"Comedian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nevertheless owes, as do all French fiction writers since 1830—Stendhal alone excepted—his literary existence to Balzac; Balzac, from whom all blessings, all evils, flow in the domain of the novel; Balzac, realist, idealist, symbolist, naturalist, humourist, tragedian, comedian, aristocrat, bourgeois, poet, and cleric; Balzac, truly the Shakespeare of France. The Human Comedy attracted the synthetic brain of Zola as he often tells us (see L'Oeuvre, where Sandoz, the novelist, Zola himself, ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... a former actor who has fallen, Luke says: "Stop drinking, pull yourself together and be patient. You will be cured, and you will begin a new existence...." And he succeeds in awakening a hope of a better life in the soul of the poor comedian, while he himself, perhaps, hardly believes in the possible regeneration ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... irresponsible low comedian of the chessboard. "He is a very uncertain, sneaking, and demoralizing rascal," says an American writer. "He can only move two squares, but makes up in the quality of his locomotion for its quantity, for he can spring ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... "Or from yo' low-comedian mammy. It's all right, son—you just sound a bit bookish sometimes, that's all. Want some help ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... annoyance, and taking off his soft hat he began to beat it impatiently against his leg as he walked. "Why shouldn't she take me seriously?" he demanded sharply. "Am I a comedian, a clown, a jack-in-the-box? Why shouldn't she? You Creoles! I have no patience with you! Am I always to be regarded as a feature of an amusing programme? I hope Mrs. Pontellier does take me seriously. I hope she has discernment enough ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... mate. Thank God he had kept himself free for her. But ere he could pour out his soul, the bouncing San Franciscan actress appeared suddenly at his elbow, risking a last desperate assault, discharging a pathetic tale of a comedian with a cold. Rozenoffski repelled the attack savagely, but before he could exhaust the enemy's volubility his red-haired companion had given him a friendly nod and smile, and retreated ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... most women would have done) turn away from you and try to escape, but came closer, as it were, with a deprecating, clinging appeal to be spared, to be protected. Her attitude was perpetually a sort of prayer for assistance, for explanation; and yet no woman in the world could have been less of a comedian. From the moment you were kind to her she depended on you absolutely; her self-consciousness dropped from her and she took the greatest intimacy, the innocent intimacy which was the only thing she could conceive, for granted. She told me she did not know ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... offered in the purer French tragedy, where it is very rare, or perhaps unexampled, for the author to place before the reader suffering nature, and where generally, on the contrary, it is only the poet who warms up and declaims, or the comedian who struts about on stilts. The icy tone of declamation extinguishes all nature here, and the French tragedians, with their superstitious worship of decorum, make it quite impossible for them to paint ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... said the Princess, "I see only one way to put to the proof the statements of the Duke de Morlay-La-Branche and Count Albert, and that is to ask the Darbois family to dinner. Afterwards, Albert must undertake to persuade this adorable little comedian to reveal her ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... conception; but then, the Formes Figaro was 'developed from the depths of his subjective moral consciousness,' whereas the Figaro of a Southern European is the thing itself—like Charles Mathews playing the part of Charles Mathews, or like the Greek comedian's imitation of a pig's voice, by pinching a veritable pork-let, which he bore concealed within ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... with laughter when he asked for a bun? People asked for buns every day—people in railway refreshment rooms, in aerated bread shops. Where was the joke? A month later I found myself by chance occupying the seat just behind him at the pantomime. The low comedian was bathing a baby, and tears of merriment were rolling down his cheeks. To me the whole business seemed painful and revolting. We were being asked to find delight in the spectacle of a father—scouring down an infant of tender years with a scrubbing-brush. ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... the Comedian says, So many Men, so many Minds, and every Man has his own Way; yet no Body can make me believe, there is more Variety in Mens Dispositions, than there is in their Palates: So that you can scarce find two that love ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... at Drury Lane he played in James Miller's version of Voltaire's Mahomet the part of Zaphna, which he had studied under Garrick. The Palmira of the cast was Mrs Robinson ("Perdita"). Bannister was the best low comedian of his day. As manager of Drury Lane (1802) he was no less successful. He retired in 1815 and died on the 7th of November 1836. He never gave up his taste for painting, and Gainsborough, Morland and Rowlandson ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... sublime to the ridiculous, it is not even a step from the absurd to the ludicrous and amusing. The professional wit or joker is never so richly amusing as the man who is utterly unconscious that he is in the least funny, while heroically in earnest. The professed comedian never furnishes so much amusement as the would-be heroic tragedian, who, like the Count Joannes, furnishes uproarious merriment ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various
... it was called; it was a "musical comedy"; and evidently exactly what the public wanted, for the house was crowded to the doors. The leading comedian was said by the papers to be receiving a salary of a thousand dollars a week. He held the center of the stage, clad in the costume of a lieutenant of marines, and winked and grinned, and performed antics, and sang songs of no doubtful significance, and emitted a fusillade of cynical ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... Goldfinch in this piece, has not been seen on the stage for many a long day; nor, except in A Quiet Rubber, do I remember Mr. HARE having had anything like this particular chance of displaying his rare skill as a genuine comedian ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... the spectators, and at the same time prevent a reaction of misery when the excitement was over. Tragedies deep and dire were the chief favourites. Comedy brought with it too great a contrast to the inner despair: when such were attempted, it was not unfrequent for a comedian, in the midst of the laughter occasioned by his disporportioned buffoonery, to find a word or thought in his part that jarred with his own sense of wretchedness, and burst from mimic merriment into sobs and tears, while the spectators, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... objects, which he believed would be best served by taking a small chair and sitting on it astride, close to Claude's bed. An easy, fraternal air was maintained by the effect of the pipe still hanging by its curved stem from the corner of his mouth. He began to think highly of himself as a comedian. ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... towards patriotism; that he who, in the common intercourse of life, showed he regarded somebody besides himself, when he came to act in a public situation, might probably consult some other interest than his own. Never may we become plus sages que les sages, as the French comedian has happily expressed it, wiser than all the wise and good men who have lived before us. It was their wish, to see public and private virtues, not dissonant and jarring, and mutually destructive, but harmoniously combined, growing out of one ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... am aware that the traditional hero is always armed, and that Hotchkiss as the low comedian should have had a revolver that missed fire. As a fact, we had nothing of the sort. Hotchkiss carried the fire tongs, but my sense of humor was too strong for me; ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... manager of the theatre, was an ex-comedian, a wideawake, genial fellow, who had got rid of his illusions and nourished no exaggerated hopes. He loved peace, books and women. Nanteuil had every reason to speak well of Pradel, and she referred to him without any feeling of ill will, and with ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... had an exhibition of a Missouri crowd. The sidewalk has been fringed with curious gazers waiting to catch a glimpse of the General. Foote, the comedian, said, that, until he landed on the quays at Dublin, he never knew what the London beggars did with their old clothes. One should go to Missouri to see what the New-York beggars do with their old ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... in the centre of a knot of men who began eagerly to press me for further particulars of the Amalgamated subscriptions. We all know the story of the comedian informed in the midst of a performance of his beloved wife's death, who yet must laugh and antic to the end of the play. I appreciated the heavy-hearted actor's plight as I surveyed the little throng ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... and though many of the parts were distasteful to her she got through them successfully, while now and then she had one which she thoroughly enjoyed. Her Tilly Slowboy was a hit, and a proud girl was Christie when Kent, the comedian, congratulated her on it, and told her he had seldom seen ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... drama," invented and named by Dion Boucicault; by the resuscitation of the spectacle play, with its lavish tinsel and calcium glare and its multitudinous nymphs; by the opera bouffe, with its frequent licentious ribaldry; by the music-hall comedian, with his vulgar realism; and by the idiotic burlesque; with its futile babble and its big-limbed, half-naked girls. Nevertheless there are just as good actors now living as have ever lived, and there is just as fine a sense of dramatic art in the community as ever existed in any of "the palmy ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... type—long-haired, spectacled, outrageously garbed and involved in the mental abstraction of his philosophical race. One hand was occupied with the manipulation of a pipe, as markedly Teutonic as its owner; the other grasped a carpet-bag that would have ensured an opening laugh to any low comedian. ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... "is regarded by people as the acme of intelligence and refinement, and they pay homage to her. Napoleon Bonaparte was despised by all as long as he was great, but now that he has become a wretched comedian the Emperor Francis wants to offer him his daughter in an illegal marriage. The Spaniards, through the Catholic clergy, offer praise to God for their victory over the French on the fourteenth of June, and the French, also through ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... could ask any more questions a shrill voice, at its highest pitch of excitement, called her away. Zo had just discovered the most amusing bird in the Gardens—the low comedian of the feathered race—otherwise known ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... a man consents to play the part which du Tillet had allotted to Roguin, he develops the talents of a comedian; he has the eye of a lynx and the penetration of a seer; he magnetizes his dupe. The notary had seen Birotteau some time before Birotteau had caught sight of him; when the perfumer did see him, Roguin held out ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... here is a Presentment against one Charles Macklin, Comedian, of the Theatre Royal ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin
... genius, will eagerly collect little contemporary volumes which seem trash to other amateurs. For example, to a student of Moliere, it is a happy chance to come across "La Carte du Royaume des Pretieuses"—(The map of the kingdom of the "Precieuses")—written the year before the comedian brought out his famous play "Les Precieuses Ridicules." This geographical tract appeared in the very "Recueil des Pieces Choisies," whose authors Magdelon, in the play, was expecting to entertain, when Mascarille made his appearance. There is a faculty which Horace ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... described as a comedian, was bound over in L5 for six months under the rug, the property ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... Fate is a comedian; and when later I learned how I had lain strapped to my bed, and, so near to me, Bristol had hung helpless as a butchered carcass in the office of the Congo Fibre Company, whilst, in our absence from the stage, the ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... (first one of the little eyasses who competed with regular actors, and then himself an actor and playwright); Green's "Tu Quoque" or The City Gallant, attributed to the actor Cook, and deriving its odd first title from a well-known comedian of the time, and the catchword which he had to utter in the play itself; The Hog hath Lost his Pearl, a play on the name of a usurer whose daughter is married against his will, by Taylor; The Heir and The Old Couple, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... Emmanuel's sentiments were wrapped. No matter what may be said, or what may be done, there exists a wonderful magnetism whose effects never deceive. The tones of the voice, the glance, the passionate gestures of a lover may be imitated; a young girl can be deluded by a clever comedian; but to succeed, the man must be alone in the field. If the young girl has another soul beside her whose pulses vibrate in unison with hers, she is able to distinguish the expressions of a true love. Emmanuel, like Marguerite, felt the influence of the ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... describes CHARLIE CHAPLIN as being an amusing companion in private life. We always suspect a popular comedian ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... her eyes as they went through the enchanted doorway and up the rising empty foyer toward the house. It was nine o'clock; the performance was fairly under way. Norma rustled into a seat beside her companion without moving her eyes from the coloured comedian on the stage; she could remove hat and gloves and jacket without ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... at his credulity; he laughed readily and was not fond of sulking. Nor must we forget that this preeminent tragedian was a perfect comedian, and that this fact entitled him to true enjoyment of the humorous side of life. Have I not somewhere read: "Beware of those who ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... by the following anecdote. Raphael Smith, the engraver, had employed him for years on works from which he engraved, and by which he made large sums of money. He called one day with Bannister the comedian to look at a picture which was upon the easel. Smith was satisfied with the artist's progress, and said, "I shall now proceed on my morning ride." "Stay a moment," said Morland, laying down his brush, "and I will go ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... scream with delight as Sultan shook his sleepy head. To dip the tip of the cat's tail into the water and mimic the scrubbing of the floor was an everyday pastime. In addition to being an engineer and a comedian the bird was also a high tragedian. In the cool of the evening upon the going down of the sun the cat and the bird would set out together to the accustomed stage. Baal Burra burrowing through the long grass, painfully slow and cheeping ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... counsel has the hooded moon Put in thy heart, my shyly sweet, Of Love in ancient plenilune, Glory and stars beneath his feet— A sage that is but kith and kin With the comedian Capuchin? ...
— Chamber Music • James Joyce
... about and made inquiries of friends who were supposed to know, and finally submitted to the company a certain screaming farce, entitled, After You! with—so the description informed him—two funny old gentlemen, one low comedian, two funny old ladies, and one maid-of- all-work, besides a few walking gentlemen and others. It sounded promising, and a perusal of the piece showed that it was very amusing. I cannot describe it, but ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... celebrated French comedian, usually passed the summer at his villa of Auteuil, which is pleasantly situated at the entrance of the Bois de Boulogne. Here he took delight in assembling under his roof the most eminent geniuses of the age; especially Chapelle, Racine, Moliere, and La Fontaine. Racine the ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... the absolute value of conventional signs. As to the grossness of the trap into which he fell, the explanation must be that two sentiments of such absorbing magnitude cannot exist simultaneously in one heart. The danger of that other and unconscious comedian robbed him of his vision, of his perspicacity, of his judgment. Indeed, it did at first rob him of his self-possession. But he regained that through the necessity—as it appeared to him imperiously—to ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... and wisdom, the word which comprehends most of the truth of the matter. And it is delivered in that generous and loyal spirit which nobody would have appreciated more than the free-hearted Diderot himself. The drift of Goethe's contention is, in fact, the thesis of Diderot's Paradox on the Comedian. But the state of painting in France—and Goethe admits it—may have called for a line of criticism which was an exaggeration of what Diderot, if he had been in Goethe's neutral position, would have ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... power, who is, however, best remembered as the originator of the style of theatrical entertainment which may be described as the "At Home" performance, in which he probably never had a rival. Many of us can still remember his yet more gifted son, the younger Charles Mathews, the incomparable light comedian of a later day. ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... and miserable Abbe Liszt! Strange and unnatural fusion of traits the most noble and the most mean! One can scarcely say which was the stronger in you, the grand seigneur or the base comedian. For in your work they are equally, inextricably commingled. In your art it is the actor who thrones it in the palace hall, the great lord of music who struts and capers on the boards of the itinerant ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... The following advertisement appeared in Nos. 20 and 22: "Mr. Cave Underhill, the famous comedian in the reigns of Charles II., King James II., King William and Queen Mary, and her present Majesty Queen Anne; but now not able to perform so often as heretofore in the playhouse, and having had losses to the value of near L2500, is to have the tragedy of 'Hamlet' ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... of Lady Dilke's evenings was the production of French comedies by M. Brasseur, the celebrated comedian, and father of the well-known actor of the present day. At all times in Sir Charles Dilke's life his house was a great meeting-place for those who loved and knew France ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... ill-proportioned. Neither was Mr. Monk ill at ease or ungraceful in his actions. Clothed in that extravagantly correct costume—correct, at least, for a drawing-room, if never for motoring—he had all the appearance of a comedian fresh from the hands of his dresser. One naturally expected of him mere grotesqueries—and found simply the courteous demeanour of a gentleman of the world. So much for externals. But what more? Nature herself had cast Mr. Monk in the very ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... our capture of a position I shall shortly have occasion to describe—we made the acquaintance of a French "born comedian," who was a tower of strength at our entertainments, and who in various other ways was a cause of constant amusement. He had been left behind by his regiment, and we found him hanging around the place. It had been his home, and it seemed that the magnet ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... Playhouse CHARLES DARLING has been lately at his very best. Dropping in there last week, during the performance of a new farce, entitled Romney's Rum 'Un, I was again fascinated by the inexhaustible wit and allusive badinage of this great little comedian, beside whose ready gagging GEORGE GRAVES himself is inarticulate. Had not GEORGE ROBEY invented for application to himself the descriptive phrase, "The Prime Minister of Mirth," it should be at once affixed to the Law Courts' fun-maker; but, since it is too late to use that, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... in the Champion do not appear to have received any direct response from Cibber. But they were reprinted in a rambling production issued from "Curll's chaste press" in 1740, and entitled the Tryal of Colley Cibber, Comedian, &c. At the end of this there is a short address to "the Self-dubb'd Captain Hercules Vinegar, alias Buffoon," to the effect that "the malevolent Flings exhibited by him and his Man Ralph," have been faithfully reproduced. Then comes the following ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... secret love,) he even brought out his earliest pieces under others' names. He appeared for the first time without this disguise with the Knights, and here he displayed the undaunted resolution of a comedian, by an open assault on popular opinion. His object was nothing less than the overthrow of Cleon, who, after the death of Pericles, was at the head of all state affairs, a promoter of war, and a worthless man of very ordinary abilities, but at the same time the idol of an ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... you are a comedian by instinct, and will probably live to be an ornament to the theatrical profession; but it is my duty to repress premature manifestations of ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... austerity of his penitential life. Though he travelled into several countries, he always lived in the same poverty, mortification, and recollection. In a certain town, commiserating the spiritual blindness of an idolater, who was also a comedian, he sold himself to him for twenty pieces of money. His only sustenance in this servitude was bread and water. He acquitted himself at the same time of every duty belonging to his condition with the utmost diligence and fidelity, joining with his labor assiduous prayer and meditation. Having ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... Ton, or High Life above Stairs, by Garrick. He made King the comedian a present of this farce, and it was acted for the first time on his benefit-a little earlier in the month. Murphy's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... more them is set down for them:] Shakespeare alludes to a custom of his time, when the clown, or low comedian, as he would now be called, addressing the audience during the play, entered into a contest of raillery and sarcasm with such spectators as chose to ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... is so closely associated with English political and diplomatic history, also died within the month. During the following month, the antiquary, Gaily Knight, and General Sir Henry Clinton, G.C.B., were among the celebrities who passed away. In the month of March, the decease of Mr. Liston, the comedian, attracted public notice. In June, Haydon, the celebrated painter, died by his own hand, impelled by want. He had frequently been indebted to the generous-hearted liberality of Sir Robert and Lady Peel for aid, and the last assistance ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the next who, however truly he may have been a humorist, is described here rather as a man of fashion. A man of fashion he certainly was, but is best known in our literature as a comedian,—worshipping that comic Muse to whom Thackeray hesitates to introduce his audience, because she is not only merry but shameless also. Congreve's muse was about as bad as any muse that ever misbehaved herself,—and I think, as little amusing. "Reading ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... asserted in the next century that Shakespeare 'did act exceedingly well.' {43c} But the roles in which he distinguished himself are imperfectly recorded. Few surviving documents refer directly to performances by him. At Christmas 1594 he joined the popular actors William Kemp, the chief comedian of the day, and Richard Burbage, the greatest tragic actor, in 'two several comedies or interludes' which were acted on St. Stephen's Day and on Innocents' Day (December 27 and 28) at Greenwich Palace before ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... that part of it had been changed back again into the first act of a drama by Mr. Hubert O'Grady, the well-known Irish comedian. ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... decency must be held up to shock a crowd in Willis's Rooms, yet it had been but common generosity to tell the whole truth. Then the story of Fielding's Voyage to Lisbon might have touched the heart to sympathy even for the purely fictitious low comedian whom Thackeray presented: and Sterne's latest letters might have infused so much pity into the polite audience that they, like his own Recording Angel, might have blotted out his faults with a tear. But that was not Thackeray's way. Charlotte Bronte found "a finished taste and ease" in the Lectures, ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... his signature. If he had been permitted to remain until the close of his season, he would have earned enough, with what he had already, to attain the independence which was his aim and hope. His best friends in London were Charles Reade, Tom Hood, Tom Robertson, the dramatist, Charles Mathews, the comedian, Tom Taylor and Arthur Sketchley. He did not meet Mr. Dickens, though Mr. Andrew Haliday, Dickens' familiar, was also his intimate. He was much persecuted by lion hunters, and therefore had to keep his lodgings something of ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... considered, and not without reason, that her talents and exertions were inadequately compensated by a salary of ten thousand florins. The gay society of that Residenz will sensibly feel the loss of the accomplished and fascinating comedian, who has accepted an engagement at Vienna, on the more suitable terms of fifteen thousand florins, with two months' conge, and other advantages. Before proceeding to ravish the eyes and cars of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... ejaculation, 'making mouths at the invisible event.' But the times are fast improving; and if the process of sanctity begun under the happy auspices of the present licenser go on to its completion, it will be as necessary for a comedian to give an account of his faith as of his conduct. Fawcett must study the five points; and Dicky Suett, if he were alive, would have had to rub up his catechism. Already the effects of it begin to appear. A celebrated performer has thought fit to oblige the world with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... great talkers think small matter of themselves? He had a slave, a Greek, named Zosimus, of whom he writes to his friend Paulinus, who had an estate at Frejus: "He is a person of great worth, diligent in his services, and well skilled in literature; but his chief talent is that of a comedian. He pronounces with great judgment, propriety, and gracefulness; he has a very good hand too upon the lyre, and performs with more skill than is necessary for one of his profession. To this I must add, he reads history, oratory, ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... satisfied with the representation. I informed you that when I had time I would jot down my complaints, and I am now keeping my promise. I don't like the costume of the Tragedy Queen—her heels are too high and why does she wear gloves? The Low Comedian does not make the most of his part. He has to walk about with a band-box. Now why does he not seize the opportunity to place it on a chair and sit upon it? This would have a very comical effect. I have seen it done, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 12, 1891 • Various
... Grattles, executing a grimace after the fashion of a favourite comedian; 'he ain't a tart, oh, no—'es a pie, 'e are, a special, a muttony special; 'e don't kill no kittings and call 'em sheep, oh, no; 'e don't buy chicory and calls it coffee, blest if 'e does; 'e's a corker, 'e are, and 'is name ain't ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... heavy-jawed, middle-aged fellow, of foreign appearance, with coarse, gruff voice; three representatives of the gentler sex; a child of eight, exact species unknown, wrapped up like a mummy; and four males. Beyond doubt the most notable member of the troupe was the comedian "star," Mr. T. Macready Lane, whose well-known cognomen must even now awaken happy histrionic memories throughout the western circuit. The long night's ride from their previous stand, involving as it did two changes of trains, had proven exceedingly wearisome; and the young ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... down with a barely-smothered groan. He was beginning to realize the tragedy upon which he had stumbled. A comic singer followed, who in a dress suit several sizes too large for him gave an imitation of a popular Irish comedian. Then the curtain went up and the professor was seen, standing in front of the curtain and bowing solemnly to a somewhat unresponsive audience. A minute later Beatrice came quietly in and sat by his side. There was nothing new about the show. Tavernake had ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... with sweet wine and snow; the snow most certainly I shall charge to your account, as it melted away. There were olives, beetroots, gourds, onions, and a hundred other dainties. You would also have heard a comedian, or the reading of a poem or a lute-player, or even if you had liked, all three, such was my liberality. But luxurious delicacies and Spanish dancing girls at some other house were more to your taste. I shall have my revenge of you, depend upon it, but I won't say how. Indeed, it ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... offstage; orchestra. theatrical costume, theatrical properties. movie studio, back lot, on location. part, role, character, dramatis personae [Lat.]; repertoire. actor, thespian, player; method actor; stage player, strolling player; stager, performer; mime, mimer^; artists; comedian, tragedian; tragedienne, Roscius; star, movie star, star of stage and screen, superstar, idol, sex symbol; supporting actor, supporting cast; ham, hamfatter [Slang]; masker^. pantomimist, clown harlequin, buffo^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... d'Orsay," says Charles James Mathews, the famous comedian, who knew him well, "was the beau-ideal of manly dignity and grace. He was the model of all that could be conceived of noble demeanour and youthful candour; handsome beyond all question; accomplished to the last degree; highly educated, and of great literary ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... more particularly if he is in earnest," said Lady Fermanagh gravely. "No man likes being laughed at, except when he is appearing on the stage as a comedian. A man in love is particularly sensitive to ridicule. I wonder how many murders have been committed in Spain as a result of girls inducing men to make fools ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... annals of the American stage the season of 1826 is remembered for the first appearance of the three great actors Edwin Forrest, Macready and James H. Hackett, the American comedian. The same year saw the first appearance of Paulding's "Three Wise Men of Gotham," and Cooper's "Last ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... out of the kitchen door to meet a raddle-faced actor in the middle of the night. 'Tis, indeed, a circumstance to stagger human credulity. Oh, believe me, madam, for a virtuous woman the back garden is not a fitting approach to the altar, nor is a comedian an appropriate companion there at eleven o'clock ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... interrupted by the King, who, in the most affable manner, observed that his general imitations were excellent, and such as no one who had ever seen the characters could fail to recognise; but he thought the comedian's portrait of John Kemble somewhat too boisterous.—"He is an old friend, and I might add, tutor of mine," observed his Majesty: "when I was Prince of Wales he often favoured me with his company. I will give you an imitation of John Kemble," said the good-humoured ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... matter? You look as sad as a low comedian by daylight!" Previous to this salutation came a ringing slap on the ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... in 1848 that the famous comedian, William Farren, having realized a handsome fortune as an actor, essayed to lose a considerable portion of his wealth by becoming a manager. He succeeded in the last-named enterprise quite as completely as he had done in the other: ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... "Gaiety," with an elderly General of Life Guards, a Mistress of the Robes, and the grandfather of the Central American Ambassador at the Court of St. James, and all four of them were smiling at a neat little low comedian, who was singing, without any voice and with the utmost precision, a pathetic romance entitled, "De ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... adored "La Belle Lucerce," the fascinating Snake Charmer, and somewhere in the background the artiste had a husband. Little the audience suspected the passion that devoured their grotesque comedian while he cut his capers and turned love to ridicule; little they divined the pathos of a situation which condemned him behind the scenes to whisper the most sentimental assurances of devotion when disfigured by ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... 428-347; the tradition, in itself probable, is that he wrote poetry when a very young man). Thirty-two epigrams in the Anthology are ascribed, some doubtfully, to one Plato or another; a few of obviously late date to a somewhat mythical PLATO JUNIOR ({o Neoteros}), and one to PLATO THE COMEDIAN (fl. 428-389), the contemporary and rival of Aristophanes. In a note to i. 5 in this selection something is said as to the authenticity of the epigrams ascribed to the great Plato [omitted in this text—JB.] He was included in the /Garland/ of ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... draped, as to its florid frame, with a silken scarf, which testified to the candour of Greville Fane's bad taste. It made him look like an unsuccessful tragedian; but it was not a thing to trust. He may have been a successful comedian. Of the two children the girl was the elder, and struck me in all her younger years as singularly colourless. She was only very long, like an undecipherable letter. It was not till Mrs. Stormer came back from a protracted residence abroad that Ethel ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James
... matter by one who, to the knowledge required, adds taste and discernment. That a liking or preference is sometimes mistaken for the aptitude and gifts necessary for the successful carrying out of certain work, is too well known to be even questioned. It is the constantly recurring case of the low comedian who wishes to play Hamlet. A young tenor whose great vocal and physical advantages made him an ideal Duke in Rigoletto, a fascinating Almaviva in Il Barbiere, found but little enjoyment in life because ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... dialect, to make yourself understood. Money only doesn't have to talk German at the city hall. That is transferred without being translated. The mayor of the town talks, in his public addresses, a lingo that would make the fortune of a vaudeville comedian of the Dutch Daly stripe; and his son, who is his secretary, has the physiognomical symptoms of intellectuality that you might expect in a dude who eats with his knife, or any Brummel of "the bad lands." The lower branch of the municipal legislature is a bedlam. Its ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... discussed than the decadence of the drama, or the engagements, merits, and adventures of the performers. Neither the Lord Chancellor nor the Archbishop of Canterbury is ever so familiarly known by name and person to the public, as the first tragedian and comedian of the day; and the theatrical belles and heroines are either elevated to the peerage by matrimony, or lowered by the undertaker into Westminster Abbey. As some French Vaudevillist observed, "Moliere was denied in France the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 531, Saturday, January 28, 1832. • Various
... the nursery of the topical song. There, by lantern or candle-stump, wit Rabelaisian, Aristophanic or Antarctic was cradled into rhyme. From there, behind the scenes, the comedian in full dress could step before the footlights into salvoes of savage applause. "A Pair of Unconventional Cooks are we, are we," and the famous refrain, "There he is, that's him," were long ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... comedy, with Miss Farren and the late Mr. Henderson. My first appearance in Palmira (in "Mahomet") was with the Zaphna of Mr. J. Bannister, the preceding year; and though the extraordinary comic powers of this excellent actor and amiable man have established his reputation as a comedian, his first essay in tragedy was considered as a night of the most distinguished promise. The Duchess of Devonshire still honoured me with her patronage and friendship, and I also possessed the esteem of several respectable ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... inflicted on a Mayor of Paris by a deluded and barbarous multitude. The work was modestly submitted to the actor Lanoue, who, although he bestowed flattering encouragement on Bailly, dissuaded him frankly from exposing Clothaire to the risk of a public representation. On the advice of the comedian-author, the young poet took Iphygenia in Tauris for the subject of his second composition. Such was his ardour, that by the end of three months, he had already written the last line of the fifth act of his new tragedy, and hastened to Passy, ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... dagger as you might be sure he would, and informing himself in a growling soliloquy that his heart is consumed with envy and hate because he is not captain. The captain, one Issachar, comes in, a superbly handsome young fellow, named Mario, to my thinking the first comedian in Spain, dressed in a flashy suit of leopard hides, and announces the arrival of a stranger. Enters Demas, who says he hates the world and would fain drink its foul blood. He is made politely welcome. No! he will be captain or nothing. Issachar laughs scornfully and says ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... police force there?" queried the comedian; "for if there be you can hand me my divvy right now. Tie the Gem up to the first rock we come to and put me ashore. No ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... could almost feel the electric current running between the audience and the comedian who, with the quiet deliberation of the finished artist, was going through his business on the stage. As he made each of his carefully studied points, he paused, confident of the vast rustle of laughter swelling into a hurricane of applause which ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... Newburgh Hamilton was? He wrote two pieces in my library, viz. (1.) Petticoat Plotter, a farce in two acts; acted at Drury Lane and Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, 1720, 12mo. This has been mutilated by Henry Ward, a York comedian, and actually printed by him as his own production, in the collection of plays and poems going under his name, published in 1745, 8vo., a copy of which I purchased at Nassau's sale, many years ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 68, February 15, 1851 • Various
... spell of my singular acquaintance lost much of its potency, and already I found myself doubting the story of Dr. Kreener and Tcheriapin. Indeed, I began to laugh at myself, conceiving that I had fallen into the hands of some comedian who was making sport of me; although why such a person should visit Malay ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... always conscientious even in his mirth, at the end of the Second Act, is suggestive of the Astley's of the Westminster Road. Like the piece, he is very well mounted. Madame AMADI is also excellent, a genuine lady-comedian—or should it be comedienne? Then there is Mr. JOSEPH TAPLEY, a capital tenor, and Mr. HAYDEN COFFIN, silver-voiced and graceful, the beau ideal of the hero of a Light Opera company. For the rest, the chorus and band could not be better, and the production is worthy of DRURIOLANUS, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 6, 1890 • Various
... accordingly strolled about in that neighbourhood. She came bravely enough to the showy entrance way, with the polished and begilded lobby, set with framed pictures out of the current attraction, leading up to the quiet box-office, but she could get no further. A noted comic opera comedian was holding forth that week, and the air of distinction and prosperity overawed her. She could not imagine that there would be anything in such a lofty sphere for her. She almost trembled at the audacity which might have carried her on to a terrible ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... averring the passage of smoke in the nasal canals to the head through a screen of ethmoids, since he straightened himself, threw his head back, and moved toward the middle of the altar with such pompousness and gravity that Capitan Tiago found him more majestic than the Chinese comedian of the night before, even though the latter had been dressed as an emperor, paint-bedaubed, with beribboned sword, stiff beard like a horse's mane, and high-soled slippers. "Undoubtedly," so his thoughts ran, "a single curate of ours has more ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... period of the republic, was the comedian, whom all Rome admired for his talents. The great esteemed and loved him for his morals. AEsop, the tragedian, was his contemporary. Horace, in the epistle to Augustus, has mentioned them both with their proper and ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... flakes, there grew upon the wall a tall, gaunt figure with gleaming eyes and teeth. Chocolat paid it the highest compliment. He gave a wild howl and fled into the night. Then in quick succession, while the Frenchmen applauded each swift stroke, appeared the faces of the song writer, the comedian, the wounded man, and the commanding officer. It was a real triumph, but the surprises of the evening were not at an end. McCutcheon had but just resumed his seat when the newly finished rear wall of the mess-hall ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... appears to have retired from the stage. Dame Mary Slingsby, widow, from St. Mary's parish, was buried in old St. Pancras graveyard, 1 March, 1694. Careless historians and critics even now continually confuse Mrs. Mary Lee, Lady Slingsby, with Mrs. Elizabeth Leigh, the wife of the celebrated comedian, Antony Leigh. The two actresses must be carefully distinguished. Geneste curiously enough gives a very incomplete list of Lady Slingsby's roles, a selection only, as he allows; he makes several bad mistakes as to dates, and entirely fails to appreciate the merits and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... a regular night of it. You see, sir, I pointed out to him that this was a matter of the utmost urgency—not merely a question of finding an antidote, but also of distributing it methodically and broadcast. After it's been invented or made or procured, or whatever's got to be done, some comedian in the Quartermaster-General's show will insist on the result being packed up in receptacles warranted rot-proof against everything that the mind of man can conceive till the Day of Judgment—you know the absurd way those sort of people go on, sir—and all that will take ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... After exchanging salutations the chief gravely stroked his beard, and gave vent to a few polite expressions of welcome. To these Sheikh Abdul Qadir vouchsafed no reply beyond a grunt. The chief glanced at Shah Sowar, and that excellent comedian, assuming the ashamed look of one disgraced by his master's rudeness, at once made a long-winded and complimentary reply in the most fluent and high-flown Persian. Then, before the effect should be lost, he ordered in tea, ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... IBSEN'S plays to be performed, Ghosts for example, or Hedda Gabler, no doubt most of the dialogue would be given right at the back of the stage, out of ear-shot of the audience. In ordinary dramas the Villain who may have to use strong language, or in farce the Eccentric Comedian who frequently has to utter more or less playfully a meaningless "big big D," would by Imperial command be compelled to "retire up" to deliver himself of the expletive, and then would have to "come down to the front" and continue the stage-business. But, not satisfied with merely giving the ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891 • Various
... dialect, is unfortunately so associated with the coarse and the farcical—Lowell's little poem of "'Zekel's Courtship" being the single exception—that it seems hardly adapted to the simple and tender fancies of Hebel. Like the comedian whose one serious attempt at tragic acting was greeted with roars of laughter, as an admirable burlesque, the reader might, in such a case, persist in seeing fun where ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... He had asked her to come to the pergola for flowers, and she had refused. Then a few minutes later she had accepted a similar invitation from that stupid young Roland. Kenneth was obliged to admit to himself that young Roland did not look stupid just at present, for he had some talent as a comedian, and was acting the part of a funny Chinaman with success. But that didn't make any difference to Kenneth, and he looked reproachfully at Patty, as she accepted the flowers and gay compliments ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... The great comedian in pictorial art forms one of the subjects of Mrs. Hall's sketches, in the Pilgrimages to English Shrines, and we think her article upon visiting his tomb as interesting as any ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... "Whatcher, me Old Brown Son!" "With me old Hambone," "William the Conqueror," "Standard Bread." If you are sad, you will feel better. If you are suicidal, you will throw the poison away, and you will not be the first man whose life has been saved by a low comedian. You may wonder why this eulogy of food in all these songs. The explanation is simple. In the old days, the music-hall was just a drinking den, and all the jolly songs were in praise of drink. Now that all modern halls are unlicensed, ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... an engraved tablet, but, from being prefect of the Guard, became emperor, Justin was still not without merit as a ruler. He educated his nephew, Justinian I. (527-565), and made him his successor. Justinian married Theodora, who had been a comedian and a courtesan, and was famous for her beauty. She was the daughter of Acacius, who had had the care of the wild beasts maintained by one of the factions of the circus. She joined the blues, and it was her brave ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... action of the knees, the futurist briskly entered the room with all the easy confidence of a famous comedian following on the heels of a chorus announcing his arrival. He looked particularly long and cadaverous in an abrupt, sporting-artistic, blue jacket, with sleeves so short that when he waved his arms (which he did with almost every sentence) he reminded one ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... bale in the corner that I had taken for a new carpet. "I've had a good few to choose from," he said. "I fancy this one is about the best. My leading low-comedian writes all his own lyrics—extraordinarily adequate ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various
... when he was at table with others, he used to sit there in silence, drumming on the cloth with his fork. He seldom joked. He was hardly ever playful. People said he was too dignified, too solemn. Well! one isn't apt to be a comedian, precisely, with toothache. He was only twenty-two when he began having his teeth pulled, they tortured him so; and he kept on losing them, painfully, ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... was eaten in morbid silence, with painful and fitful efforts to appear interested in each other. Walking to the theatre, they once took the wrong turning and had to ask the way. At the stage door they smiled painfully, nodded, glad to part. Hubert went up to Montague Ford's room. He found the comedian on a low stool, seated before a low table covered with brushes and cosmetics, in front of a ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... were his opinions, they were founded on 'principle', and with the exception of the two above alluded to, he ought never to be accused of changing. Some years since, the late Charles Matthews, the comedian, (or rather, as Coleridge used to observe, "the comic poet acting his own poems,") showed me an autograph letter from Mr. Wordsworth to Matthews' brother, (who was at that time educating for the bar) and with whom he corresponded. In this letter he ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... of a comedian was but lightly esteemed in France at this period. Moliere experienced the inconveniences resulting from this circumstance, even after his splendid literary career had given him undoubted claims to consideration. Most of our readers no doubt, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... move an audience of Guichen to mirth. Then he had been concerned to draw tears; to-day it was his business to provoke laughter. There was a difference, and yet there was a parallel. Then as now he had been a comedian; and the part that he had played then was, when you came to think of it, akin to the part he was to play this evening. For what had he been at Rennes but a sort of Scaramouche—the little skirmisher, the astute intriguer, spattering the seed of trouble with a sly hand? The only difference ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... The poor girl—she was not much more—looked so miserable, and had just looked so absurd! It must have been such a humiliation to know that one had called on one's rival got up like a comedian—a singer of comic songs ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... (as it was Aristotle's) that both self-praise and self-blame spring from the same root of vanity and foolishness. "As for boasting, it is," he said, "so ridiculous a weakness that it is hissed down by even the vulgar crowd. Its one fitting place is in the mouth of a swaggering comedian. In like manner words of contempt spoken of ourselves by ourselves, unless they are absolutely heartfelt and come from a mind thoroughly convinced of the fact of its own misery, are truly the very acme of pride, and a flower of the most subtle vanity; for it rarely happens that he who ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... corner, but so as we could see more than some strangers; besides," says she, "it was all our conversation for several days in the family, and what one did not observe another did." "Why," says I to her, "this was no Persian dress; only, I suppose your lady was some French comedian, that is to say, a stage Amazon, that put on a counterfeit dress to please the company, such as they used in the play of Tamerlane at ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... his pleistocene lineage, and because of his popularity (the comedian is always the more popular candidate), and because he had started the discussion, he was voted to ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... condemned the King for a supposed intention of defending an authority transmitted to him through whole ages, and recently sanctioned by the voice of the people, did not scruple to excite a civil war in defence of their six months' sovereignty over a republic, proclaimed by a ferocious comedian, and certainly without the assent of the nation. Had the ill-fated Monarch dared thus to trifle with the lives of his subjects, he might have saved ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... Talien, who was playing Don Guritan, he made a hash of it every minute. His comprehension of the role was quite erroneous. Victor Hugo explained it to him clearly and intelligently. Talien was a well-intentioned comedian, a hard worker, always conscientious, but as stupid as a goose. What he did not understand at first he never understood. As long as he lived he would never understand. But, as he was straightforward and loyal, ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... going along O.K. without much news to write about. Sarah Bernhart the French comedian was in Rockford Friday and come out to give the boys a treat and for some reason another the most of the boys fell all over their self trying to get up close to her and get her to smile at them. Well Al everybody to their own taste but from what I seen of ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner
... manner, and dialect peculiar to the character, and which he assumes with so much truth and fidelity, those unacquainted with the province or its inhabitants see merely the abstract idea, the beau ideal of a Yorkshireman. But to those who are intimate with both, the action and manner of the comedian almost necessarily recall the idea of some individual native (altogether unknown probably to the performer) to whom his exterior and manners bear a casual resemblance. We are therefore on the whole inclined to ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... the last century, a comedian of the name of Griffin, celebrated for his talents as a mimic, was employed by a comic author to imitate the personal peculiarities of the celebrated Dr. Woodward, whom he intended to be introduced in a comedy as Dr. Fossil. The mimic, dressed as a countryman, waited ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... that she laughed on hearing this. She was unaware of her ground for laughing: It was the laugh of the tragic comedian. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Punch to undermine the reputation of our leading statesmen. On the contrary, nothing popularises like genial ridicule; and of this Aristophanes was well aware. But the same characteristics of the god which suggested the friendly burlesque of the comedian were also those which provoked the indignation and the disgust of more serious minds. The poet Pindar, for example, after referring to the story of a battle, in which it was said gods had fought against gods, breaks out into protest against a legend so little creditable to the divine ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... to see the Temple of Luxor at sunset, we gave it the afternoon, as if condescending to do it a favour. When I remembered how I had meant to linger here week after week, I felt that I was paying a big price for my share of the Mountain of the Golden Pyramid, making a knock-about comedian of myself, rushing through halls of history followed by a procession of tourists, as a comet tears past the best worth seeing stars, obediently followed by its tail. Still, I had Brigit and Monny as bright ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... liable to pass him by without seeing him. Can we doubt that this Pantaloon had come from the Italian theatre, after what we have already said? Does not this confirm the conjecture, that there existed an intercourse between the Italian theatre and our own? Further, Tarleton, the comedian, celebrated for his "Extemporal wit," was the writer or inventor of one of these "Platts." Stow records of one of our actors that "he had a quick, delicate, refined Extemporal wit." And Howes, the ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... there was a very good comedian who prided himself on being perfectly 'classic.' To be classic in France is to be elegantly conventional. No actress can be really kissed according to classic rules; the lips must be faintly smacked about ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... supposed to have been directed toward her salon. Moliere himself disclaims all intention of attacking the true precieuse; but the world is not given to fine discrimination, and the true suffers from the blow aimed at the false. This brilliant comedian, whose manners were not of the choicest, was more at home in the lax and epicurean world of Ninon and Mme. de la Sabliere—a world which naturally did not find the decorum of the precieuses at all to its taste; the witticism ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... written by Messrs. Bennet and Toleken, of Cork, and was first sung by them at a masquerade in 1814. It was afterwards lengthened for Webbe, the comedian, who ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer |
