"Actress" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to Barbarossa, Aruck Barber, J.T., the painter Barff, Mr., Lord Byron's letters to, on the Greek cause Barlow, Joel, character of his 'Columbiad' Barnes, Thomas, esq. Barry, Mr., the banker of Genoa Bartley, George, the comedian ——, Mrs., the actress Bartolini, the sculptor, his bust of Lord Byron Bartorini, princess, her monument at Bologna Bath, Lord Byron at 'Bath Guide,' Anstey's Baths of Penelope, Lord Byron's visit to 'Baviad and Maeviad,' extinguishment of the Delia Cruscans by the Bay of Biscay Bayes, Mr., caricature ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... under the Empire, was essentially political. An imaginary resemblance between la chaste Suzanne and Marie Antoinette caused the prohibition of that drama; and the interest which Cambaceres took in an actress of this establishment led him to give it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... said he would. I can't quite believe yet that I am to sing the Princess. I may be able to manage the songs, but I can't act. I imagine Mignon would make a better actress ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... proud, and could not, therefore, with any reasonableness, pray for humility. In society one must needs be cynical and mildly wicked: in Bohemia orthodoxly unorthodox. I remember my mother expostulating with a friend, an actress, who had left a devoted husband and eloped with a disagreeable, ugly, little low comedian (I am speaking ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the year was the least happy she had ever spent. She repeatedly alarmed her mother by broaching projects of becoming a hospital nurse, a public singer, or an actress. These projects led to some desultory studies. In order to qualify herself as a nurse she read a handbook of physiology, which Mrs. Wylie thought so improper a subject for a young lady that she went in tears to beg Mrs. Jansenius to remonstrate with her unruly girl. Mrs. Jansenius, ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... brother-in-law who is the old woman, poor dear! You see, Mr. Vernon, I've been running round the world for five and twenty years, and I've kept my eyes open. And when I was of an age to be silly, the man I was silly about had your coloured eyes. He married an actress, poor fellow,—or rather, she married him, before he could say 'knife.' That's the sort of thing that'll happen to you, unless you're uncommonly careful. So that's settled. You give me your word not to try ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... our hero's flirtations had consequences with a very pronounced bearing on his after career. During a surreptitious visit to the theatre he became captivated with the actress, Marietta Valserra. Stolen visits of two minutes duration to Marietta's lodging on the fourth floor of an old house behind the theatre were an agreeable variation of the monotony of Fabrice's clerical duties, and of his visits among the most important and least entertaining families in Parma. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... ability, whose name is still remembered by novel-readers, is Mrs. Inchbald. She was overcome in early life by an enthusiasm for the stage; ran away from home to find theatrical employment, and remained for many years a popular London actress. Although possessed of great and durable beauty, and the object of constant attention from aristocratic admirers, it is believed that her reputation continued unsullied. Her poverty, largely caused by a worthless husband, obliged her to perform ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... figure was tall and superb and her carriage stately without any stiffness, and appalling though she was as Lady Macbeth or Meg Merrilies, in our little drawing-room she was only simple, sincere, gentle, and winning. Born actress though she was, her horizon was by no means restricted to things histrionic; she talked well on many subjects, and was at no loss for means to entertain even so small and inexperienced a person as ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... at an end, a new exhibition was commenced, in which ten or twelve women took a part, and which our gentlemen compared to blind man’s buff. A circle being formed, and a boy despatched to look out at the door of the hut, Iligliuk, still the principal actress, placed herself in the centre, and after making a variety of guttural noises for about half a minute, shut her eyes, and ran about till she had taken hold of one of the others, whose business it then became to take ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... Moliere, aged forty, was married to the actress Armande Bejart, whose age was half his own—a disastrous union, which caused him inexpressible anxiety and unhappiness. In L'Ecole des Femmes of the same year he is wiser than he had shown himself in actual life. Arnolphe would train a model ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... I just mean—why, take Harrietta alone. It's deadly. A Thackeray miss, all black silk mitts and white cotton stockings. Long ago, in the beginning, I thought of shortening it. But Harriet Fuller sounds like a school-teacher, doesn't it? And Hattie Fuller makes me think, somehow, of a burlesque actress. You know. 