"Actress" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... contained two doors, one at each end. Neither was what was commonly called the stage door; they were a sort of special and private stage doors used by very special performers, and in this case by the star actor and actress in the Shakespearean performance of the day. Persons of that eminence often like to have such private exits and entrances, for ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... him so who looks upon it. The beauty which nature lavishes so prodigally does not bring any satisfaction, if the person is not adapted to it and as it were deserves and overcomes it. On the other hand, it is offensive, as when we look upon an actress striding along the stage in queenly costume, and notice at every step how poorly the attire fits her, how little it becomes her. True beauty is sweetness, and sweetness is the spiritualizing of the gross, the corporeal and the earthly. It is the spiritual presence which transforms ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... I begged him to tell me what Martin had said. He told me. It was about my intended husband—that he was a man of irregular life, a notorious loose liver, who kept up a connection with somebody in London, a kind of actress who was practically his wife already, and therefore his marriage with me would be—so Martin had said—nothing ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... back. He had lived in Los Angeles for a time, but had recently gone East to take a high-salaried position. It was with his consent that she asked the nuns to take the child—possibly for two or three years. When she was a famous actress and could leave the road, she would keep house for her husband in New York, and make ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... his neck. "There!" she said, as she embraced him, passionately to all appearance, and plied him with the coaxing caresses that are part of the business of such a life as hers, like stage action for an actress. ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... 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 Waldegrave, afterwards Duchess of Gloucester, a lock of whose "delicate golden-brown" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... she rearranged the folds of her dress when she had finished, folding her hands over her lap and settling herself unmistakably back again on the sofa. Perhaps it was this that made Mr. Gray think she had, at some time, been an actress. But the next moment he caught her eye again and felt pleased,—and again vexed with himself for being so,— and in this mental condition began to speak in favor of his old pupil. His embarrassment passed away as he warmed with his subject, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... Shakespeare; and his favorite was "As You Like It"; Rosalind in tights having an attraction for him which he missed in Lady Macbeth in petticoats. On this evening he had seen Rosalind impersonated by a famous actress, who had come to a neighboring town on a starring tour. After the performance he had returned to Panley, supped there with a friend, and was now making his way back to Moncrief House, of which he had been intrusted with the key. He was in a frame of mind favorable ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... abadesa (abbess) El actor (actor) La actriz (actress) El baron (baron) La baronesa (baroness) El canonigo (canon) La canonesa (canoness) El cantor (singer) La cantatriz (singer) El conde (count) La condesa (countess) El diacono (deacon) La diaconisa ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... it has been, in how many ways, this confusion of soul and service! Wise were the Greeks in making plain masks for their mummers to play in, and dunces we not to have done the same! Only the other day, an actress was saying that what she was most proud of in her art—next, of course, to having appeared in some provincial pantomime at the age of three—was the deftness with which she contrived, in parts demanding a rapid ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... me gravely, you know, until I was ashamed of myself," the girl confessed, "and then he said: 'Why, Hat, you must know that Mrs. Coppered was a professional actress?'" ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... A celebrated French actress, in the wane of her charms, and who, for that reason, began to feel weary of the world, exclaimed, whilst she was recounting what she had suffered from a faithless lover, "Ah! c'etoit le ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... a big paunch carries out the actress of Lulu in her Pierrot costume, and sets her down before ...
— Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) - A Tragedy in Four Acts • Frank Wedekind
... 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 across the ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... consort," the eunuch further added, "directs that Ling Kuan, who is the best actress of the lot, should sing two more songs; any two will do, she does not mind ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... leisurely up the Hay-Market some time in the year 1749, lamenting the fate of the famous Cuzzona, an actress who some time before had been in high vogue, but was then as they heard in a very pitiable situation. 'Let us go and visit her,' said one of them, 'she lives but over the way.' The other consented; and calling ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... came the splendid Magdalen, brown, warm, voluminous, scarcely brushing the grass with her sandalled feet. Her hair flew; pins seemed scarcely to attach the flying silks. An actress of course, a line of light perpetually beneath her. It was only "My dear" that she said, but her voice went jodelling between Alpine passes. And down she tumbled on the floor, and sang, since there was nothing to be said, round ah's and oh's. Mangin, the poet, coming up to her, stood ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... had her wits about her. She had been to Paris with her father, and had seen the Exhibition, and talked about it like a grown-up person. But her father had taken her one night to the Theatre des Varietes in the Champs Elysees, and the girl had been mad ever since to become a chanteuse and an actress. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... good sense brought him back and set him on his feet. Ruth was no actress. And if she had been the greatest actress the world had ever seen she could not have acted that flooding love ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... was a very pretty little woman, in whom one saw instinctively the artistic temperament. She had been an actress, too, when young Morton Hazleton married her, and at first, at least, they had seemed very devoted ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... famous actress of her day, was the nucleus of a little clique of women sculptors, Miss Stebbins, Harriet Hosmer, and one or two others of lesser fame. Accordingly, she made war on sculptors of the other sex in ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... taken another name!"—And the speaker was not brought up among Puritans, and belonged to a Church which—as a Church—has no fear of the theatre. I think occasional indulgence was common enough in the family. And the young actress had done nothing but become an actress, keeping her own name. Friends are mortified,—and yet friends go to see, and to ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... this time, assured Ruth that he was confident "Crossed Wires" would make good on the screen. Hazel Gray played the lead in the picture, as she had in "The Heart of a School Girl," and Ruth and Helen were glad to meet the bright little screen actress again. ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... was much piqued because the London public received his wife, to whom he was devotedly attached, with coldness. Notwithstanding the beauty of her face and figure, and the greatness of her style both as actress and singer, she was pronounced passee alike in person and voice, with a species of brutal frankness ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... Armide, and she was everything that could be wished in voice, talent, style, beauty and charm. She spoke French without an accent and was as remarkable as an actress as a singer, so she would without doubt have had great success at the Opera in Paris. She was Armide ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... first words the actress, whose name was Almeria, spoke. When the curtain began to draw up, and I saw the bottom of her black petticoat, and heard the soft music, what an agitation I was in! But before that we had long to wait. Frederica told me we should wait till all the dress boxes were full, ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the Princess was no other than an actress of more notoriety than note, humbly born in the immediate vicinity of the old city, where she practiced this gigantic hoax, and that she had been assisted in it by a set of dissolute young noblemen and actors, who furnished the money she had spent, got up the oriental dresses, ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... parentage, she was a recognized peer among the favorite actresses on the English stage and a woman whose attractions of face and manner were of a high order. She came naturally by her talents, being a descendant of Madame de Panilnac, famed as an actress, confidante of Louise-Benedicte, Duchess du Maine, who originated the celebrated nuits blanches at Sceaux during the close ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... was not the case until a story had been circulated about him which was generally believed, although nobody knew from whence it emanated. He was, according to the story, the illegitimate son of an actress, and some great—in-the-sense-of-having-a-title—man, from whom he inherited his aristocratic appearance and a small income. His mother, it was said, had been an opera singer, which accounted for his voice; and shame, they ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... for the most part, a plea, with illustrations, for a consideration of Sir William Temple as an easy and engaging writer. "Barbara S——" is a slight anecdote expanded into a sympathetic little story of a child-actress who, instead of her half-guinea salary, being once handed a guinea in error, virtuously took it ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... the ear of the listener, in tones inaudible to the other guests, and with accents worthy of the cleverest actress, were calculated to reach the heart; and they did reach that of d'Arthez. There was no question of himself in the matter; this woman was seeking to rehabilitate herself in favor of the dead. She had been calumniated; ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... 