"Scenical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Antonines to the capture of Constantinople. When I read a chapter in Gibbon, I seem to be looking through a luminous haze or fog:—figures come and go, I know not how or why, all larger than life, or distorted or discoloured; nothing is real, vivid, true; all is scenical, and, as it were, exhibited by candlelight. And then to call it a History of the Decline and Fall of the ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... eminent musician. In some of the masques the devices of attire were the work of "Master Jones," as well as the invention and the architecture of the whole of the scenery. D'Israeli[58] says:—"That the moveable scenery of these masques formed as perfect a scenical illusion as any that our own age, with all its perfection and decoration, has attained to, will not be denied by those who have read the few masques that have been printed. They usually contrived ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... the sandstone hills of the Weald. In the shallow depression between the two ranges lies Dorking (23-1/4 m.). The town is pleasant but has nothing of much interest for the visitor. It is for its fine situation from a scenic point of view and as a convenient headquarters from which to explore the best of Surrey that it will be appreciated. The rebuilt parish church is imposing and stands on the site of the ancient Roman Stane Street. We leave ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... boy of the Western Union Telegraph Company—that blue uniform with metal buttons, with the corded red at the trouser sides, the flat cap fronted by a badge of nickel—unthinkable, yet there. And the speedy bearer of this scenic investiture had been the desperate, blood-letting, two-gun bad man ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... Tecle, had doubtless allowed them to dispense with much of the mystery and adventure of their intrigue; but that which was ardent, poetic, and theatrical to the Marquise's imagination had not been lost. Love alone was not sufficient for her. She needed danger, scenic effect, and pleasure heightened by terror. Once or twice, in the early time, she was reckless enough to leave her house during the night and to return before day. But she was obliged to renounce these audacious flights, finding ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... the modest Muse some pity claim, And meet indulgence—though she find not fame. Still, not for her alone, we wish respect, [i] Others appear more conscious of defect: To-night no vet'ran Roscii you behold, In all the arts of scenic action old; No COOKE, no KEMBLE, can salute you here, No SIDDONS draw the sympathetic tear; To-night you throng to witness the debut Of embryo Actors, to the Drama new: Here, then, our almost unfledg'd wings we try; Clip not our pinions, ere the ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... winding gullies by which we had climbed to this mountain tarn, and Mr. K——'s little hut and scrap of a garden and paddock gave the one touch of life, or possibility of life, to this desolate region. In spite of all scenic wet blankets we tried hard to be gay, and no one but myself would acknowledge that we found the lonely grandeur of our "rink" too much for us. We skated away perseveringly until we were both tired and hungry, when we returned ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... and becomes disgusted with the glitter of tinsel. I have visited some of the churches when in a state of preparation, when the priests, with their assistants, have fussed about as it were behind the scenes, and got the pageantry and scenic displays ready. Gilded wooden candlesticks are brought out from behind some altar or secret cupboard; a shabby, painted image of the Virgin or some other saint is produced from the sacristy, which is hastily draped in gorgeous finery, a necklace of ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... patrons had given me in the social scale. Nor in the country only did I experience this friendly feeling; most of my vacations were spent in town, at the houses of the parents of some of my schoolfellows. I was now made acquainted with the scenic glories of the stage. I fought my way through crowds of fools, to see a child perform the heroic Coriolanus, the philosophical Hamlet, and the venerable and magnificent Lear. Master Betty was at the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... to raise fruit for oneself, from a Swiss meadow measuring two square yards, surrounded by a few green trees which look as if they were borrowed from the scenic illusions of a theatre, the most rural authorities, being consulted on the point, declare that you must spend a great deal of money, and—wait five years! Vegetables dash out of the husbandman's garden to reappear at the city market. Madame ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... Islands, conquered his foes in a great battle, driving them over the high mountain peak known as Pali- -one of the famous scenic views of the world, and the goal of all ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... gave the actor a more than human stature; the poverty (according to our notions) of the scenery, which usually represented merely the front of a palace or other public place, and was often though not always unchanged during the whole performance; the total absence in fact, of anything like that scenic illusion which most managers of theatres seem now to consider as their highest achievement; the small number of the actors, two, or at most three only, being present on the stage at once,—the simplicity ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... importance. That the plot should remind one of Drury Lane successes in the past is not surprising, considering that one of the authors (who modestly places his name second on the programme, when everyone feels that it should come first) has been invariably associated with those triumphs of scenic art. AUGUSTUS DRURIOLANUS has beaten his own record, and the Million of Money so lavishly displayed behind the scenes, is likely to be rivaled by the takings in front of the Curtain—or to be more exact, at the Box-office. The Authors, in more senses than one, have carried ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... plan! (Good humoredly.) You must not all steal my thunder. By the way, Seward, your pleasant friend Judge D——, who came from New York about Col. Corcoran, told me the meaning of that phrase. It seems a Dublin stage manager got up a scenic play with thunder in it perfectly imitated by a diapason of bass drums. A rival got up another scenic play, to which, out of jealous pique, the inventor repaired as a spectator. To his surprise he heard his own invention from behind the ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... breathe our horses; and, turning, glanced at the battle beneath us, which, illumined as it was by the fierce rays of the sinking sun staining the whole scene red, looked from where we were more like some wild titanic picture than an actual hand-to-hand combat. The distinguishing scenic effect from that distance was the countless distinct flashes of light reflected from the swords and spears, otherwise the panorama was not so grand as might have been expected. The great green lap of sward in which the struggle was being fought out, the bold round outline ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... forgotten, has set sail again before the favouring breeze of the cheap edition. She wrote her sketches at Three Mile Cross, some two miles from Swallowfield, and I refer to them because in the little volume you have faithful scenic pictures of the Loddon country. I have also a personal story to tell, to wit: On returning from one of my visits to Loddon-side I secured through an old friend of Miss Mitford a note in her handwriting, and was not a little impressed and amused on discovering that the envelope in which it ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... Tillie very nearly lost her hold upon the Moonstone Drama Club. The club had decided to put on "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh," a very ambitious undertaking because of the many supers needed and the scenic difficulties of the act which took place in Andersonville Prison. The members of the club consulted together in Tillie's absence as to who should play the part of the drummer boy. It must be taken by a very young person, and village boys of that age are self-conscious and are not apt at memorizing. ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... observation-point of our Pullman car as the train winds along. Upon the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific slopes the territory is grand and broken in the extreme, and presents curious and beautiful examples of rock-scenery. The natural monoliths of the barrancas of the State of Hidalgo are strange examples of scenic geology; monumental caprice of Nature in megalithic structure, as shown by the remarkable basalt columns of the profound Gorge of Itzala. Vari-coloured lichens cover these basalt pillars, affording singular contrast of light and shade. Through the gorge a torrential stream flows, and the floor ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... Mocenigo of the golden shield, richly inlaid with the arms of Cyprus, had made a pretty scenic episode, quite worthy of ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... little town that lets the traveller either into the scenic and sporting delights of Lake Nipissing, or into the mining districts of the Timiskaming country, there was a bright little reception. North Bay is a characteristic Canadian town. It was born in a night, so to speak, and its growth outstrips editions of guide books. Outside ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... depth about the song, however, as if the scenic suggestion is only a symbol of something greater and more human, and this feeling is increased by ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... must add the other of my two Barnumite scenic memories, my having anciently admired her as the Eliza of Uncle Tom's Cabin, her swelling bust encased in a neat cotton gown and her flight across the ice-blocks of the Ohio, if I rightly remember the perilous stream, intrepidly and gracefully performed. We lived and ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... in the ever changing sea with its rich dawns and sunsets or abundance of strange animal life. It is well to have one or more hobbies if you know when to leave off riding them, and you may thus turn to account many spare moments. In the lovely meadows of the Meuse; along the historic banks of the scenic Rhine; where the warm waters of the Mediterranean lave the mountainous coast of sunny Italy; in the fertile lowlands of Belgium; or out where the Alps rear their snowy summits, we felt ourselves less alien when we could detect kinship between ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... Birdseye was always trying to obtain employment, lessons in drawing, orders for portraits, for poor foreign artists, as to the greatness of whose talent she pledged herself without reserve; but in point of fact she had not the faintest sense of the scenic or ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... were carried large triangular green banners. The silver howdahs, the flowing dresses, the glowing colours, and the majestic size of the animals which formed the most prominent part of the group, had altogether a wonderfully picturesque and scenic appearance. The strangers were invited to mount the elephants, and in a few minutes they found themselves forming part of the curious procession they had before been admiring. Thus they entered the gates of the ancient city. The houses they passed ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... crowding mass of people near by, and, beyond, alternate horn-music and singing, wild gipsy melodies. Illumination, moonlight, and evening glow, interspersed with torches through the wood; the whole might have been served, unaltered, as a great scenic effect in a romantic opera. Beside me sat the whitebearded Archbishop of Gran, primate of Hungary, in a black silk talar, with a red cape; on the other side a very amiable and elegant general of cavalry, Prince Liechtenstein. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... perfection; old Ilgen, almost the last thing he did, shed tears of joy about it. These fine outlooks received a sad shock in the Year now come; when secret grudges burst out into open flame; and Berlin, instead of scenic splendors for a Polish Majesty, was clangorous with note of preparation for imminent War. Probably Queen Sophie never had a more agitated Summer than this of 1729. We are now arrived at that thrice-famous ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... others, a motor trip out to where a plethora of such bounties as it suggested might be available; and to others less fortunate—why, there was the "Ferry" just opening to hesitant crowds, with its band stand, its scenic railway, its forty-five minutes of vaudeville that was anything but mentally exhausting. It was an eloquent morning. But ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... you said you were from the interior. But so much the better, if you've only got the journalistic grip. It will be a first impression, and first impressions are always unbiased, unprejudiced, fresh, vivid. The Loops are out on the rim of the city, near the Park,—a place of diversion. There's a scenic railway, a water toboggan slide, a concert band, a theatre, wild animals, moving pictures, and so forth and so forth. The common people go there to look at the animals and enjoy themselves, and the other people go there to enjoy themselves by watching ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... of Meeker's land in the very foothills of the Bear Paws, to the north line of the Flying U, the chain of newly-filed claims remained unbroken. It had taken some careful work upon the part of the Happy Family to do this and still choose land not absolutely worthless except from a scenic viewpoint. But they had managed it, with some bickering and a good deal of maneuvering. Also they had hauled loads of lumber from Dry Lake, wherewith to build their monotonously modest ten-by-twelve shacks with one door and one window apiece and a ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... popularity with the many is not due to those finer glimpses that are the very essence of all poetic delight to the few, but to his thousand other magnificent attractions, and above all, after his skill as a pure dramatist and master of scenic interest and situation, to the lofty or pathetic setting with which he vivifies, not the subtleties or refinements, but the commonest and most elementary traits of the commonest and most elementary human moods. The ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... lodge, I looked upon countless acres of withered, undulating grass; upon a few rank sedges; upon a score or so of decayed trees; upon a house—huge, bare, grey and massive; upon bleak walls; upon vacant, eye-like windows; upon crude, scenic inhospitality, the very magnitude of which overpowered me. I have said it was cold; but there hung over the estate of Eastover an iciness that brought with it a quickening, a sickening of the heart, and a ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... playing one night stands at the Moulin Rouge; Dr. Depew, and he not only got sent to Washington, but got a raise of wages at the Grand Central Depot; yet when I saw him the next day and delicately intimated that I was yearning to view the scenic beauty of his great four track system, his reception reminded me of the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... I know once came across a remarkable instance of it. She watched a ship-wreck, the real article, with all the scenic accessories, and when a half drowned sailor was dragged ashore she asked him how he felt at that awful moment. And what do you ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... to that, and such a method of progression, such a view from crimson cushions, would evidently have a great deal more to give. By the time the candles were lighted for supper and the short, white curtains were drawn, Milly had reappeared, and the little scenic room had then all its romance. That charm moreover was far from broken by the words in which she, without further loss of time, satisfied her patient mate. "I want ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... touched her now. A dead weight of monotony rode her hard. There was the furtive wild life of the forest, the light of sun and sky, and the banked green of the forest that masked the steep granite slopes. She appreciated beauty, craved it indeed, but she could not satisfy her being with scenic effects alone. She craved, without being wholly aware of it, or altogether admitting it to herself, some human distraction in all that ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... professional players or dancers. He enhanced, as well, the beauty and dignity of those portions of the masque in which noble lords and ladies took their parts to create, by their gorgeous costumes and artistic grouping and evolutions, a sumptuous show. On the mechanical and scenic side Jonson had an inventive and ingenious partner in Inigo Jones, the royal architect, who more than any one man raised the standard of stage representation in the England of his day. Jonson continued active in the service of the court in the writing of masques and other entertainments ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... Punic terror. The foreign goddess was honored in recognition of the service she had rendered. A temple was erected to her on the summit of the Palatine, and every year a celebration enhanced by scenic plays, the ludi Megalenses, commemorated the date of dedication of the sanctuary and the arrival ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... classic! He tells 'em confidential how Gopher is the comin' metropolis of the great West; how, "with its main boulevard laid out along the sinuous, lovely banks of the pellucid Pinto River, and its western boundaries stretching off to the sunset-tinted tops of Soup Kettle Range, it has a scenic setting unsurpassed anywhere this side of Switzerland." And when it comes to predictin' how prosperity has picked Gopher for its very own, he goes the limit. Next he tells 'em about the ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... three other authors whose books I read with interest. One of these is John Oliver Hobbes. Her books do not seem to me to be exactly natural; it is all of the nature of a scenic display. But there is abundance of nobility and even of passion; and the style is original, nervous, and full of fine aphorisms. There is a feeling of high and chivalrous courage about her characters; they breathe perhaps too lofty an air, and ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Sais; and the famous Feast of Lights was celebrated there in her honor. There were celebrated the Mysteries, in which were represented the death and subsequent restoration to life of the God Osiris, in a secret ceremony and scenic representation of his sufferings, called the Mysteries ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... between the methods of theatrical representation in Shakespeare's day and our own lay in the fact that neither scenery nor scenic costume nor women-actors were known to the Elizabethan stage. All female roles were, until the Restoration in 1660, assumed in the public theatres by men or boys. {38c} Consequently the skill needed to rouse in the audience the requisite illusions was far greater then than at later periods. ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... of Manchester have music continually going on as an attraction. Twenty-four such houses are open on Sunday evenings. Two of them received 5500 visitors per week last winter. The most innocent of the favourite haunts of the people are casinos, or music-saloons, where multitudes assemble to witness scenic representations, feats of jugglery, tumbling, &c. Twopence is paid for admission, and for this the value is given in refreshments, most frequently consisting of ginger-beer. These places are comparatively innocent, but still are far from being what ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... End. They were going to bicycle all along the south coast. But before that they would have had it out, she and Barry; probably here, in the little pale climbing fishing-town. No matter where, and no matter how; Nan cared nothing for scenic arrangements. All she had to do was to convey to Barry that she would say yes now to the question she had put off and off, let him ask it, give her answer, and ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... that these hors d'oeuvres endangered the rest of the menu. The dinner-committee, however, struggled manfully with their difficulties. They had a Churchman in the chair, and Priestley was not present. The loyalty of the diners also received due scenic warrant in the work of a local artist. The dining-hall of the hotel was "decorated with three emblematical pieces of sculpture, mixed with painting in a new style of composition. The central was a finely executed ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... our skins with scurrying, our diaphragms, which are our souls, with the thrill of curves, and straight stretches, of lifts, and drops, and sudden halts—as of elevators, merry-go-rounds, chutes, scenic railways, aeroplanes, ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... serve for entrances and exits; an easy-chair could be placed on the right, a couch at the farther end, and the table could be pushed close to the fireplace. Helene, who had risen, followed them about, as though she felt an interest in these scenic arrangements. She had now abandoned her idea of eliciting an explanation, and merely wished to make a last effort to prevent Juliette from going to the ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... bottles of coffee and a whole pail of beans and a phonograph with seven records; with recitations and pastoral merriment and kodaks snapping every two or three minutes; with groups sitting about on blankets, and once in a while some one explaining why the scenery was so scenic. Una had been anxious lest Mr. Schwirtz "pay her too marked attentions; make them as conspicuous as Mr. Starr and Miss Vincent"; for in the morning he had hung about, waiting for a game of croquet with her. But Mr. Schwirtz was equally pleasant ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... pretty, very alert, very French, these plays of the Theatre de Madame. They have aged less than many pretentious works that have aimed at immortality. There is hardly one of them without its ingenious idea, something truly scenic. We often see amateurs seeking pieces to play in the salons; let them draw from this repertory; they will have but an embarrassment of choice among plays always amusing ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... is actor as well as singer, and in this direction more—much more—is now demanded of him than formerly. But to those possessed of what is known as the Instinct of the Theatre, or Scenic Instinct, the gestures and attitudes of the operatic stage, being largely conventional, are soon acquired. Scenic accomplishments are undoubtedly necessary to the stage-singer, but his mimetic studies ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... a refreshment to Elizabeth to be with Sir Temple and Lady Dacre; that morning it was even better than being alone; they were the only ones purely spectators in the drama of struggle and suffering going on under the courtesies that were its scenic accompaniments. When they talked and jested it was out of happy hearts, at least so far as the things about them were concerned, and for this reason the strain was taken from her in their presence. She had only to be gay enough, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... Mr. Bronson Howard's 'Shenandoah,' the opening act of which ends with the firing of the shot on Sumter, there was a wide window at the back of the set, so that the spectators could see the curving flight of the bomb and its final explosion above the doomed fort. This scenic marvel had cost time and money to devise; but it was never visible after the first performance, because it drew attention to itself, as a mechanical effect, and so took off the minds of the audience from ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... National Monument, preserving forever 608,640 acres of magnificent mountains, valleys, glaciers, streams and forests, and all the wild creatures living therein and thereon. The people of the state of Washington have good reason to rejoice in the fact that their most highly-prized scenic wonderland, and the last survivors of the wapiti in that state, are now preserved for all coming time. At the same time, we congratulate Dr. Palmer on the ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... manner perfectly incomprehensible, but highly amusing and edifying. A miniature portrait of some mysterious relative or friend, seldom or ever seen, nay, indeed, a sacred memento of the dead, is highly scenic and effective in a romance. The heroine ought, by all means, to possess such; it may do good, and it can do no harm. Finally, the lady must frequently faint, be twice or thrice on the brink of the grave, undergo exquisite varieties ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... mimic rout, A crawling shape intrude! A blood-red thing that writhes from out The scenic solitude! It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs The mimes become its food, And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Hunt's translation of Grimm's "Snow-White and Rose-Red" follows. It has long been recognized as one of the most beautiful and appealing of folk tales. The scenic effects, the domestic life with its maternal and filial affection, the kindness to animals and helpfulness to each other and to those in distress, the adventures with dwarf and bear, the magic enchantment of goodness through the power of evil, and the ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... not a corner of the world which is more full of historic memories than is the West Indies. Dominica, the next island which Stuart passed after he had left Martinique, besides being one of the scenic glories of the world, described as "a tabernacle for the sun, a shrine of a thousand spires, rising tier above tier, in one exquisite fabric of green, purple and grey," has many claims to fame. Here, the cannibal ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... tended to beguile The outer sense, and shape itself as though It wore its marble hues, its pristine glow Of scenic ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... according to Admiral Smyth's testimony,[1188] outdone "as a mere sight-object" by the great comet of 1811; but what it lacked in splendour, it surely made up in grace, and variety of what we may call "scenic" effects. ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... a scenic Sabbath. Various companies about to depart for Virginia occupied the prominent churches to have their flags consecrated. The streets were resonant with the clangor of drums and trumpets. E. and myself ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... knowledge of how to serve a meal in courses. Let 'em. Let 'em carp until they're as black in the face as a German carp. For real food never yet needed any vain pomp and circumstance to make it attractive. It stands on its own merits, not on the scenic effects. When you really have something to eat you don't need to worry trying to think up the French for napkin. Perhaps there may be some among us here on this continent who, on beholding a finger-bowl for the first time, glanced down into its pellucid depths ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... buns and rooms, places and plays alike, I am quite certain that Charles Kean's productions of Shakespeare would astonish the modern critic who regards the period of my first appearance as a sort of dark-age in the scenic art of the theater. ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... disregard of the fundamental principle of art, the demand for unity. But we recognized also that this unity involves complete isolation. We annihilate beauty when we link the artistic creation with practical interests and transform the spectator into a selfishly interested bystander. The scenic background of the play is not presented in order that we decide whether we want to spend our next vacation there. The interior decoration of the rooms is not exhibited as a display for a department ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... "we are stage managers, scenic artists, stage hands, costumers, modern mutation of the Greek chorus, stays and props for the weak and timid, brakes for the overbold—in fact, we are around to do any work that nobody ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... scenery into effective use. The invention of the kerosene lamp and later the invention of gas brought enough light upon the stage to permit the actor to step back from the footlights into a wider working-space set with the rooms and streets of real life. Then with the electric light came the scenic revolution that emancipated the stage forever from enforced gloomy darkness, permitted the actor's expressive face to be seen farther back from the footlights, and made of the proscenium arch the frame ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... carnival song, a ballata, and, above all, choral passages which have in them the future melodrama of the musical Italian stage. The lyrical treatment of the fable, its capacity for brilliant and varied scenic effects, its combination of singing with action, and the whole artistic keeping of the piece, which never passes into genuine tragedy, but stays within the limits of romantic pathos, distinguish the 'Orfeo' as a typical production of Italian genius. Thus, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... ocean beach extending for three miles on its western boundary and overlooked by automobile highways. Street cars, starting at the Ferry Building, arrive at the beach after traversing residence districts and scenic routes, unfolding views of hills, forests, parks, forts, lighthouses and seals on ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood
... more into a state of unconsciousness, when, as if by magic, there was a patch of light in the sky before them, to right of the great cloud; there was a dull murmur ahead; then more light, and, as if by some rapid scenic effect, the stars paled, the sky grew grey, then pink, red, glowing ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... cities were governed according to their own laws, and had the legislative power and magistracy of autonomic states. Until the third century their municipal decree commenced with the formula, "The Senate and People of—". The theaters were not simply placed for scenic amusement, but were foci of opinion and discussion. Most of the towns were, in different ways, little commonwealths. The municipal spirit was very strong. They had lost only the power to declare war, a fatal power which made the world a field of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... the public, knowing that the works of the ancient poets have come down to us in a dead language, accessible only to the learned, without the animating accompaniment of recitation, music, ideal and truly plastic impersonation, and scenic pomp; all which, in every respect worthy of the poetry, was on the Athenian stage combined in such wonderful harmony, that if only it could be represented to our eye and ear, it would at once strike dumb the whole herd of these noisy and interested critics. The ancient statues require no commentary; ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... with people. The former were gaily decked, the latter in elegant attire; and over sea and shore rang the loud cheers of a vast and excited multitude. Few sights were ever presented to her majesty equal in scenic effect. She appeared on deck, and bowed in acknowledgment of the cheers of her people. Prince Albert next presented himself, and was received with an ardour as great as that which marked the welcome of the queen. Her majesty and the prince having retired, the people ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... strange to me that more playwrights have not profited by such examples. The cry of the average playgoer is for "action," to be sure; but even "action" may be heightened by contrast, by peace and serenity. Certainly the vitality, the illusion, of a scenic background on the stage can be enhanced by drawing a certain amount of attention to it alone; and something as Mr. Hardy, in The Return of the Native, paints Egdon Heath—"Haggard Egdon"—in its shifting moods before he introduces a single human being upon the scene of their coming tragedy, ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... is too "descriptive" and not sufficiently "monumental" to be assigned to the Timourid age, and so I give it to the late fifteenth century, to those delicious years when the old tradition, though weakened, had not been smothered under the scenic delicacies brought into fashion by Behzad. If the Timourid age is to be dubbed the Persian quattrocento, Mr. Ruck's man will pass muster as the counterpart of some artist older than Raphael, who worked independently ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... already been said in preceding pages about Puget Sound that it would seem the subject might be somewhat overdone. But it still remains to be said that justice can never be done to the scenic glories of this beautiful inland sea. The views from different points, and from almost every point on the Sound, are of sublime grandeur. On the east are the Cascade Mountains, ranging from 5,000 to 14,444 feet ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... tell me he never could cure a patient, resident there, who had become seriously unwell. A reservation of the natural grass and gum-trees between Queen and Swanston streets would have redeemed Melbourne up to the first rank of urban scenic effect, and the riotous Williams might, with entire usefulness, have subsided into a succession of ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... motor has solved many a transport problem where heavy loads are concerned, but Llanfyllin remains, perhaps, the most convenient approach to Lake Vyrnwy for the increasing number of visitors who go year by year to enjoy its scenic ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... novels, as upon the stage, this demand for minute accuracy of scenic or historical details has necessarily elicited an abundant supply; though whether the entire picture is rendered much more natural and real by an accumulation of correct particulars may be questioned. 'La recherche exageree du vrai peut conduire au faux.' It ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... and with the leafy domes and spires which everywhere enrich and soften the London outlook. Their great succession ought to culminate in the Tower, and so it does to the mind's eye, but to the body's eye, the Tower is rather histrionic than historic. It is like a scenic reproduction of itself, like a London Tower on the stage; and if ever, in a moment of Anglo-Saxon expansion, the County Council should think of selling it to Chicago, to be set up somewhere between the Illinois Central and the Lake, New York need not hopelessly envy her the purchase: ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... Then I forgot these scenic accessories in the sight of the man himself. There he sat on a stool in front of his hut, quite unattended, and wearing only a cloak of leopard skins open in front, for he was unadorned with the usual hideous trappings of a witch-doctor, such as snake-skins, human bones, bladders ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... human and historic as well as scenic interest. On many of their highest points are the barrows or graves of our British ancestors, who, could they revisit the glimpses of the moon, would find little change, for these hills have been less interfered with than any district within twice the distance from London. ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... if they are not artistic, who have been in strange places and known many nooks of the world, get the scenic habit, become open to pictorial sensation. It was as a picture or series of pictures that Jimmy Fort ever afterwards remembered his first supper at Leila's. He happened to have been all day in the open, motoring about to horse farms under a hot sun; and Leila's hock cup possessed ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... protested in the rude beginnings of articulate utterance against its hard lot. If only one could have learnt, in intimate detail, the life of this domestic serf! How interesting, and how sordidly picturesque against the background of romantic landscape, of scenic history! I looked long into her sallow, wrinkled face, trying to imagine the thoughts that ruled its expression. In some measure my efforts at kindly speech succeeded, and her "Ah, Cristo!" as she turned to go away, was not ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... understand how a mere student in a library, with no eye for facts, should take either one side or other. But how any man with clear head and honest heart, and capable of seeing realities, and distinguishing them from scenic falsehoods, should, after living in a Romanist country, and especially at Rome, be inclined to side with Leo against Luther, I cannot ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... a thousand times described, and is well worthy of it. Lying as it does in a long curve with the whole town visible from the sea, as the houses grow fewer and fewer upon the slopes of the lofty mountain background, it is curiously theatrical and scenic in effect. It is artistically arranged, well-placed; a brilliant jewel in a dark-green setting, and the sea ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... water, timber, hydropower potential, scenic beauty, small deposits of lignite, copper, cobalt, ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... troops to the groves of Versailles, and confided to us unarmed citizens the preservation of order and property from the insurgents whom he left in possession of our forts and cannon. I felt spellbound by the interest of the sinistoe melodrame, with its quick succession of scenic effects and the metropolis of the world for its stage. Taught by experience, I did not aspire to be an actor; and even as a spectator, I took care neither to hiss nor applaud. Imitating your happy England, I observed a strict neutrality; and, safe myself from danger, left my best friends ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in, and its darkness was only relieved by the wan lamps that vista'd the streets, and a few dim stars that struggled through the reeking haze that curtained the great city. Aram had now gained one of the bridges 'that arch the royal Thames,' and, in no time dead to scenic attraction, he there paused for a moment, and looked along the dark river ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... one of the most scenic of the peaks in the Rocky Mountains, but it is probably the most rugged. From our starting-place it was seven miles to the top; five of these miles may be ridden, but the last two are so steep and craggy that one must go on ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... know? Who found it first? Nobody can answer those questions. But one great truth about white explorations on this Continent you must know—there was not one great pass, not one great river, not one great natural scenic feature, which was not known to one or more Indian tribes centuries before the white men came. So after all, we as explorers are not so much. Fremont was not much of an explorer, much as you reverence ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... was an occasion for great rejoicing. A competition for the best decorated dining hut was held. Materials were not easily available and the ingenuity of the officers was taxed to the utmost. One company commander had a scenic artist among his men and he managed to secure an ample supply of paint. Others telegraphed to England for table decorations and some things could be bought in Arras. One sergeant-major borrowed bed sheets from some lady friend and these served as table cloths. The ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... for several minutes, as some scenic preparation was necessary before her first dance. Gay French music was playing, and people chattered through it, or laughed in high Parisian voices. A blue haze of smoke hung suspended like a thin veil, and the ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... kneel the shepherds and kings in adoration; and above, God the Father is seen surrounded by clouds of cherubs and angels playing on instruments, as in the early pictures of Raphael. In the background is a scenic representation of a pastoral landscape, on which all the skill of the scene-painter is expended. Shepherds guard their flocks far away, reposing under palm-trees or standing on green slopes which glow in the sunshine. The distances and perspective are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... met, Fate's unrelenting hand Already grasped the devastating brand; Slow crept the silent flame, ensnared its prize, Then burst resistless to the astonished skies. The glowing walls, disrobed of scenic pride, In trembling conflict stemmed the burning tide, Till crackling, blazing, rocking to its fall, Down rushed the thundering roof, ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... enough about it.... BUT I can see that something is DISTURBING him.... He is very obstinate in little things, lately.... When we get into Cashmere perhaps his mind will be diverted.... He loves the languid charm of scenic beauty nearly as much as the flattery of his wife.... Anyway, WHAT can I do?... There is a naturalness about this whole affair that one simply CAN'T get away from.... Danger has a generous way of bestowing ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... is as a symbol, not as a scenic effect, that in each case the chiaroscuro is given. Holbein, I said, is at the head of the painter-reformers, and his Dance of Death is the most energetic and telling of all the forms given, in this epoch, to the Rationalist spirit of reform, ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... floor. Everything even yet looks so immodest on those vast stretches. The clumps of trees stand out in such a bold brazen fashion. The houses appear as though stuck on to the landscape. Even an honest brown cow can not manage to melt herself into the endless stretch of prairies. In fact, the little scenic accidents of trees and hollows, which mean fruit and flowers, are ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... functions. After many rehearsals a play was announced, and the entire population turned out in force. The play was given in Deacon Thomas's parlor, because that had a rear room opening into it that could be used as a stage, but one scenic touch in the stage property doomed the aspiring artists to defeat and the ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... on stone horses, guarded the entrance. Farther on, a pair of men-at-arms in bass-relief challenged us; and near these were posted two living sentries, in European costume, but without shoes. On the left was a pavilion for theatrical entertainments, one entire wall being covered with scenic pictures. On the right of this stood the palace of the Prime Minister, displaying a semicircular facade; in the background a range of buildings of considerable extent, comprising the lodgings of his numerous ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... highland area far greater in extent than all of Switzerland, a virgin field for explorers and mountaineers. He who would master unattained summits, explore unknown rivers, or traverse untrodden glaciers in a region whose scenic beauties are hardly equalled, has not to seek them in South America or Central Asia, for generations will pass before the possibilities of the Alaskan Range are exhausted. But this is not Switzerland, with its hotels, railways, ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... Beaucaire," which he published in August, 1793. He wrote it in the intervals of some regimental work which had come to hand: and his passage through the little town of Beaucaire seems to have suggested the scenic setting of this little dialogue. It purports to record a discussion between an officer—Buonaparte himself—two merchants of Marseilles, and citizens of Nimes and Montpellier. It urges the need of united action under the lead of the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... was not intended for the stage, and, as if to sever it as widely as possible from all scenic associations, Count Krasinski makes no use of the terms 'scenes' or 'acts.' This omission gives a somewhat singular appearance to what is, in fact, a drama; the translator has, however, remained faithful throughout to the original form. As ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... rank, were dressed in military style—that is to say, in a quantity of stuffs, turbans, helmets, and breastplates. The height of some of the helmets was most embarrassing to the wearers. The entire equipment appeared more appropriate for scenic effect than suitable for a battlefield. But, in any case, it added to the grandeur of the display, and the warriors did not fail to show themselves with a view to the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... a moving panoramic view, gliding before their eyes for an hour together, in all the scenic splendour of Drury Lane, or Covent Garden, could give them an idea of it. They could only see one side at a time. The change, the contrast, the ceaseless variety of beauty, as you skim from side to side, the liquid smoothness of the broad mirror ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... style became dominant in the latter 18th century, particularly in England and France, and was also exported to America. While it is difficult to estimate the degree of Jackson's influence in this development, we know that no scenic papers can be dated before the Ricci prints, or before Jackson's ...
— John Baptist Jackson - 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut • Jacob Kainen
... deeper content induced a new method of narration. Indeed the stories themselves were too well known to need a full rehearsal of the plot. Action might frequently be assumed as known and relegated to a significant line or two here and there. The scenic setting, the individual traits of the heroes and heroines, their mental struggles, their silent doubts and hesitations, became the chief concern of the new poets. Horace called this the "purple-patch" method ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... can no longer count upon the Leonids [as the meteorites of 1833 were called, because they seemed to fall from a point in the constellation of Leo]. Their glory, for scenic ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... fairly gone, Lady Matilda seemed to feel like a person suddenly relieved from the nightmare; and she was beginning to give a fair specimen of her scenic powers when Lady Emily, seeing the game was up with Mrs. Downe Wright, abruptly rose ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... had the fulfillment of a great desire in his small, active mind. This was nothing less than a ride on the American scenic railroad, which had secured a concession in a far corner of the park. Hedwig's lieutenant had described it to him—how one was taken in a small car to a dizzy height, and then turned loose on a track which dropped giddily and rose again, which hurled one through sheet-iron tunnels of incredible ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... feeds the lake," he said. "It rushes down from the higher mountains, and here we have a beautiful waterfall. Nature has neglected nothing in preparing our happy valley, providing not only comfort and security but scenic beauty ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... old tree with a saint roosting in it, is similarly decorated, or a pole with a very diminutive saint enshrined aloft in a sort of sacred pigeon-house. Not that we are deficient in such decoration in the town here, for, over at the church yonder, outside the building, is a scenic representation of the Crucifixion, built up with old bricks and stones, and made out with painted canvas and wooden figures: the whole surmounting the dusty skull of some holy personage (perhaps), shut up behind a little ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... a glowing account of his journey through the west, dwelling at considerable length on his enjoyment of the scenic routes. As they wound upward through the canyon, he grew ecstatic over the wild beauty and rugged grandeur extending in every direction, and when they finally drew rein before the long, low boarding house, nestling at the foot of the mountain, with its rustic, vine-covered porch, and surrounded ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... from the passage of Gellius below, we learn that Plautus lost in foreign trade the money he had made as an assistant to scenic artists, and had to work for his living in a flour mill at Rome, during which time he wrote plays, and continued to ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... been acted more than once, and by different groups of people; sometimes on a stage equipped with footlights, curtain, and scenery; sometimes with barely any of these aids. Practical suggestions as to costumes, scenery, and some simple scenic effects will be found at the ...
— The Christmas Dinner • Shepherd Knapp
... all but extinct,—"all ashes save the tip that holds a spark," but that still glowing with undiminished soul. The material fabric which enshrines this fine essence of the Christian spirit is of the frailest; and the contrast is carried out in the scenic setting,—the dim cool cavern, with its shadowy depth and faint glimmerings of day, the hushed voices, the ragged herbage, and the glory in the face of the passing saint within; without, the hard dazzling glare of the desert noon, and the burning blue, and the ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... medley of shouted jibes and current witticisms went with it. The tonneau squirmed with uproarious youth. The revolving extra seats swung erratically, propelled by energetic hands, while some one barked the stereotyped invitation to the deserted scenic swing, and some one else shouted to the revolving occupants to keep their heads level, and all the ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... duties and recreations the soldier was often brought into touch with other features of the world about him—the points of scenic interest and the Indian villages. From the wooden lookout tower near the commanding officer's quarters a glimpse of ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... over these hills, although it took us from seven in the morning until nine o'clock at night to complete the journey, was anything but tiring to the human physique. Around and beyond, Nature spread herself in a delightful panorama of scenic beauty— ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... writers who imagine that fine subjects make fine works. Either the great writer leaves such materials untouched, or he employs them as the vehicle of more cherished, because more authenticated tidings,—he paints the ruin of an empire as the scenic background for his picture of the distress of two simple hearts. The inferior writer, because he lays no emphasis on authenticity, cannot understand this avoidance of imposing themes. Condemned by naive incapacity to be a reporter, and not a seer, he hopes to shine by the reflected ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... to the Imperium, and, entering by the stage door, found Charles in excited converse with the scenic artist, Mr Smithson, who was looking at a drawing and scratching his ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan |
