"Comedian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... formerly of New York, became quite celebrated a few years since, as a comedian. He played several times in the old "Richmond Hill" Theatre, and quite successfully in Europe. Mr. Ulett was not well educated, and consequently, labored under considerable inconvenience in reading, frequently making grammatical blunders, as the writer noticed in a private rehearsal, ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... the despair with which that admirable observer of men, Mr. Mathews the comedian, confessed the hopelessness of success, in his endeavours to obtain a sufficiency of prominent and distinctive features to compose an entertainment founded on American character. The whole nation struck ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... there was a very good comedian who prided himself on being perfectly 'classic.' To be classic in France is to be elegantly conventional. No actress can be really kissed according to classic rules; the lips must be faintly smacked about three feet from her shoulder. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... possessed of ordinary sight. He had a curiously crooked face, one eye was higher than the other and his nose was not in the middle, but set on one side; its sharp, inquisitive point almost at right angles with the bridge. He had the wide, mobile mouth of the born comedian, and his chin was as much to the right as his nose was to the left. He was extremely light and slender in figure and his movements were like quicksilver. His hair was black and straight and long, especially over the ears, and he had long, slender, delicate hands, which one noticed at once for ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... with a delirium of excitement, whose intensity can only be imagined by realizing that famous bout at "catch him who can," which took place at the horticultural fete immortalized by Mr Samuel Foote, comedian, at which was present the great Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, the festivities continuing till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... by ourselves in a corner, but so as we could see more than some strangers; besides," says she, "it was all our conversation for several days in the family, and what one did not observe another did." "Why," says I to her, "this was no Persian dress; only, I suppose your lady was some French comedian, that is to say, a stage Amazon, that put on a counterfeit dress to please the company, such as they used in the play of Tamerlane at ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... to Scipio himself, his elder friend and counsellor Gaius Laelius (consul in 614) and Scipio's younger companions, Lucius Furius Philus (consul in 618) and Spurius Mummius, the brother of the destroyer of Corinth, among the Roman and Greek literati the comedian Terence, the satirist Lucilius, the historian Polybius, and the philosopher Panaetius. Those who were familiar with the Iliad, with Xenophon, and with Menander, could not be greatly impressed by the Roman Homer, and still less by the bad translations of the tragedies of Euripides which ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... C. Bullock, a comedian, and some time manager of Lincoln's-Inn-Fields theatre, made ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... in 1671, died in 1757; famous as a comedian and dramatist, and immortalized by Pope as the hero of the "Dunciad"; appointed Laureate in December, 1730, in succession to Eusden, who died in September that year. See Cibber's "Apology for his Life"; Disraeli's "Quarrels of ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... must always be careful and include his own foibles and failings in his attack, and he must make his efforts witty, so that he may have the help of laughter. But here the danger is that he will be listed as a pleasant comedian, and his serious purpose will be balked by ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... Manutoli, as they drove out beyond the crumbling and ivy-grown brick wall, which had helped to repel the attack of Odoacer the Goth; but which had, some thirteen hundred years ago, failed to keep out the mischief brought into the city by the comedian Empress Theodora, whose beauty had promoted her from the ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... scene in a coach, rather like certain novels by Balzac, but accompanied by insignificant details in the worst taste imaginable. Two girls are travelling in the same coach. Rose is a young comedian, and Sister Blanche is about to become a nun. They separate at Tarbes, and the scene of the story is laid in the region of the Pyrenees, in Tarbes Auch, Nerac, the Landes, and finishes with the return ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... the patched tent, admired Mr. Boothby's beard and long rifle; stamped their feet in the dust at the spectacle of his heroism; shouted when the comedian aped the City Lady's use of a lorgnon by looking through a doughnut stuck on a fork; wept visibly over Mr. Boothby's Little Gal Nell, who was also Mr. Boothby's legal wife Pearl, and when the curtain went down, listened respectfully ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... Hogarth—the most British of artists, even as Fielding was the most British of writers. But the greatest and most permanent facts of life are to be found in the smallest circles. Two men and a woman may furnish either the tragedian or the comedian with the most satisfying theme. And so, although his range was limited, Richardson knew very clearly and very thoroughly just that knowledge which was essential for his purpose. Pamela, the perfect woman of humble life, Clarissa, the perfect lady, ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... him; we who still remember those glimpses behind the scenes—our first and never-to- be-forgotten! How real everything seemed, even the grease-paint, the wigs, and the clothes. And the walking gentleman and the leading old man and low comedian! What splendid fellows they were and how we sympathized with them in their enforced exiles from a beloved land. How they suffered from scheming brothers who had robbed them of their titles and estates, or flint-hearted fathers who had turned them out of doors because of their infatuation ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Er. Although as the Comedian says, So many Men, so many Minds, and every Man has his own Way; yet no Body can make me believe, there is more Variety in Mens Dispositions, than there is in their Palates: So that you can scarce find two that ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... the king upon his throne, or the tramp by the wayside, saying "come" to the sick, "tarry not" to the well, is sure of the old, and revels like a reaper in the harvest of the young. It breaks the plans and disorganizes the relations of life; and then, like a coarse comedian or a heartless satirist, compels those who survive to turn away from the memory of their dead, reorganize their lives and live on as though those who once lived with them and formed an intimate part of their daily ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... think, not decisively liked or condemned yet: their success is certainly not rapid, though Pertici is excessively admired. Garrick says he is the best comedian he ever saw: but the women are execrable, not a pleasing note amongst them. Lord Middlesex has stood a trial with Monticelli for arrears of salary, in Westminster-hall, and even let his own handwriting be proved against him! You may imagine he was cast. Hume Campbell, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... an Englishman, and by profession a comedian. It was he who first brought a theatrical company to the West. He had built the first theatres in Cincinnati, St. Louis, and New Orleans, and first created a taste for theatricals in the great West. Possessing fine natural abilities, and wonderful enterprise, he pushed his ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... properties. movie studio, back lot, on location. part, role, character, dramatis personae [Lat.]; repertoire. actor, thespian, player; method actor; stage player, strolling player; stager, performer; mime, mimer^; artists; comedian, tragedian; tragedienne, Roscius; star, movie star, star of stage and screen, superstar, idol, sex symbol; supporting actor, supporting cast; ham, hamfatter [Slang]; masker^. pantomimist, clown harlequin, buffo^, buffoon, farceur, grimacer, pantaloon, columbine; punchinello^; pulcinello^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... sorry to cast away my speech upon another; for besides that it is excellently well penned, I have taken great pains to learn it."—"Whence come you, sir?" said Olivia. "I can say little more than I have studied," replied Viola; "and that question is out of my part."—"Are you a comedian?" said Olivia. "No," replied Viola; "and yet I am not that which I play;" meaning that she, being a woman, feigned herself to be a man. And again she asked Olivia if she were the lady of the house. Olivia said she was; and then Viola, having more curiosity ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... Norman, who sang real peasant songs to us, in the real language. Do you know that they have quite a Gallic wit and mischief? They contain a mine of master-pieces of genre. That made me love Normandy still more. You may know that comedian. His name is Freville. It is he who is charged in the repertory with the parts of the dull valets, and with being kicked from behind. He is detestable, impossible, but out of the theatre, he is as charming as can be. ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... Walking to the theatre, they once took the wrong turning and had to ask the way. At the stage door they smiled painfully, nodded, glad to part. Hubert went up to Montague Ford's room. He found the comedian on a low stool, seated before a low table covered with brushes and cosmetics, in front ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... morning in the Allee des Cavaliers. He would have been much better off had he stayed in his bed and taken cod-liver oil. Maurice called out to the boy to uncork the Chateau-Leoville. Amedee, having spoken of his drama to the comedian Gorju, called Jocquelet, that person, speaking in his bugle-like voice that came through his bugle-shaped nose, set himself up at once as a man of experience, giving his advice, and quoting, with admiration, Talma's ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... the stage manager in front of the curtain announcing that, "owing to Mr. Renshaw's sudden illness, the talented comedian, Mr. Thomas Mogley, had kindly consented to play Mephisto, at short notice, without ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... you that when I had time I would jot down my complaints, and I am now keeping my promise. I don't like the costume of the Tragedy Queen—her heels are too high and why does she wear gloves? The Low Comedian does not make the most of his part. He has to walk about with a band-box. Now why does he not seize the opportunity to place it on a chair and sit upon it? This would have a very comical effect. I have seen it done, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 12, 1891 • Various
... any more questions a shrill voice, at its highest pitch of excitement, called her away. Zo had just discovered the most amusing bird in the Gardens—the low comedian of the feathered race—otherwise known as the ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... by the acting of this tall comedian, could no longer control herself. Cries escaped her. She raved in her turn, and instinctively repeated the magician's gestures. The courtiers and the crowd followed her example, and the mute's guttural sounds were lost amid those songs; ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... songs, sonnets and other poems (Milan, 1601), and a collection of letters, published after her death. She inspired many of the French poets, notably Isaac du Ryer (d. c. 1631). Her son GIAMBATTISTA ANDREINI (1578-1650) was born in Florence, and had a great success as a comedian in Paris under the name of Leylio. He was a favourite with Louis XIII., and also with the public, especially as the young lover. He left a number of plays full of extravagant imagination. The best known are L'Adamo ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... which Emmanuel's sentiments were wrapped. No matter what may be said, or what may be done, there exists a wonderful magnetism whose effects never deceive. The tones of the voice, the glance, the passionate gestures of a lover may be imitated; a young girl can be deluded by a clever comedian; but to succeed, the man must be alone in the field. If the young girl has another soul beside her whose pulses vibrate in unison with hers, she is able to distinguish the expressions of a true love. Emmanuel, like Marguerite, felt the influence ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... "Green, I'll punch your head for you directly, you unspeakable pedant! What should you take him for, Miss Moore? A very high priest or a very low comedian?" ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... to so assume!" said Harry, bowing with his hand on his right side, and then quickly transferring it, after the manner of some stage comedian. "I'd go anywhere with you!" ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... a facetious comedian and song-writer, favoured by Charles II. Known for his collection of sonnets, Pills to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sympathy with an uproarious burlesque or side-shaking Christmas pantomime. His brethren who seek the theatre for amusement are of similar opinion, and so are they who stand behind the foot-lights. Therefore it is, that, for every passable comedian, America can produce a whole batch ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... unrestrained indulgence of his own ease, appetites, and convenience, has neither malice nor hypocrisy in it. In a word, he is an actor in himself almost as much as upon the stage, and we no more object to the character of Falstaff in a moral point of view than we should think of bringing an excellent comedian, who should represent him to the life, before one of the police offices. We only consider the number of pleasant lights in which he puts certain foibles (the more pleasant as they are opposed to the received rules and necessary restraints of society) and do not trouble ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... more prominent place than Dennis in the list of men whom Pope selected for attack. He could not have chosen one more impervious to assault. The poet's anger excited Cibber's mirth, his satire contributed to his content. The comedian's unbounded self-satisfaction and good humour, his vivacity and spirits, were proof against Pope's malice. Graceless he may have been, but a dullard the mercurial 'King Colley' ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... button-hole;" Mme. Barroyer, a flame of Charles X. before the Revolution, the protectress and one of the teachers of Mlle. Mars; Potier, pronounced by Talma to be the most consummate actor he ever knew; Vernet, the admirable comedian; and Odry, who has been called the French Liston, but who is preferred, by most of those whom a thorough knowledge of both languages renders capable of equally appreciating French and English farce, even to the great Paul Pry himself. Then came Frederick ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... author becoming the public interpreter of his own imaginings has been, not only discussed, but defined with precision and in the end authoritatively proclaimed. Voltaire, in truth, has significantly remarked, in his "Vie de Moliere," when referring to Poquelin's determination to become Comedian as well as Dramatist, that among the Athenians, as is perfectly well known, authors not only frequently performed in their own dramatic productions, but that none of them ever felt dishonoured by speaking gracefully in the presence and hearing of ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... you feel or do. He lives in a world of his own, and makes slender guesses at what passes in your mind. He never pierces the marrow of your habits. He will tell an old established play-goer, that Mr. Such-a-one, of So-and-so (naming one of the theatres), is a very lively comedian—as a piece of news! He advertised me but the other day of some pleasant green lanes which he had found out for me, knowing me to be a great walker, in my own immediate vicinity—who have haunted the identical spot any time these twenty years! He has not much respect for that class of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... its beatitudes spring, does not in its deepest, most vital moment regard all grown-up people as necessary nuisances. No one came so delightfully near being another child as Mildred; but Tims was a capital playfellow too, a broad comedian of the kind appreciated on ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... comprehends most of the truth of the matter. And it is delivered in that generous and loyal spirit which nobody would have appreciated more than the free-hearted Diderot himself. The drift of Goethe's contention is, in fact, the thesis of Diderot's Paradox on the Comedian. But the state of painting in France—and Goethe admits it—may have called for a line of criticism which was an exaggeration of what Diderot, if he had been in Goethe's neutral position, would have ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... you the impression which the "Divine Comedy" has made upon me, and which in the "Paradise" becomes to my mind a "divine comedy" in the literal sense of the word, in which I do not care to take part, either as a comedian or as a spectator. The misleading problem in these questions is always How to introduce into this terrible world, with an empty nothing beyond it, a God Who converts the enormous sufferings of existence into something fictitious, so that the hoped-for ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... on me. I'm the Only all-round amateur. To-night I make a bluff at the tramp act. It's harder to bluff it than to really do it, but then it's acting, it's amateur, it's art. See? I do everything, from Sheeny monologue to team song and dance and Dutch comedian. Sure, I'm Charley Welsh, the ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... as rather histrionic; and the reader will have observed that the Burgoyne of the Devil's Disciple is a man who plays his part in life, and makes all its points, in the manner of a born high comedian. If he had been killed at Saratoga, with all his comedies unwritten, and his plan for turning As You Like It into a Beggar's Opera unconceived, I should still have painted the same picture of him on ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... penetrate right through the leather of the mind gains stormy applause, whilst taste and execution can only be appreciated by the few. The actor can be certain of applause if he only thunder forth his parting reply. The comedian is sure of a shout of bravo if he puts forth an insipidity, and rubs his legs together as if replying with spirit and humor. The massive plate in the house gives many a lady the boldness to teach that in which she herself might perhaps have been instructed. Many a lady, like the Mamsell from Holstebro, ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... too much sociability—I do not get along fast enough with work. Tomorrow I lunch with Mr. Toole and a Member of Parliament—Toole is the most able Comedian of the day. And then I am done for a while. On Tuesday I mean to hang a card to my keybox, inscribed—"Gone out of the City for a week"—and then I shall go to work and work hard. One can't be caught in a hive ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in former times by the poet, the humorist, the novelist, or the playwright. If the fictionist of whatever sort had succeeded in identifying himself with the scientist, he must leave the enjoyment of divine honors to the pianist, the farce-comedian, the portrait-painter, the emotional actor, and the architect, who still deigned ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... one of the reigning comic opera successes was on view. It was an imported piece of the "Merry Widow" type, and everyone enjoyed it to the utmost. Aunt Betty and the Judge found their risibilities thoroughly shaken by the antics of the star, a comedian of prominence, while the tastes of the young people seemed to incline toward the bright chorus numbers, and the individual ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... Lowell's, for instance. Of course the mere chopping up of unrhythmic prose into capitalized lines without glow, without emotion, is not poetry, any more than the blank verse of the second-rate nineteenth-century "poetic drama," which old Joe Crowell, comedian, described as "good, honest prose set up hind-side foremost." We may eliminate that from the discussion once and for all. But the genuine new poets, who know what they are about, and doubtless why they are about it, I regard ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... had appeared between those of Kemp and Burbage (named in the above list), the one the chief comedian, the other the chief tragedian of the time, in comedies which were acted before the Queen on December 27 and 28, 1594, at Greenwich Palace. The titles of these comedies are not given in the Treasurer's Accounts of the Chamber, from which we ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... appearance successively as a lawyer, a servant, a vigorous and active gentleman relieved of his distempers by water-cure, a feeble invalid, &c., &c. It is long since I saw much acting of any account, but this seemed to me perfect; and I am sure the raw material of a capital comedian was put to a better use when Charles Dickens took to authorship. The other characters were fairly presented, and the play heartily ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... comedy, with Miss Farren and the late Mr. Henderson. My first appearance in Palmira (in "Mahomet") was with the Zaphna of Mr. J. Bannister, the preceding year; and though the extraordinary comic powers of this excellent actor and amiable man have established his reputation as a comedian, his first essay in tragedy was considered as a night of the most distinguished promise. The Duchess of Devonshire still honoured me with her patronage and friendship, and I also possessed the esteem of ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... feature at some of Lady Dilke's evenings was the production of French comedies by M. Brasseur, the celebrated comedian, and father of the well-known actor of the present day. At all times in Sir Charles Dilke's life his house was a great meeting-place for those who loved and knew France ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... Jewess for the sake of her Jewish actor, and desired to be buried by the Jewish rite when she was dying of the savage kick that killed her and her child—the only act of violence Nero seems to have ever regretted. However that may be, it is sure that she loved the comedian, and that for a time he had unbounded influence in Rome. And so great did their power grow that Claudius Rutilius, a Roman magistrate and poet, a contemporary of Chrysostom, and not a Christian, ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... Jack both had parts in the entertainment. Jack made a good "bones" for the minstrels, and he coaxed his chum to don a burnt-cork face for that one evening, and show what he could do as a comedian ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... reincarnated more times than Shiva; and he has kept a sample of each incarnation, and fused it into his constitution. In the course of his evolutionary promotions, his sublime march toward ultimate perfection, he has been a gambler, a low comedian, a dissolute priest, a fussy woman, a blackguard, a scoffer, a liar, a thief, a spy, an informer, a trading politician, a swindler, a professional hypocrite, a patriot for cash, a reformer, a lecturer, a lawyer, a conspirator, a rebel, a royalist, a democrat, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... glimpse of the actor and even of the Italian buffoon; M. de Pradt called him "Jupiter Scapin." Read his reflections before M. de Pradt, on his return from Russia, in which he appears in the light of a comedian who, having played badly and failed in his part, retires behind the scenes, runs down the piece, and criticize the imperfections of the audience. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... warbles mellifluously: "Highball or straight?" And when we reach musical comedy and vaudeville, all thought of drama, technically speaking, is abandoned in watching the capers of the "merry-merry" or the outrageous "Dutch" comedian wielding his deadly newspaper. ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... opinions, they were founded on 'principle', and with the exception of the two above alluded to, he ought never to be accused of changing. Some years since, the late Charles Matthews, the comedian, (or rather, as Coleridge used to observe, "the comic poet acting his own poems,") showed me an autograph letter from Mr. Wordsworth to Matthews' brother, (who was at that time educating for the bar) and with whom he corresponded. ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... attitude toward certain subjects. For example, "The Contrast" contains the first American Stage Yankee—a model for a succession of Stage Yankees to follow. But, whereas Royall Tyler's Jonathan was not especially written to exploit the peculiar abilities of Mr. Wignell, the comedian, most of the Yankee plays of a later date were written to exploit the peculiar excellences of such actors as G. H. Hill and James ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists - 1765-1819 • Various
... roles in which he distinguished himself are imperfectly recorded. Few surviving documents refer directly to performances by him. At Christmas 1594 he joined the popular actors William Kemp, the chief comedian of the day, and Richard Burbage, the greatest tragic actor, in 'two several comedies or interludes' which were acted on St. Stephen's Day and on Innocents' Day (December 27 and 28) at Greenwich Palace before the Queen. The players ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... probably about this time, and owing to the instigation of Essex, that Tarleton, the comedian, laid himself open to banishment from Court for calling out, while Raleigh was playing cards with Elizabeth, 'See how the Knave commands the Queen!' Elizabeth supported her old favourite, but there is no doubt that these attacks made ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... thoughts so as always to get the human and durable element in them visible and audible through the "trappings of convention." Again, he has that all-saving touch of humour which enables him, sentimentalist as he is, to be an admirable comedian as well. Yet again, he has at least something of the two qualities which one must demand of a poet who is a poet, and not a mere maker of rhymes. His note of feeling, if not full or deep, is true and real. His faculty of expression is not only considerable, but ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... hear, in which a mere water-carrier was an equal participant, lost Sophie her place. We next have word of her imitating Nell Gwynn, both in selling oranges to playgoers and in becoming an actress—not, however, at Old Drury, but at the other patent theatre, Covent Garden. Save that as a comedian she never took London by storm, and that she lacked Nell's unfailing good humour, Sophie in her career matches Nell in more than superficial particulars. Between selling oranges and appearing on the stage Sophie seems ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... the rounds, and still the Rube, though red in the face, preserved his temper and his pitching control. All would have been well if Bud Wiler, comedian of the Providence team, had not hit upon a ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... and a Jew peddler; a careless, dashing cavalry officer or proud Prussian squire, and at the same time a wary and astute insurance agent for the empire; a preacher of duty and honor, and belief in God, and at the same time a political comedian deceiving his rivals abroad, and hoodwinking his ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... of her infidelity, had a change of color in his hair, which became white almost immediately. Vauvilliers, the celebrated Hellenist, became white-haired almost immediately after a terrible dream, and Brizard, the comedian, experienced the same change after a narrow escape from drowning in the Rhone. The beard and the hair of the Duke of Brunswick whitened in twenty-four hours after hearing that his father had been mortally wounded at the battle ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... with "What cheer, Rea! Rea's on the job." The sketch is slight, but is welcome and refreshing after the eternal drawing-room and Mrs Kendal's cumbrous domesticity; it is curious, quaint, perverted, and are not these the aions and the attributes of art? Now see that perfect comedian, Arthur Roberts, superior to Irving because he is working with living material; how trim and saucy he is! and how he evokes the soul, the brandy-and-soda soul, of the young men, delightful and elegant in black and white, who are so vociferously cheering him, "Will you stand me a cab-fare, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... "Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!" his chin fell on his breast, and he turned to his son and said: "O God, I am dying! speak to them Charles," and the audience in sympathy cried, "Take him off! take him off!" and he was carried away to die. Poor Edmund Kean! When Schiller, the famous comedian, was tormented with toothache, some one offered to draw the tooth. "No," said he, "but on the 10th of June, when the house closes, you may draw the tooth, for then I shall have nothing to eat with it." The impersonation of character is often the means of destroying health. Moliere, ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... force there?" queried the comedian; "for if there be you can hand me my divvy right now. Tie the Gem up to the first rock we come to and put me ashore. No Newport for ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... wit on Marcella as on anybody else. As for the others, most of them had known little else for weeks than alternations of toil and sickness; they were as much amused and excited to-night by Mrs. Jellison's audacities as a Londoner is by his favourite low comedian at his favourite music-hall. They played chorus to her, laughed, baited her; even old Patton was drawn against his will ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the Formes Figaro was 'developed from the depths of his subjective moral consciousness,' whereas the Figaro of a Southern European is the thing itself—like Charles Mathews playing the part of Charles Mathews, or like the Greek comedian's imitation of a pig's voice, by pinching a veritable pork-let, which he ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... for the exemption of a comedian playing in his revue, "Never mind the War." This young man, he said, who was twenty-nine, was the life and soul of the piece, and if he joined the Army the applicant would be put both to inconvenience ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... skillful farmer or a lucky fisherman; other talents are required to touch the hearts of nobles, and hers remained indifferent, insensible to the sighs of Kawelo. Nobles then, as to-day, regarded pleasure above all things; and a good comedian was worth more to them than an ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... found a performer of much greater capacity—a man who possessed considerable powers as a musician, low comedian, and local satirist; he was noted for his delineations of native character, and succeeded in making the Parsees laugh heartily at his caricature of the Hindus, while he convulsed the Hindus with his clever skits on the Parsees. He also made effective reference to the Great Eastern ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... all these matters well in train,—Salzburgers under way, Crown-Prince betrothed according to his Majesty's and the Kaiser's (not to her Majesty's, and high-flying little George of England my Brother the Comedian's) mind and will,—begins to think seriously of another enterprise, half business, half pleasure, which has been hovering in his mind for some time. "Visit to my Daughter at Baireuth," he calls it publicly; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... like a young girl who consigns to the care of others the child of her secret love,) he even brought out his earliest pieces under others' names. He appeared for the first time without this disguise with the Knights, and here he displayed the undaunted resolution of a comedian, by an open assault on popular opinion. His object was nothing less than the overthrow of Cleon, who, after the death of Pericles, was at the head of all state affairs, a promoter of war, and a worthless man of very ordinary abilities, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... a monument to Emery, the comedian, and Neale, another poet, was buried in the churchyard. But these records combined make but poor claim to such a proud title. The ground on which Chatterton was buried has now utterly vanished, having been covered first by the Farringdon Market, ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... Unfortunately, among many of our young people, the Bible seems to be a book to be avoided or to be treated in a rather "jocose" manner. To raise a laugh on the vaudeville stage, a Biblical quotation has only to be produced, and the weary comedian, when he is at a loss to get a witty speech across the footlights, is almost sure to speak ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... or three times over. Abolish large incomes, and jewels, pictures, wines, furs, special and rare skill like that of the operating surgeon and fashionable portrait painter, lose all or most of their money value. All the large professional incomes, except those of the low comedian and his like, are made out of the rich, and are counted at least twice for income-tax. It is certain that a large part of the national income could not be 'redistributed,' and that in the attempt to do so credit would be destroyed ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... time, the profession of a comedian was but lightly esteemed in France at this period. Moliere experienced the inconveniences resulting from this circumstance, even after his splendid literary career had given him undoubted claims to consideration. Most of our readers ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... this campaign of murder is typified by making Von Tirpitz, its inventor, an addle-headed seahorse, the nursery comedian of the sea. Stupid and ridiculous bewilderment stares from his foolish eyes. Another submarine has failed to find a safe victim in a trading ship, but has been hoisted with its own sea petard. ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... life. At the Langley table statesmen who hated each other across the floor of the House sat side by side in perfect amity. The heir to the oldest dukedom in England met there the latest champion of the latest phase of democratic socialism; the great tragedian from the Acropolis met the low comedian from the Levity on terms of as much equality as if they had met at the Macklin or the Call-Boy clubs; the President of the Royal Academy was amused by, and afforded much amusement to, the newest child of genius fresh from Paris, with the slang of the Chat Noir upon his lips and the scorn of les ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... of still further transitions, in the theatrical and literary world. Liston, the famous comedian who had delighted a former generation, was dead, and amateur actors, led by authors in the persons of Charles Dickens, Douglas Jerrold, &c. &c., had come to the front, and were winning much applause, as well as solid benefits for individuals and institutions ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... the funeral of Vespasian, the comedian who personated that frugal emperor, anxiously inquired how much it cost. Fourscore thousand pounds, (centies.) Give me the tenth part of the sum, and throw my body into the Tiber. Sueton, in Vespasian, c. 19, with the notes of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... her for her hand, and was accepted—on probation, thus departing in leading strings. Hawkes, melancholy as of old, drifted into a comic part in a "variety show," acquiring new laurels as a dry comedian of the old school. But he continued to live alone in the world, mournfully sufficient ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... practised in order to keep the popular attention awake. Suppose a great actor moves from London to Windsor, the Brentford Champion must state that "Yesterday Mr. Blazes and suite passed rapidly through our city; the celebrated comedian is engaged, we hear, at Windsor, to give some of his inimitable readings of our great national bard to the MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AUDIENCE in the realm." This piece of intelligence the Hammersmith Observer ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and at the same time prevent a reaction of misery when the excitement was over. Tragedies deep and dire were the chief favourites. Comedy brought with it too great a contrast to the inner despair: when such were attempted, it was not unfrequent for a comedian, in the midst of the laughter occasioned by his disporportioned buffoonery, to find a word or thought in his part that jarred with his own sense of wretchedness, and burst from mimic merriment into sobs ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... him say to Soames. 'There is a type of person to whom the very mention of my name is—oh-so-awfully-funny! In your theatres the dullest comedian needs only to say "The Devil!" and right away they give him "the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind." ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... crafty Davus: of a flattering Gnatho: of a vainglorious Thraso [Footnote: All characters in the Plays of Terence.]: and not only to know what effects are to be expected, but to know who be such, by the signifying badge given them by the comedian. And little reason hath any man to say that men learn evil by seeing it so set out: sith, as I said before, there is no man living but, by the force truth hath in nature, no sooner seeth these men play their parts, but wisheth them in Pistrinum [Footnote: the tread-mill.]: ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... of the Reign of Terror The Rogue's Gallery of a Father Should be Exhibited to a Daughter with Particular Care "But Spare Your Country's Flag" Nero not the Last Violinist of his Kind The Ever Unpractical Feminine The Comedian A Tale of a Political Difference The Rule of the Regent Echoes of a Serenade A Voice in a Garden The Room in the Cupola The Tocsin The Firm of Gray and Vanrevel When June Came "Those Endearing Young Charms" The Price of Silence ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... intention of defending an authority transmitted to him through whole ages, and recently sanctioned by the voice of the people, did not scruple to excite a civil war in defence of their six months' sovereignty over a republic, proclaimed by a ferocious comedian, and certainly without the assent of the nation. Had the ill-fated Monarch dared thus to trifle with the lives of his subjects, he might have saved ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... civil engineer; H. C. Courtney, the barrister; H. Rushton and Joseph Barnett, of one of the banks; Ben Griffin, mine host of the Boomerang; Godfrey Brown, of Janion, Green & Rhodes; W. J. Callingham, of McCutcheon & Callingham, drapers (the latter, by the bye, was a most clever low comedian); Plummer, the auctioneer; and last, though not least, Alex. Phillips, of soda water fame. These names will all be familiar to old pioneers. As female talent was scarce, or they were loth to take part in theatricals, the other sex had to be enlisted, and I shall not forget ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... Napoleonic memoirs, those of the Comtesse Potocka, this lively Polish lady describes the great personages who surrounded the Emperor in the winter of 1806-1807, at Warsaw: Murat, parading himself in the salons "with the majestic air of a comedian assuming the role of a king;" the young Prince Borghese, "who, in the brief intervals when the conversation became a little serious, went off to get some chairs, arranged them in pairs in the middle of the salon, and amused himself ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... Though he travelled into several countries, he always lived in the same poverty, mortification, and recollection. In a certain town, commiserating the spiritual blindness of an idolater, who was also a comedian, he sold himself to him for twenty pieces of money. His only sustenance in this servitude was bread and water. He acquitted himself at the same time of every duty belonging to his condition with the utmost diligence and fidelity, joining with his labor assiduous ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... ill-proportioned. Neither was Mr. Monk ill at ease or ungraceful in his actions. Clothed in that extravagantly correct costume—correct, at least, for a drawing-room, if never for motoring—he had all the appearance of a comedian fresh from the hands of his dresser. One naturally expected of him mere grotesqueries—and found simply the courteous demeanour of a gentleman of the world. So much for externals. But what more? Nature herself ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... comic. Mr. HENRY ASHLEY, always conscientious even in his mirth, at the end of the Second Act, is suggestive of the Astley's of the Westminster Road. Like the piece, he is very well mounted. Madame AMADI is also excellent, a genuine lady-comedian—or should it be comedienne? Then there is Mr. JOSEPH TAPLEY, a capital tenor, and Mr. HAYDEN COFFIN, silver-voiced and graceful, the beau ideal of the hero of a Light Opera company. For the rest, the chorus and band could not be better, and the production ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 6, 1890 • Various
... Stranger, when he was interrupted by the King, who, in the most affable manner, observed that his general imitations were excellent, and such as no one who had ever seen the characters could fail to recognise; but he thought the comedian's portrait of John Kemble somewhat too boisterous.—"He is an old friend, and I might add, tutor of mine," observed his Majesty: "when I was Prince of Wales he often favoured me with his company. I will give you an imitation of John Kemble," said ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... What's the matter? You look as sad as a low comedian by daylight!" Previous to this salutation came a ringing slap ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... of Johnson's character is one which has never, oddly enough, been put upon the stage. There was in his nature one of the unconscious and even agreeable contradictions loved by the true comedian. . . . I mean a strenuous and sincere belief in convention, combined with a huge natural inaptitude for observing ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... been a supper party after the performance at the flat which the comedian of the troupe had rented in Jermyn Street, a forced, rowdy supper party where a number of tired people with over-strained nerves had seemed to feel it a duty to be artificially vivacious. It had lasted till four o'clock when the morning ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... favourite books in prose were romances by Mrs. Radcliffe and Godwin. He now began to yearn for fame and publicity. Miss Shelley speaks of a play written by her brother and her sister Elizabeth, which was sent to Matthews the comedian, and courteously returned as unfit for acting. She also mentions a little volume of her own verses, which the boy had printed with the tell-tale name of "H-ll-n Sh-ll-y" on the title-page. Medwin gives a long account of a poem on the story of the Wandering Jew, composed by ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... a stage arranged to suit him and his camera ready, a dozen members of the company drifted in with a casual manner of having arrived accidentally. Fleming Lennox, leading man, appeared with Cliff Manderson, chief comedian for the Lunar border company. Baldy Cummings, the property man, strolled leisurely in to look over some costumes. But Steve observed that ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... community, there must be virtuous and well-ordered men. The reverse is now discovered to be the truth. First, have a well-ordered and divinely happy community, and then the individual may do as he likes; as our comedian says, "his duties will ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... and his love of the Arts had taken him some time before our tale to the theaters, then the resort of all who pretended to taste; and it was thus he had become fascinated by Mrs. Woffington, a lady of great beauty, and a comedian high ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... the passion that was revealed in the songstress's acting, in her voice full of charm and tenderness, was inspired by him. He alone lent fire to the glances of those deep eyes, and that idea ought to have made him proud, but the comedian's vanity proved stronger. At the end of the performance he sent for the leader of the claque and rated him soundly. They had missed his entry and his exit, forgotten the recall at the third act; he would complain to ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... Governor, and Kilshaw had been there, fresh from a conference with Perry. The inquiry had ended, as was foreseen directly Ned Evans' evidence was forthcoming, in a verdict of murder against Gaspard; but the interest lay in the course of the investigation, not in its issue. Mr. Duncombe, a famous comedian, who was then on tour in New Lindsey and had been made an honorary member of the Club, smacked his lips over the dramatic moment when the ex-Premier, calmly and in a clear voice, had identified the person in the photograph, ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... like him," she wailed, "Ikey is the funniest four-legged clown in America. He's a natural-born comedian. Folks think I learn him those tricks, but it's all his own stuff. Only last week we was playing Paoli's in Bridgeport, and when I was putting Bruno through the hoops, Ikey runs to the stage-box and grabs a pound of caramels out of a girl's ...
— The Nature Faker • Richard Harding Davis
... their meetings; and, as for putting off pressing creditors, and turning furious foes into affectionate friends, he was such an adept at it, that his reputation as a dun-destroyer is quite on a par with his fame as comedian and orator. ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... before my first audience in a little hall by the country road. A piano having been brought in from a neighbor's, I was helped out by the severe thumping it got, and by a "Tommy Atkins" song from a strolling comedian. People came from a great distance, and the attendance all told netted the house about three pounds sterling. The owner of the hall, a kind lady from Scotland, would take no rent, and so my lecture from the start ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... lately at his very best. Dropping in there last week, during the performance of a new farce, entitled Romney's Rum 'Un, I was again fascinated by the inexhaustible wit and allusive badinage of this great little comedian, beside whose ready gagging GEORGE GRAVES himself is inarticulate. Had not GEORGE ROBEY invented for application to himself the descriptive phrase, "The Prime Minister of Mirth," it should be at once affixed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... comedian at the same theatre, was sitting in his room half asleep over a half-emptied rum bottle. He always resorted to this course to drown his sorrows when he was ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... of Thomas Holcroft's novels, "Alwyn; or, The Gentleman Comedian," founded on his own adventures when a travelling actor, he gives the character of an enthusiast who had conceived the idea of establishing a humane asylum for animals, the consequences of which he describes. ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... to have been worn by the dwarfs attached to the court of Spain. In addition to the little company of dwarfs there were buffoons at the court, and of these Velazquez painted Pablillos, who is known as "the comedian," and Don Juan of Austria, whose portrait is a triumph of harmony in colour, the pink of mantle and stockings contrasting admirably with black ...
— Velazquez • S. L. Bensusan
... was the comedian who is compelled to take himself seriously and make the most of it, or a tart plum that concludes ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... bedsteads in the way. I am very 'crummy,' badly flea-bitten, overrun with bed bugs, somewhat fly-blown, but, redemption of it all, I am free and always drunk. Still, I am really getting tired of playing the knock-about comedian and ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... is fond of making jokes, and not particular whom he confides them to, has heard another good story about Tarleton. This is the low comedian Kempe, who stepped into the shoes of flat-nosed, squinting Tarleton the other day, but never quite manages to fill them. He whispers the tale across Will's back to Cowley, before it is made common property; and little fancies, as he does so, that any immortality he and his friend may ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... has rather a kindly feeling toward this little brother of the plains, called by the Aztecs coyote, or "wild one." We know his evil propensities and his economic menace, but still we love him, or at least, look upon him much as the Indians do, as a sort of comedian ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... civilization." A novel dealing with colored people who lived in respectable homes and amidst a fair degree of culture and who naturally acted "just like white folks" would be taken in a comic-opera sense. In this respect the Negro is much in the position of a great comedian who gives up the lighter roles to play tragedy. No matter how well he may portray the deeper passions, the public is loath to give him up in his old character; they even conspire to make him a failure ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... Bartholomew and Southwark fairs. On 27 Oct. 1721 his name appears as Sir Epicure Mammon in the Alchemist at Drury Lane. Here he remained for eleven years, taking the parts of booby squires, fox-hunters, etc., proving himself what Victor calls 'a jolly facetious low comedian'. His good voice was serviceable in ballad opera and farce. On account of his 'natural timidity', according to Davies, he was selected by Highmore, the patentee, in order to test the status of an actor, to be the ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... upon those immeasurably beneath him. For him, a Prussian nobleman, to be spoken to in this way by one of a lower sphere was bad enough, but when that one was of the very lowest of spheres, an American, it was acute pain. He looked upon Edestone as a low comedian rather than as a gentleman in the hands of a chivalrous enemy, which the officer considered ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... notes which Mr. Forster has admirably used, and which we now abridge without further apology. Grim old Macklin belonged to the club it is certain; and among the less obscure members was King, the comedian, the celebrated impersonator of Lord Ogleby. Hugh Kelly, another member, was a clever young Irishman, who had chambers near Goldsmith in the Temple. He had been a stay-maker's apprentice, who, turning law writer, and soon landing as a hack for the magazines, set up as a satirist ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... social life of the city he really was. He spent most of his time in Lester's dressing-room smoking, listening to the reminiscences of Lester's dresser when Lester was on the stage; and this seclusion and his clerical attire of evening dress led the second comedian to call him Lester's father confessor, and to suggest that he came to the theatre only to take the star to task for his sins. And in this the second comedian was unknowingly not so very far wrong. Lester, the comedian, ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... smash, all right!" exclaimed Carl Switzer, the comedian of the company. "I pelief me ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... to the character, and which he assumes with so much truth and fidelity, those unacquainted with the province or its inhabitants see merely the abstract idea, the beau ideal of a Yorkshireman. But to those who are intimate with both, the action and manner of the comedian almost necessarily recall the idea of some individual native (altogether unknown probably to the performer) to whom his exterior and manners bear a casual resemblance. We are therefore on the whole inclined to believe, that the incidents are frequently copied from actual occurrences, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... years, strong and thickset, had his skin stained, a sharp and piercing eye, and face completely shaved, so as to be able to assume the different disguises necessary to his dangerous expeditions; for it was often necessary for him to unite the sudden transformations of a comedian with the energy and courage of the soldier, to surprise certain bandits whom he was obliged to match in courage and determination. Narcisse Borel was, in a word, one of the most useful, the most active instruments of the providence, on a small scale, modestly and vulgarly ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue |
