RachelW. H. Allen & Company, 1885 - 224 pages |
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actor admiration Adrienne Adrienne Lecouvreur Alfred Alfred de Musset amusing Andromaque answer appeared applause Arsène Houssaye artistic asked audience Bajazet beautiful Camille career child Comédie Française Corneille critic crowd daughter dear death declared delight dramatic dress Élisa Émile de Girardin endeavour expression father favourable feel francs gave genius George Sand give Gymnase heard heart Hermione honour hope Horaces Houssaye Jules Janin knew Legouvé Les Horaces letter Madame de Girardin Mademoiselle Mars Mademoiselle Rachel Marseillaise Molière Monsieur months mother never night obliged Paris Parisian passion Phèdre piece play poet pupil Racine Racine's Rebecca received representation rôle rose Roxane Saint Aulaire Samson Sarah scene seemed sing sister sociétaires soon stage success talent tell theatre Théâtre Français theatrical thousand francs tion told took tragedian tragedy Védel Vendéene voice wish woman word write written wrote young actress young girl
Popular passages
Page 125 - ... the eye of a rebel. Wicked, perhaps, she is, but also she is strong; and her strength has conquered Beauty, has overcome Grace, and bound both at her side, captives peerlessly fair, and docile as fair. Even in the uttermost frenzy of energy is each maenad movement royally, imperially, incedingly upborne.
Page 125 - Suffering had struck that stage empress ; and she stood before her audience neither yielding to, nor enduring, nor in finite measure, resenting it : she stood locked in struggle, rigid in resistance.
Page 126 - I had seen acting before, but never anything like this: never anything which astonished Hope and hushed Desire; which outstripped Impulse and paled Conception; which, instead of merely irritating imagination with the thought of what might be done, at the same time fevering the nerves because it was not done, disclosed power like a deep, swollen winter river thundering in cataract, and bearing the soul, like a leaf, on the steep and steely sweep of its descent.
Page 125 - plain," and I expected bony harshness and grimness — something large, angular, sallow. What I saw was the shadow of a royal Vashti : a queen, fair as the day once, turned pale now like twilight, and wasted like wax in flame.
Page 125 - Behold! I found upon her something neither of woman nor of man: in each of her eyes sat a devil. These evil forces bore her through the tragedy, kept up her feeble strength — for she was but a frail creature; and as the action rose and the stir deepened, how wildly they shook her with their passions of the pit! They wrote HELL on her straight, haughty brow. They tuned her voice to the note of torment. They writhed her regal face to a demoniac mask. Hate and Murder and...
Page 143 - Le jour de gloire" had dawned for them and their country. Republicans fell sobbing into one another's arms ; Royalists trembled and shivered before the great wave of Revolutionary exultation that swept around them. " One felt in the air," said Madame Louise Collet to Beranger, " a mighty breath of hope, that bore along with it all youthful desires.
Page 125 - I had heard reports which made me conceive peculiar anticipations. I wondered if she would justify her renown: with strange curiosity, with feelings severe and austere, yet of riveted interest, I waited. She was a study of such nature as had not encountered my eyes yet: a great and new planet she was: but in what shape? I waited her rising. She rose at nine that December night: above the horizon I saw her come. She could shine yet with pale grandeur and steady might; but that star verged already...
Page 124 - The theatre was full — crammed to its roof: royal and noble were there ; palace and hotel had emptied their inmates into those tiers so thronged and so hushed. Deeply did I feel myself privileged in having a place before that stage ; I longed to see a being of whose powers I had heard report that made me conceive peculiar anticipations.