'Hattie Fuller ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... were at the outset peculiarly silent. There was no untimely motion or change of expression, and yet no trying passiveness. The girl gave any position a look of unconsciousness quite wonderful. Privately, Lennox was convinced that she was an actress from habit—that her ease was the result of life-long practice. Sometimes he found his own consciousness of her steady gaze almost unbearable. He always turned to meet her deep eyes fixed upon him with an expression he could not fathom. Frequently he thought it an expression of dislike—of ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... quality, not a quantity; the fact that a person is in front of the public eye (very often a blind eye) is no indication of true greatness. If it was, then of necessity every Prime Minister would be a great man, every revue actress would be a great woman, every ordinary person would ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... fearing that she would die of grief, told Martialis to inform her secretly that he was alive and well and in hiding, and to beg her not to relax her show of grief, but to keep up the farce. And she did so with the genius of a professional actress, but yearning to see her husband she visited him by night, and returned without being noticed, and for six or seven months she lived with him this underground life. And she disguised him by changing his dress, and cutting off his beard, and re-arranging ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... crowded with company of every description. A troop of young girls and boys, dressed in theatrical habits, welcomed us in a pantomimical dance. The invention was novel; animation and grace attended their every movement. Before the dance was quite concluded the principal actress, who represented a queen, stopped suddenly, as if arrested by an invisible arm. Herself and those around her were motionless. The music ceased. The assembly was silent. Not a breath was to be heard, and the queen stood with her eyes fixed on the ground in deep abstraction. On a sudden she ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... father; you'll only make things worse," sighed Sam's mother, plaintively; but in her heart laughter gurgled like a spring. To the gift of diplomacy Mrs. Norris was fast adding the art of being an actress. "If you go there Sam'll set the dog on you. I know he will, from the way ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... were she utterly unknown, she would still be a center of attraction in any assemblage. Had she not been born to a crown she would almost certainly have made a great name for herself, probably as an actress. She paints exceptionally well and has written several successful books and stories, thereby following the example of her famous predecessor on the Rumanian throne, Queen Elizabeth, better known as Carmen Sylva. She speaks English like an Englishwoman, as well she may, for she is a granddaughter ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... end of an hour and a half spend in just such senseless chatter, Birotteau attempted to get away, seeing that the late commercial traveller was about to relate the adventure of a republican deputy of Marseilles, in love with a certain actress then playing the part of la belle Arsene, who, on one occasion, was hissed by a royalist crowd in ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... eyes to bear on them—(when I say 'once on paper' that is just what I mean and no more, for after the sad revising begins they do leave their mark, distinctly or less so according to circumstances). Well, Miss Cushman, the new American actress (clever and truthful-looking) was talking of a new novel by the Dane Andersen, he of the 'Improvisatore,' which will reach us, it should seem, in translation, via America—she had looked over two or three proofs of the work in the press, and Chorley was ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... was to hear the "cannibal" Laulii describe her sorrows. She is singularly pretty and sweet, her training reflects wonderful credit on her husband; and when she began to describe to us—to act to us, in the tone of an actress walking through a rehearsal—the whole bearing of her angry guests; indicating the really tragic notes when they came in, so that Fanny and I were ashamed to laugh, and touching off the merely ludicrous with infinite tact and sly humour; showing, in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from me to spend a fortune upon an actress,' said his lordship. 'I ave spent a fortune, but, thank heaven, ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... high art of inciting himself to work by repeatedly soliciting the most beautiful and most interesting persons of the time to sit to him. The lovely face of Kitty Fisher was painted by him five times, and no less frequently that of the charming actress, Mrs. Abington, who was also noted for her bel esprit, and was evidently a favorite with the great painter. There are two or three pictures of Mrs. Siddons by his hand, and many of the beautiful Maria Countess ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... the player, the woman! The actress good at her art Must needs look well to each glance and tone, must ...
— The Path of Dreams - Poems • Leigh Gordon Giltner
... general, but an altogether peculiar insight-giving passion to which, in this if in no other instance, he would be stupid not to yield. He obeys its concrete singularity, not the bare abstract feature in it of being a 'desire.' His situation is as particular as that of an actress who resolves that it is best for her to marry and leave the stage, of a priest who becomes secular, of a politician who abandons public life. What sensible man would seek to refute the concrete decisions of such ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... probably the finest actress and stool-pigeon in the whole detective world of graft and crookedness—lighted a cigarette at the ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... I promised an actress to write her a play, With herself, of course, in the leading part, With abundance of bathos paraded as pathos, And a gallery death of a broken heart— It's a capital plan, I find, to try To arrange a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various
... once a light flashed from an upper window in response to Charlotte's knock and ring. Anderson himself had been in New York that night with Henry Edgecomb to the theatre. A celebrated play was on, in which a celebrated actress figured, and the two had taken one of their rather infrequent excursions. Consequently, Anderson had not been in the house more than an hour, and during that hour had been writing some letters which he wished to get off ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Edinburgh and its neighbourhood had abstained from the theatre because it gave offence, yet the more remote clergymen, when occasionally in town, had almost universally attended the play-house. It is remarkable that in the year 1784, when the great actress Mrs. Siddons first appeared in Edinburgh, during the sitting of the General Assembly, that court was obliged to fix all its important business for the alternate days when she did not act, as all the younger members, clergy as well as laity, took their stations ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... seldom read so convincing a word-picture of that removed and esoteric existence. The title (not too happy) means the world beyond the theatre, that which so many players count well lost for the compensations of applause and fame; and the story is of a young and phenomenally successful actress, Jess Yeo, in whom the claims of domesticity and the love of her dramatist husband are shown in conflict with the attractions of West-End stardom and photographs in the illustrated papers. Eventually—but I suppose I can hardly tell that without ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... to Fouquet. He had some months before said to Mdlle. du Pare, who was an actress in Moliere's company, which had come to Rouen, and who was, from her grand airs, nicknamed by the others ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... introduced to Madame Desforets?' cried Langham, surprised this time quite out of discretion. Catherine looked at him with anxiety. The reputation of the black-eyed little French actress, who had been for a year or two the idol of the theatrical public of Paris and London, had reached even to her, and the tone of ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... answered, are rather tired perhaps of our brilliancies of theorising. I hear that an actress played Hamlet for the fourhundredandeighth time last night in Dublin. Vining held that the prince was a woman. Has no-one made him out to be an Irishman? Judge Barton, I believe, is searching for some clues. He swears (His Highness not ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... son, I believe, and he was an interested party, though not the chief actor of the story. The chief actor, I suppose I should say actress, was Martha Bennett. You ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... I object when you go on like an actress and sing stuff of that kind. Where in the world did you pick up the Chanson du Colonel? It isn't a ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... green boxes,' said he, 'I perceive Mrs. Fishwife, the actress. She should have played in the comedy we are come to see, but threw up her part from scruples of conscience. It was not sufficiently refined for her exquisite sensibility; it wounded her feelings, offended her morals, and outraged her modesty. Yet in the Green-room, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the 21st of April 1814. When she was three-and-twenty, she inherited practically the whole of the immense wealth of her grandfather Thomas Coutts (approaching two millions sterling, a fabulous sum in those days), by the will of the duchess of St Albans, who, as the actress Henrietta Mellon, had been his second wife and had been left it on his death in 1821. Miss Burdett then took the name of Coutts in addition to her own. "The faymale heiress, Miss Anjaley Coutts," as the author of the Ingoldsby ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... no means assuaged the inner fires. While she was washing the breakfast dishes the other two were discussing Mrs. Lee's hair. Grandmother insisted that it was a wig, as play-actresses always wore them and Mrs. Lee was undoubtedly a play-actress. ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... Mrs. John Drew, had the same quiet methods as Mrs. Alfred Wigan. Everything that she did told. I saw Mrs. Drew play Mrs. Malaprop, and it was a lesson to people who overact. Her daughter, Georgie Drew, Ethel Barrymore's mother, was also a charming actress. Maurice Barrymore was a brilliantly clever actor. Little Ethel, as I still call her, though she is a big "star," is carrying on the family traditions. She ought to play Lady Teazle. She may take it from me that she would make ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... not asses write critiques? Do not apes play comedy? Could there be a greater actress Than Batavia ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... The actress who is to represent the youngest of the pages wears thin silk which clings closely and is pale-blue, and has heraldic lilies of the palest gold woven into it. This and as much lace as can possibly be employed are the most distinctive feature of ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... their way up the steps in crowds. The band suddenly strikes up, the harlequin and columbine set the example, reels are formed in less than no time, the Roman heroes place their arms a-kimbo, and dance with considerable agility; and the leading tragic actress, and the gentleman who enacts the 'swell' in the pantomime, foot it to perfection. 'All in to begin,' shouts the manager, when no more people can be induced to 'come for'erd,' and away rush the leading members of the company to do the dreadful ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... it would be idle to enumerate them. There is the kind of woman that "has a career," using this term neither sarcastically nor flatteringly. The successful artist of whatever sort—painter, musician, actress—has usually been quite spoiled for domesticity by the reward of money and adulation given her. Nowhere is the lack of proportion of our society so well demonstrated as in the hysterical praise given to this kind of woman, and naturally she cannot consent to the subordination and seclusion ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... partner in the empire. Justin survived this step but four months, and in the same year Justinian was proclaimed sole emperor, and crowned along with his wife, the famous Theodora, whom, despite her more than dubious antecedents as an actress, he had raised to the position as his wife. Justinian on his accession was in his forty-fifth year. His reign, which extends over thirty-eight years, is the most brilliant in the history of the late empire. Although himself without the taste or the capacity for ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... an actress in this part utter such a cry as is described above, but there is absolutely nothing in the text to justify her rendering. Even the exclamation 'O, ho!' found in the Quartos at IV. v. 33, but omitted in the Folios and by almost all modern editors, coming as it does after the stanza, 'He is dead ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... dramas, (such as Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet) were played in Paris by an English company, and their effect upon Berlioz was overwhelming. He would wander about the streets raving of Shakespeare; he promptly fell in love with the most beautiful actress in the troupe—Henrietta Smithson, whom he later married[226]—and then began the frenzied period of composing and concert giving, which came to a climax in the Fantastic Symphony first performed in 1830. Berlioz's courage and perseverance are shown by his ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... was not so bad as that of a friend of mine, a doctor. He married a leading actress, and was known ever afterwards ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... everything they did could be done better, and burned to do it. The part of Almeria she soon dismissed from her thoughts, as mere milk-and-water; but she saw that in that of Zara there was a stream of lava, though dulled and crusted over by the coldness of the actress, which might be made to sweep all before it. Her critical dissatisfaction with the personation became, at last, little short of torture; there was an involuntary lowering of her dark brows, a scornful quiver of her spirited nostril, she bit her lip with angry impatience, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... in the same sad case to-day. It is much harder for a Frenchman to sound the depths of Shakespeare than for an Englishman to feel the delicacy and originality of La Fontaine or Moliere. Our two poets are rich continents; Shakespeare is a world. But the play of the actors, above all of the actress, the succession of the scenes, the pantomime and the accent of the voices, meant more to me, and filled me a thousand times more with Shakespearean ideas and passion than the text of my colorless and unfaithful ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... table learnt that Miss Fancy was illustrious in the press of the United States as having been engaged to be married more often than any other actress. Yet she had never got as far as the altar, though once she had reached the church-door—only to be swept away from it by a cyclone which unhappily finished off the bridegroom. (What grey and tedious existences Eve and Sissie had led!) Her penultimate engagement had been to ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... of many obscure performers have become eminent: but there are very few instances in which the descendant of a considerable actor or actress has been distinguished. To take instances within recent recollection, or of the present day, for example—Mr. Elliston has a son upon the stage: with none of the striking talent of the father. Mr. Henry Siddons, the son of Mrs. Siddons, was a very bad actor indeed. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... has constant discomfort and constant danger; some of her companions are certain to be coarse—and a brutal actor whose professional vanity prevents him from understanding his own brutality is among the most horrible of living creatures. After a lady has made her mark as an actress, she can secure admirable lodging at good hotels; but a poor girl with a pound per week must put up with such squalor as only actors can fittingly describe. Amid all this the girl is left to take care of herself—observe that point. A little child is taken care of; whereas the ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... Miss Louisa's brother, supposing him to be exactly of her modelling. I think I see him appear before her; she seated in state, on a chair raised on four tressels and two old doors, like a strolling actress mimicking a queen in a barn! He dressed in black; his hair smugly curled; his face and his shoes shining; his white handkerchief in his right hand; a prayer book, or the morals of Epictetus in his left; not interlarding his discourse with French or Italian phrases, but ready with a ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... it is formed, fashioned, and finished in the cleverest style of tailor-made, to Miss Raleigh's charming personality. One must hail Mr. Laurence as chief of our sartorial playwrights. No actress ever boasted a neater fit. Can you not picture him, all nice little enthusiasms and dainty devices, bustling about his fair patroness, tape in hand, mouth bristling with pins, smoothing out a wrinkle here, adjusting a line there, achieving his little chef d'oeuvre of perfect tailoring? ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... to the chart of the dining-saloon, one of them should be occupied by a "Miss Rutledge of New York" and the other by "A. Carleton Heathcroft of London." Miss Rutledge we had not seen at all. Our table steward informed us that the lady was "hindisposed" and confined to her room. She was an actress, he added. Hephzy, whose New England training had imbued her with the conviction that all people connected with the stage must be highly undesirable as acquaintances, was quite satisfied. "Of course I'm sorry she isn't well," she confided ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the tone and treatment. If I could but write one central scene in this vein, all the rest of the Romance would readily arrange itself around that nucleus. The begging-girl would be another American character; the actress too; the caravan people. It must ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... General David Poe, the American revolutionary patriot and friend of Lafayette, had married Mrs. Hopkins, an English actress, and, the match meeting with parental disapproval, had himself taken to the stage as a profession. Notwithstanding Mrs. Poe's beauty and talent the young couple had a sorry struggle for existence. When Edgar, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... actress at the Odeon who plays Macduff in Macbeth? Dugueret? She would like to have the role of Nathalie in Mont- reveche. She will be recommended to you by Girardin, Dumas and me. I saw her yesterday in Faustine, in which she showed talent. ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... devoured him. Then one evening he stepped somewhat feebly from the train in New York, crawled into a cab, and drove to No. 127 Mulberry Street. The cabman helped him up the steps and handed him in the door to a brisk old woman, who must have been an actress in her day; for she gave a screech at the sight of him, and threw her arms about him crying out, so that the cabman heard, "Artie, alanna, back from the dead, back from the dead, acushla machree." Then the door closed, and Arthur Dillon was alone with his ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... mosaics of St. Vitale at Ravenna as presenting rich gifts to that church—there is embroidered work along the border, showing the Adoration of the Magi. Theodora pia was one among the many rles played by that all-accomplished actress; but this seems to have been after her death. Like Lucrezia Borgia, perhaps, she was better than her reputation. With such surroundings liturgical books could not have existed without sharing in the universal luxury of enrichment. And, in point of fact, we still ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... whether his father commenced his military career with a commission." Borrow probably realised the importance of belonging to the ruling classes and having a long steady pedigree. "If report be true," says the same friend, {201} "his mother was of French origin, and in early life an actress." The foreignness as an asset overcame his objection to the French, and "an actress" also sounded unconventional. The friend continues: "But the subject of his family was one on which Borrow never touched. He would allude to Borrowdale as the country whence ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... glossy locks touched his burning cheek. So much, at least, that was Arcadian; and then (in his glowing memory still) the loves, the jealousies, the delusions, the concealments, the faithlessness, the desertion, the parting! And now,—now the chief actress in this drama that had touched him so nearly lay buried in a New England grave, with his own Adele her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... Epistle to captain Julian, from the duke of Buckingham, in, which this match is reflected on. We have no account of any issue he had by this lady, but from the information of Mr. Bowman we can say, that he cohabited, for some time, with the celebrated Mrs. Barry the actress, and had one daughter by her; that he settled 5 or 6000 l. on her, but ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... the light has come to some rich idler doing nothing but follow a pleasurable routine. Or to someone following some highly profitable and amusing, but socially useless or socially mischievous occupation. One may be an advocate at the disposal of any man's purpose, or an actor or actress ready to fall in with any theatrical enterprise. Or a woman may find herself a prostitute or a pet wife, a mere kept instrument of indulgence. These are lives of prey, these are lives of futility; ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... in spite of her physical charms, had found life hard during the earlier years of her career. She had become a mediocre actress merely for the sake of having some profession, and had frequented the night restaurants in quest of a wealthy lover. It was only after a long delay that fortune had smiled upon her, and she had arrived at the enviable position of being the mistress ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... picture of the little girl in her mother's arms, and the lover bowing his head in its presence of innocence, that we retained it. The little girl ran on the stage at every rehearsal at the usual place. But no one knew what to do with her. The actress who played the part of Lilian caught her in her arms, in various attitudes; but none of them seemed right. The actor who played Routledge tried to drop his head, according to instructions, but he looked uncomfortable, not reverential. The next day we had the little girl run on from another entrance. ...
— The Autobiography of a Play - Papers on Play-Making, II • Bronson Howard
... the man's shoulders in a silky mass of dark scarlet, flecked with brown gold. Miss Mattie had seen red hair, but she remembered no such color as this, nor could she recall ever having seen hair a foot-and-a-half long on a man. That hair would have made a fortune on the head of an actress, but Miss Mattie was ignorant of the ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... little Cinderella was never seen; for the gray gown was very ragged, the tiny shoes all worn, the face so pretty under the bright hair, and the attitude so dejected, it brought tears, as well as smiles, to the fond eyes looking at the baby actress. She sat quite still, till a voice whispered, "Now!" then she sighed a funny little sigh, and said, "Oh I wish I tood go to the ball!" so naturally, that her father clapped frantically, and her mother called out, "Little darling!" These highly improper expressions ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... jewels from an actress," said Lichtenstein, "her mite from the widow, its romances from the people, but you don't steal his side arms from an American army officer. No. Somebody in the factory has let the weapon that fired this ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... manifested in the "Angelo", of which the scene is laid in old Padua and is, therefore, full of the mysterious spirit of mediaeval Italian, and especially Venetian life. Miss Cushman has played in an English version of this drama, called the "Actress of Padua". But it is hardly grandiose enough in its proportions to be very well adapted to the talent of Miss Cushman. It was remarkable how perfectly the genius which had, the evening before, adequately represented Phedre, could impersonate the ablest ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... to perform a variety of gymnastic exercises, such as standing on his head, or turning somersaults. His first classification is as male or female actor, no women having been allowed to perform since the days of the Emperor Ch'ien Lung (A.D. 1736-1796), whose mother was an actress, just as in Shakespeare's time the parts for women were always taken by young men or boys. When once this is settled, it only remains to enrol him as tragedian, comedian, low-comedy actor, walking gentleman or lady, and similar parts, according ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... of old women here, too, a native, Mrs. Wheatley, an inartificial charming actress, with a perfect conception of all she does, and a humorous espieglerie of manner that is admirable. This lady has a daughter, a girl of fourteen, one of the cleverest mimics I ever saw: she would imitate Miss Fanny Kemble throughout a whole character, ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... (c. 1805-1846), French actress, whose maiden name was Theresc Vernet, was born of a family of players. She first appeared in children's and ingenile parts, and in comic opera, and it was not until 1827, two years after her Paris debut, that her great talents ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... previous to its representation"; from which we may conclude, as his biographer Laurence points out, that Harry Fielding was already familiar with the society of the green-room. To Mrs Oldfield,—that charming actress ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... others—if you see the others, you'll observe that there's a naked lady missing off the top part which I'm glad of anyway as I'm giving it to a gentleman, and he'll never see the others besides. And this is two boxes of writing paper; aren't they huge! awful cheap with a lovely picture of an actress on top—Lillian Russell in Mice and Men, I think, on one, and Jean Duresk the Opera Singer in Lonegrind on the other. The boxes 'av got false bottoms—so there ain't very much writing material, but the rich effect's there ...
— Her Own Way - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... think, we may very fairly draw an argument, to prove how extremely natural virtue is to the fair sex; for, though there is not, perhaps, one in ten thousand who is capable of making a good actress, and even among these we rarely see two who are equally able to personate the same character, yet this of virtue they can all admirably well put on; and as well those individuals who have it not, as those who possess it, can all act it to the ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... again at the portraits of actresses on the walls, and the plays on the bookshelf—and then (when she was speaking to Iris) he stole a sly glance at the doctor's wife. Was it possible that this remarkable woman had once been an actress? He attempted to put the value of that guess to the test by means of a ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... has been reckon'd by experts one of the most marvellous pieces of histrionism ever known. It must have been about 1834 or '35. A favorite comedian and actress at the Bowery, Thomas Flynn and his wife, were to have a joint benefit, and, securing Booth for Richard, advertised the fact many days beforehand. The house fill'd early from top to bottom. There was some uneasiness behind the scenes, for the afternoon arrived, and Booth had not ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... not a particularly good actress, but her face was too pretty not to be called into requisition. She was to take the ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... disgust and disapprobation. If the female advocate chooses to come upon a stage, and expose her person, dress, and elocution to public criticism, it is right to express disgust at whatever is offensive and indecorous, as it is to criticize the book of an author, or the dancing of an actress, or any thing else that is presented to public observation. And it is right to make all these things appear as odious and reprehensible to others as ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... "Actress!" he shouted. "Have you seen her in The Orphan? My soul, she is a divinity!" Then he shifted suddenly to whining and cringing. "I am ruined outright, Richard, if I do ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... are the tombs of Gretry the composer, Fourcroy the great chemist, Fontenelle, Boileau, Racine, and of Mademoiselle Raucourt, the celebrated actress, to whom the bigotry of the clergy refused burial in consecrated ground in 1815! a circumstance which gave rise to much clamour and dissatisfaction. It is surprising, that after such events as have been experienced in France, the folly of denying the right of consecrated ground ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes
... but followed directions. The corner of the curtain was moved aside, and Bert walked across the stage, leading little Maud (who was a daughter of the leading actress) by the hand. Children are always well received, and ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... John Wesley preached his last sermon. Eastward, but very little beyond the shadow of the vane, is Tower Cottage, Miss Ellen Terry's country retreat. Mr. Harry How, in a recent number of THE STRAND MAGAZINE, has told us in one of his interesting "Interviews" of the quiet home life of the great actress when staying here. What a glorious outlook the old vane has—on the one hand quaint, sleepy Rye and the flat stretches of Romney Marsh; to the north the great Weald of Kent; to the westward beautiful Sussex, and straight in front the open sea of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of it; now, as the actress, skilled in every wile, hid the hand holding the ring, as well as the other empty one, behind her back, she would know how to manage so that she could use the garland which Hermon ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... introduced Silviane to her, adding, in an aside, that he had taken a friend's place as the actress's escort. And then Rosemonde, who greatly wished to know Silviane, calmed down as if by enchantment, and put on her most engaging ways. "It would have delighted me, madame," said she, "to have seen this sight in ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... her; but in that instant her manner had completely changed again; the old Susy seemed to have slipped away and evaded him, and he was retaining only a conscious actress in ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... for that, and was too conscious of the price she paid for them. It was still mid-winter, but nevertheless there was generally some amusement arranged for every evening. Mrs. Carbuncle was very fond of the play, and made herself acquainted with every new piece as it came out. Every actor and actress of note on the stage was known to her, and she dealt freely in criticisms on their respective merits. The three ladies had a box at the Haymarket taken for this very evening, at which a new piece, "The Noble Jilt," from the ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... previous visits to Page he had found means to see her two or three times each week. Once, even, he had asked her to marry him, but she, deep in her studies at the time, consumed with vague ambitions to be a great actress of Shakespearian roles, had told him she could care for nothing but her art. He had smiled and said that he could wait, and, strangely enough, their relations had resumed again upon the former footing. Even after ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... author (coadjutor of Dr. Gregory in his "Cyclopaedia "); Henry Redhead Yorke, a West Indian with some negro blood (afterwards an agent of Pitt, under whom he had been imprisoned); Robert Merry, husband of the actress "Miss Brunton"; ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... holding her candle aloft, only looked about the little sitting-room at her gimcracks and curtains and cushions. "My maid shall pack up," she repeated. "Bonte divine, what rubbish! I feel like a strolling actress; ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... her the ideal "Rosalind" in the High School production of the piece, but her powers as an actress under the constant instruction of Everett Southard had increased tenfold. His own marvelous work was a source of inspiration to Anne, and from the instant that she set foot upon the stage until the final fall of the curtain she ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... week Sarah Bernhardt was at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham, giving "La Dame aux Camelias". Paul wanted to see this old and famous actress, and he asked Clara to accompany him. He told his mother to leave the key ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... has led a most quiet and respectable life at Penge and here for the last twenty years. She has hardly been away from her home for a day during that time. Why on earth, then, should any criminal send her the proofs of his guilt, especially as, unless she is a most consummate actress, she understands quite as little of the matter ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the celebrated actress, was born in Rushall-street, in this town, whilst his father kept a public-house, known by the sign of the London apprentice, whose death was occasioned by sparring or wrestling with a person named Denston. The present Mr. Siddons was originally a barber, but having an inclination ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... an intimacy. When I ask you who is the school-girl friend of Toni's who is expected at Waldhofen, you answer me coolly and complacently, that she is a singer who has been on the stage of the Court theatre for some time. An actress, a theatrical star. One of ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... clever man, can be! I don't suppose there is a woman in the house who has not detected the fact that I am in love with Stafford Orme, though I have tried to hide it from them—and you will admit that I am not a bad actress." ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... Domestic ties he had none; and in the temporary connections which he formed with a succession of beauties from the green-room his heart does not appear to have been interested. Of all his attachments that to Mrs. Bracegirdle lasted the longest and was the most celebrated. This charming actress, who was, during many years, the idol of all London, whose face caused the fatal broil in which Mountfort fell, and for which Lord Mohun was tried by the peers, and to whom the Earl of Scarsdale was said ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... her napkin to scrub off her besmirched poodle's feet and had then surreptitiously thumped her down upon her lap where the table-cloth would conceal her. At Captain Stewart's concluding words she felt her hopes revive a trifle. She was a fair actress when it served her turn. So now smiling ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... days a great man invited his friends to dinner, promising them a new dish that had never before been set upon the table. The fillet came in on the shoulders of several men, and when the cover was removed, lo an actress in a state of nature! One farmer lent his friend his dogcart. Time went on, and the dogcart was not returned; a year went by, still no cart. Country people are very peculiar in this respect, and do not like to remind their friends of obligations. ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... you do both your parents injustice. A foreigner of low birth—an actress or singer, for instance—of course would be highly objectionable; but a woman, like Madame di Negra, of such high ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... most fascinating preface at the beginning. But I really think that he ought also to attach a hearty apology at the end; an apology to all the minor dramatists or preposterous actors whom he had cursed for romanticism in his youth. Whenever he objected to an actress for ogling she might reasonably reply, "But this is how I support my friend Anne in her sublime evolutionary effort." Whenever he laughed at an old-fashioned actor for ranting, the actor might answer, "My exaggeration is not more absurd than the tail of a peacock or the swagger ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton |
