Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Histrionic   /hˌɪstriˈɑnɪk/   Listen
Histrionic

adjective
1.
Characteristic of acting or a stage performance; often affected.  Synonym: melodramatic.  "An attitude of melodramatic despair" , "A theatrical pose"



Related search:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Histrionic" Quotes from Famous Books



... I'll see for the key and let you through, if you'll stop a minute." It is the only good bit of acting she has done. Perhaps despair gives histrionic power. She sees a chance of deferring the breaking-down of that door, and who knows what may hang on a few minutes of successful delay? Before she goes she suggests again that the paralysed man will understand what is said to him if spoke to plain. Clearly, he who speaks plain to ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... bring out dialogues and soliloquies in heightened effect. But though varnish can bring into plainer view dull or faded characters, it cannot introduce into them significance where none before existed. The simple fact was that the gestures of the most famed histrionic school, the Comedie Francaise, were not significant, far less self-interpreting, and though praised as the perfection of art, have diverged widely from nature. It thus appears that the absence of absolute self-interpretation by gesture is by no means confined to the lower grade ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery

... world by the common expression of scenical applause, (vos plaudite!) in that valedictory injunction he expressed inadvertently the true value of his own long life, which, in strict candor, may be pronounced one continued series of histrionic efforts, and of excellent acting, adapted ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... service; (4) why there is no promotion from the ranks; and (5) why their artillery is too rigid and not quick enough. It also showed me something intimate and fundamental about the Germans which Tacitus never understood and which all our historians miss—they are of necessity histrionic. Note I do not say it is a vice of theirs. It is a necessity of theirs, an appetite. They must see themselves on a stage. Whether they do things well or ill, whether it is their excellent army with its ridiculous ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... the South, no doubt, came legitimately (or, at least, naturally) by his dignity. His career, for a man of his blood and antecedents, has been wonderfully successful, and is justly due, I am convinced, since I have seen him, to his histrionic talents. Both black and yellow skins are sufficiently rare in Europe to excite a particular interest in those who wear them; and I had surmised, up to this time, that much of his popularity might be owing to his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... to do; the ordinary necessities of men's daily existence cannot comport with it, and these, whatever else is cast aside, will have their way. Some remounting—very temporary remounting—of the old machine, under new colors and altered forms, will probably ensue soon in most countries: the old histrionic Kings will be admitted back under conditions, under "Constitutions," with national Parliaments, or the like fashionable adjuncts; and everywhere the old daily life will try to begin again. But there is now no hope that such arrangements can be permanent; that they can be ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle

... behind the screen of snow-cloud, I found him engaged in the Samaritan act—no doubt carried out on purely humanitarian principles—of warming one of Innocentina's hands in his. I simulated blindness with such histrionic skill that honest Joseph was deceived thereby; but not so Innocentina. She tossed her head, and folded her arms in her cape as if it had been the toga of a Roman senator unjustly accused of treason. She had been, so she assured ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... acknowledged the quality of the voice, its charmful, haunting tones—but for the opera! oh, much more—very, very much more was needed. Madame must go to Italy for three years and study. She must learn the Italian language; the French; the German. Ah! then there was the acting also! Had madame histrionic power? That was indispensable for the grand opera. But in three years—perhaps four—with fine teachers her voice might be very rich, very charming. Now it was harsh, crude, unformed. Yes, it wanted the soft, mellowing airs of ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... right nor left, but simply at his geese, and thus the quidnuncs of the market-place and the supporters of shop-fronts were unable to catch his eye. He tried to feel like a gooseherd; and such was his histrionic quality, his instinct for the dramatic, he was a gooseherd, despite his blue Melton overcoat, his hard felt hat with the flattened top, and that opulent-curving collar which was the secret despair of the young ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... least in that section of London consecrated to his coarser whims, for the street narrowed like a road in a picture and the houses bent over further and further, cooping in natural ambushes suitable for murder and its histrionic sister, ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... of crabbed type, illuminated with their hundreds of cramped old wood-cuts?) had in a scant three hours been recreated for him by Knoblauch's fantastic drama with its splendid investment of scene and costume, its admirable histrionic interpretation, and the robust yet exquisitely tempered artistry of Otis Skinner. For three hours he had forgotten his lowly world, had lived on the high peaks of romance, breathing only their rare atmosphere that never was on land ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... Wilhelm Meister's Theatrical Mission.[3] This tells the story of a Werther-like youth who is to be saved from Werther's fate by finding a work to do. His "mission," apparently, is to become a good actor and to promote high ideals of the histrionic art. Incidentally he is ambitious to be a dramatic poet, and his childhood is simply that of Wolfgang Goethe. For reasons intimately connected with his own development Goethe finally decided to change his plan and his title, and to present Wilhelm's variegated experiences as ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... Cyriacus, and keep up the anniversary of the Finding of the Cross. Finally, for those who keep the day is proclaimed a benediction so unmeasured and profuse as to leave behind it an air in which the solemn evaporates in the histrionic. ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle

... new dressing-gown. Greatly satisfied thereat, she proceeded, after the feminine fashion, to peacock and to pose, pacing a minuet down the moonlit patch with an imaginary partner. This was too much for Edward's histrionic instincts, and after a moment's pause he drew his single-stick, and with flourishes meet for the occasion, strode onto the stage. A struggle ensued on approved lines, at the end of which Selina was stabbed slowly and with unction, ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... elegance, is no exception, as a reflection of the "good old time" to which it belongs, and as an expression of German taste at a time when there was still a "German taste," which was a rococo-taste in moribus et artibus. Lessing is an exception, owing to his histrionic nature, which understood much, and was versed in many things; he who was not the translator of Bayle to no purpose, who took refuge willingly in the shadow of Diderot and Voltaire, and still more willingly among the Roman comedy-writers—Lessing ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... the vocal organs, the larynx being greatly drawn down, with the view of producing disproportionately heavy lower tones, must take no comfort from the above anatomical and physiological facts. Art implies proportion, and it was one of the ambitions of all the best actors in the golden age of histrionic art to have an "even voice"—i.e., one equally good through the whole range required. The tragic actor, elocutionist, and public speaker, and the singer, whether soprano or bass, should neglect no muscle, though they may be ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills

... a performance that night at the Pavilion, where our attendance, it was a shock to feel, couldn't be promised; and in gazing without charge at the pair of weary and sleepy little mountebanks I found the histrionic character and the dramatic profession for the first time revealed to me. They filled me with fascination and yet with fear; they expressed a melancholy grace and a sort of peevish refinement, yet seemed awfully detached and indifferent, indifferent perhaps even to being ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... by him—was not accompanied by any keen moral sensitiveness. He was always in pursuit of private gain or immediate or posthumous honor, and his grand sentiments, of which he had many, were largely histrionic in type. After one more voyage he gave up the slave-trading business, probably because he realized that no real advancement lay in ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood

... mean by standing there grinning from ear to ear like a buck nigger? But I'll not stand it any longer, Sir, not for a moment. D'ye hear, you miserable turnip-faced bumpkin, d'ye hear?" (Carried away by histrionic enthusiasm, SPINKS brings his fist down violently on the precise spot where a table ought to be, but is not, standing. As a natural result, he hits himself with much force on his leg. The others laugh, and the Ladies turn away giggling, feeling that they ought ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various

... wife. For in November, 1836, he had married Wilhelmina Planer, the leading actress of the theatre in Magdeburg where he was musical director of opera. Her father was a spindle-maker. It is said that her desire to earn money for the household, rather than the impetus of a well-defined histrionic gift, led her to go on the stage; but, once on the stage, she discovered that she had unquestionable talent, and played leading characters in tragedy and comedy ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb

... naturally suggested itself to us that the whole thing was a hoax, and that the patient was an accomplice; but if so, the doctor was no novice at sleight of hand, and the expression of astonishment on the other man's face when he found his tooth gone, was as perfect a specimen of histrionic emotion as it has ever been our ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... outward fact, but was of a subtle injustice in its implication of anything histrionic in Harte's nature. Never was any man less a 'poseur'; he made simply and helplessly known what he was at any and every moment, and he would join the witness very cheerfully in enjoying whatever was amusing in the disadvantage to himself. In the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... what histrionic art must a husband possess in order to display the mimic wealth of that treasure which we are about to reveal to him! In order to counterfeit the passion whose fire is to make you a new man in the presence ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac

... they resorted to pantomime, until at last one, who was more affected than the others, came in and expired in the arms of his comrades. I was intensely interested during this novel performance, and imagined I recognized considerable histrionic ability on ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder

... limited, what it is not. It is not a theatrical association whose benefits are confined to a small and exclusive body of actors. It is a society whose claims are always preferred in the name of the whole histrionic art. It is not a theatrical association adapted to a state of theatrical things entirely past and gone, and no more suited to present theatrical requirements than a string of pack- horses would be suited to the conveyance ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens

... was one of the most popular actresses in London. Some years before she had come on a starring tour to Cheltenham, a town much affected by the notorious Colonel Berkeley, who being passionately devoted to the stage, and possessed moreover of some histrionic ability, gallantly offered to perform for her benefit. The colonel was notorious for his gallantries; under a promise of marriage—which could not then, he said, be carried into effect, inasmuch as he was then petitioning ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... element upon which its popularity depended. Her entertainment had been good in its conception, and partly good in its execution; yet her success had but little to do with that goodness. Indeed, what might be called its badness in a histrionic sense—that is, her look sometimes of being out of place, the sight of a beautiful woman on a platform, revealing tender airs of domesticity which showed her to belong by character to a quiet drawing-room—had been primarily an attractive feature. But alas, custom was staling this by improving her ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... whose name is indissolubly associated with French art—Francois Delsarte, of Paris. My curiosity had been deeply excited by what I had heard of him. I was told that, after long years of patient toil and profound thought, his genius had discovered and developed a scientific basis for histrionic art, that he had substituted law for empiricism in the domain of the most potential of the fine arts; and when the names of Rachel and Macready were quoted in his list of pupils, I was eager to behold the master and to ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... Waterman's histrionic sense responded to the demand. With arm uplifted, he deliberated, turning slowly from side to side. He was a master of the niceties of insinuation. Innuendo he had always found more effective than direct statement. He shook his head deprecatingly, reluctant to yield to the clamor for the names ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... unworldly face, and yet, with it, an air of being on exhibition, of belonging to a troupe, of living in the gaslight, which pervaded even the details of her dress, fashioned evidently with an attempt at the histrionic. If she had produced a pair of castanets or a tambourine, he felt that such accessories would ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... might come by to-night's post. If it does, a considerable amount of histrionic skill ...
— The Title - A Comedy in Three Acts • Arnold Bennett

... month, has given a very interesting series of readings from Shakspeare, in which he has displayed not only the finest capacity for histrionic effect, but a critical sagacity, and a thorough knowledge of the greatest of the poets, which justify ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... dislike to a profession, which, in the jealous self-watchfulness of his noble nature, he feared might hurt his mind.[215] The long subsequent line of actors admirable in private as in public life, and all the gentle and generous associations of the histrionic art, have not weakened the testimony of its greatest name against its less favourable influences; against the laxity of habits it may encourage; and its public manners, bred of public means, not always compatible with home felicities and duties. But, freely open as ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... hypocritical, and insinuating; but his secondary or supplemental voice still more decisively histrionic than his common one. It was reserved for the spectator; and the dramatis personas were supposed to know nothing at all about it. The lies of young Wilding, and the sentiments in Joseph Surface, were thus marked out in a sort of italics to the audience. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... we consider that Darby most unquestionably did not only ornament, but give peculiar point to the opinions expressed by the tenantry against the Vulture, perhaps we ought to acknowledge that of the two he possessed a larger share of histrionic talent. ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... in the ears of old Wilkerson, who had remained back in the road, and at the same instant he heard another shout behind him. Mr. Wilkerson had not shared in the attack, but, greatly preoccupied with his own histrionic affairs, was proceeding up the pike alone—except for the unhappy yellow mongrel, still dragged along by the slip-noose—and alternating, as was his natural wont, from one fence to the other; crouching behind every bush to fire an imaginary rifle at his dog, ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... habits—had been waiting for the past half-hour in that doorway hoping that Mr. Westmacott would not depart this evening from his usual custom. Another thing that Mr. Westmacott was not to know—considering his youth—was the singular histrionic ability which this old rake had displayed in those younger days of his when he had been a player, and the further circumstance that he had excelled in those parts in which ebriety was to be counterfeited. Indeed, we ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... Recalling Colonel Johnston's dialectic sketches, with his own presentation of them from the platform, the writer notes a fact that seems singularly to obtain among all true dialect-writers, namely, that they are also endowed with native histrionic capabilities: HEAR, as well as read, Twain, Cable, Johnston, Page, Smith, and all the list ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley

... scarcely tell the reader, that usually they are mere cabals and worldly intrigues. It is next to impossible that any parish or congregation should sincerely agree in their opinion of a clergyman. What one man likes in such cases, another man detests. Mr. A., with an ardent nature, and something of a histrionic turn, doats upon a fine rhetorical display. Mr. B., with more simplicity of taste, pronounces this little better than theatrical ostenostentation. Mr. C. requires a good deal of critical scholarship, Mr. D quarrels with this as unsuitable to a rustic congregation. Mrs. X., who ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... appears, whether he adopts or rejects tradition—addresses himself to the interpretation of any great character, even if he have no originality whatever. There is something still more than this, however, in acting. Every one who has the smallest histrionic gift has a natural dramatic fertility; so that as soon as he knows the author's text, and obtains self-possession, and feels at home in a part without being too familiar with it, the mere automatic action of rehearsing and playing it at once begins to place ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving

... ordinary intercourse, it effectually disappeared so soon as he began to declaim or to recite. The histrionic in him declared itself, rising dominant. Given a character to impersonate, big swelling words to say, fine sentiments to enunciate, he changed to the required colour chameleon-like. You forgot—at least the feminine portion of his audience, almost ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... itself was obvious enough. I laughed to see them. The affair did not come to blows, but it did come to black looks on meeting, muttered oaths, growls of enmity every time they happened to pass each other on the deck. Perdosa was not so bad; his Mexican blood inclined him to the histrionic, and his Mexican cast lent itself well to evil looks. But Handy Solomon, for the first time in my acquaintance ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams

... courses, for he knew his audience, and was aware that his connection with the stage was an affair about which he had better say as little as possible. Instead of appealing to their generosity, or boasting of his histrionic eminence, he threw himself broadly on their sense of humor. Drawing himself up to his full height, the big, burly man advanced to the marge of the platform, and extending his right hand with an air of authority, requested silence by the movement ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... luxury of a princely Roman house—that papal luxury which is made up of art and history—she had received a thin coating of aesthetic varnish, had acquired a graceful taste, and, having thoroughly grasped the character of her beauty, sought by skilful simulation and a sapient use of her marked histrionic talents to enhance its spirituality by surrounding it with ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... of proving their prowess by conspicuous waste, and no time to convince the world of their excellence through conspicuous leisure; consequently, for histrionic purposes, a schoolteacher's cosmos is a plain, slaty gray. Schoolteachers do not wallow in wealth nor feed fat at the public trough. No one ever accuses them of belonging to the class known as the predatory rich, nor of being millionaire malefactors. They have to do their work ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... candid, and loyal; but the best of women has something of the actress in her nature; and her histrionic talent was stimulated by her filial affection. Basil was for a moment fairly carried away by the consummate fact of her performance and the genuine feeling to her appeal; but he was himself again by the time he had finished perusing his late ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... the seals. They lie on the ice and wave their legs in the air, and the seals, curious animals, approach to discover the nature of the phenomenon, and are forthwith dispatched. One Eskimo of a histrionic temperament decided to "go one better." He went out to the ice edge, climbed into his sealskin sleeping-bag, and waved his legs, as per stage directions. We are not informed whether the device would have proved a successful ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... by this unsuspected histrionic gift, Mary walked on beside McEwan. He was full of interest in her affairs, and she soon confided to him the ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... said he to Mrs. Triplet, "this family is on the eve of a great triumph!" Then, inverting that order of the grandiloquent and the homely which he invented in our first chapter, he proceeded to say: "I have reared in a single day a new avenue by which histrionic greatness, hitherto obstructed, may become accessible. Wife, I think I have done the trick at last. Lysimachus!" added he, "let a libation be poured out on so smiling an occasion, and a burnt-offering rise to propitiate the celestial ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... plays in second and even third-rate parts—his indifference to reputation, and even his apparent aversion to be held in repute by his contemporaries—his disappearance from London [18the seat and centre of English histrionic art] so soon as he had realised a moderate competency—and his retirement about the age of forty, for the remainder of his days, to a life of obscurity in a small town in the midland counties—all seem to unite in proving the shrinking nature ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... 1817. When there, he became personally acquainted with several members of the theatrical profession; amongst others, with Munden and Miss Kelly, for both of whom he entertained the highest admiration. One of the (Elia) Essays is written to celebrate Munden's histrionic talent; and in his letters he speaks of "Fanny Kelly's divine plain face." The Barbara S. of the second (or last) series of essays is, in fact, Miss Kelly herself. All his friends knew that he was greatly attached ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall

... fill for a day a public position for which he has had no training. That no doubt is the real reason for the growth of quiet marriages; and the desire for them, I suspect, comes first from the man, for there are few women who at heart do not prefer the old histrionic display. ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... their grouping with one another, and with the leafy domes and spires which everywhere enrich and soften the London outlook. Their great succession ought to culminate in the Tower, and so it does to the mind's eye, but to the body's eye, the Tower is rather histrionic than historic. It is like a scenic reproduction of itself, like a London Tower on the stage; and if ever, in a moment of Anglo-Saxon expansion, the County Council should think of selling it to Chicago, to be set up somewhere between the Illinois Central and the Lake, New York need not hopelessly ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... Santa Fe Observer says;" and when I would have read, she read aloud for me. "The next is the Los Angeles Christian Home. And here's what they wrote about her in El Paso: 'Her histrionic genius for one so young'—it commences below that picture. That's Leola." I now recognized the black stockings and the hair. "Here's what a literary lady in Lordsburg thinks," pursued ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister

... suddenly developed histrionic skill, was, by a Spartan self-sacrifice in submitting to Absalom's love-making, overcoming his wrath against the teacher. Absalom never suspected how he was being played upon, or what a mere tool he was in the hands of this gentle little girl, when, somewhat to his own ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin

... too sacred and aristocratic a mantle to fling around an obscure actress, of whose pedigree and antecedent life you know nothing, save that widowhood and penury goaded her to histrionic exhibitions of a beauty, that sometimes threatened to subject her to impertinence and insult? Put aside the infatuation which not unfrequently attacks men, who like you are rapidly descending the hill of life, approaching the stage of second childlike simplicity, and listen for a moment to the cold ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... he grew into the idea of murder. It became his business thought. It was his recreation and his study. He had not worked half so hard for histrionic success as for his terrible graduation into an assassin. He had fought often on the boards, and seen men die in well-imitated horror, with flowing blood upon his keen sword's edge, and the strong stride of mimic victory ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... to say she was a witch. Such phenomena could only be due to witchcraft. The cunning and seeming malignity of the children would tax belief, were it not so familiar a fact in children; and notable also was their histrionic ability. They were excited by the sensation they aroused, and vain of it; they were willing to do what they could to prolong it. But they hardly needed to invent anything; more than was necessary was suggested to them by questions ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... fifteenth century, had no permanency till Alfonso I, Duke of Ferrara, at the suggestion of Ariosto built in his capital a real play house. There is nevertheless no reason to think that the performance of Poliziano's "Orfeo" lacked admirable scenic and histrionic features. We have already seen how skilful the Italian managers and mechanicians of spectacular sacred plays were in preparing brilliant scenic effects for their productions. Since the form and general apparatus ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson

... rostrum; scaffold, staging; theater, playhouse, arena, boards; degree, step, point; drama. Associated Words: histrionic, histrionism, histrionicism, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... the entire army depended upon his private exertions. I respected this style of mule; and, had I possessed a juicy cabbage, would have pressed it upon him with thanks for his excellent example. The histrionic mule was a melodramatic quadruped, prone to startling humanity by erratic leaps and wild plunges, much shaking of his stubborn head, and lashing out of his vicious heels; now and then falling flat ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... a platform, projecting into the yard, with a tiring-house at the rear, and a balcony overhead. The details of the stage, no doubt, were subject to alteration as experience suggested, for its materials were of wood, and histrionic and dramatic art were both undergoing rapid development.[66] The furnishings and decorations, as in the case of modern playhouses, seem to have been ornate. Thus T[homas] W[hite], in A Sermon Preached at Pawles Crosse, on Sunday the Thirde of November, 1577, exclaims: "Behold the sumptuous ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... successful expression of his theory of art. He studied whole libraries of antiquities and vainly imagined it to be the most "Greek" of all his works. Nothing, however, could be farther removed from the tranquil self-restraint and noble simplicity of Greek art than these self-conscious, histrionic groups of figures, without one touch of naturalness. The old preoccupation with classic models inherited from Poussin and the Roman school, still dominates even this revolutionary artist, who best displays his great genius when he forgets his theories and paints direct from life, as in 199, Mme. ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... Josie's intimates had often wondered at her histrionic powers when she pretended to be stupid, which was her usual way of disarming persons who might have been suspicious of her. She had found out much about those archvillains Felix and Hortense Markle by an assumption of supreme dullness. But ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson

... monastery in Punaka, the capital of Bhutan. This man, Tashi, before he wearied of the cloistered life and fled to India, had been always one of the principal actors in the great miracle plays and Devil Dances of his lamasery, for he was gifted with considerable histrionic talent. He delighted in teaching Wargrave to play his various roles, for he found the subaltern an ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly

... on account of Shakspeare's personal accomplishments as an actor, and as an adapter of dramatic works to the stage; for one of these reasons, or for all of them united, William Shakspeare, about the 23d year of his age, was adopted into the partnership of a respectable histrionic company, possessing a first-rate theatre in the metropolis. If 1586 were the year in which he came up to London, it seems probable enough that his immediate motive to that step was the increasing distress of his father; for in that year John Shakspeare resigned the office of alderman. ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... Greece, where games and public spectacles of every kind were celebrated with the greatest pomp and splendor. Several of these cities sent deputations to Rome, with crowns and garlands for the emperor, which they had decreed to him in honor of the skill and superiority which he had displayed in the histrionic art. Nero was extremely gratified at having such honors conferred upon him. He received the deputations which brought these tokens, with great pomp and parade, as if they had been embassadors from sovereign princes or states, sent to transact ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... presenting a mellow type of comedy, in which sufficient sorrow was introduced to lend contrast and relief to humour. For Carrie, as we well know, the stage had a great attraction. She had never forgotten her one histrionic achievement in Chicago. It dwelt in her mind and occupied her consciousness during many long afternoons in which her rocking-chair and her latest novel contributed the only pleasures of her state. Never could she witness a play without ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... said the Lord of Misrule, "you are sure some actors! I didn't know I had so much talent concealed about my kingdom. I shall now aim for a higher touch of histrionic art. Let us stop at nothing! Let us give the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. I will command Miss Galbraith to play the part of Juliet, and if no one volunteers as Romeo, I'll modestly remark that I'm a ripping good ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... nature justified herself in the hearts of all her children, in what state soever they were, short of absolute moral exhaustion, or downright stupidity. There is no time given to ask questions or to pass judgments; we are taken by storm, and, though in the histrionic art many a clumsy counterfeit, by caricature of one or two features, may gain applause as a fine likeness, yet never was the very thing rejected as a counterfeit. O! when I think of the inexhaustible mine of virgin treasure in our Shakspeare, ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... about the famous men you know; You may boast about the great men you have met, Parsons, eloquent and wise; stars in histrionic skies; Millionaires and navy admirals, and yet Fame and power and wealth and glory vanish fast; They are lusters that were never made to stick, And the friends worth-while and true, are the happy smiling few Who come to call upon you ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest

... unfortunately the dose required strengthening every now and then. He was mostly in debt; prided himself on not dishonouring virtuous women—a boast, nevertheless, not entirely justifiable; and through his profession had acquired a slightly histrionic manner, especially when he was reciting, an art in which he was accomplished. He found out that Andrew had a sister, and he gave him a couple of tickets for an entertainment which had been got up by some well-meaning people to draw the poor to his church. They were tickets for the respectable ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford

... thrown back, with that banal expression on his face of a dog pretending not to understand. The histrionic excellence of the performance was not lost on Tommy, who ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux

... production was bodily repeated in the next. It is almost as obvious that the parts of Mercutio and Gratiano must have been intrusted to the same performer; both characters seem made to fit the same histrionic temperament. If Hamlet were the hero of a novel, we should all, I think, conceive of him as slender, and the author would agree with us; yet, in the last scene of the play, the Queen expressly says, "He's fat, and scant of breath." This ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton

... statement of the function of a Second Chamber, not directly elected, may provoke a histrionic smile among extreme advocates of so-called popular rights, but has never evoked an argument which can displace it as based on sound reason and common sense. There are some changes, too, which ought not to be made without a specific appeal to the people on that particular issue. ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson

... Henrietta Vinton Davis perform on various occasions, and it is my candid judgment, reached after mature deliberation, and a fair knowledge of the merits of nearly all her set who essay to excel in the histrionic art, that she has no superior in the race as a master of the profession of her choice. (John C. Dancy, Wilmington, ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various

... were at his disposal. The orchestral, choral, and concerted vocal portions are grand and beautiful, highly characteristic and effective. The story is simple, pure, and deeply pathetic. The prison scene affords scope for the finest histrionic abilities. In the solos, however (with the exception of that of Pizarro, where dramatic power satisfies), we miss the lyric genius of the Italians, their long-phrased, passionate, and never-to-be-forgotten melodies, containing the element of beauty per ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... nicely as Madame Rose d'Amour had I been mounted on an equally well-broken animal with the one which curvetted and caracoled under that much-rouged and widely-smiling dame. They do look pretty too at a little distance those histrionic horsewomen, with their trappings and their spangles and their costume of Francis I. I often wonder whether people really rode out hawking, got up so entirely regardless of expense, in the days of the Field of ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... Collingwood, "I should have thought our histrionic efforts would have been forgotten. I'm afraid I don't remember much about them, except that we had a lot of fun out of the affair. So you were at St. Chad's?" he continued, with a reminiscence of the surroundings ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher

... engagement-ring—were too white and her face was too clean to lend conviction to her impersonation. In short, in her desire to present a pleasing tout ensemble—an object in which I must say she had succeeded to perfection—Dilly had utterly neglected detail and histrionic accuracy. ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay

... home across the fields that evening instead of through the town. He was not quite up to any of his roles—editor, promoter, or reformer. In fact, he felt a desperate need of a brief respite from all histrionic duties. A reaction had set in from the excitement of the past week, and the complication involved in Mrs. Gusty's condition puzzled and distressed him. Of course, he assured himself repeatedly, there ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice

... made some appeal to the imagination. Often he had the air of a lyric enthusiast; often, that of a profound thinker; not seldom there came into his eyes a glint of stern energy which seemed a challenge to the world. Therewithal, nothing perceptibly histrionic; look or speak as he might, the young man exhaled an atmosphere of sincerity, and persuaded others because he seemed so thoroughly to have ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... did; the issue of the combat being that the Valiant Soldier was slain by a preternaturally inadequate thrust from Eustacia, Jim, in his ardour for genuine histrionic art, coming down like a log upon the stone floor with force enough to dislocate his shoulder. Then, after more words from the Turkish Knight, rather too faintly delivered, and statements that he'd fight Saint George and ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... a great gentleman. His Cardinal Wolsey was the most perfect presentation of greatness, of self-abnegation, and of power to suffer I can realize.... Jingle and Matthias were in Comedy and Tragedy combined, masterpieces of histrionic art. I could write volumes upon Irving as an actor, but to write of him as a man, and as a very great Artist, I should require more time than is still allotted to me of man's brief span of life ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... histrionic effects in language which would have been marvellous had they ever been spoken, but which seem to be incredible to us when we know that they were arranged for publication when the affair was over. "O me wretched! O me unhappy!"[61] ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... with regard to the good taste and good faith of Fare Thee Well. Moore intimates that at first, and, indeed, for some years after the separation, he was strongly inclined to condemn the Fare Thee Well as a histrionic performance—"a showy effusion of sentiment;" but that on reading the account of all the circumstances in Byron's Memoranda, he was impressed by the reality of the "swell of tender recollections, under the influence of which, as he sat one ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... theft, her jail sentence, her pregnancy, were nothing more than if she had taken a sip of water. However, with the imitativeness of her race and the histrionic ability of her sex, she appeared pensive and subdued during the elaborate double-ring ceremony performed by the Reverend Cleotus Haidus. Nobody in the packed church knew how tremendously Cissie's heart was beating except ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... left me presently with an uncomfortable sense that he did see, and didn't for one moment intend to restrain his considerable histrionic skill in handing on his vision to others. For some moments I stood savoring this all too manifest possibility, and then my thoughts went swirling into another channel. At last the curtain was pierced. I was no longer ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... Jew-manager and gentile ruled the histrionic destiny of the United States—here where art, letters, service, industry, business had each developed its own species of human prostitute—two muddy-brained torrents of humanity poured in opposite directions, ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... were invented to avoid the legal obstructions placed in the way of play-acting. "Histrionic academies" tried to sneak in on the stage; and in 1762 a clever manager gave an entertainment whose playbill I present as the most amusing example of specious ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... all "Election Day" was feeble, and when you add a paper collar, words can say no more. Monsieur Comstock also had that "ten times barbered" look which Shakespeare ascribes to Mark Antony, and which has belonged to that hero's successors in the histrionic profession ever since. His chin was unnaturally smooth, his mustache obtrusively perfumed, and nothing but the unchanged dirtiness of his hands still linked him, like Antaeus, with the earth. De Marsan had intended some personal preparation, but had been, as usual, in no hurry, and the appointed ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... nothing," I said with false casualness, and was returning it to my pocket. The worst of me is that I have no histrionic instinct; ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett

... that the deterioration in the class of plays produced at our theatres has been brought about by changes in our social conditions. The pernicious “star” system, the difficulty of keeping stock companies together, the rarity of histrionic ability among Americans are explanations which have at different times been offered to account for these phenomena. Foremost, however, among the causes should be placed an exceedingly simple and prosaic fact which seems to have escaped ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... its rendering of Patience, the Bursley Amateur Operatic Society arranged to give a commemorative dance in the very scene of that histrionic triumph. The fete was to surpass in splendour all previous entertainments of the kind recorded in the annals of the town. It was talked about for weeks in advance; several dressmakers nearly died of it; and as the day approached ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett

... art—become an artist, matured, solid, unapproachable. If, therefore, this be what you want, surely the Conservatoire system is the shortest cut to it. It is likely, however, that you, being English, want nothing of the kind. Kickshaws and daintiness are your aversion. The histrionic Roast Beef of Old England is your craving. You do not ask an actor to merge or transform himself into the character he assumes, but simply to employ the author as a medium for the display of his own ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... ways of sin than a Sunday-school could. Nay, more: I would go further. I would have a portion of the building fitted up with scenery and a stage, for the getting up of tableaux or dramatic performances, and thus give scope for the exercise of that histrionic talent of which there is so much lying unemployed ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... tone which was almost one of rebuke,—not intending it, but falling into it from want of histrionic power in his attempt to be bold and solemn at the same time. The miller at once resented it. "Why should I come down the lane?" said he. "You're axing me to come out at a ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... histrionic art of the Chinese, Javanese, Turkish and Algerian actors ought to be seen. Maybe it was strangeness rather than excellence and novelty rather than entertainment that drew the people but strangeness and novelty are the greater excellence when ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')

... the club abruptly discovered in themselves an unsuspected latent passion for the histrionic art. In squads of two or three they stormed successively all the theatres in town—Booth's, Wallack's, Daly's Fifth Avenue (not burned down then), and the Grand Opera House. Even the shabby homes of the drama over in the Bowery, where the Germanic Thespis has not taken out his naturalization ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... joy in the often dull round of my daily task, for in matters of the stage your Majesty, being, as we often say among ourselves, the greatest actor of us all and having from the earliest years imbibed the love of the footlights and the limelight, is an incomparable judge of the true histrionic art, and a word of praise from you is worth columns and columns in the newspapers. It is to us as when a cobbler's boots are praised by a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 22, 1916 • Various

... Sadie showed histrionic talent. Emmy Lou asked Hattie about it, who said it meant tears, and Emmy Lou remembered then how ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin

... "Father, your blessing," to which I replied in the same mock-heroic vein, extending my hands like the old Friar: "Bless you, my children!" Shortly they were married. We know that his life was filled with histrionic ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... rightfully asserts, and is backed up in its belief by doting and nobly partisan relatives and blindly devoted, hyperbolic friends, that its particular, unique and proper senior dramatics is the most glorious and unforgettable performance in all the histrionic annals of the college, a thing to make Will Shakespeare himself rise and applaud from his high and far off ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... words aloud: 'Were not Dodd's sermons addressed to the passions?' They are words which, if you have any dramatic and histrionic sense, cannot be said except in a high, ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... to appear were the Wakambas. These were more histrionic. They too were unrecognizable as our porters, for they too had for the lion discarded their work-a-day garments in favour of savage. They produced a pantomime of the day's doings, very realistic indeed, ending with a half dozen of dark swaying bodies swinging and ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... travelling to London together, mere adventurers, with many plans in their heads, and very little money in their pockets; we see them both rising to the pinnacle of fame; one the majestic teacher of moral virtue, and the other delighting by the versatility of his histrionic powers. Go one step further. They are consigned to the tomb, and these men, whom friendship had united whilst living, death has not divided. Near Shakspeare's monument, in Westminster Abbey, they lie interred ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XIII, No. 370, Saturday, May 16, 1829. • Various

... enjoyment would suffer. A man is often aware of this when coming into a theatre during the progress of a piece before his mind accommodates itself to the meaning of the play. And the same thing is recognizable in the fact that the frequenter of the theatre has his susceptibility to histrionic delusion increased by acquiring a habit of looking out for the meaning of the performance. Persons who first see a play, unless they be of exceptional imagination and have thought much about the theatre—as Charlotte Bronte, for instance—hardly ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully

... who seeks for the last time to find in love what love has not? The final delusion. No, Marie. Your revivified glands have restored to you the appearance and the strength of youth, but, although you have played with a role that appealed to your vanity, to your histrionic powers—with yourself as chief audience—your natural desire to see if you could not be—to yourself, again—as young as you appear, you have no more illusion in your soul than when you were a withered ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... journey every winter as far south as Savannah, performing in the intermediate cities as they went and returned. The Jeffersons, the Warrens, and the Burkes belonged to this company, in which their children were trained for histrionic fame, and President Adams first saw the elder Booth when that tragedian accompanied one of these dramatic expeditions as its brightest star. On another occasion he saw Edwin Forrest, then unknown to fame, and enjoyed the finished acting of Cooper, as Charles Surface, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... unbuttoned and his hands behind his back, to superintend the sale and measurement of butter. Berthelini threaded his way through the market-stalls and baskets, and accosted the dignitary with a bow which was a triumph of the histrionic art. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... most directly and curiously imitative among the—shall we call them—'histrionic' types of Veronica. It grows exactly like a clustered upright gentian; has the same kind of leaves at its root, and springs with the same bright vitality among the retiring snows of the Bithynian Olympus. ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... be dumb without being deaf and has no histrionic talent to act out the necessity, so I'm going with him. The Bangs family live up on old Harpeth at Turkey Gulch, and Jed has shot partridges with me all winter. Please, you and the Judge, come with me. I can get the car over Paradise Ridge if I turn it into a wildcat. The morning ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... of Garrick, on the other hand, those glorious days of true histrionic art, high and low were not ashamed to throng Drury Lane and Covent Garden, and make the appearance of a new play the great event of the season. Hundreds were turned away from the doors, when 'The School for Scandal' was acted, and those who were fortunate enough to get in made the piece the ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... I asked quietly, at last—weary as I was of this histrionic performance of his, and anxious for ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... thin man, dark and with regular features, clean shaven like a priest or an actor, vaguely resembling both, inclining towards the hieratic rather than to the histrionic type. He dressed always in black, and the closely-buttoned jacket revealed the spareness of his body. He was met often in the evening, going to dine at the Cock; but was rarely seen walking about the Temple in the day-time. It was impossible to meet ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... languidly, turning to him her face, with its luminous, stationary beauty. He pointed to the house, and then waved his hand toward the bench where she sat; and she, in response to this, nodded slightly. Upon which the General, after another kiss of histrionic paternity administered to her forehead, left her sitting and proceeded along the garden walk at a stately pace, until I could no longer see him. Hortense, left alone upon the bench, looked down at the folds of her dress, extended a hand and slowly rearranged one of them, ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister

... leader of Calvinistic Methodists, who has been called the Demosthenes of the pulpit, was born at Gloucester, England, in 1714. He was an impassioned pulpit orator of the popular type, and his power over immense congregations was largely due to his histrionic talent and his exquisitely modulated voice, which has been described as "an organ, a flute, a harp, all in one," and which at times became stentorian. He had a most expressive face, and altho he squinted, in grace and significance ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser

... the details of Anton's death and was profusely illustrated. The story started with Anton going years ago into the mountains to try out his voice in order to develop it for his histrionic task. There was a brief account of how he had followed in the path of the Prince of Peace, and of the tremendous effect he ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... worked with Vanderbilt's habitual brusque rapidity. Drew apparently was crushed. He had, however, one final resource, and this he now used with histrionic effect. In tears he went to Vanderbilt and begged him not to turn out and ruin an old, self-made man like himself. The appeal struck home. Had the implorer been anyone else, Vanderbilt would have scoffed. But, at heart, he had a fondness for the old illiterate drover whose career in so many respects ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... important in enforcing discipline was the hope of reward. This principle was robbed of its more sordid elements by the nature of the reward held forth. A day of good conduct and of faithful work invariably closed with an hour devoted to histrionic and musical exercise. To recite before the teacher and to hear the teacher recite was worth considerable effort. To sing with the teacher was a joy, but to hear the teacher sing to the accompaniment of her guitar was the supreme of bliss. It was not only an hour ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor

... La Rue presented himself as an imitator of celebrated histrionic personages, including Macready, Forrest, Kemble, the elder Booth, Kean, Hamblin, and others. Taking him into the green-room for a private rehearsal, and finding his imitations excellent, Barnum engaged him. For three nights he gave ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... portraits of those who are honestly beautiful; or expressive of innocence, happiness, benevolence, or intellectuality, but not of gluttony, wantonness, anger, hatred, or malevolence, unless in some cases of justifiable satire—of histrionic or historic portraiture—landscape—natural phenomena—animals, not indiscriminately—in some cases, grand or beautiful buildings, even without figures—any scene on sea or land which induces reflection—all subjects from such parts of history as are morally or intellectually instructive or attractive—and ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... that I shouldn't possess a little histrionic ability. You'd think it would be in my blood ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... comedy, eager to hold the centre of the stage, full of small movements and remarks, and—which more interested us children—with a gift for turning himself into other people by slight contortions of countenance and alterations of voice. The histrionic abilities of Dickens probably affected the social antics of many writers at this epoch. Warren also told stories in a vivacious and engaging manner, though, as they were about things and people out of the sphere of his younger auditors, I remember ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... detective agency is conducted on business principles and does not look for histrionic talent or general versatility. As one of the heads of a prominent agency said to ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... Ruse of the Gangsters.' In such cases our bourgeois paterfamilias waves his hands and exclaims: 'What a terrible thing! If only their abilities were turned to good—their inventiveness, their amazing knowledge of human psychology, their self-possession, their fearlessness, their incomparable histrionic powers! What extraordinary benefits they would bring to the country!' But it is well known that the bourgeois paterfamilias was specially devised by Heaven to utter commonplaces and trivialities. I myself ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... this censure attaches not to the poetic but to the histrionic art; for gesticulation may be equally overdone in epic recitation, as by Sosi-stratus, or in lyrical competition, as by Mnasitheus the Opuntian. Next, all action is not to be condemned any more than all dancing—but only that of bad performers. Such was the ...
— Poetics • Aristotle

... coarse grass which grew there, thinking that the nests must be hereabout, and desirous of a peep at the eggs. 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... tableaux parties; while a few—more ambitious of histrionic fame—got up private theatricals. Altogether, in the gay set, the first winter of the war was one to be written in red letters, for old Richmond rang with a chime of merry laughter that for the time drowned the echo of the summer's fights and the ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... absorbed in some stirring part, she forgot companions, audience, all, and enjoyed what she performed,—necessarily enjoyed, for her acting was really excellent, and where no enjoyment there no excellence; but when the histrionic enthusiasm was not positively at work, she crept to her grandfather with something between loathing and terror of the "painted creatures" and her ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... month, year after year, dragging my life out until I grow gray-haired—until I die!" She halted, her arms tensely folded, her breath coming quick. Only the intensity of her emotion saved the attitude from being histrionic. In a sudden ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... pageants and royal progresses these old castles were the scenes of very lively exhibitions of rustic histrionic talent. The stories of Greek and Roman mythology were ransacked to provide scenes and subjects for the rural pageant. Shepherds and shepherdesses, gods and goddesses, clowns and mummers, all took part in the rural drama which kings and queens ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... happenings will be greatly appreciated by my paper. Inasmuch as what little has already been printed is probably of an erroneous nature, we believe it will be in your own best interest to give us as complete data as possible." Here he became slightly histrionic. "Of course we do not allow ourselves to take the stories told by the local inhabitants too literally, as such persons are too liable to exaggerate, but we must assume that some of these stories have partial basis in fact. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... I had made up my mind in my earliest days to go to the Bar or on the Stage, and that love for the histrionic art (sometimes called the footlights) never ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... with picturesque additions, lost no time in making the rounds of the school. Had Harriet chosen to play up to the romantic and melancholy role she was cast for, she might have attained popularity of a sort; but Harriet did not have the slightest trace of the histrionic in her make-up. She merely moped about, and continued to be heavy and uninteresting. Other more exciting matters demanded public attention; and Harriet and ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster

... and there gave him an account of a most wonderful actor he had just seen. Garrick was on the tenters of suspense, and there Foote kept him a full hour. Foote brought the attack to a close by asking Garrick what he thought of Mr. Pitt's histrionic talents, when Garrick, glad of the release, declared that if Pitt had chosen the stage, he might have been the first actor ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... are against it," sighed Patty. "You see, they didn't discover my histrionic ability before examinations freshman year, and after examinations, when I was asked to be in the play, the faculty thought I could spend the time to better advantage studying Greek. At the time of the sophomore play ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster



Words linked to "Histrionic" :   melodramatic, histrionics, theatrical



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com