"Siddons" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Siddons and Hampden, not greatly interested in what they felt was some new strained humor on Yancey's part, pushed back from the table and started for the door, their objective being the French town of Is ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... in them. Neither were her movements stiff and mechanical, as we often see in the representations of somnambulism on the stage. On the contrary, they were free and graceful. She looked neither like Mrs. Siddons nor any other who ever acted what she really was. Those who have seen the state know better. She was walking in her sleep, however: that strange act of a life apart from waking life—that mystery of mysteries, when the soul seems severed from all things on earth but the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... declining—it always has been declining since the time of Roscius and beyond the palmy days when the famous Elephant Raja was "starred" over the head of W. C. Macready, and the real water tank in the Cataract of the Ganges helped to increase the attractions of John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. But we ourselves are evidently in a parlous state at the present day, when actors vainly endeavor to struggle through twenty lines of blank verse—when we are told mechanical effects and vast armies of supers make up the production of historical plays—when ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... eulogies, but he speaks of his rivals and his predecessors with the warm appreciation of one who had felt the full influence of their power, and who could never look on merit with an oblique eye. His worship of Mrs. Siddons, as unparalleled in her genius, was life-long, and his descriptions of her acting convey a more vivid idea of its peculiar qualities and matchless effect than any others we can remember to have read. Talma comes next in his regard as "the most finished artist of his time, not below Kean in his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... "Except Mrs. Siddons in some of her displays of magnificent royalty, nobody could sit down like the Lady of Inverleith. She would sail like a ship from Tarshish, gorgeous in velvet or rustling silk, done up in all the accompaniments of fans, ear-rings ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... Mabel, Sir Charles Moreton, and another gentleman, as to the merits of a new actress, a dramatic meteor, then briefly eminent on the London boards. The Honorable Mr. L——, who was a savant in the small sciences that cater to amusement, pronounced her the Siddons of the day; Lady Mabel called her a ranter, then, as if alarmed at her temerity, appealed as ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... that her shrieks disturbed the neighbourhood. The circumstance recalls an anecdote of a similar outburst—attested by Sir W. Scott, who was present on the occasion—before her marriage. Being present at a representation, in Edinburgh, of the Fatal Marriage, when Mrs. Siddons was personating Isabella, Miss Gordon was seized with a fit, and carried out of the theatre, screaming out "O my Biron, my Biron." All we know of her character shows it to have been not only proud, ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... child of his adoption, which ever since has gone by the name of the Garrick Fund. In imitation of his noble example, funds had been established in several provincial theatres in England; but it remained for Mrs. Henry Siddons and Mr. William Murray to become the founders of the first Theatrical Fund in Scotland. (Cheers.) This Fund commenced under the most favourable auspices. It was liberally supported by the management, and highly patronized by the public. Notwithstanding, it fell short in the accomplishment of its ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... this kind of barbarism did not stand in the way of an almost childish gaiety. In Yorkshire, we find the Inchbalds, the Siddonses, and Kemble retiring to the moors, in the intervals of business, to play blindman's buff or puss in the corner. Such were the pastimes of Mrs. Siddons before the days of her fame. No doubt this kind of lightheartedness was the best antidote to the experience of being "saluted with volleys of potatoes and broken bottles", as the Siddonses were by the citizens of Liverpool, for ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... Reynolds; a Courtship, by Mr. Warren, from Terburg, in the Marquis of Stafford's Collection; two Mary Queen of Scots, by Messrs. Warren and Cooper.——From pictures of the old and modern Masters, are capital Portraits of celebrated characters of former and present times; of Mrs. Siddons, of Cicero, M. Angelo, Parmigiano, Fenelon, Raleigh, A. Durer, Erasmus, Cromwell, Ben Jonson, Selden, Swift, Gay, Sterne, Garrick, &c. of Byron, Bonaparte, West, Kenible, young Napoleon, of nearly all the English Royal Family, and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... she—and Mrs. Siddons could not have put more passion into a single syllable—"What! Not have it? Who says so?" And she sat opposite to her husband, with her elbows on the table, her hands clasped together, and her coarse, solid, but once handsome face stretched ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... Belvidera of Barry and Garrick. Every situation seemed to be formed on purpose to call forth her great skill in awakening the passions. Mrs. Siddons has, in this part as well as many others, fixed the favor of the town in her behalf. This actress, like a resistless torrent, has borne down all before her. In person, just rising above the middle stature, she looks, walks, and moves, like a woman of superior rank. Her countenance ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... of Wat Banks's candidateship for Cambridge. Barnes died in 1841. Horace Twiss, the biographer of Lord Eldon and nephew of Mrs. Siddons, also helped the Times forward by his admirable Parliamentary summaries, the first the Times had attempted. This able man died suddenly in 1848, while speaking at a meeting of the Rock Assurance Society ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... state to receive ordination, and was through his whole life a most zealous and devoted man, a friend of Milner and Wilberforce. An old lady, Mrs. Logan of Seafield, told me that once when Mrs. Siddons was acting, uncle William walked twenty miles to see her and persuade her not to go, and, whether by arguments or eloquence, he succeeded. Though kind and gentle he was a strong Calvinist, and by his zeal and energy in preaching such doctrines, injured ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... character and situation of the writers, the case is infinitely stronger. What man of taste and feeling can endure rifacimenti, harmonies, abridgments, expurgated editions? Who ever reads a stage-copy of a play when he can procure the original? Who ever cut open Mrs. Siddons's Milton? Who ever got through ten pages of Mr. Gilpin's translation of John Bunyan's Pilgrim into modern English? Who would lose, in the confusion of a Diatessaron, the peculiar charm which belongs to the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... painter's own favorite fancy picture. Penelope Boothby and Angels' Heads are popular favorites which could not be omitted from any collection. In Lady Cockburn and Her Children, The Duchess of Devonshire and Her Child, and Pickaback we have typical groups of mothers and children. Mrs. Siddons stands apart as one of his most unique and remarkable productions. The other pictures add as much as possible to the variety of the collection, and show something of the range of ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... now about forty years of age. Gentleness is acquired in three generations; she is removed but two from the most vulgar condition; and by the mother's side but one. The Kembles of the last age were extraordinary persons. John Philip Kemble and Mrs. Siddons had both remarkable genius, and Charles Kemble has been an actor of consummate talent. Whatever intellect remains in the family is in his children; one of whom is a man of learning and refinement, another a woman of some cleverness in musical art, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... modest muse some pity claim, And meet indulgence—though she find not fame. But not for her alone, we wish respect, Others appear more conscious of defect; To night, no Veteran Roscii you behold, In all the arts of scenic action old; No COOKE, no KEMBLE, can salute you here, No SIDDONS draw the sympathetic tear, To night, you thong to witness the debut, Of embryo actors to the drama new; Here then, our almost unfledg'd wings we try, Clip not our pinions, ere the birds can fly; Failing ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... I had hardly pushed my foot in this grass a few times, when another wounded bird appeared but a few feet off. The emergency being uncommon, it put forth all its histrionic power, and never Booth or Siddons did so well. With breast ploughing in the sand, head falling helplessly from side to side, feet kicking out spasmodically and yet feebly behind, and wings fluttering and beating brokenly on the beach, it seemed the very symbol of fear, pain, and weakness, I made a sudden ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... me an influence so strong for good as Hamlet or Rosalind. The last character, already well beloved in the reading, I had the good fortune to see, I must think, in an impressionable hour, played by Mrs. Scott Siddons. Nothing has ever more moved, more delighted, more refreshed me; nor has the influence quite passed away. Kent's brief speech over the dying Lear had a great effect upon my mind, and was the burthen of my reflections ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Wells. Theatres were well attended and the increase of public decency is illustrated by the disappearance from the stage of the coarseness of earlier times. It was the golden age of the drama; for it saw the acting of Macklin and Garrick, of Mrs. Siddons, "the tragic muse," and her brother John Kemble, of Mrs. Abington, Miss Farren, "the comic muse," afterwards Countess of Derby, and Mrs. Jordan. As dramatists Home, Foote, Colman, and Cumberland deserve to be mentioned; ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... from Semiramis to Domna, from Zenobia to Catherine; of philosophers and scholars, like Theano, Hypatia, and Olympia Morata; of founders of orders and institutions, organizers and leaders of great enterprises, like Clara and Chantal; of actresses, like Siddons; of singers, like Malibran; of scientists, like Somerville; of heroines, like Charlotte Corday and Joan of Arc; of mystic prophetesses, like Kriidener; of religious thinkers, like Sarah Hennell; of novelists, like ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... wanderings into mythology, it would be difficult to deny; nor was it his only transgression from his legitimate ground, as may be seen in his "Holy Family" in the National Gallery. But we doubt if the critique upon his "Mrs Siddons" is quite fair. The chair and the footstool may not be on the cloud, a tragic and mysterious vapour reconciling the bodily presence of the muse with the demon and fatal ministers of the drama that attend her. Though Sir Joshua's words ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... race-course used to be,' said Zigler. 'That ice-house is called Flora's Temple. Nell Gwynne and Mrs. Siddons an' Taglioni an' all that crowd used to act plays here for King George the Third. Wasn't it? Well, George is the only king I play. Let it go at that. This circle was the stage, I guess. The kings an' the nobility sat in Flora's Temple. I forget ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... emergency no man could have shown himself her superior. Her look of still untranquillised terror, the intermittent flashes of anger in her eyes as she loudly denounced the ruffians who had carried off their carriage, was a piece of acting worthy of a Rachel or Siddons. He would have been a keen physiognomist who could have told that her emotions were counterfeit. Little dreamt the sympathising spectators that while being pushed out of the carriage she had contrived to whisper back to the man so rudely behaving: ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... portrait of Elizabeth, Countess of Derby, and the engraving from it by W. Dickinson.[29] It has been said that the only example of Reynolds's practice in signing pictures on the border of the robes of his sitters appears in Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse; nevertheless, this picture of Cornelia shows at least one exception to that asserted rule. The border of Lady Cockburn's dress in the original is inscribed in a similar manner thus:—"1775, Reynolds pinxit." The picture was begun in 1773, ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... two lives of my aunt Siddons: one by Boaden, and one by the poet Campbell. In these biographies due mention is made of my paternal grandfather and grandmother. To the latter, Mrs. Roger Kemble, I am proud to see, by Lawrence's portrait of her, I bear a personal resemblance; and I please myself with imagining that the likeness ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... is evidence enough that no puerile or uncultivated taste is this which relishes the theatre. Goethe presiding over the playhouse at Weimar, Euripides and Sophocles writing tragedies, the greatest genius of the English language acting in his own productions at the Globe Theatre, people like Siddons and Kean and Cushman and Macready illustrating this art with the resources of their fine intellects and great attainments,—surely these need scarcely be mentioned, to relieve the drama from the reproach that some would put ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... 1678, was a tragedy by Thomas Southerne, which included comic scenes. Southerne, who held a commission in the army, was living in the 'Spectator's' time, and died in 1746, aged 86. It was in his best play, 'Isabella', or the Fatal Marriage, that Mrs. Siddons, in 1782, made her first appearance ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... introduced me to some literary society; and the theatres were a never-failing source of amusement to me. My delighted eye followed Mrs. Siddons, when, with dignified delicacy, she played Calista; and I involuntarily repeated after her, in the same tone, and ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... founded upon a Highland tradition. With a prologue by Sir Walter Scott, and an epilogue by Henry Mackenzie, the "Family Legend" was produced at the Edinburgh theatre, under the auspices of the former illustrious character; and was ably supported by Mrs Siddons, and by Terry, then at the commencement of his career. It was favourably received during ten successive performances. "You have only to imagine all that you could wish to give success to a play," wrote Sir Walter Scott to the author, "and your ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... knowledge of social life in the youth of our fathers. Our only wish, in reading, is for more of it. But the life gathers interest as it proceeds. From America it extends to Europe, and we meet the names of Humboldt, De Stael, Allston, Vanderlyn, Mrs. Siddons, as among his associates even in early youth. So through Home Again and in Europe Again there is a constant succession of personal experience and wide opportunity to know the world. Did our limits permit, we would ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... concentrated passion of expression, the strength of emphasis with which Lady Holberton spoke, would have done honor to a Siddons. The natural start of horror and amazement on my part, was also, no doubt, very expressive—for I ...
— The Lumley Autograph • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... to emulate the last, Oh! might we draw our omens from the past, Some hour propitious to our prayers may boast Names such as hallow still the dome we lost. 30 On Drury first your Siddons' thrilling art O'erwhelmed the gentlest, stormed the sternest heart. On Drury, Garrick's latest laurels grew; Here your last tears retiring Roscius drew, Sighed his last thanks, and wept his last adieu: But still for living wit ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... for the moment imagine Mrs. Siddons to have been the veritable Lady Macbeth, and acknowledge that never was man more powerfully tempted into evil, nor more deeply punished with his fall from Virtue, than this, the Thane of Glamis and of Cawdor. My concernment in this Essay is neither with his virtue, nor his fall. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... licentiousness may be countenanced by them. But when it is intimated that all this is necessarily and inevitably so, I repel the insinuation. Do not gentlemen know that the names of certain actors are associated with all that is pure in character and noble in purpose? Were Garrick and Siddons men of corrupt lives, unworthy to hold an honorable place in society? Who can point to the first line or word ever penned to stigmatize these men? So long as we can refer to them as pure and upright ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... Idonia, Ide, Iddins, Iddison; these were no doubt confused with the derivatives of Ida. William filius Idae is in the Fine Rolls of John's reign, and John Idonyesone occurs there, temp. Edward I. Pim, as a female font-name, may be from Euphemia, and Siddons appears to belong to Sidonia, while the pretty name Avice appears as Avis and Haweis. From Lettice, Lat. laetitia, joy, we have Letts, Lettson, while the corresponding Joyce, Lat. jocosa, merry, has become confused with Fr. Josse (Chapter I). Anstey, Antis, ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... rose up as magnificent as Mrs. Siddons in Lady Macbeth and ordered that horses might be put to her carriage. If her son and daughter turned her out of their house, she would hide her sorrows somewhere in loneliness and pray for their conversion to ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... who have been famed on earth appear at the theatres in Spring Garden. Garrick, Kean, Kemble, Booth, Vandenhoff, Cooke, Macready, Rachel, and Mrs. Siddons, visit us ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... laws of England actors were described as "sturdy vagrants," and this bishop calls them "strolling players." If we only had some strolling preachers like Garrick, like Edwin Forrest, or Booth or Barrett, or some crusade sisters like Mrs. Siddons, Madam Ristori, Charlotte Cushman, or Madam Modjeska, how fortunate the church ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll |
