowledge of the greatest of the poets, which ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... city, that there was a heavy heart or an empty stomach anywhere below it. In fact, people here are so used to seeing other people in want that it no longer affects them as reality; it is merely dramatic, or hardly so lifelike as that—it is merely histrionic. It is rendered still more spectacular to the imaginations of the fortunate by the melodrama of charity they are invited to take part in by endless appeals, and their fancy is flattered by the notion that they are curing the distress they are only slightly relieving by a gift from their superfluity. ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... oppressor, stirred him now, and stirred him to such purpose that, in the end, from taking up the burden of his task reluctantly, he came to bear it zestfully and almost gladly. He was rejoiced to discover himself equipped with histrionic gifts of which he had had no suspicion hitherto, and it delighted him to ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... quality about many of these rhymes which must not be overlooked. It has long been my observation that the Negro is possessed by nature of considerable, though not as yet highly developed, histrionic ability; he takes delight in acting out in pantomime whatever he may be relating in song or story. It is not surprising, then, to find that the play-rhymes, originating from the "call" and "response," are really little dramas when presented in their proper settings. ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... engaged—engaged! unutterably ridiculous word!—to marry little Ethel Kenyon, the pretty actress at the Novelty. The respectable, wealthy, well-connected actress, moreover—the product of modern civilization: the young woman of our day who aspires to purify the drama and vindicate the claims of histrionic art—what rubbish it all is! If Ethel were a ballet-dancer, or had taken to opera bouffe, she would be much more entertaining! But her enthusiasms, and her belief in herself and her mission, along with that mignonne, provoking, pretty, little face of hers, are altogether ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... my next visitor. He is fulfilling the promise of his 'teens when he was the shining light of the Militia; was as keen a Galloper as I have had on a list which includes Winston and F.E., and, generally, gained much glory, martial, equestrian, histrionic, terpsichorean at our Militia Training Camp on Salisbury Plain in '99. Now he has mysteriously made himself (heaven knows how) into our premier authority on the Middle East and is travelling on some ultra-mysterious mission, very ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... jail sentence, her pregnancy, were nothing more than if she had taken a sip of water. However, with the imitativeness of her race and the histrionic ability of her sex, she appeared pensive and subdued during the elaborate double-ring ceremony performed by the Reverend Cleotus Haidus. Nobody in the packed church knew how tremendously Cissie's heart was beating except ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling |
