"Performer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the former will spell out (with the assistance of card-board letters) a number of interesting astronomical facts at the instigation of his mirth-provoking master and proprietor. This talented performer ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 12, 1891 • Various
... homes the parlor is also the music room. Since a piano should be chosen for quality rather than appearance, an instrument of any finish is allowable in a room, whatever its decorative scheme. Except in a family containing an expert performer, a piano should be chosen for softness and richness of tone, instead of brilliancy. For most households the old cottage organ is a more practicable instrument than the "concert grand" often found in a small parlor, where its piercing notes, especially in combination with operatic singing, are ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... songs, with which home-sick white men comforted themselves in far-off lodges—were roared out in strident tones. Feet were beating time to the rasp of the fiddles. Men rose and danced wild jigs, or deftly executed some intricate Indian step; and uproarious applause greeted every performer. The hall throbbed with confused sounds and the din deadened my thinking faculties. Even now, Eric might be slipping past. In that deafening tumult I could decide nothing, and when I tried to leave the table, all the lights ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... that neither his lordship nor I have ever thought the less of each other because of it. I revert to this merely to show that I have not always acted in a ruffianly manner under these circumstances. It seems rather to depend upon how the thing is done—the mood of the performer—his mental state. Had Mr. Belknap-Jackson been—pardon me—quite drunk, I feel that the outcome would have been happier for us all. So far as I have thought along these lines, it seems to me that if one is to be kicked at all, one must be kicked good-naturedly. ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... the pitch, on her very first visit to Chester Square. She had arrived there in intense excitement, and her excitement was left on her hands in a manner that reminded her of a difficult air she had once heard sung at the opera when no one applauded the performer. That flatness had made her sick, and so did this, in another way. A part of her agitation proceeded from the fact that her aunt Julia had told her, in the manner of a burst of confidence, something she was not to repeat, that she was in appearance the very image of the lady ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... rather his appetite's, content. It was a more arduous undertaking to provide the running accompaniment of thought, or at least of words, without which the breakfast would have been little better than a pig-trough. The conversation or rather mono-polylogue, as some great performer calls it, ran in ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... twice as long. In the sloping sides are set several bits of looking-glass. A long iron spindle, the lower end of which is sharp and fixed in the ground, passes freely through the centre; on this the instrument turns, and even spins rapidly when a string has been attached and is pulled by the performer, who generally stands at a distance of fifteen or twenty yards from the decoy. The reflection of the sun's rays from these little revolving mirrors seems to possess a mysterious attraction for the larks, for they descend in ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... would deceive the bird herself; and the whole uttered in such rapid succession that it seems as if the movement that gives the concluding note of one strain must form the first note of the next. The effect is very rich, and, to my ear, entirely unique. The performer is very careful not to reveal himself in the mean time; yet there is a conscious air about the strain that impresses me with the idea that my presence is understood and my attention courted. A tone of pride and glee, and, occasionally, of bantering ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... the remark about a swelled head, Lance must have been rotting. He wasn't troubling about women or girls—except for tennis and dancing; and Miss Arden was a superlative performer; in fact, rather superlative all round. As a new experience, she seemed distinctly worth cultivating, so long as that process did not seriously hamper the novel,—that was unashamedly his ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... things. He was not sure at first whether she were intently listening to the music, or whether her mind was upon something far different and far away; he thought the latter. He was right. Ellen at the moment had escaped from the company and the noisy sounds of the performer at her side; and while her eye was curiously tracing out the pattern of the carpet, her mind was resting itself in one of the verses she had been reading that same evening. Suddenly, and as it seemed, from ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... as a phrase-maker is in all the Churches of literature. It was his skill in this respect which elicited the liveliest compliments from a transcendent performer in the same field. In 1881 he wrote to his sister: "On Friday night I had a long talk with Lord Beaconsfield. He ended by declaring that I was the only living Englishman who had become a classic in his own lifetime. ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... said, "'tis nothing at all, I assure you. On shore I am a circus performer, an' I was just practicing a little. ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... who had been led to notice them particularly. The sister who could not sing, seated herself with an air of easy confidence at the instrument, while the other stood near her. The first few touches that passed over the keys showed that the performer knew well how to give to music a soul. The tones that came forth were not the simple vibrations of a musical chord, but expressions of affection given by her whose fingers woke the strings into harmony. But if the preluding touches ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... in private theatricals? Often. I have played the part of the "Poor Gentleman," before a great many audiences,—more, I trust, than I shall ever face again. I did not wear a stage-costume, nor a wig, nor moustaches of burnt cork; but I was placarded and announced as a public performer, and at the proper hour I came forward with the ballet-dancer's smile upon my countenance, and made my bow and acted my part. I have seen my name stuck up in letters so big that I was ashamed to show myself in the place by daylight. I have gone to a town ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... was aware that she could do so at all. The pastor was approaching the cottage when the sound of music reached his ears, and having a good knowledge of that art himself, he stood still to listen. A few minutes convinced him that though the playing was that of a child, still the performer had the true soul of music, and only needed full instruction to develop into a musician of no ordinary talent. As he drew nearer his surprise was great to see that the player was none other than the beautiful child found ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous
... magnified you here, O Maruts? Come hither, O friends, towards your friends. Ye brilliant Maruts, welcoming these prayers, be mindful of these my rites. The wisdom of Manya has brought us hither, that he should help as the poet helps the performer of a sacrifice: turn hither quickly! Maruts, on to the sage! the singer has recited these prayers for you. May this your praise, O Maruts, this song of Mandarya, the son of Mana, the poet, bring offspring for ourselves with food. ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... which I strayed one evening, one of the nigger corner-men sang a song of which the nature may be sufficiently divined from the refrain, "And the tom-cat was the cause of it all." This lyric being loudly encored, the performer came forward, and, to my astonishment, began to recite a long series of doggerel verses upon Mr. ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... trained hearer, on the other hand, every note drawn by the performer from his instrument will have a distinct value. Some of the tones will be true in pitch and perfect in quality. Some will vary slightly from the correct pitch; others will perhaps be in perfect tune, and yet be marred in quality by faults ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... procure a fund of merit to the performer, which raises him in every future birth, and at length advances him to heaven, where he enjoys happiness for a limited period, or carries him towards final absorption. A person may sink to earth again by crimes committed in heaven. The ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... my tent had been pitched near the broad plains in which the meadow-lark delights, I might have wakened to the glorious song of this bird of the West. It is not a chorus, indeed, for one rarely hears more than a single performer, but it is a solo that fully makes up for want of numbers, and amply satisfies the lover of bird music, so strong, so sweet, so ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... present the same elements that constitute the appeal of pictures,—skill in the rendering, a certain correspondence with experience, and the power of imaginative interpretation of the facts of life. The music-hall performer who wins the loudest and heartiest applause is he who does the greatest number of pyrotechnic, wonderful things on the piano, or holds a high note on the cornet for the longest time. His success, as with the painter whose ...
— The Enjoyment of Art • Carleton Noyes
... bruisers—rapscallions, such as used to follow Clodius through the streets of Rome—and he loved to join in the scuffles like any commoner. Pugilism he learnt from Angelo, and he was considered by some to be a fine performer. On one occasion, too, at an exposition d'escrime, when he handled the foils against the maitre, he 'was highly complimented upon his graceful postures.' In fact, despite all his accomplishments, he seems ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... of wood, and has seven strings, two of steel, the rest of silver, and these are plucked by the two first fingers of the performer, who wears little metal shields made for the purpose. It is tuned by pegs, and has two gourds suspended below, each usually measuring about fourteen inches across. These, being of irregular shape and gaily coloured, give a very ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... all to themselves—and there isn't anything except themselves. I know it's like that. It's because they can spread themselves over a film, and they can't over a living performer. They're up against the performer himself. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... musical fervour, walked through pools of water and hillocks of mud, till they covered the powdered heads of the running-footmen aforesaid with splashes, that looked curious, but not ornamental; or how the barrel-organ performer put on the wrong stop, and played one tune while the band played another; or how the horses, being used to the arena, and not to the streets, would stand still and dance, instead of going on and prancing;—all of which are matters which might be dilated upon to great advantage, but which we have ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... dangerous rival in Pylades. The latter was magnificent, pathetic, and affecting, while Bathyllus was gay and sportive. All Rome was split into factions about their respective merits. Athenaeus speaks of a distinguished performer of his own time (he died A.D. 194) named Memphis, whom he calls the "dancing philosopher," because he showed what the Pythagorean philosophy could do by exhibiting in silence everything with stronger evidence than they could who professed to teach the arts of ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... now belongs, and proves his success as a fifteenth century reformer. The people made and keep up the acquaintance of this man by way of the ticket office, but instead of considering him as they would any other footlight performer, who had struck a paying vein and was working it for all it was worth, and who can only be heard at so much per ticket, they have come to look upon the character he has been acting as the man himself, and their friend who would ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood
... streets in his blue linen frock, and with his sack of small coal on his back, he was frequently accosted with the following expression: "There goes the famous small-coal man, who is a lover of learning, a performer in music, and a companion for gentlemen."' Saturday, when Parliament was not sitting during the winter, was the market day with the booksellers of Little Britain; and in the earlier part of the last century, the frequenters of this locality included such worthies as the Duke of Devonshire, Edward, ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... some of the older makers—notably, Savory—are still sought after, in preference to more modern ones. The instrument, although with extraordinary advantages in tone, character, and adaptability, that render it valuable to the composer, is yet complicated and capricious for the performer; but its very imperfections remove it from the mechanical tendencies of the age, often damaging to art; and, as the player has to rely very much upon his ear for correct intonation, he gets, in reality, near to the manipulation of the stringed instruments. The bassoons ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... soon saw that the men who did the best and most useful work were the watch-dogs; the men who gave warnings. But I also very soon found out that in practice the part is one which cannot be played if the performer wants to have a pleasant time in the world, or to make himself generally liked by his fellow-men. A watch-dog is never popular. How could he be? People do not like to be disturbed, and to be warned generally means a loud noise and often a shock to delicate nerves. ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... who came within his reach. This exhibition seems very absurd, yet not less than one hundred were present—children, boys, old men, and even gentlemen and ladies, were standing by, and occasionally greeting the performer with the smile of approbation. Mr. Punch, however, was not to have it all his own way, for another and better sort of Punch-like exhibition appeared a few yards off, that took away Mr. Punch's audience, to the great dissatisfaction of that gentleman. This was an exhibition ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... played Charlot, 'proved', says Cibber, 'not only a good actress, but was allowed in those days, to sing and dance to great perfection. In the dramatic operas of Dioclesian and King Arthur, she was a capital and admired performer. In speaking too, she had a sweet-toned voice, which, with her naturally genteel air and sensible pronunciation, rendered her wholly mistress of the amiable in many serious characters. In parts of humour, too, she had a manner of blending her assuasive softness, even with the gay, the lively, and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... Tobago has earned a reputation as an excellent investment site for international businesses. A leading performer the past four years has been the booming natural gas sector. Tourism is a growing sector, although not proportionately as important as in many other Caribbean islands. The economy benefits from low inflation and a trade surplus. The year 2002 was ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... what made my voice so melodious?" said a celebrated vocal performer, of awkward manners, to Charles Bannister. "No," replied the other. "Why, then, I'll tell you: when I was about fifteen, I swallowed, by accident, some train oil."—"I don't think," rejoined Bannister, ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... arches, which increase regularly in length and diminish in height. They are connected at one end with the fibres of the auditory nerve, and Helmholtz has suggested that the waves of sound play on them, like the fingers of a performer on the keys of a piano, each separate arch corresponding to a different sound. We thus obtain a glimpse, though but a glimpse, of the manner in which perhaps we hear; but when we pass on to the senses of smell and taste, all we know is that the ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... evening; he then reappears in the fifth act, to shoot himself with a pistol. The tragic actors are quite in harmony with the coldness and extravagance of these pieces: they commit all these horrors with the utmost calm. When a performer uses much action, they say he conducts himself like a preacher; for in truth, there is more acting in the pulpit than on the stage. It is very fortunate that these actors are so moderate in their pathos; for as ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... "imitation," is, in my judgment, a very short-sighted student. Maniacs and imbeciles cannot be trained to perform any program fit to be seen. I saw that tried fifty years ago, in "the wild Australian children," who were idiots. The performer must think, and reason. ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... said he this evening when I handed him his tea; "you stopped your horse. If ladies will go in front with a loose rein for five-and-forty minutes, 'riding jealous' of such a first-rate performer as Frank Lovell, it is not an unlikely thing to happen. If you could have lasted ten minutes longer, you would have seen them kill their fox. Frank was the only one there, but he assures me he could ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... arts than is the duchess. Every one has heard her beautiful romances, which are rendered still more touching by the soft and melodious voice of the composer. She usually sings standing; and, although a finished performer on the harp and piano, she prefers the accompaniment of one of her attendant ladies. Many of her leisure hours are employed in painting. Miniatures, landscapes, and flowers are equally the subjects of her pencil. She declaims well, is a delightful player in comedy, acts proverbs with uncommon excellence, ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... tired," declared Grace to Eleanor as they stood at one side of the stage while the Glee Club, composed of juniors and seniors, arranged themselves preparatory to filing on to the stage. "Everything seems to be going beautifully though. Not a single performer has disappointed us. How pretty the Glee ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... Poland; master of his art by incessant practice from early childhood, made his debut in 1887 with instant success; his first appearance created quite a furore in Paris and London; has twice visited the United States; is a brilliant composer as well as performer, and has composed numerous pieces both for the voice and the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... with Tony over, Alan retired to the library where he used the telephone to transmit a wire to Boston, a message addressed to one James Roberts, a retired circus performer. ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... ambition, to build up a large fortune while he was still of middle age. He had a genius for happy speculation, the quick unerring instinct of a "good thing"; and as he sat there idle amused contented, on the edge of the Parisian street, he might very well have passed for some rare performer who had sung his song or played his trick and had nothing to do till the next call. And he had grown rich not because he was ravenous or hard, but simply because he had an ear, not to term it a nose. He could make out the tune in the discord of the market-place; he ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... music—so much so that he often took his instrument out with him when he went for a walk. This taste of his was his great recommendation to my mistress, who was a wonderfully fine player on the piano, and who was delighted to get such a performer as Mr. Meeke to play duets with her. Besides liking his society for this reason, she felt for him in his lonely position; naturally enough, I think, considering how often she was left in solitude ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... seeming faults are to be imputed rather to the nature of the undertaking, than the negligence of the performer. Thus some explanations are unavoidably reciprocal or circular, as hind, the female of the stag; stag, the male of the hind: sometimes easier words are changed into harder, as burial into sepulture, or interment, drier into desiccative, dryness into siccity ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... overview: Trinidad and Tobago has earned a reputation as an excellent investment site for international businesses. A leading performer in the past 4 years has been the booming natural gas sector. Tourism is a growing sector, although not proportionately as important as in many other Caribbean islands. The expected recovery of the global economy, along with anticipated higher oil ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... a bad mess, with Mildred on the toboggan; for Mr. Robert has said he'd see what could be done. He don't promise anything; but Benny's always been such a willin' performer that he guesses maybe he can talk him out of wantin' to get married. He didn't know Benny, though. These short, fat, dimpled boys are just the ones to fool you, and when it came to tellin' Benny about Brother Bill, that was ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... the union will. No matter how excellent the idea, no matter how inspired the contrib may be to amplify it, he will not be permitted to do more than a certain amount of work per day. However brilliant he may be, he will be held down to the level of the most pedestrian performer. In unionizing, moreover, he will be only exchanging one tyrant for another, and perhaps not so benevolent a one. Now, then, go to it, as the emperor said to ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... Everything depended on her coolness and steadiness. She must start exactly at the right time, and measure the distance with unerring precision. For the first time in her life she feared the audience. She knew too well the fickle nature of a Spanish crowd. To a performer who failed to please them they would be merciless. People who screamed aloud for more blood when the sport had been tame at a bull-fight, people who habitually tortured their animals, were not likely ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... the only tribute she exacted, and good-humor the rule laid down for her guests. If it occasionally required some mental agility to respond to her banter, a Californian gathering was, however, seldom lacking in humor. Yet she was always the principal performer to an admiring audience. Perhaps there was security in this multitude of admirers; perhaps there was a saving grace in this humorous trifling. The passions are apt to be serious and solitary, and Jovita evaded them with a jest,—which, if not ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... road Tashi had learned of their passing with their captive, so the two had followed them without difficulty to Tuna, where they soon discovered where the girl was imprisoned. The festival had offered them an unhoped-for opportunity of rescuing her. Tashi, once a star performer in similar devil dances in his own monastery, procured costumes and taught his companion what to do. As the number of those taking part in the performances ran to hundreds it was easy to slip ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... styled him regent and general, but, when they found by experience that he governed the kingdom with moderation and to general advantage, gave him the title of king. This was he that was surnamed Doson, as if he was a great promiser, and a bad performer. To him succeeded Philip, who in his youth gave great hopes of equaling the best of kings, and that he one day would restore Macedon to its former state and dignity, and prove himself the one man able to check the power of the Romans, now rising and extending over the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Father Blossom, coming home one evening to find Twaddles wrapped up in the fur rug and playing he was a polar bear, while Meg and Bobby, each under a chair, growled like panthers, and Dot swung from the curtain pole pretending that she was a trapeze performer. "What do you do about getting excused, Bobby? Really, Dot, you'll have that curtain pole down in ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School • Mabel C. Hawley
... reached the hut in which the Jumby dance was to be performed. It stood under a vast cotton-tree, on an open space near the bank of the river which you see running into the ocean to the westward of this. As we went along Kerlie told me that the chief performer was a big negro, Cudjoe, reputed to be a powerful Obeah man; that is, a necromancer, or what the North American Indians would call a medicine-man. He is supposed to possess wonderful mysterious powers—to be able to cause the death of any one who offends him. Bob assured me that there was ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... conspirator (a very Guy Fawkes, with dark lantern and all), the scholar, and so forth, all done with humorous detail by one Pianta. When he came to the artist he had a little quiet fun with the master himself, this figure being a caricature of no less a performer than ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... clear, sweet, and free from defects of every kind. He was a chaste performer, and never hazarded any difficulty which he was not certain of executing with the utmost precision. He was, moreover, an excellent actor, so that nothing but the recent remembrance of the gigantic talents of Farinelli, and the grand and majestic style of Senesino, could have ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... with a loud report, but with a gentle and lofty tenor piping, somewhere in the neighbourhood of F, or it might have been only E (though, indeed, a photograph would have suggested that Emanuel was singing at lowest the upper C), and the performer slowly resumed ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... Henley is an excellent performer, and his book, 'The Violin: Solo Playing, Soloists and Solos,' is the result of considerable practice in the art he discusses.... The opening advice to violin students, the insistence on tune first and then on tone, the latter depending greatly for its excellence upon the correctness ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... but not to be forgotten for his splendid vices which range from kleptomania up, or down as you wish. He married a young and beautiful woman, who doubtless deserved her fate, since we are told that she was a wonderful performer on the tambourine. He succeeded to the post of Boieldieu, the eminent opera composer, who began life under poor matrimonial auspices, seeing that his mother was a milliner, from whom his father managed to escape by means of an easy ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... there is yet another kind of tremolo, which, being absolutely under the control of the performer, is one of the chief ornaments of song, and to which the observations just made in no ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... detail, everywhere. We refrain from describing that which took place in Ben Nevis Hall at that time, further than to say that it was superb. The dancing was simple: it consisted chiefly of the Highland Fling danced by the performer according ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... shall begin by telling you, having only told it you twice before, that I swam from Sestos to Abydos. I do this that you may be impressed with proper respect for me, the performer; for I plume myself on this achievement more than I could possibly do on any kind of glory, political, poetical, or rhetorical. Having told you this, I will tell you nothing more, because it would be cruel to curtail ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... subject coupled with his constancy he seemed to admit the truth of this bloodless idyll. They talked and walked and read the masterpieces of literature and played duets on the piano together. Sometimes (for he was the more brilliant performer, though as he said "terribly lazy about practising," for which she scolded him) he would gently slap the back of her hand, if she played a wrong note, and say "Naughty!" And she would reply in baby language ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... Grumpy Weasel among its admirers. He never cared to hear a bird sing—not even Jolly Robin's cousin the Hermit, who was one of the most beautiful singers in the woods. And as for Buddy Brown Thrasher, whom most people thought a brilliant performer, Grumpy Weasel always groaned whenever he heard him singing in the topmost ...
— The Tale of Grumpy Weasel - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... employed rather to indicate the elaboration of the scenery and of the spectacular accessories. An even more extraordinary misadventure has befallen pianiste, in that it is sometimes used as if it was to be applied only to a female performer. And this blunder is of long standing; but I remember as lately as forty years ago seeing an American advertisement of Teresa Carreno which proclaimed her to be 'the greatest living lady pianiste'. I have also detected evidences of a startling belief of the illiterate that artiste is the feminine ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... difficulty that they could remove their slippers, though fitting easily; stockings had to be drawn off violently by another person, and they had given up changing their chemises during the period because the linen became so glued to the skin. An orchestral performer on the double-bass informed Laurent that whenever he left a tuned double-bass in his lodgings during his wife's period a string snapped; consequently he always removed his instrument at this time to a friend's house. He added that the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... was born in Albany, New York and before she started her writing career she was a file clerk, music teacher and a carnival performer. Her hobbies are reading science fiction novels, going to the opera and ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... superlative. They say that the best orchestras in the world are in Germany; that the best in Germany is in Munich; and, therefore, you can see the inevitable deduction. We have another parallel syllogism. The greatest pianist in the world is Liszt; but then Herr Bulow is actually a better performer than Liszt; therefore you see again to what you must come. At any rate, we are quite satisfied in this provincial capital; and, if there is anywhere better music, we don't know it. Bulow's orchestra is not very large,—there are ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... that had M. de Nailles's speculations been successful they would have been called matters of business, conducted with great ability on a large scale. When a performer falls from the tightrope, who remembers all the times he has not failed? It is simply said that he fell ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... necessity exceedingly small. She would try my temper at home, too, in a thousand ways. When requested by me (often, I own, rather roughly) to entertain the company with conversation, wit, and learning, of which she was a mistress: or music, of which she was an accomplished performer, she would as often as not begin to cry, and leave the room. My company from this, of course, fancied I was a tyrant over her; whereas I was only a severe and careful guardian over a silly, bad-tempered, and ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the stage is not only as a spectator but as the wife of a performer. She was married last year to Horace Tarbox, who every evening delights the children at the Hippodrome with his wondrous flying performance. It is said that the young couple have dubbed themselves Head and Shoulders, referring doubtless to the fact that ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the performer at the piano the object of interest, therefore place no diverting objects, such as pictures or ornaments, on a line with the listener's eye, except as a ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... interpretation of the word 'participator' which would permit such a denial; but it was no doubt honestly made, although for the purpose of disguising what John Brown's real agency in the matter was. He was, in fact, the originator and performer of these executions, although the hands that dealt the wounds were those of others."—Frank B. Sanborn, "Life and Letters of John Brown," ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... might be expected, was the most admired performer of the evening; but he was thinking very little of the notice he at last excited, he was employing such ingenuity as his experience of life supplied to the deficiencies of a very imperfect education, limited to the little flogged into him at Eton, ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in a chair, man and chair were lifted up by the fair performer placing her hands against the sides. To substantiate the claim that she herself exerted no force, chair and man were lifted without her touching the chair at all. The sitter was asked to put his hands under the chair; the performer put her hands around and under his ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... regarding him be sent to the local unit here. This proved successful. In another instance a union gave us access to its books and helped us to trace all the men of a given name listed there. By this means we found the man we were looking for. One man, a vaudeville performer, we traced through the Bill Board (a trade paper) by discovering the movements of the show with ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... Zelie, the 'chevalier's' only daughter, a slack-wire artist; the other, Signor Scarmelli, a trapeze performer, ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... selections from new essays or poems were recited by their authors, then a gay comedy was performed; then Glycera, the most famous singer in the city, had sung a dithyramb to her harp, in a voice as sweet as a bell, and Alexander, a skilled performer on the trigonon, had executed a piece. Finally a troop of female dancers had rushed into the room and swayed and balanced themselves to the music of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... A verb is a word which signifies to be, to do, or to suffer. Verbs are divided into neuter, active, and passive. Neuter verbs merely signify being, or that kind of action which has no effect upon any thing beyond the performer, as, I am, I sit, I walk. (You may distinguish those neuter verbs that seem to imply action from active verbs by their making a complete sense by themselves, whereas active verbs always require a noun or pronoun after them to ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... for a moment picture in our mind's eye the stage and person of the European or American conjuror. A few small tables with spindle legs (upon them a steel frame or so, transparent and decorative) are exposed to our view. The performer appears with rolled up sleeves in close fitting clothes and by the end of his performance has filled the stage with several large flags, a bouquet of flowers and, may be, a beautiful lady, all, possibly produced from a top hat. His performance is given to the accompaniment of amusing patter ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... question usually led up to a tentative mention of some entertainment in which the speaker was interested, but after the first refusal Claire was on guard, and regretted that her time was filled up. She was eager to help Mrs Willoughby, but had no desire to be turned into an unpaid public performer! ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... that have diseased nails, that are lepers, that are deceitful, that are born in bastardy of widows or of women having husbands alive; and they also that support themselves by the profession of arms. That Sraddha which is censurable, consumeth the performer thereof like fire consuming fuel. If they that are to be employed in Sraddhas happen to be dumb, blind, or deaf, care should be taken to employ them along with Brahmanas conversant with the Vedas. O Yudhishthira, listen now unto ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... her to hit the target against odds of almost infinity to one; not just once, but time after time. By definition, intuition. What quality did you use just now in getting me off the hook? Intuition. What makes Teddy Blake such an unerring performer? Intuition again. My hunches—they're intuition, too. Intuition, hell! Labels—based on utterly abysmal damned dumb ignorance of our own basic frames of reference. Do you think those four kinds of intuition are alike, by seven thousand rows ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... MORE than this? Can it DO this? and if so who and what is to determine the degree of its failure or success? The composer, the performer (if there be any), or those who have to listen? One hearing or a century of hearings?-and if it isn't successful or if it doesn't fail what matters it?