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 to have made honourable addresses, had conducted herself, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... an actress! How absurd!" I exclaimed (for I knew that to enter that profession had always ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... human actress. She is applauded because she is of the same clay as those who listen to her. And they have need of the lie on which the most ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... lights were curious, eager, interesting faces: a pale little person with red hair I recognised instantly as an actress whom I had just seen at the Provincetown Players—a Village Theatrical Company—in a tense and terribly tragic role. Beyond her was a white-haired man with keen eyes—a distinguished writer and socialist. A shabby poet announced to the sympathetic that he had sold something ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... the famous American actress, having selected Madame Dubarry as the central figure in her new play, the life story of the famous mistress of Louis XV of France becomes a topic of universal interest to ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... comes very often to this theatre. It is the correct thing to do. It is high art. All the people are raving about the chief actress; artists painting her portrait; poets writing sonnets about her different characters—no end of a fuss. And Mrs. Ross is very proud that so distinguished a ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... lady with the red hair and the green garments. She was an actress, employed (with many others) by the Romance Agency; and her marriage with the prim old veteran caused some stir in her languid and intellectualized set. She always replied very quietly that she had met scores of men who acted splendidly in the charades provided ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... unemotional as to be almost abnormal, but she had head enough to realize the fact that absolute unemotionlessness in a woman detracts from her charm. She therefore simulated emotion. She had a spiritual make-up, a panoply of paint and powder for the soul, as truly as any actress has her array of cosmetics for her face. She made no effort to really feel, she knew that was entirely useless, but she observed all the outward signs and semblance of feeling more or less successfully. She knew that to take up her position in Harry Edgham's house ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Unitarian minister and 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
... melancholy shade settled over the face of the cavalier. He looked up at the quiet house buried amidst the vine-leaves, and turned again to the vivid, animated face of the young actress. ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... anything more melancholy than this abandonment by the young wife of all that had pleased in the young girl? The reply given, the part ended, the actress quits her costume. It was all done with a view to marriage; a surface of petty accomplishments, of pretty smiles, and fleeting elegance. With her the change was instantaneous. At first I hoped that the taste I could not give her, an artistic intelligence and love of the beautiful, would ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... The actress whom he had secured in spite of Mrs. Milray appeared in woman's dress contrary to her inveterate professional habit, and followed him with great acceptance in her favorite variety-stage song; and then her husband gave imitations ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... this, wished to give the princess time to collect herself. He turned to Mademoiselle Marwitz and said: "I see, to my amazement, that our lovely maid of honor is not so enraptured as I had hoped. Mademoiselle, mademoiselle! you are a wonderful actress, but you cannot deceive me. You wish to seem disappointed and indifferent, in order to induce our gracious princess to withdraw her promise to me, and to think it unnecessary to be present at your interviews with Trenck. This ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... well as industry, has her studies. Thus the lines "Drury Lane Theatre," and "Professional Concert" are 'Change news to a certain class—and a long criticism on Miss Phillips's first appearance in Jane Shore will ensure attention and sympathy, from anxiety for an actress of high promise, and the pathos of the play itself; and we need not insist upon the beneficial effect which sound criticism has on public taste. To pass from an account of a Concert at the Argyll Rooms, with its fantasias ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... story of the life of an actress, told in the graphic style of Miss Ryan. It is very interesting.—New ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... the most fascinating of all the T'ang poets. His life was one long series of romantic adventure. At first, a poor youth battling with adversity; then the lover of an actress, whom he followed through the provinces, play-writing for the strolling troupe to which she was attached; the next, secretary to a high personage engaged in a mission to Thibet; then soldier, and finally poet of renown, acquiring with his latter years ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... of the priests became fired by the victory which they supposed they had gained. They dreamt that they were in full possession of their ancient power; and they wished immediately to revive it according to their ancient fashion. An actress belonging to the Theatre Francais died without being absolved, and without suspecting that it was necessary to be absolved, from the excommunication which had been formerly fulminated against stage players; and which, as every body knows, ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... the hour than she desired. Full of discriminations against the obvious, she had yet to accept a flagrant appearance and to make the best of misleading signs. Her richness of hue, her generous nose, her eyebrows marked like those of an actress—these things, with an added amplitude of person on which middle age had set its seal, seemed to present her insistently as a daughter of the south, or still more of the east, a creature formed by hammocks and divans, fed upon sherbets ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... play-acting is rather a fine thing if it's well done," Aunt Matilda said, "an' I guess my Arabella did 'bout as well as any of 'em. I shouldn't wonder if she could be a great actress if she chose. Not that I'd want her to be one; no indeed, but it's pleasant to think that ...
— Dorothy Dainty's Gay Times • Amy Brooks
... didn't care? You've no right to say that—it's wicked of you, and it's cruel. Did you think I married you for your money, Adam? And if I had—should I have given it up to be divorced because you gave jewels to an actress? I loved you, and I wanted your love, or nothing. You couldn't be faithful—commonly, decently faithful, for one year—and I got myself free from you, because I would not be your wife, nor eat your bread, nor touch your ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... Maxfield Parrish (Scribner's). The author has written other plays and stories, some of which you may have seen in St. Nicholas, and also a pleasant operetta, with music by Alice Terhune—The Woodland Princess, listed in the bibliography following. She is also an actress with the New York Comedy Club, an excellent ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... 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
... appointees, gives a circumstantial account of the manner in which Colonel Steptoe was influenced to decline the nomination and sign the petition in favor of Young.* Two women, whose beauty then attracted the attention of Salt Lake City society, were a relative by marriage of Brigham Young and an actress in the church theatre. The federal army officers were favored with a good deal of their society. When Steptoe's appointment as governor was announced, Young called these women to his assistance. In conformity with the plan then suggested, Young one evening suddenly demanded admission ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... Mme. de Tencin; and, perhaps in sheer desperation, was led to seek in the salons of the brilliant but discontented Mme. du Deffand, of that poet too highly valued by her contemporaries, Mme. du Bocage, and of the actress Mlle. Quinault cadette, that form of preciosite for which his mind was suited, and which he never found again, because he had outlived ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... mix'd the big tear's dew. Nor was it thine th' heroic strain to roll With mimic feelings foreign from the soul: Bright in thy parent's eye we mark'd the tear; 25 Methought he said, 'Thou art no Actress here! A semblance of thyself the Grecian dame, And Brunton ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... exceedingly rude and stupid," she said—"You talk like a badly-trained actress! And you are quite blind to your own interests. Now please remember that if you refuse the offer I make you, I shall never trouble about you again—you will have to sink or swim—and you can do nothing for yourself—without even ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... was young and handsome. He looked 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 complimentary ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... might have been that of the consummate actress waiting to note the effect of her artfully delivered line; it might have been the timorous uncertainty of a child affrighted at its ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... of tyrants; now breathing charity and love, now dark with the passions of Hell; now beaming with celestial truth, now masked in hypocrisy and lies; now a virgin, now a harlot; an imperial queen, and a tinselled actress. Clearly, she is of earth, not of heaven; and her transcendently dramatic life is a type of the good and ill, the baseness and nobleness, the foulness and purity, the love and hate, the pride, passion, truth, falsehood, fierceness, and ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... even if the Mauprats are not hidden behind some wainscot listening to us, is she not sure to give them an account of everything that takes place? And yet she is trembling like an aspen leaf. But what if she is acting? I once saw an actress play Genevieve de Brabant, and she wept so that one ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... and he took a new and more princely residence. He associated himself with the great, and even went so far as to take an actress to a ball given by his patron, the duke of Orleans. The woman acted in his plays, and his relations with her were too intimate, but he soon afterward married her. They lived so extravagantly that a separation soon followed, ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... employed in providing occasional pieces for its civil and religious festivities. It is probable that he was an actor, and it is certain that he educated for the stage his daughter, Paula, who was equally celebrated as an actress, a poetess, and a musician. The dramas of Vicente consist of autos, comedies, tragi- comedies, and farces. The autos, or religious pieces, were written chiefly to furnish entertainment for the court on Christmas night. The shepherds had naturally an important part assigned to them, and the whole ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... heard the report," said Optimus, "that Harborough is actually about to follow your example, and marry an actress? ay, and his old flame, Mrs. Stonyhewer, is ready to die of love and ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... good joke in which a gentlemen whom I knew, connected with one of our newspapers, and a leading actress at the Theatre Royal, were concerned, in connection with a visit to the Sans Pareil. The lady was very desirous to see a piece which was got up with great eclat at the Sans Pareil, and which was attracting crowds of people to see it. ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... earliest childhood she had not one conviction or opinion in common with the people about her,—the only people she knew. Before she was out of short dresses she had made up her mind that she was going to be an actress, that she would live far away in great cities, that she would be much admired by men and would have everything she wanted. When she was thirteen, and was already singing and reciting for church entertainments, she read ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... of course you can't have two characters of equal importance in your play. Some one has to be first, and Godolphin doesn't want an actress taking all the ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... more amazed. What an actress the woman was! If she had not known her true character, she would have believed that she was innocent of the base treachery ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... of the brave deeds which have been achieved in our day. I respect the task to which you have dedicated yourself, and know not how a lady could lay after ages under an obligation to her in the same degree, unless, like my wife, Brenhilda, she were herself to be the actress of deeds which she recorded. And, by the way, she now looks towards her neighbour at the table, as if she were about to rise and leave him; her inclinations are towards Constantinople, and, with your ladyship's permission, I cannot allow her to go ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... forget to give my friendly greetings to Genast [the celebrated Weimar actor, afterwards Raff's father-in-law] and my homage to Mademoiselle Doris [Afterwards Raff's wife, an excellent actress]. ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... at hers, which is sometimes a dangerous exercise for young people, even at a first meeting. For acquaintance grows and ripens precociously when two people are busy together so that they depend on each other at every instant, as teacher and pupil, or as the chief actor and actress in a play, or as a man and a woman who are suddenly thrown ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... I am sure,' said Mr. Snitchey, standing a small professional blue bag against one leg of the table, 'cut the great farce short for this actress, at all events, ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... distinguished corps,) is, however, unlike most military dramas, inasmuch as it is a bright and brilliant play. Moreover, it is acted by the best members of the Company in their very best manner. Miss LOUISA MOORE, whose golden hair and silvery voice become an actress of genuine mettle as well as gentle grace, is ESTELLE, the heroine; Miss EMILY MESTAYER is the Commanding Sister of Col. EPEE who is personated by Mr. FISHER; Mr. WYNDHAM is the Graceless Private, who, having spent his last penny, enlists in the Lancers ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various
... make a thousand different wry faces, to which the dancing lady answers with an astonishing precision. She finishes with gently reclining towards the musician; the sounds of the instrument gradually become weaker; the eyes of the actress are half closed; she gently presses her bosom; every thing expresses violent passion. But it is not possible to give an idea of what now passes, nor the air of indifference with which the woman, who lately played a like part, joins her companions. The young people form ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... Female. | Actor Actress. | Lion Lioness. Arbiter Arbitress. | Peer Peeress. Baron Baroness. | Poet Poetess. Benefactor Benefactress. | Sorcerer Sorceress. Count Countess. | Songster Songstress. ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... he asked himself, why should she not show agitation? She was a consummate actress. She could show on her beautiful face the softness and the tenderness of an angel of light while a demon reigned in her malignant heart. Why should she not choose this way of keeping up appearances? She had betrayed her friends, and sought her husband's death; but ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... twitched. Only to know one of those radiant creatures, to have her speak to him, smile at him! If ever a man was intoxicated, Joe was. Mrs. Hamilton was divided between shame at the clothes of some of the women and delight with the music. Her companion was busy pointing out who this and that actress was, and giving jelly-like appreciation to the ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... laugh. "Did it ever occur to you that our little Judy might make a fair actress, Norn?" she asked, deftly catching the bare foot that supported Judith and bringing her down on the rug beside her. "Her passion for the limelight grows, I notice, and recent events have not tended to make her unmindful of ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... 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
... that, after all, this must be the real woman. That other personality, some sudden disheartening side of which he got from time to time, was not his new friend who laughed like a young girl over the crocodile with the clock inside, and showed a sudden swift moisture in her brown eyes when the actress pleaded for the dying fairy. When the curtain fell on the last act, leaving Peter Pan alone with his twinkling fairy friends in his little home high among the trees, Alice Stansbury turned to her companion ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... actress on the operatic stage. Until you've seen her in Crepe de Chine you've never seen opera as it ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... grasp, and her 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... with security and profit for a little chicken hazard in Curzon-street, at which Mr. C-t has occasionally acted as croupier and banker. Elliston used to say, when informed of the sudden indisposition or absence of a certain little actress and singer-"Ay, I understand; she has a more profitable engagement than mine this evening." The amorous trio, Cl-g-t, Charles H-r-s, and the exquisite Master G-e, may not have cause to complain of neglect. The first of these gentlemen has lately, we understand, been very successful at play; we ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... that Rome must be Rome still. He stands aloof and gazes at the sight as upon a play in which Rome herself is the great heroine and actress. He knows the woman and he sees the artist for the first time, not recognising her. She is a dark-eyed, black-haired, thoughtful woman when not upon the stage. How should he know her in the strange disguise, her head decked with ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... formation of a revolutionary army, and preached the extermination of all traitors. He was one of the promoters of the worship of Reason, and on the 10th of November 1793 he presented the goddess to the Convention in the guise of an actress. On the 23rd of the same month he obtained a decree closing all the churches of Paris, and placing the priests under strict surveillance; but on the 25th he retraced his steps and obtained from the Commune the free exercise of worship. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... his ingenuity. He kills time so scientifically. They say it takes him two hours to do himself up in the morning after he gets out of bed, and that he has almost as many beautifying tools as an actress. He doesn't get down-town before ten. It takes him from fifteen minutes to half an hour to buy his morning cigar. That is, he talks to McMuggins, the druggist, as long as Mac will stand for it. Mac has a regular schedule. If Delancey buys a ten-cent cigar, Mac will ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... playwright, critic, humourist, a man whose society was in demand everywhere, and who said sharp things with the most supreme good-nature. The only ladies whose society Mr. Smithson had deemed worthy the occasion were a fashionable actress, with her younger sister, the younger a pretty copy of the elder, both dressed picturesquely in flowing cashmere gowns of faint sea-green, with old lace fichus, leghorn hats, and a general limpness and simplicity of style which suited their cast of feature and delicate colouring. Lesbia wondered ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... 