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Theatrical   Listen
adjective
Theatrical  adj.  Of or pertaining to a theater, or to the scenic representations; resembling the manner of dramatic performers; histrionic; hence, artificial; as, theatrical performances; theatrical gestures. "No meretricious aid whatever has been called in no trick, no illusion of the eye, nothing theatrical."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Theatrical" Quotes from Famous Books



... Langley, throwing himself into a theatrical attitude. "Look here, Frank, this is the way I'll run that bloody Alvarez ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... play the Wilson Barrett hero and make a theatrical disclosure of your greatness," he laughed. "Poor Philippa will fall upon her knees. You will be the hero of the village, which will probably present you with some little article of plate. You've a good ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... phraseology of these men, some of whom indulged in such names as "Nehemiah, Lift-up-Hand" and "Better-Late-than-Never," and it must be remembered, to their credit, that there never was a more orderly army than that of Cromwell. In accordance with the sentiments then entertained all theatrical exhibitions were prohibited. Such austerity and self-denial could not be of long continuance—it was kept up by an effort, and led to an inevitable reaction, and so we find that the court of the "Merry Monarch" became notorious in history for its dissipation. Humour proportionally ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... fine show, with the amber-satin rowers, and the gongs beating. But you can't grumble about his appearance and theatrical robes. It's quite a compliment to Old England to see a native prince come simply in ordinary morning-dress. Hanged if he hadn't got ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... dinner. A 'bonne' coiffed with ribbon shepherded two little girls with pig-tails and frilled drawers. A cab meandered by, whose cocher wore a blue coat and a black-glazed hat. To Soames a kind of affectation seemed to cling about it all, a sort of picturesqueness which was out of date. A theatrical people, the French! He lit one of his rare cigarettes, with a sense of injury that Fate should be casting his life into outlandish waters. He shouldn't wonder if Irene quite enjoyed this foreign life; she had never been properly English—even to look at! And he began ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... of Babhravya say that this meeting should take place at the time of going to the temple of a Deity, or on occasions of fairs, garden parties, theatrical performances, marriages, sacrifices, festivals and funerals, as also at the time of going to the river to bathe, or at times of natural calamities,[62] fear of robbers or ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana

... of both men were quick as light, yet to the girl's taut senses they seemed theatrical and deliberate. Into her mind was seared forever the memory of that second, as though the shutter of a camera had snapped, impressing upon her brain the scene, sharp, clear-cut, and vivid. The shaggy back of the large ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... you saying, Comte Jean?" asked the marechale, who had heard some words. "I said to my sister," answered he, coolly, "that she ought to be executed to please the king." "And you, too, brother," I cried. "Yes, sister," said he, with a theatrical tone, "I see the dire necessity, and submit to it unrepiningly. Let us yield to fate, or rather, let us so act as to make it favorable to us. The king requires some amusement, and let us find him a little wench. We must take heed not to present any fine lady: no, no; by all the devils—! Excuse ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... the opera house the finest institution in the town and demanded that the Old Boys be taken to it upon their arrival and welcomed and fed. And all the other people said it was a sinful and worldly place, and declared they would have no Old Boys' banquet at all if it were to be served in that theatrical abomination. ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... other imbecilities of the last century. Twickenham brings back to one, bitter-tongued Pope, his distorted body and waspish mind. Richmond Hill recalls the Earl of Chatham in his enforced retirement, his gout, and the memorable theatrical speech he made on the floor of the House of Lords, at the time of our greatest national triumph and exertion, that closed his public life. Further up the stream, we come to old Windsor Castle, to be reminded of bluff Bluebeard, ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... a theatrical boarding-place," she said, "and all of our rooms are full save two, and they are to be occupied on the twentieth. You might have them up to that time, I suppose," she added, unwilling to let the chance of making a few extra dollars go by her. "Or perhaps you ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey

... and putting in a kindly word for him from time to time. He began to have a nobler opinion of himself than ever before. Still, he was sufficiently touched by his aunt's grief to long to rush out from under the bed and overwhelm her with joy—and the theatrical gorgeousness of the thing appealed strongly to his nature, too, but he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... London public; they may cry, with reason, Vive la France! and Hip, hip, BRITANNIA! feeling sure that, by their joint exertions, they have obtained for the Anglo-Saxon race that blessing to the public in general, and Theatrical Managers in particular, a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 6, 1890 • Various

... you are! Not so kind to your wife as you used to be; not so patient with your children. Your conscience is not so much at rest. You laugh more now, and sing louder than once, but are not half so happy. It is not the public drinking-saloon that is taking you down, nor theatrical amusements, nor the houses of sin that have cost thousands of other men their eternity: but it is simply and undeniably your club-room. You do not make yourself as agreeable in your family as once. You go home at twelve o'clock with an unnatural flush upon your cheek and a strange ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... or two occasions, he had a man with him—a man who seemed to have plenty of money—a man with an air about him not unlike that of Mr. Preston. A man with what newspaper men would have called a circus or theatrical "air." ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton

... theatrical impresario, of South Africa, inaugurated the "Rayney Day Fund," with a view to ultimate calls for relief by members of the ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... was a model of refinement," said Raeburn, "but he is effective very effective. It is impossible that you should like his style; he is, compared with you, what a theatrical poster is to a delicate tete-de-greuze. How did ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... and manufacturing activity. As is ever the case with such cities, its higher classes were prodigal and dissipated, its lower only to be held in restraint by armed force. Its public amusements were such as might be expected—theatrical shows, music, horse-racing. In the solitude of such a crowd, or in the noise of such dissipation, anyone could find a retreat—atheists who had been banished from Athens, devotees from the Ganges, monotheistic Jews, blasphemers from Asia Minor. Indeed, it has been said that in this heterogeneous ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... war. Accordingly Spain multiplied her efforts of preparation and military ingenuity; while the report of them and of the approaching decisive contest drew to the scene volunteers and men of eminence from other countries of Europe. Two French Bourbon princes added, by their coming, to the theatrical interest with which the approaching drama was invested. The presence of royalty was needed adequately to grace the sublime catastrophe; for the sanguine confidence of the besiegers had determined a satisfactory denouement with all the security ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... role and his real uncertainty as to his own mind. His "seven thousand speeches and three hundred uniforms" were only the numerous and really emblematic disguises of a character unable to concentrate persistently and effectively on any one settled object. With a kind of theatrical sincerity he made successive public appearances as War Lord or William the Peaceful, as Artist, Poet, Architect, Biblical Critic, Preacher, Commercial Magnate, Generalissimo of land forces and Creator of a World Navy; and with Whitman he might well have said, "I can ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter

... cream-ices—mesembrianthemums, then, tumble in torrents from the walls, and large-cupped white convolvuluses curl about the hedges. The Castle Rock, with Capri's refined sky-coloured outline relieving its hard profile on the horizon, is one of those exceedingly picturesque objects just too theatrical to be artistic. It seems ready-made for a back scene in Masaniello, and cries out to the chromo-lithographer, "Come and make the most of me!" Yet this morning all things, in sea, earth, and sky, ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... Strand, and walked from end to end of the theatrical section of it several times, questioning the policemen on duty. But he ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... was even more theatrical in his action. He stood on the hearth-rug, raised his hands in horror, and bowed his head ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... pursued Kupfer, getting more and more heated: 'there is a society here of amateurs, artistic people, who from time to time get up readings, concerts, even theatrical performances for some ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev

... not explain that he was acting for the real good of the prisoner, or apologise for being himself an erring mortal. He showed rather the stern satisfaction of a man suppressing a noxious human reptile. Thus, though he carefully avoided anything savouring of the theatrical, the downright simplicity with which he delivered sentence showed the strength of his feeling. He never preached to the convicts, but spoke in plain words of their atrocities. The most impressive sentence ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... love of country? There is no subject of human thought that by common consent is deemed ennobling that has not ere now, and from period to period, been illustrated in the bright vesture, and received expression from the glowing language of theatrical representation. And surely it is fit that, remembering what the stage has been and must be, I should acknowledge eagerly and gladly that, with few exceptions, the public no longer debar themselves from the profitable pleasures of the theatre, ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving

... universal din there stood the unconscious cause of it, sheltering me, 'the poor, distressed young woman,' and breathing defiance and destruction against my mimic persecutor. He was only persuaded to relinquish his care of me by the manager pretending to arrive and rescue me, with a profusion of theatrical banknotes." ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various

... a native of Vera Cruz, is the son of a Spanish officer, and when very young went to Spain, where he was known politically as a liberal. He was distinguished as a writer of theatrical pieces, which have been and still are very popular; and those which he merely translated, he had the merit of adapting to the Spanish stage, and Castilianizing in grace and wit. One of his pieces, which we saw the other evening at the theatre—"Con tigo, pan y cebolla," (With ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... Babus to whom Lurgan Sahib talked with austerity and authority, but at the end of each interview he gave them money in coined silver and currency notes. There were occasional gatherings of long-coated theatrical natives who discussed metaphysics in English and Bengali, to Mr Lurgan's great edification. He was always interested in religions. At the end of the day, Kim and the Hindu boy—whose name varied at Lurgan's pleasure—were expected to give a detailed account of all that they had seen and ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... Coldstream Guards. This was in 1783, and in 1792 he was transferred to the West Norfolk Militia; hence his appearance at East Dereham, where, now a serjeant, his occupations for many a year were recruiting and drilling.[5] It is recorded that at a theatrical performance at East Dereham he first saw, presumably on the stage of the county-hall, his future wife—Ann Perfrement. She was, it seems, engaged in a minor part in a travelling company, not, we may assume, altogether with the sanction of her father, who, in spite of his ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... not less than that possessed by the news. The man who desires to hire a house turns to the classified lists which the newspaper publishes day after day, and servants and employers find one another by the same means. The theatrical announcements are so much a part of the news that even if a journal were not paid for their insertion they could not be altogether omitted without inconvenience to the reader. In the main, however, it is the advertiser who seeks the reader, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... was introduced to the stage by Lord Rochester, with whom she had an intrigue, the fruit of which was a daughter, who lived to the age of thirteen years, and is often mentioned in his collection of love-letters, printed in his works, which were written to Mrs. Barry. On her first theatrical attempts, so little hopes were entertained of her, that she was, as Cibber declares, discharged the company at the end of the first year, among others that were thought to be a useless expense to it. She was well born; ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... careful study of their sincerity and strength of treatment. Especially brilliant are the works of Cecilia Beaux and M. Jean McLane,— the first winning the Exposition's medal of honor, the latter rather theatrical in their gayety of color. Here also is a canvas (2743) by Violet Oakley, ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... and some one out of the gladness of his heart was executing a spirited shake-down on the sidewalk—at six o'clock of a misty October morning. Looking out, we caught an endearing glimpse of the life of the most lovable of all professions. It was a theatrical company that had played a one-night stand at the local opera-house the evening before, and was now once more upon its wandering way. They had certainly been up till past midnight, but here they were, at six o'clock of the morning, merry as larks, gay ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne

... great sum out of his private purse; and when he was aedile, be provided such a number of gladiators, that he entertained the people with three hundred and twenty single combats, and by his great liberality and magnificence in theatrical shows, in processions, and public feastings, he threw into the shade all the attempts that had been made before him, and gained so much upon the people, that everyone was eager to find out new offices and new honors for him in ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... determined men—as all of Georges' companions were—undertook to get into the park at Malmaison at night, seize Bonaparte and throw him into a carriage which thirty Chouans, dressed as dragoons, would escort as far as the coast. They actually began to put this theatrical "coup" into execution. Mention is made of it in the Memoirs of the valet Constant, and certain details of the investigation confirm these assertions. Raoul Gaillard, who still lived at the Hotel de Bordeaux, and entertained ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... plead on the following day, to visit the court over-night, and examine its arrangements, so that when the time for action arrived he might address the jury from the most favorable spot in the chamber. He was a theatrical speaker, and omitted no pains to secure theatrical effect. It was noticed that he never appeared within the bar until the cause celebre had been called; and a buzz of excitement and anxious expectation testified the eagerness of the assembled crowd to see, as well as to hear, the ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... statistics are unique in theatrical and publishing history for it will now be possible in any large city to read or witness "Peg o' My Heart" in the five phases of her career to date, viz., novel, printed play, acted ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners

... I can only call a plethora of plot. As I followed the developments of its intrigue and tracked the heroine from untutored savage, wife of the wild Westerner whose excusable suspicions caused him to brand her as private property, to the moment of her triumph as the bejewelled idol of theatrical New York, the conviction grew upon me that here was a tale surely predestined to be the screen that covers a multitude of melodramatics. Presently indeed the suggestion became so insistent that I went further and began to wonder whether ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various

... caravan in a theatrical manner, 'I thought I might as well enjoy the felicity of the amiable society of my lady and ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton

... door with arrogant mien, bringing the interview to a close, but soon she seemed to realize how abrupt and theatrical her protest had been, and she lowered her eyes; she grew more human, assuming an ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... Travels; which I suppose will prove that his narratives were fabulous, as he will scarce repeat them by the press. These and two more volumes of Mr. Gibbon's History, are all the literary news I know. France seems sunk indeed in all respects. What stuff are their theatrical goods, their Richards, Ninas, and Tarares! But when their Figaro could run threescore nights, how despicable must their taste be grown!(605) I rejoice that the political intrigues are not more creditable. I do not dislike the French from the vulgar antipathy between neighbouring ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... generally—long gray robes down to their feet, cocked hats with cockle shells, long wands; some barefoot, some with sandals: on they passed, singing religious songs. Then came the peasantry, all in perfect theatrical harmony, costumes rigidly correct a la Sonnambula. German artists dressed in Sunday clothes a la Der Freyschutz. A cafe with festoons of lemon-peel hung from window to window—they are not up to this idea in Fra Diavolo. Pretty girls in latticed windows, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... the charmed world of fiction. Let Sidonia only repeat some magniloquent gnome from Greek, or Hebrew, or German philosophers, give us a scrap of Hegel, or of the Talmud, and we will willingly take it to be the real thing for imaginative purposes, as we allow ourselves to believe that some theatrical goblet really contains a fluid of magical efficacy. Unluckily, however, and the misfortune illustrates the inconvenience of combining politics with fiction, Disraeli had something to say, and still more ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... "I suppose theatrical people do undergo many hardships," said Grace, who, now that the subject had been opened, wanted to hear more of Anne's ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower

... time shows nothing approaching to the regularity with which in the plays of Shakespeare and of his contemporaries the principle is applied. And the main cause of this difference lies simply in a change of theatrical arrangements. In Shakespeare's theatre, as there was no scenery, scene followed scene with scarcely any pause; and so the readiest, though not the only, way to vary the emotional pitch was to interpose a whole scene where the tension was low between scenes where ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... a few years before.[2] The conception of court life at Coimbra in the fourteenth century is that of this French lady, and is innocent of Portuguese local colour. But, as the dramatic work of a girl of sixteen, the play is rather extraordinary for nimble movement and adroit theatrical arrangements. It is evident that Catharine Trotter was well versed in the stage traditions of her own day, and we may wonder how a highly respectable girl of sixteen found her opportunity. The English playhouse under William III. was no place for ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... a day's warning. Little George has his Hanoverians, his subsidized Hessians, Danes, in Hanover, his English on Lexden Heath: let him come one step over the marches, Maillebois and the Old Dessauer swallow him. It is a surprising stroke of theatrical-practical Art; brought about, to old Fleury's sorrow, by the genius of Belleisle, aud they say of Madame Chateauroux; enough to strike certain Governing Persons breathless, for some time; and denotes that the Universal Hurricane, or World-Tornado, has broken out. It is not recorded ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... almost the same as a skirt except when you climb on or something—a woman has to think of those things—wouldn't Daisy Estelle look rather stunning in that?—she has just the figure for it. Here's this No. 9872 with the Norfolk jacket in this mail-order catalogue—do you think that looks too theatrical, or don't you? Of course for some figures, but I've always been able to wear—And so forth, for a ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... remembered, and such authentic history as there is of my parents' movements, I gather that this attic was in theatrical lodgings in Glasgow. My father was an actor, my mother an actress, and they were at this time on tour in Scotland. Perhaps this is the place to say that father was the son of an Irish builder, and that he eloped in a chaise with mother, who was the daughter ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... organ had been secured, and at this a bearded fellow in a mackinaw coat was seated. He was playing a spirited accompaniment for two women, sisters, evidently, who sang with the loud abandon of professional "coon shouters." Other women were present, and Phillips recognized them as members of that theatrical troupe he had seen at Sheep Camp—as those "actresses" to whom Tom Linton had referred with such elaborate sarcasm. All of them, it appeared, were out for a good time, and in consequence White Horse was being treated to ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... the mushroom Emperor, his anterooms crowded with the titled charlatans of Europe, his court radiant with countesses created overnight. And it was the Emperor, with his love of theatrical display, of gorgeous ceremonies; with his restless reaching after military glory, the weary, cynical adventurer, that the boy at St. ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... New York is rather theatrical," observed Mortimer De Royster. "You'll get into the papers, first thing you know, really you ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster

... maitre &c. (fop) 854; flatterer &c. 935; coquette, prude, puritan. V. affect, act a part, put on; give oneself airs &c. (arrogance) 885; boast &c. 884; coquet; simper, mince, attitudinize, pose; flirt a fan; overact, overdo. Adj. affected, full of affectation, pretentious, pedantic, stilted, stagy, theatrical, big-sounding, ad captandum; canting, insincere. not natural, unnatural; self-conscious; maniere; artificial; overwrought, overdone, overacted; euphuist &c. 577. stiff, starch, formal, prim, smug, demure, tire a quatre epingles, quakerish, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... like a warm flood of tender benediction, seemed to pour itself out over my benumbed and tormented heart, of course I cried and kissed all the more and with greater fervor. We Italians are always a little, what here in my small town would be called, theatrical and affected, even though ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... the room set apart for the performance he found that, despite the provisional abonnement suspendu arrangement, the place was not quite empty, for the gratis public, the lenders of the theatrical requisites and their families, the letters of lodgings to the actors and other peaceful creditors, occupied a couple of benches, so that Szilard had the opportunity of effacing himself and thus avoiding confusing the troupe by his solitary and ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... of ironic disappointment escaped his pursed-up lips. For at one glance he could see that it held no mystery. The only mystery about it all was that he had been theatrical enough to imagine it could prove anything that was not sordid ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... habits, they have official and ceremonious occasions, on which they wear beautiful furs and theatrical dresses and disguises, including large masks; and their war-dress, formed of a thick doubled leathern mantle of elk or buffalo skin, frequently with a cloak over it, on which the hoofs of horses were strung, makes an almost impervious cuirass. Their love for music, general lively dispositions, ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne

... to the barges,—all these made the scene one of motion and variety. Everywhere was water,—color, new forms, childish figures, little details, all glossy and fresh,—an ingenuous display of prettiness—a mixture of the primitive and the theatrical, of grace and absurdity, which was partly European, partly Chinese, partly belonging to no land,—and over all a delightful air of peace ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... weather, so we started after sunset, intending to travel all night. We crossed the big billabong, and were ploughing through the dust and sand towards West Bourke, when a buggy full of city girls and swells passed by. They were part of a theatrical company on tour in the Back-Blocks, and some local Johnnies. They'd been driven out to see an artesian bore, or wool-shed, or something. The horses swerved, and jerked a little squawk out of one of the girls. ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson

... genius, and so far the son may be said to have come of a good stock. But the great musical talent that was developed in the third generation both in Felix and his sisters, failed entirely in his brother, who, to save his life, could never have sung "God save the Queen." In the little theatrical performances of the whole family for which Felix composed the music, and his sister Fanny (Hensel) some of the songs, the unmusical brother—was it not Paul?—had generally to be provided with some such part as that of a night watchman, and ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller

... get into his simple words the particular intonation required by an overdriven producer. Familiar, too, with long and hungry Sunday railway journeys when pious refreshment rooms are shut; with little mean towns like Bludston, where he and three or four of the company shared the same mean theatrical lodgings; with the dirty, insanitary theatres; with the ceaseless petty jealousies and bickerings of the ill-paid itinerant troupe. The discomforts affected Paul but little, he had never had experience ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... breathing. A portrait is not thought grand unless it has a thundercloud behind it (as if a hero could not be brave in sunshine); a ruin is not melancholy enough till it is seen by moonlight or twilight; and every condition of theatrical pensiveness or of the theatrical terrific is exhausted in setting forth scenes or persons which in themselves are, perhaps, very quiet scenes and homely persons; while that which, without any accessories at all, is everlastingly melancholy and terrific, we refuse to paint,—nay, ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... but the novels of Miss Braddon, Mrs. Southworth, or Mrs. Wood wake them into a premature life of the imagination and the senses. Before they are six years old they hold weddings for their dolls, enact love scenes in their tableaux, or go to theatrical exhibitions as stimulating as the "Black Crook," if less offensive to the taste. The skating parties and gymnastics are also fruitful sources of ill-health. The girl prepares herself for the former by inflating and over-heating her skirts over the register in the hall-floor; a few minutes' exercise ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... well on theatrical matters; he is much more vivid and human than many a better-known critic. Here, for instance, is an impression of the old Park ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Love in '76 - An Incident of the Revolution • Oliver Bell Bunce

... their bodies into unnatural shapes and postures under the impression that they will thereby attain a higher degree of holiness and exalt themselves in the favor of heaven. They do not give exhibitions for money. They cannot be hired for any price to appear upon a public stage. Theatrical agents in London and elsewhere have frequently tempted them with fortunes, but they cannot be persuaded to display their gifts for gain, or violate their caste and the traditions ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... suppose. He was a small, quiet, gentlemanly person, whom I regret I cannot, consistently with historical truth, show up as a Crummles. But not even Dickens could have found any salient trait for ridicule in the man. Frankly and kindly he went into the statistics of the theatrical business, and showed me, that, unless I was rich, and could afford to play for my own amusement, the stage held out few inducements; it was barren of promise to a young man anxious to make himself independent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... violin-case had paused just perceptibly in an unconscious attitude which kept in the lamplight her bust, tightly encased in a faded but elegant Genoa brocade jacket, with copper lace ornamentation, coming down upon a promising curve, clothed in a similarly theatrical skirt of flowered satin and China silk braid. On her wrists were bracelets and on her ungloved hands many rings, with stones rather too large to be taken for genuine on a woman promenading alone at such an hour. Conjoined with the musical instrument, the ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... effectually the fancy of those who hear them, and to call down that round of applause which tells them they have made a hit. Now just so far as this is the case, popular lecturing not only seeks to supply the place of the theatre, but actually becomes theatrical; and lacking the essential worth and dignity of the drama, assumes ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... overhanging yawning and precipitous alleys, markets set on little shelves in the mountain, hovels protesting against sliding down into the valley, whither they seemed inevitably doomed to go, succeeded one another in rapid panorama. Here were costume, theatrical effect, artistic grouping: it was like Ragusa, Spalatro and Sebenico. Old and young women sat on the ground in the markets, as our negroes do in Lynchburg in Virginia: they held up fruit and vegetables and shrieked out the prices in a dialect which seemed a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... the farmers (it was in the high-price time) quarrelled with Joseph's wine: then it was converted into the magistrate's room—the bench; but the bench and the market went away together, and there was an end of justicing: then Joseph tried the novel attraction (to borrow a theatrical phrase) of a billiard-table; but, alas! that novelty succeeded as ill as if it had been theatrical; there were not customers enough to pay the marker: at last, it has merged finally in that unconscious ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various

... good theatre. I realized how cleverly it had been constructed for the dramatic presentation of religious ceremonies. The east end is round, the walls are windowless, sound is well distributed. Now everything is theatrical, except the stone floor and two pillars at the back of the auditorium, and ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence

... "Your theatrical ranting won't get you anywhere with me, Shandon. It is the thing to be expected. I am the master of my own house and it is quite enough when I say that your presence is not wanted here. If you want more you can supply it ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory

... been compared to the final of some grand theatrical spectacle—it had all the grandeur, the red light, and the scenic embellishment—but in two circumstances it widely differed from the fictitious imitation. There was not that variety of forms and colours in the tableaux, and, moreover, the characters ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid

... of any magnitude make their appearance on visiting Royat. As a "Baigneur de Royat" puts it, in a local journal, the Compagnie Brocard cannot consider their stuffy little room ("le petit etouffoir") where theatrical performances are given as a real theatre. It is a pity that M. SAMIE and La Compagnie Brocard cannot, like the "birds in their little nests," agree. But as to Theatres and spectacles, my rule at Royat, or at any other Water-cure place, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various

... when Freddie's party arrived. The Leicester Theatre had been rented for the season by the newest theatrical knight, Sir Chester Portwood, who had a large following; and, whatever might be the fate of the play in the final issue, it would do at least one night's business. The stalls were ablaze with jewelry and crackling with starched shirt-fronts; ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... tendency, every day resounded from their theatrical cellar, followed by bursts of thoughtless merriment ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various

... is known chiefly by a remarkable little collection of only twenty-five lyrics, Songs from the Glens of Antrim (1900), simple tunes as unaffected as the peasants of whom she sings. The best of her poetry is dramatic without being theatrical; melodious without falling into the tinkle of ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various

... navy yard, fort, and arsenal of the North hailed the triumph of Sherman at Atlanta. Before these echoes had died away the people were electrified by the three battles in Virginia which Sheridan fought and won in style so brilliant as to seem almost theatrical. Thus from the South, from the West, and from the East came simultaneously the fierce contradiction of this insulting Copperhead notion, that the North had failed in the war. The political blunder of the ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... buttercups for the plucking. It was not the man's gospel that fascinated me nor his illuminated prophecy of the millennium that produced the vibrations in my soul, but the surging passion of his faith, the tempest of his enthusiasm. I had enough experience of public speaking to distinguish between the theatrical and the genuine in oratory. Here was no tub-thumping soothsayer, but an inspired zealot. He lived his impassioned creed in every fibre of his frame and faculties. He was Titanic, this rough miner, in his unconquerable hope, divine in his yearning ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... But amongst those of whom this certainly cannot be said is Mr. HORACE A. VACHELL, whose new book, The Fourth Dimension (MURRAY), has both pleased and astonished me by its freedom from those defects that so often ruin the theatrical story. For one thing, of course, the explanation of this lies in my sustaining confidence that I was being handed out the genuine stuff. When a dramatist of Mr. VACHELL'S experience says that stage-life ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various

... about the Renaissance,—left immediately after, to visit a few shops, and drove up to the Apollo Theatre at the appointed time. Her name sufficed; at once she was respectfully conducted to a small electric-lighted room, furnished only with a table and chairs, and hung about with portraits of theatrical people, where Dymes sat by the fire smoking a cigarette. The illustrious man apologised for receiving her here, instead of in the manager's room, which he had hoped to ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... aware that he was threatened by serious danger, he was far from being impressed by the arms and disguise of his mysterious intruders. On the contrary, the obvious and glaring inconsistency of this cheaply theatrical invasion of the peaceful school-house; of this opposition of menacing figures to the scattered childish primers and text-books that still lay on the desks around him, only extracted from him a half scornful smile as he ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... she spoken, when Charles, throwing himself into a theatrical attitude, exclaimed—"Ay! but do you remember the man that looked like him—to this same Henry, 'Who drew Priam's curtains in the dead of night, and would have told him half ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland

... wealthy patrician, intending to treat the Roman people with some theatrical entertainment, publicly offered a reward to any one who would produce a novel spectacle. Incited by emulation, artists arrived from all parts to contest the prize, among whom a well-known witty Mountebank ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... continual masking as the greatest composer of his century, when he was only a clever impostor, a theater-man, a wearer of borrowed plumage. His influence on music has been deplorably evil. He has melodramatized the art, introduced in it a species of false, theatrical, personal feeling, quite foreign to its nature. The symphony, not the stage, is the objective of musical art. Wagner—neither composer nor tragedian, but a cunning blend of both—diverted the art to his own uses. A great force? Yes, a ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker

... thing takes on a lighter, theatrical flavor amounting to a pageant of great fun and frolic. Dr. Hough says these are really the most characteristic ceremonies of the pueblos, musical, spectacular, delightfully entertaining, and they show the cheerful Hopi at his best—a true, ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett

... Apprenticed Reading in his Garret His First Books Florian's Romances Begins to Rhyme The Poetic Nature Barbers and Poetry Importance of the Barber Jasmin first Theatrical Entertainment Under the Tiles Talent ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles

... the artists who give lustre to the American stage. If such women as Laura Murdock succeed in gaining a foothold on the boards it must be looked upon merely as an unfortunate accident. The better element in the theatre shuns them and their theatrical aspirations are not encouraged by ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... theatrical attitudes assumed by the old ladies as they reappeared at the front-door,—being luckily out of direct range,—and set the handkerchiefs in wilder motion than ever? They brandished them, they twirled ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... good, but it was, nevertheless, rather annoying, after a long and fatiguing day, and with the prospect of an early start, to be kept awake until half-past three in the morning, while they serenaded and toasted the prima donna, and each of the other members of the theatrical company who are staying here. The noise was, of course, increased by the reverberation from the walls of the courtyard, and, finding it impossible to sleep, I abandoned the attempt, and took to writing instead. At last the welcome notes of the Chilian national ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... toward Cincinnati. I am a theatrical man, and play there to-morrow night." I was a young man then, and fond ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various

... Gracchi would have frowned or smiled, could they have read the sonorous titles and epithets of their successor, "Nicholas, severe and merciful; deliverer of Rome; defender of Italy; [34] friend of mankind, and of liberty, peace, and justice; tribune august:" his theatrical pageants had prepared the revolution; but Rienzi abused, in luxury and pride, the political maxim of speaking to the eyes, as well as the understanding, of the multitude. From nature he had received the gift of a handsome person, [35] till it was swelled and disfigured by intemperance: ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... written little. Church music interests him greatly, and he has written various anthems, a morning and evening service, which keeps largely to the traditional colors of the Episcopal ecclesiastical manner, yet manages to be fervent without being theatrical. A trio, a violin sonata, and a piano quintette, a suite for strings, and a concert overture for orchestra complete the list ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes

... "Come now, Captain Clinton," he said. "You have found us out; but I am going to marry your sister. You are not going to take her away, you know." He spoke in a tone of easy good humour. The air, slightly theatrical, as it had seemed, with which he had faced their ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall

... back at full length in the chair with his eyes on the ceiling. But, remembering suddenly that he was really the bearer of a message to Clarence, it struck him that his supine position was, from a theatrical view-point, infelicitous. In his experiences of the stage he had never delivered a message in that way. He rose awkwardly to ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte

... and M. Baffo chose the Abbe Schiavo to teach me a pure Italian style, especially poetry, for which I had a decided talent. I was very comfortably lodged with my brother Francois, who was studying theatrical architecture. My sister and my youngest brother were living with our grandam in a house of her own, in which it was her wish to die, because her husband had there breathed his last. The house in which I dwelt was the same ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... good deal rather than do anything more to win the heart of Mrs. Bowring's daughter. He would get over it somehow in the end. He fancied Clare's horror if she should ever know the truth, and his fear of hurting her was as strong as his love. He made no phrases to himself, and he thought of nothing theatrical which he should like to say. He just set his teeth and packed his clothes alone. Possibly he swore rather unmercifully at the coat which would not fit into the right place, and at the starched shirt-cuffs which would not lie flat until he smashed ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford

... is. I believe, though, she has faults; the same as Charmian and Cleopatra might have had. Yet she is a fine thing, speaking in a worldly way; for there are two distinct tempers of mind in which we judge of things—the worldly, theatrical and pantomimical; and the unearthly, spiritual and ethereal. In the former, Buonaparte, Lord Byron and this Charmian hold the first place in our minds; in the latter, John Howard, Bishop Hooker rocking his child's ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... Hogmanay, New Year's day, and Handsel Monday. Dressed in quaint and fantastic attire, they sing a selection of songs which have been practised by them some weeks before. There were important doings, however—one of a theatrical character. There is one rude and grotesque drama (called Galatian) which they are accustomed to perform on each of the four above-mentioned nights; and which, in various fragments or versions, exists in every part of Lowland ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... few whom we keep working, the whole race grew more and more self-conscious, mannered, and affected. The number of things that a small dog does naturally is strangely small. Enjoying better spirits and not crushed under material cares, he is far more theatrical than average man. His whole life, if he be a dog of any pretension to gallantry, is spent in a vain show, and in the hot pursuit of admiration. Take out your puppy for a walk, and you will find the little ball of fur clumsy, stupid, bewildered, but natural. Let but a few months pass, and when ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of the grasses sets off the dull green and bronze of the steadfast harps of the beach. At certain seasons and in some lights, when the sun is in the west, the minute scales at the joints of the slender, pendulous branchlets shine like old gold, producing a theatrical effect which, if not experienced before, startles and almost persuades to the belief that the complaining trees have been decorated by one who "has sought out many inventions." But the slant of the sun alters, the light fades, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... example of all good life, honesty, and virtue, to have him hoisted up with a pulley, and there play the philosopher in a basket; measure how many foot a flea could skip geometrically, by a just scale, and edify the people from the engine. This was theatrical wit, right stage jesting, and relishing a playhouse, invented for scorn and laughter; whereas, if it had savoured of equity, truth, perspicuity, and candour, to have tasten a wise or a learned palate,—spit it out presently! this is bitter and profitable: this instructs and would inform us: what ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson

... them a little of that tendency to excessive accentuation, and that disposition to 'make a hit' or a sensation in every sentence which renders most, or all, Shaksperean or tragic acting so harsh and strained, and which has made the word 'theatrical' in ordinary conversation synonymous with 'unnatural.' Something of this is reflected in the enormous amount of needless italicizing with which the typography of the book is afflicted, and which we trust ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... had not been one word as to St Paul's design in quoting the text. It had been but a theatrical setting forth of the vengeance of God upon sin, illustrated with several common tales of the discovery of murder by strange means—a sermon after Duncan's own heart; and nothing but the way in which he now snuffed the wind with head thrown back and nostrils dilated, ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... then rushed me bodily into a house, where, in the best room, I found another official and his two sons. T'ong followed as interpreter. The mandarin explained that I was wanted to stay the night, that a theatrical entertainment had been arranged particularly for my benefit, that he wished I would take their photographs, that one of them would like a cigarette tin with some cigarettes in it, and that one ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... nor theatrical approach of the principal figures. It had nothing in common with the cheap external ceremonial of modern days. In forgotten powers of the soul its grandeur lay, potent, splendid, true. Long before he came, perhaps all through the day, these two had ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood

... throwing up both hands in a most theatrical manner, exclaimed, "Mon Dieu!" It was the only French phrase she knew, and she used it upon all occasions. This time, however, it was accompanied by a loud call for her vineagrette and for air, at the same time declaring it was of no use trying ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... position where his want of that magical quality by which even Marat could gain the sympathies of men, should be so conspicuously made visible. The character of Condorcet, unlike so many of his contemporaries, offers nothing to the theatrical instinct. None the less on this account should we be willing to weigh the contributions which he made to the stock of science and social speculation, and recognise the fine elevation of his sentiments, his noble solicitude ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley

... son. She chose one with the mildest discipline possible, one of those colleges for the children of wealthy parents, where there is no severity, where the boys are allowed to eat pastry when they are taking their walks, and where the professors believe in more theatrical rehearsals than punishments. During the seven years he was there, Mme. Mauperin never missed a single day going from Saint-Denis to see him during the recreation hour. Rain, cold, fatigue, illness, nothing prevented her. In the parlour or in the courtyard the other mothers pointed her out to ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt

... circles, is, it is said, "a foe to snakes." Excellent omen this for Miss FARREN. Laughter everywhere, and no hissing permitted. If hissing heard anywhere, up starts the Laughing Jackass and down he comes on the snake, and there's an end of the hissing. Theatrical Managers would do well to cultivate the Laughing Jackasses, and keep a supply always ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 26, 1891 • Various

... of that very person? No! Of anyone else but that particular person! It was easy to picture Nita, her head whirling with possibilities, hitting upon the most conspicuous player in the group—dark, tense, theatrical Flora, already pointed out to her as one of the two female leads in the opera.... But of whom ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin

... Romany disappeared, Max Ingolby had his hand on the old barber's shoulder. "I want one of the wigs you made for that theatrical performance of the Mounted Police, Berry," he said. "Never mind what it's for. I want it at once—one with the long hair of a French-Canadian coureur-de-bois. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... did the conduct of Khlobuev's menage afford a curious phenomenon, for one day the house would be the scene of a solemn Te Deum, performed by a priest in vestments, and the next of a stage play performed by a troupe of French actors in theatrical costume. Again, one day would see not a morsel of bread in the house, and the next day a banquet and generous largesse given to a party of artists and sculptors. During these seasons of scarcity (sufficiently severe to have led any one but Khlobuev to seek suicide by hanging or shooting), the master ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... crowding the parks and peering through the iron rails into the King's garden. It was a warm night, and lighted grandly by a full moon that showed the Acropolis in silhouette against the sky, and gave a strangely theatrical look to the yellow house fronts and red roofs of the town. Every window in the broad front of the palace was illuminated, and through the open doors came the sound of music, and one without could see rows of tall servants in the King's blue and white livery, and the men of his ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis

... Major NEWMAN and Mr. REDDY of collaborating, like the "Two Macs" of music-hall fame. No other theory will explain the gallant Major's well-feigned annoyance at what he called "the assumption of military rank by clergymen and members of the theatrical profession" connected with cadet-corps. Mr. MACPHERSON supplied the official answer, namely, that gentlemen holding cadet-commissions are entitled to wear service dress; but the real object of the question was revealed when Brother REDDY from the backbenches piped out, "Does that apply to ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various

... had clothed the ungrown limbs of limping and lisping tragedy. But if these also may be reckoned among his precursors, the dismissal from stage service of the dolorous and drudging metre employed by the earliest school of theatrical rhymesters must be taken to mark a real step in advance; and in that case we possess at least a single example of the rhyming tragedies which had their hour between the last plays written wholly or partially in ballad metre and the first plays written in blank verse. ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... "Rather theatrical, don't you think?" said the Duchess of Peebles. "It's more satisfactory to go to a woman you can pay with money and ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... many in court, more especially to the theatrical folk behind the man with the white hair, the gesture was but one more subtle touch in an exhibition ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... certainly write to you; she may even be bold enough to make her way into your house. Renew your promise to keep the great calamity of my life a secret, on your honor and on your oath. 'Those were his words, as nearly as I can remember them. I tried to treat the thing lightly; I ridiculed the absurdly theatrical notion of 'renewing my promise,' and all the rest of it. Quite useless! He refused to leave me; he reminded me of his unmerited sufferings, poor fellow, in the past time. It ended in his bursting into tears. You love ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... Foster was seldom theatrical, but felt the occasion justified his doing something unusual. John, having already grasped the wheel, had his back to them, and Foster took the girl's hand, which rested on the rail, and kissed it. She ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss

... of theatrical performances was to the lively-tunes of jigs and corams on a stage. In 1713 permission was asked to act a play in the Council House in Boston. Judge Sewall's grief and amazement at this suggestion of "Dances and Scenical Divertessiments" ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... question but Boodle and his retinue, and Buffy and HIS retinue. These are the great actors for whom the stage is reserved. A People there are, no doubt—a certain large number of supernumeraries, who are to be occasionally addressed, and relied upon for shouts and choruses, as on the theatrical stage; but Boodle and Buffy, their followers and families, their heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, are the born first-actors, managers, and leaders, and no others can appear upon the scene ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... Grzesikiewicz, but she felt his eyes upon her and that began to add to her agitation and excitement. She remembered that she had on short skirts and a peculiar shame filled her at the thought that she was standing before him in these gaudy, theatrical togs. It is impossible to describe what took place within her. Never before had she felt like this. In her stage appearances she usually gazed at the public with an expression of aloofness as on a foolish and slavish throng, but to-day it seemed to her as though she ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... East, tolerated Moore's sham Orientalism, even though Byron's fine poems were just then exposing the difference between working up the subject in a library and wandering in Asiatic countries. Byron's language seems in the present day turgid, and his Greeks and Turks may have a theatrical air, but his splendid descriptive passages were drawn by a master hand straight from nature, while his colouring, landscape, and costume are usually excellent; so that his work also is a distinct movement in the direction of realism. Yet ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... rehearsed his interview with Alicia Derosne, wondering, as men wonder after they have been carried away by emotion into unrestrained disclosures of their hearts, whether she had really been impressed; whether, after all, he had not been, or seemed, insincere, theatrical, or absurd; wondering again in what light she would look on him, when she knew what it looked likely all Kirton would know soon; wondering last whether, if he had not met the woman who had been his partner in life for so long, and ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope

... greater part of those who talk of the "Supreme Being," and who expect His intervention in human affairs, "Providence" is only a word, solemn and sonorous, a sort of theatrical machine which sets all right in the end, and which they glorify with a few banalities proceeding from the lips, but not from the heart. It is true that this unknown and mysterious Cause which we call "God" or "Chance" often appears so exceedingly ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... John decided to tell Sid that, after all, the entertainment was for but two. He would probably spoil all the fun, anyway, and then the evening would be a total failure. He was still undecided when he stepped up to the tawdry box office with its photographs of local theatrical stars. ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... opened for him, he surprised her, striding up and down the room with a book in her hand; grandly declaiming without anybody to applaud her. After what Hugh had already heard, he could only conclude that reminiscences of her theatrical career had tempted the solitary actress to make a private appearance, for her own pleasure, in one of those tragic characters to which her husband had alluded. She recovered her self-possession on Mountjoy's appearance, with the ease of ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... revealed in all its absurdity, showing them a woman paid to illtreat them, and not doing it for her own enjoyment. Some masochists take pleasure in imagining themselves assassinated by a woman, or even cut in pieces. Others organize theatrical performances in which imperious women play the part of judges, before whom they appear naked and are flogged and condemned to death. Others again are contented with imagining these performances, combining them sometimes with ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... these good things when outside. He was given copies of Homer, however, in Greek and Latin, and he set himself at work, with several of the other prisoners, to perfect himself in these languages. We have glimpses of his dining with the governor of the prison, and even organizing theatrical performances, and he was finally allowed writing materials on promise that he would not do anything worse than translate the Bible, so altogether he was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... respectable, and people who are themselves ignorant of the path of virtue are nevertheless obliged to live under some sort of rule. Your place, in fact, is like that of a guardian; as he looks after the tender years of his ward, so you bridle the passionate pleasures of your theatrical subjects. ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... town ruled by the Draconian law that a jeune fille a marier must be no more than an animated puppet, while jeunes gens must have their coarse fling before they are fit for refined society. Occasionally an ambulant theatrical troupe gives an entertainment in our little theatre. Once a year Talbot comes, during vacation at the Francais, and gives us "L'Avare" or "Le Roi s'amuse;" but such are small events, to our provincial taste, compared with the vaulting and grimacing of the more frequent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... summer holidays, at a watering place I attended a theatrical performance and fell in love with a girl of about 12 who acted a part. I bought a photograph of her, which I kept and kissed for several years after. About the same time I thought rather tenderly of a girl of my own age whose parents knew mine. I remember ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... French individually and as a people is love of and admiration for theatrical display. This finds such ample illustration in all of their known domestic as well as international affairs that even the mere statement seems unnecessary. It permeates every social rank, and it enters into the performance of the simplest private as well as public duties. In higher governmental ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... too early yet (says the Telegraph) to announce the title of the latest of the Laureate's plays, but this much may be said, that it is written partly in blank verse and partly in prose, that it is what is known in theatrical circles as a 'a costume play,' and that the scene is laid in England. It may, however, interest sensitive dramatists to know that Lord TENNYSON is liberal enough to place the stage detail wholly in the competent hands of Mr. DALY. He does not ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various

... has left for us a description of the stage decorations prepared for his oratorios when they were performed in the palace of the Bishop of Groswardein. Of late years there have been a number of theatrical representations of Mendelssohn's "Elijah." I have witnessed as well as heard a performance of "Acis and Galatea" and been entertained with the spectacle of Polyphemus crushing the head of presumptuous Acis ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... first theatrical representations, entitled "Mysteries and Moralities," were generally enacted at Christmas, by monks (as the only persons who could read), and latterly by the clergy and students of the universities. The dramatis personae were usually Adam, Pater ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... which were carried through with the pomp and circumstance of war, colours flying, bugles sounding, and long lines charging elaborately planned intrenchments, were a constant source of amusement, except to unpopular officers. Theatrical and musical performances enlivened the tedium of the long evenings; and when, by the glare of the camp-fires, the band of the 5th Virginia broke into the rattling quick-step of "Dixie's Land," not the least stirring of national ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... produced by the sudden revelation of the glories beneath it; for when the pilgrims were duly assembled on their knees round the shrine, the cover was suddenly raised at a given signal, and though such a device may appear slightly theatrical in these days, it is easy to imagine how the devotees of the middle ages must have been thrilled at the sight of this hallowed tomb, and all the bravery of gold and precious stones which the piety of that day had heaped upon it. The beauties of the shrine were pointed out by the prior, who named ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers

... of the sisters, her teachers, ever in their company for songs, novenas, or decorations of white flowers around the statues of the Holy Virgin.—Then, the priests, in their most sumptuous costumes, appeared in front of the magnificent gold of the tabernacle, on a platform elevated and theatrical, and the mass began, celebrated, in this distant village, with excessive pomp as in a great city. There were choirs of small boys chanting in infantile voices with a savage ardor. Then choruses of little girls, whom ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti

... at present. My movements depend upon the results of the inquiries I shall make to-day in theatrical circles, and particularly at the Gare de Lyon, where I shall not meet with success in any event until the ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy

... affinities were in the nature of experiments. She even took back Alfred de Musset, although they could never again regard each other without suspicion. George Sand cut off all her hair and gave it to Musset, so eager was she to keep him as a matter of conquest; but he was tired of her, and even this theatrical trick was of ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr



Words linked to "Theatrical" :   performance, melodramatic, untheatrical, theatrical season, theatricality, histrionics, stagey, showy, theater, theatrical role, public presentation



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