—the fear of failure need keep no one from the attempt for if the composer is sensitive he need but launch forth a countercharge ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... principal instrument used in the Burman bands of music is the kiezoop, which is formed of a number of small gongs, graduated in size and tone on the principle of the harmonica, and suspended in a circular frame about four feet high and five feet wide; within which the performer stands, and extracts a succession of soft tones, by striking on the gongs with two small sticks. Another circular instrument (the boundah) serves as a bass; it contains an equal number of different-sized drums, on which the musician strikes with violence, with a view ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... man who had found failure was not a real musician Kreutzer knew. Too often had his trombone trespassed, with its brazen bray, upon the time which the composer had allotted to the soft, delightful flute, to leave the slightest doubt of its performer's rank incompetence. That he had failed was, therefore, easily understood; in no way did it indicate that all he said about the chances of a real musician in the land of skyscrapers and mighty distances (which he also told about at length) ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... against them; at the road dipping downward among the chestnuts and olives. There was no one within sight but a young man who slowly trudged upward with his coat slung over his shoulder and his hat upon his ear in the manner of a cavalier in an opera. Like an operatic performer too he sang as he came; the spectacle, generally, was operatic, and as his vocal flourishes reached my ear I said to myself that in Italy accident was always romantic and that such a figure had been exactly what was wanted ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... was better aware of this than the noble-minded Shakspeare; and feelingly he has breathed forth in his sonnets this conscious oppression under which he lay of public opinion, unfavorable by a double title to his own pretensions; for, being both dramatic author and dramatic performer, he found himself heir to a twofold opprobrium, and at an era of English society when the weight of that opprobrium was heaviest. In reality, there was at this period a collision of forces acting in opposite directions upon the estimation of the stage and scenical art, and therefore ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... preventive against that obscure, though not uncommon, kind of self-deception which enables wooden tripods to write and tables to tip and hazel-twigs to twist upside-down, without the conscious intervention of the performer. It was this kind of faith, no doubt, which caused the discomfiture of Jacques Aymar on his visit to Paris, [25] and which has in late years prevented persons from obtaining the handsome prize offered by the French Academy for the first authentic ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... pyramid" had been announced, in which fifty Long Noses were to represent the Car of Juggernaut. But, instead of forming a pyramid by mounting each other's shoulders, the artists were to group themselves on top of the noses. It happened that the performer who had hitherto formed the base of the Car had quitted the troupe, and as, to fill this part, only strength and adroitness were necessary, Passepartout had been chosen to take ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... papers he felt that his future was secure. True, The Era, careful never to miss a single performer, had yet to say. "Mr. Eustace Merrowby was capital as Tommy," and The Stage, "Tommy was capitally played by Mr. Eustace Merrowby"; but even without this he had become one of the Men who Count—one ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... railing at the performer with all the terms of reproach that he could collect, till the Frenchman, ceasing from his song, began to expostulate with him for his harsh censure of a man who was confessedly the ornament of the stage. "I know all that," says the ambassador, "mais il chante ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... in the same room.") There can be no doubt that birds closely attend to each other's song. Mr. Weir has told me of the case of a bullfinch which had been taught to pipe a German waltz, and who was so good a performer that he cost ten guineas; when this bird was first introduced into a room where other birds were kept and he began to sing, all the others, consisting of about twenty linnets and canaries, ranged themselves on the nearest side of their cages, and listened with the greatest interest ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... his admirable life: "The entertainment was frequently varied by music when any good performer happened to be present. I think, however, that the majority of visitors delighted chiefly to come for the chance of a few words with George Eliot alone. When the drawing-room door of the Priory opened, a first glance revealed her always in the same low arm-chair on the left-hand side of the fire. ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... their money here, and I fancy that the fat Greek who presided over the table made a fat thing of it. In the concert room, the superannuated artistes of the poorer kind of Continental concert hall shrieked and grimaced and ogled, and after every item of the show, the performer came round with an escallop shell into which the more generously disposed dropped small copper coins. The place was nearly always crowded with men in black frock-coats and crimson fezzes. Ill-starred Valentine Baker had been ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... conformable to the dignity and sanctity of an ecclesiastical government to patronize them; and it is not the custom or etiquette for the Pope, Cardinals or higher Clergy ever to visit them. The consequence is that no performer of any consideration or talent is engaged to sing at Rome, except one or two by chance at the time of the Carnaval. In amends for this you have a good deal of music at the houses of individuals who hold conversazioni or ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... titters, and Pixie, stopping to see what was wrong, espied Miss Phipps and the three governesses standing just inside the doorway, watching with the rest, and applauding with their hands. It was an embarrassing moment, and the performer made a quick dash behind a sofa to screen herself from publicity, but she had not been there five minutes before she was called ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... think, go back and rewrite this section from the beginning, expunging the statements that Hoopdriver was a poet and a romancer, and saying instead that he was a playwright and acted his own plays. He was not only the sole performer, but the entire audience, and the entertainment kept him almost continuously happy. Yet even that playwright comparison scarcely expresses all the facts of the case. After all, very many of his dreams never got acted at all, possibly indeed, most of them, the dreams of a solitary walk for instance, ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... in equally-destroying war, nor in counsels where men also become illustrious. On which account he sent me forth to teach thee all these things, that thou mightest become both an orator in words and a performer in deeds. Thus then, my dear child, I wish not at length to be left by thee, not even if a god himself, having divested me of old age, should promise that he would render me a blooming youth, such as I was when ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... mesh of contradictions. Like justice in itself, Benevolence in itself is painful; any virtue is pain in the first instance, although, when equally responded to, it brings a surplus of pleasure. There may be acts of a beneficent tendency that cost the performer nothing, or that even may chance to be agreeable; but these examples must not be given as the rule, or the type. It is the essence of virtuous acts, the prevailing character of the class, to tax the agent, ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... derive their names from the fact that a low order of music is provided by the proprietor as a cover to the real character of the place. It may be an old cracked piano, with a single, half-drunken performer, or a couple or more musicians who cannot by any possible means draw ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... places—in taverns, at fairs, at peasants' marriages, and at balls. At last he gained access to an orchestra, and there, steadily rising higher and higher, he attained to the position of conductor. As a performer he had no great merit, but he understood music thoroughly. In his twenty-eighth year, he migrated to Russia. He was invited there by a great seigneur, who, although he could not abide music himself, maintained an orchestra from a love ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... in the rostrum of the ethical teacher. If I may say so, it supplies us with an admirable illustration of a quick-change performance. The same man performs a double part, and so adroitly is the change managed, that the performer himself is deceived into thinking that he is still the scientist, whereas he has become for the moment the moral professor. But he did not acquire that new teaching in the laboratory; he ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... than it would otherwise have been. The lowness of the side-ropes, and the oscillation of the ricketty structure rendered the feat altogether a rather more amusing performance to the looker on than to the actual performer, and I was not to reach the opposite shore. On the arrival of the coolies, they all hung back, and regarded the machine with utter astonishment, and when one of them did essay the passage, his ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... the records we have kept for years I have found a source of supply for seed nuts and nursery stock which has proved to be a constant performer. I bud this nursery stock from trees with individual records that have proved themselves to be good performers, I have found that certain varieties have proved themselves not worthy of being planted, and certain other varieties have proven themselves at least promising. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... the truth," she said. "My name is Hetty Castleton. My father is Col. Braid Castleton, of—of the British army. My mother is dead. She was Kitty Glynn, at one time a popular music-hall performer in London. She was Irish. She died two years ago. My father was a gentleman. I do not say he IS a gentleman, for his treatment of my mother relieves him from that distinction. He is in the Far East, China, I think. I have not ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... cheeks. This, in the joint opinion of Mr. Zancig, Mr. Marriott, and myself, is what Yoga Rama did, and our opinion was confirmed when we examined the bandages at the time they were removed from the performer's eyes, as will ...
— Telepathy - Genuine and Fraudulent • W. W. Baggally
... movement of life! It is perhaps hard to realise how often that cry breaks from the hearts of women. No doubt the aspiration it expresses is rather apt to end in antics, not edifying to the onlooker, hardly (it may be supposed) comforting to the performer. But the antics are one thing, the aspiration another, and they have the aspiration strongest who condemn and shun the antics. The matter may be stated very simply, at least if the form in which ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... FRANCIS TRAIN to compete in public speaking with the Frog of PUNCHINELLO, for a purse of $20,000—Mr. TRAIN to speak ten minutes solo; the Frog to croak ten minutes; and then both to speak and croak in duet also for ten minutes—the most sonorous performer to take the money. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various
... Freischutz told me that I had stepped, as it were with both feet, right into the magic realm of awe. Any one who had been watching me at that moment could hardly have failed to see the state I was in, and this in spite of the fact that I was such a bad performer ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... he poised erect in the great calm of the public performer. Then slowly he began to revolve the log under his feet. The lofty gaze, the folded arms, the straight supple waist budged not by a hair's breadth; only the feet stepped forward, at first deliberately, then faster and faster, until the rolling log threw a ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... A music-hall performer gave a turn in a King's Bench court the other day. There was a time when a judge would have objected to his court being turned into a theatre, but since the advent of comic judges the line of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... nature. But I incline to the belief that it is because the invariable use of heavy tackle has blinded the fishermen to the wonderful leaping and fighting qualities of this long-nosed, long-toothed sea-tiger. The few of us who have hooked barracuda on light tackle know him as a marvelous performer. Van Campen Heilner wrote about a barracuda he caught on a bass rod, and he is not likely to forget it, nor will the reader of ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... gifted father a great talent for music. She was a remarkably skilful performer upon the pianoforte. So retentive was her memory that she could play without notes a large portion of the works of Handel, Beethoven ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... their sentinel when I glanced out of my window. He is a harmless enough fellow, Parker by name, a garroter by trade, and a remarkable performer upon the jew's-harp. I cared nothing for him. But I cared a great deal for the much more formidable person who was behind him, the bosom friend of Moriarty, the man who dropped the rocks over the cliff, the most cunning and dangerous criminal in London. That is the man ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... girl should return from school a first-rate reader, than a first-rate performer on the pianoforte. The accomplishment, in its perfection, would give more pleasure. The voice of song is not sweeter than the voice of eloquence; and there may be eloquent readers, as well as eloquent speakers. We speak of perfection in this art: and it is something, we must ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... said the second censor, "take him all in all, is certainly the most complete and unblemished performer that ever appeared on our stage, notwithstanding the blind adoration which is paid to his rival. I went two nights ago, with an express design to criticise his action. I could find no room for censure, but infinite ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... opera occasionally; more or less under protest, because of its length, and because his mind was too practical for the indirect operatic form. He could not remain patient at a recital; the effort to listen to one performer for an hour and a half was too severe a tax upon his restless nature. The Philadelphia Orchestra gave a symphony concert each Saturday evening, and Bok dreaded the coming of that evening in each week for fear of being taken to hear music which he was convinced was "over ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... in his performance than the tragedian.[64] The two were usually sharply differentiated.[65] Specialization arose, too, and we hear of actors who confined their efforts to feminine roles,[66] though naturally every performer was cast for parts to which his ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... Halle; distinguished for his musical ability from his earliest years; was sent to Berlin to study when he was 14; began his musical career as a performer at Hamburg in 1703; produced his first opera in 1704; spent six years in Italy, devoting himself to his profession the while; came, on invitation, to England in 1710, where, being well received, he resolved to remain, and where, year ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... conception of the proper welcoming of the happy bridegroom. The performance was amusing enough in itself, but for some reason it moved neither of the two for whom it was rendered to more than perfunctory approval. The fact had no depressing effect on the performer, however, and it was only the coming of the maid that put her lively sallies to ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... sake he's a better performer than my old friend, Galer. That man is getting on my nerves, Spike. He pursues me like a smell-dog. I expect he's lurking out in the passage ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... of a satyr. Aye, and there is a resemblance in other points too. For example, you are a bully—that I am in a position to prove by the evidence of witnesses if you will not confess. And are you not a flute-player? That you are, and a far more wonderful performer than Marsyas. For he indeed with instruments charmed the souls of men by the power of his breath, as the performers of his music do still; for the melodies of Olympus are derived from the teaching of Marsyas, and these, whether they are played by a great master or by a miserable ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... virtues perhaps still more expressive, and full of poetry in their symbols and attitudes; the whole series is executed with a delicacy of workmanship till then unknown in bronze, a precision yet softness of touch resembling that of a skillful performer on the pianoforte. Andrea was occupied upon it for nine years, from 1330 to 1339, and when finished, fixed in its place, and exposed to view, the public enthusiasm exceeded all bounds; the Signoria, with unexampled condescension, visited ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... extended acquaintance with them might, and probably would, reveal more songs, but they are reluctant to sing before white men. One of these songs, called "du-nu-ra," is a kind of love song. Owing to the extreme embarrassment of the performer I was able to hear it only by going into my tent where I could not see the singer. It consisted of a great many ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... spoken of the mother of Napoleon Buonaparte as a woman of great force of character. Not less so was the mother of the Duke of Wellington, whom her son strikingly resembled in features, person, and character; while his father was principally distinguished as a musical composer and performer. [118] But, strange to say, Wellington's mother mistook him for a dunce; and, for some reason or other, he was not such a favourite as her other children, until his great deeds in after-life constrained her to ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... wilderness, the only critic among us whose vision sweeps the whole field of beauty, and whose reports of what he sees there show any genuine gusto. That gusto of his, I fancy, is two-thirds of his story. It is unquenchable, contagious, inflammatory; he is the only performer in the commissioned troupe who knows how to arouse his audience to anything approaching enthusiasm. The rest, even including Howells, are pedants lecturing to the pure in heart, but Huneker makes a joyous ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... of which Crusoe was to be the chief though passive performer, is peculiar to some of the tribes east of the Rocky Mountains, and consists in killing a dog and cutting out its liver, which is afterwards sliced into shreds or strings and hung on a pole about the height of a man's head. A band of warriors ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... is as futile as if, after the performance of a musical piece by a great artist, some individual member of the audience were to be called upon to give his rendering of the original rendering. The result would be that the musical joy of the audience would be completely destroyed and the performer himself would ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... of kebiishi, applied for permission to proceed at once to his brother's assistance. The Court refused his application, whereupon he resigned his office and, like a true bushi, hastened to the war. Yoshimitsu was a skilled performer upon a musical instrument called the sho. He had studied under a celebrated master, Toyohara Tokimoto, now no more, and, on setting out for the field of battle in the far north, he became apprehensive lest the secrets imparted to him by his teacher should die with him. He therefore invited Tokimoto's ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... verse hidden away in the Song-books of Robert Jones, a famous performer on the lute. Between 1601 and 1611 Jones issued six musical works. Two of these—"The First Set of Madrigals," 1607, and "The Muses' Garden for Delight," 1611,—I have unfortunately not been able to see, as I have not yet succeeded in discovering their present resting-place. ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... distress increased the confidence and triumph of her adversary. She had some time before provoked Lady Bradstone by giving a concert in opposition to one of hers, and by engaging, at an enormous expense, a celebrated performer for her night: hostilities had thenceforward been renewed at every convenient opportunity, by the contending fair ones. Lady Bradstone now took occasion loudly to lament her extreme poverty; and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... torrent of rain. Nothing could exceed the kindness of the rajah during our stay, with his brothers, of all ages, as our constant companions. We had one day a dance of the Illanuns and Gillolos: they might both be called war-dances, but are very different. The performer with the Illanuns is decked out with a fine helmet (probably borrowed from our early voyagers), ornamented with bird-of-paradise feathers. Two gold belts, crossed, like our soldiers', over the breast, are bound ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... the circus performer nearly ran against him. He looked up and made a forward jump. He seized the handkerchief and the two odd objects it contained with a fervent cry that ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... word, and action. I remember his once describing three different persons together to myself and Martin Burney [a bibulous nephew of Madame d'Arblay's and a great friend of Charles Lamb's], namely, the manager of a country theatre, a tragic and a comic performer, till we were ready to tumble on the floor with laughing at the oddity of their humours, and at Roger's extraordinary powers of ventriloquism, bodily and mental; and Burney said (such was the vividness of the scene) that when he awoke the next morning ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... performer volunteered to entertain a roomful of patients of the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, and made up a very successful little monologue show, entirely humorous. The audience in the main gave symptoms of ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... pressed his lips to his cousin's candid forehead, and for the second time the embrace was of a brotherly or paternal character, rather than the rapturous proceeding which it would have been had Sir Harry Towers been the privileged performer. ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... whereas now there is no 'fiddle' of any sort with more than four. A secondary difference was, that all the viol family had frets on the fingerboard to mark out the notes, whereas the finger-boards of all our modern instruments are smooth, and the finger of the performer has to do without any help ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... of the long discussions on music and on philosophy, and of the little sister Caroline, destined in later years for an illustrious career. William soon learned all that his master could teach him in the ordinary branches of knowledge, and by the age of fourteen he was already a competent performer on the oboe and the viol. He was engaged in the Court orchestra at Hanover, and was also a member of the band of the Hanoverian Guards. Troublous times were soon to break up Herschel's family. The French invaded Hanover, the Hanoverian Guards ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... surreptitiously a lump of metal into the mixture, using an ordinary crucible. This required great dexterity, but was facilitated by the use of many mysterious ceremonies on the part of the operator while performing, just as the modern vaudeville performer diverts the attention of the audience to his right hand while his left is engaged in the trick. Such ceremonies were not questioned, for it was the common belief that the whole process "lay in the spirit as much as in the substance," many, as we have seen, regarding ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... supreme sanity of Darwin, and with him of Aristotle, and Angelo, and Leonardo, and Newton, and Leibnitz, and Shakespeare, seem weak and paltry? Do not delicacy of sentiment, brilliancy of wit, fineness of rhythmical and aesthetic sense, the beautiful contributions of the talented special performer, sink into something like apologies—something even like profanation of that name to conjure by, the name of genius? And all the more if the profanation is made real by the moral irregularities or the social shortcomings which give some colour of ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... uneven and irregular surface that strikes us as the largest, and the dimensions of a genius, like those of a building, are lost in the justness of its proportions; and therefore it is that in recalling the surpassing excellence of our guest as an artistical performer, one is really at a loss to say in what line of character he has excelled the most. The Titanic grandeur of Lear, the human debasement of Werner, the frank vivacity of Henry V, the gloomy and timorous guilt of King John, or that—his last—personation of ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... of disarming his principal performer of so necessary an adjunct to his instrument, in such an emphatic part of the composition too, which must have had a droll effect at the time, all such minutiae of adaptation are at this time of day very properly exploded, and Jackson of Exeter very fairly ranks ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... performer down on his luck: I like to tell dirty jokes... a great guy, philosophically tip-top, but is too ideal-They were in a melancholy mood. Kunstmayer sang quietly: "The girls like this ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... down on my bed. Jim's hands were white with flour. He was kneading dough, and had several low, flat pans on the table. Wallace and Jones strolled in, and later Frank, and they all took various positions before the fire. I saw Frank, with the quickness of a sleight-of-hand performer, slip one of the pans of dough on the chair Jones had placed by the table. Jim did not see the action; Jones's and Wallace's backs were turned to Frank, and he did not know I was in the cabin. The conversation continued on the subject of Jones's ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... might be omitted. 'No, d—mn 'em,' replied the bard, 'if the scene is not a good one, let them find that out.' Accordingly the play was brought on without alteration, and, just as had been foreseen, the disapprobation of the house was provoked at the passage before objected to; and the performer alarmed and uneasy at the hisses he had met with, retired into the green-room, where the author was indulging his genius, and solacing himself with a bottle of champaign." Fielding, continues Murphy, had by this time drank pretty plentifully, and "'What's the matter, Garrick?' says he, 'what ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... regard as a fantastic experiment in administration. But we may trust Hon. Mackenzie King to simulate a vast moving-picture smile of high benevolence and great sagacity as he contemplates such a fantasia—with himself as the chief tight-rope performer and Niagara ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... being possessed of Jill's youthful love of good things to eat, she was thankful when it was time to return to the drawing-room, where Christabel was already awaiting her turn, with an eagerness which had been lacking in any other performer. ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... instantly;' 'a green-grocer in Weymouth Street, Marylebone, next door to the Weavers' Arms, cured of lameness in both legs—went with crutches—is perfectly well;' 'a Miss W——, a public vocal performer, cured,—but had not goodness of heart enough to own the cure publicly;' 'a child cured of blindness, at Mr. Marsden's, cheesemonger, in the borough.' Other cases are set forth; but the reader will probably consider that specimens ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... fifty years ago been no mean performer upon the vielle,—and at the age he was then of, touch'd it well enough for the purpose. His wife sung now and then a little to the tune,- -then intermitted,—and join'd her old man again, as their children and ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... doubt the truth of what you say, my dear Mademoiselle de Chatenoeuf, after having heard your performance. I knew that you were considered a good performer, but I had no idea of the perfection ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... contemned now, worse than neglected, insulted by the vulgar caricature of "kitchen lancers"; but then seriously practised, delighting the eye, bringing blood to the dancers' cheeks. For five minutes and more Dorothea was entirely happy. M. Raoul— himself no mean performer—tasted, after his first surprise, something of the joy of discovery. Who could have guessed that this quiet spinster, who, as a rule, held herself and walked so awkwardly, would prove the best partner in the room? He ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... however otherwise a man may be distinguished—unless there be in him a spirit of love, devotion, and self-sacrifice, we feel he lacks the very pith and beauty of manhood; and though he may be a great performer with his pen as one plays well on a musical instrument, a ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... chivalrous fighter for his native land, as a good Christian and a truly noble character. It was touching to hear the parting hymn sung by the sonorous voices of the British wounded, accompanied solemnly on the harmonium by a British performer. All escorted the coffin to the gates. Once outside, it was reverently lifted on to the funeral car, which German gunners escorted to the cemetery. Four British and one French officer, as well as the German doctors who could be spared, ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... leans upon his mattock, and gazes, as a coach whirls by, bearing the newly married on their wedding jaunt, or glances carelessly at a babe brought home from christening. Suddenly (for the scene grows larger and larger as we look) a bony hand snatches back a performer in the midst of his part, and him, whom yesterday two infinities (past and future) would not suffice, a handful of dust is enough to cover and silence forever. Nay, we see the same fleshless fingers opening to clutch ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... his benefit in the man-market. Hence, where the means for exercising the mind upon the right is forbidden-where ignorance becomes the necessary part of the maintenance of a system, and religion is applied to that end, it becomes farcical; and while it must combine all the imperfections of the performer, necessarily tends to confine the ignorance of those it seeks to degrade, within the narrowest boundary. There are different ways of destroying the rights of different classes; and as many different ways, after they are destroyed, of wiping out ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... relieved by some attempts at comedy by a clownish servant, called Lentulo, and in the third act a song is introduced for greater variety, which, as was not unusual at a later period of our stage history, seems to have been left to the choice of the performer. The prayer for the Queen, at the conclusion of the drama, put into the mouth of Fortune, was a relic of a more ancient practice, and perhaps affords further proof, if it were wanted, that it was represented ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... without words" on an instrument he knew as little of as the music he was parodying, was beyond all bearing! Then, if ever, did my wretched master dig his fingers into his ears, and writhe and shiver and groan at each discord produced by that inhuman performer. He retreated into the innermost recess of his bedroom; he even hid his unhappy head beneath the clothes, if haply he might escape the agony of this torture. But it was hopeless. The shrieks and groans of that brutal ophicleide would have penetrated the walls ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... not to gamble with Hop Wah. He is a very smart one at the business, and he will relieve you of all the money you have, if you play with him. Being a sleight-of-hand performer, he can do things that you could not see. Just go it light on that point. I don't want to have him get into trouble, and that is what he generally does when he wins a whole lot of money. There is always some ...
— Young Wild West at "Forbidden Pass" - and, How Arietta Paid the Toll • An Old Scout
... earned) is that property of a good work which entitles the performer to receive a reward from him to whose ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle |