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 her station in the centre, so ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... give us a higher idea of Mrs. Mowatt's talents as an authoress, than her plays did. Taken in conjunction with those dramas, and with the pleasing powers as an actress displayed by the lady,—they not only establish a case of more than common versatility, but indicate that with labor and concentration, so gifted a person might have taken a high place, whether on the library shelf or on the stage. In another point of view, they are ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... knowing now that Miss Lind was a commonplace amateur. He had been contrasting her with his sister, greatly to the disparagement of his home life; and he was disappointed to find the lady break down where the actress would have succeeded so well. Consoling himself with the reflexion that if Miss Lind could not rap out a B flat like Susanna, neither could she rap out an oath, he played the accompaniment much better than Marian sang the song. Meanwhile, Miss McQuinch, ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... real novel reader is at home anywhere. He has thoughts, dreams, reveries, fancies. All the world is his novel and all actions are stories and all the actors are characters. When Lucile Western, the excellent American actress, was at the height of her powers, not long before her last appearances, she had as her leading man a big, slouchy and careless person, who was advertised as "the talented young English actor, William ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... The actress Crelinger, when she came to see my mother, made a great impression on me, at this time, by her majestic appearance and her deep, musical voice. She, and her daughter, Clara Stich, afterward Frau Liedtcke, the splendid ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... puts his imagination to work and completes a charming Millicent after his own secret desires. (Whereas he would coldly decline to add one touch to Millicent were she the heroine of a novel.) Is the play being performed on the stage—an experienced, conscientious, and perhaps lovely actress will strive her hardest to prove that the dramatist was right about Millicent's astounding fascination. And if she fails, nobody will blame the dramatist; the dramatist ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... tell no tales. Stars are stubborn things. All's not bold that titters. Contracts make cowards of us all. One good turn deserves an encore. A little actress is a dangerous thing. It's a long skirt that has no turning. Stars rush in where angels fear to tread. Managers never hear any good of themselves. A manager is known by the company he keeps. A plot is not without honor save in comic opera. Take care of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... 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 ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... into a 'nice derangement of epitaphs, like an allegory on the banks of the Nile'. I enjoyed it very much, and when we unmasked it was fun to see them stare at me. I heard one of the young men tell another that he knew I'd been an actress, in fact, he thought he remembered seeing me at one of the minor theaters. Meg will relish that joke. Mr. Bhaer was Nick Bottom, and Tina was Titania, a perfect little fairy in his arms. To see them dance was 'quite a landscape', to ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... her for the first time received an impression that her late husband had married the daughter of a barkeeper or the proprietress of a menageria. Her high, hoarse, good-natured voice seemed to connect her in some way with public life; it was not pretty enough to suggest that she might have been an actress. These ideas quickly passed away, however, even if you were not sufficiently initiated to know—as all the Grossies, for instance, knew so well—that her origin, so far from being enveloped in mystery, was almost the sort of thing she might have boasted of. But in spite of the high pitch of her appearance, ...
— Georgina's Reasons • Henry James
... a "social success" one must be something of an actress. Men usually expect a vast amount of acting from young women, who will, if they are discreet, certainly live up to that expectation. Men are willing to be deceived, but it must not be a labeled deceit. I go down the street and meet Mr. Seyhmoor; although I see him ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... part of the house for Mrs. Oldfield, the actress, but she never inhabited it. One of Mr. Ferne's daughters married a Mr. Turner, who in 1736 sold the house to Elijah Impey, father of Sir Elijah Impey, Chief Justice of Bengal. He divided the modern part built by Mr. Ferne from the older building, and called it Bradmore ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... the very soul, the star Of Spanish chivalry; his last achievement Seems still the flower of his accomplishments. Musician, soldier, courtier, yea, and artist. "He had been a painter, were he not a prince," Says Messer Zurbaran. The Calderona, His actress-mother, hath bequeathed to him Her spirit with her beauty, and the power To ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... shop, a factory, an office, a telephone exchange, a school, or a hospital, unless she is a reasonably healthy girl her success in her work is greatly lessened, if indeed it is possible for her to succeed at all. If she is an actress or an artist, she undergoes a constant strain on her nervous energy. Artists and actresses need good health, possibly more so even than the average woman in paid employment. So, no matter what the girl is to do, ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy
... She was too much in the mood of a moralist to see the play merely as a work of art; she could not keep her mind from reverting to matters having nothing to do with the play, such as the versatility of an actress's domestic relations. And she could not but feel that in so far as the play diverted her, it did so at the expense of that strenuousness of endeavor for extraordinary usefulness which her mind had taken under the ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... she did not want to go on the stage," said Phyllis. "She used to be an extraordinary actress. However, she gave that up and took a dislike to it. Perhaps she has now taken a dislike to drawing, and will not care to make a design ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... a keen glance, the inspector followed her suggestion. In the back of the case was a picture of a coquettish face, undoubtedly that of an actress. It was not carefully fastened in, but roughly cut out and pressed ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... ancient garden, where she perceives the whole troupe in the costume of gardeners and garden girls. She is offered bouquets and escorted to a dairy at the extremity of the ruins. The band of the guard plays for her her favorite air, Charmante Gabrielle. A young milk-maid—the pretty actress Jenny Colon—offers her a cup of milk and sings couplets that please her greatly. Then comes the husband of the dairy-maid and recounts to the grand-daughter of Henry IV. the victory won by her ancestor over the Duke of Mayenne. A little later, Madame is conducted to the foot ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... either thought or action was decidedly eschewed. It was, as a matter of fact, customariness of thought and action and the quintessence of convention that was desired. The idea of introducing a "play actress," for instance, as was done occasionally in the East or in London—never; even a singer or an artist was eyed askance. One could easily go too far! But if a European prince should have strayed to Chicago (which he never did) or if an Eastern social magnate chanced to stay over a train ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... rumoured about her mother in the parish was that she had become an actress. To this Zoe made no protest in her mind. It was better than many other possibilities, and she fixed her mind on it, so saving herself from other agonizing speculations. In a fixed imagination lay safety. In her soul she knew that, no matter what happened, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of a child, and the manners of a prince. Another good friend, too, is the marquise. They had come on foot, these near-by neighbours, with their lantern. Was there ever such a marquise? This once famous actress, who interpreted the comedies of Moliere. Was there ever a more charming grandmother? Ah! You do not look it even now with your gray hair, for you are ever young and witty and gracious. She clapped her hands as she peered across ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... his massive head and sagacious eyes; and a famous actress, ugly, thin, with a long, slightly crooked face, tinted hair, and the melancholy, mysterious eyes of a llama. Claude Drew, at a little table behind Madame von Marwitz, negligently turned the leaves of a book. Lady Rose Harding, the only one of the company ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... monopolized her husband's sphere, as did the masculine Mrs. Pimble. By no means. She appeared to give her lord full sway and sceptre in his own household, and the good-natured man thought never husband had so obedient, condescending partner as blessed his bosom. Consummate actress, to conquer where she seemed to yield, and use her advantages so skilfully that the vanquished felt himself the victor. Mrs. Pimble stormed and blustered, but she exercised not half the power over her household that Louise Edson swayed by a soft ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... made up her mind. She would simulate innocence at all costs. With the craft of a consummate actress, she began in a low voice, which gradually rose ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... let me repeat the character. Well, I suppose it was a success for a young man with such aspirations as I had. There might have been some inspiration about it—at least there ought to have been—for the lady who personated Belvidera was Mrs. Duff, a lovely woman and the most exquisite tragic actress that I ever saw from that ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... minor actress in a theatrical company always considers the leading man a superb creature, and ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... 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
... room opened and in walked Honoria Fraser. She was probably three years older than Vivie and likewise a well-favoured woman, a little more matronly in appearance, somewhat after the style of a married actress who really loves her husband and has preserved her own looks wonderfully, though no one would take ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... and supported by such prominent Britons as Lady Byron, Viscount Bryce, the Duke of Newcastle, the Earl of Rosebery, and the Lord Mayor of London, at the instance of Princess Bariatinsky, who is better known as the famous Russian actress, Madame Yavorska, is feeding between 4,000 and 7,000 refugees daily at Petrograd, Moscow, Minsk, and at several small ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... her sole aim: for she might have become a "variety" minstrel or a female pedestrian; she might have written a scandalous novel; she might have got somebody to aim at her that harmless pistol, which has helped the fame of so many a wandering actress, while its bullet somehow never hits anything but the wall. All this she might have done, and obtained a notoriety beyond doubt. Instead of this, she has preferred to prowl about, picking up a precarious publicity by giving lectures to willing lyceums, writing books for ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... finished his time, he quitted the service, and went to Paris with his charmer.... then it was a dancer.... then it was an actress.... then a circus-rider. He tried life in every form. He led the brilliant and miserable ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... what we try to do," Erma laughed, and seizing Mellie by the hand, drew her up from the floor where she had been sitting. "That is what will make us famous. I shall be a great actress and ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... liable to forget. And mother Coupeau and she had lamented together in the back-room as they reckoned that they required at least twenty francs. How could they obtain them, those four pieces of a hundred sous each? Mother Coupeau who had at one time done the charring for a little actress of the Theatre des Batignolles, was the first to suggest the pawn-shop. Gervaise laughed with relief. How stupid she was not to have thought of it! She quickly folded her black silk dress upon a towel which she then pinned together. Then she hid the bundle under mother ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... a marked paragraph. It reported a tragic occurrence in a street near the Luxembourg. The husband of an actress at one of the minor theatres in Paris had encountered his wife's lover, and shot him dead. The victim was "un jeune Anglais, ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... "Oolaloo" fourteen times, and was "wild" about Ned Norris in "The Soda-Water Fountain," she had not heard of the famous Berlin comedians who were performing Shakespeare at the German Theatre, and knew only by name the clever American actress who was trying to give "repertory" plays with a good stock company. The conversation was revived for a moment by her recalling that she had seen Sarah Bernhard in a play she called "Leg-long," and another which she pronounced "Fade"; but even ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... also, had to practice their parts, but as the boy and girl actor and actress had been in plays before, it was not so hard for them. And though the two little strangers gave much of their time to getting ready for the performance they still had hours when they thought of their missing relations—Uncle Bill, ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... "I know an old actress," he continued. "She's the mother of four. They are all on the stage and they've all made their mark. The youngest was born in her dressing-room, just after the curtain had fallen. She was playing the Nurse to your mother's Juliet. She is still the best Nurse that I know. 'Jack's always worrying ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... an ordinary little variety actress, and he knew her little programme pretty well by heart. But her fascinations were independent of the glamour of the foot-lights. It was off the stage that he had first come to know her, really know her, a thing that at the first blush of it seems impossible; for the great goddess ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... not, I imagine, consider this as an occasion for manifesting their wrath, inasmuch as they do not rush to thy aid. O Sairindhri, thou art ignorant of the timeliness of things, and it is for this that thou weepest as an actress, besides interrupting the play of dice in Matsya's court. Retire, O Sairindhri; the Gandharvas will do what is agreeable to thee. And they will surely display thy woe and take the life of him that hath wronged thee.' Hearing these words the Sairindhri ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... one of Hamar's friends—they were all Jews—remarked to him. "Offer the manager of the Imperial a hundred pounds and he'll do anything you like with regard to the girl. Every manager can be bought and every actress, too." ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... would have gone it is difficult to say, had not an event happened that brought his power to a premature collapse. This was the curate's sudden and somewhat unexpected marriage with a very beautiful burlesque actress who had lately been performing in a neighbouring town. He gave up the Church on his engagement, in consequence of his fiancee's objection to becoming a minister's wife. She said she could never ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... 1677 Mrs. Lee's only rival, Mrs. Marshall, the leading lady of the King's House, retired.[1] Mrs. Barry's star was but just faintly rising on the theatrical horizon; and it is noticeable that even when this famous actress was at the height of her great reputation, we still find Mrs. Lee cast for those roles she made so peculiarly her own, and in which no one could approach her. In February, 1677, she acted Berenice in Otway's Titus and Berenice, a rather ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... where the train of emotional association or contrast has been carefully laid and is waiting to be touched off. So it is with the markedly lyrical passages in narrative verse—say the close of "Sohrab and Rustum." When a French actress sings the "Marseillaise" to a theatre audience in war-time, or Sir Harry Lauder, dressed in kilts, sings to a Scottish-born audience about "the bonny purple heather," or a marching regiment strikes ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... healing for his recent severe mortification. He did not really believe that Lucia had known all along, like himself, who the new tenant was, for her enquiries had seemed to be pointed with the most piercing curiosity, but, after all, Lucia (when she did not forget her part) was a fine actress, and perhaps all the time he thought he had been punishing her, she had been fooling him. And, in any ease, he certainly had not had the joy of telling her; whether she had guessed or really knew, it was she who had told him, and there was no getting over it. He went back straight home and drew ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... cheered or hissed by hitherto unknown partisans, to the dumb astonishment of a majority of the audience comfortably settled to money-getting and their own affairs alone? Had he not applauded, albeit half-scornfully, the pretty actress—his old playmate Susy—who had audaciously and all incongruously waved the American flag in their faces? Yes! he had known it; had lived for the last few weeks in an atmosphere electrically surcharged with it—and yet it had chiefly affected him in his personal ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... played on in a surprisingly graceful manner by the fat fingers of Matthew Maltboy. On the walls hung some pictures, that were not unpleasant to look at. There were two portraits of danseuses, with little gauzy wings, and wands tipped with magic stars; one large, full-faced likeness of a pet actress, taken in just the right attitude to show the rounding shoulders, the lightly poised head, and the heavy hair, to the best advantage; some charming French prints, among them "Niobe and her Daughters" ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... husband of 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 for ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... Pepys was in all situations of life to female charms. It was inevitable that his wits should often wander from the dramatic theme and its scenic presentation to the features of some woman on the stage or in the auditory. An actress's pretty face or graceful figure many times diverted his attention from her professional incompetence. It is doubtful if there were any affront which Pepys would not pardon in a pretty woman. Once ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... 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 ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... I have that piece of cold toast?" she asked plaintively. No professional actress on the stage could have spoken the words more deliciously. Even to the actual crunching of the toast in her little shining white teeth, she sought to illustrate as fantastically as possible the ultimate misery of a bankrupt person starving ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... their waists, and the eccentricity of their costumes, it was perhaps rather a new note to wear no jewels at all, and appear in ready-made frocks bought in bargain-sales; while, as for the young woman's air of childlike innocence and inexperience, it might be a tribute to her cleverness as an actress, but it was not a tribute to his intelligence as a man, that he should have been taken in by it. Always, he told himself, he was being taken in by some woman. After the lesson he had had, he ought to have learned wisdom, but it seemed that he was as gullible as ever. And ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... a minute, stood up as straight as a tragedy actress, and held her head as high as the Queen of Sheby. She gave me a look I shan't very easily forget, it was so full of scorn ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... 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, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... On the occasion of her two 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 she had gone ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris |
