It was when the face and figure of a great
tragedian began to haunt her imagination and stir her senses.
As Mr Folair was pretty well known among his fellow-actors for a man who delighted in mischief, and was by no means scrupulous, Nicholas had not much doubt but that he had secretly prompted the
tragedian in the course he had taken, and, moreover, that he would have carried his mission with a very high hand if he had not been disconcerted by the very unexpected demonstrations with which it had been received.
To write Captain Jim's life-book as it should be written one should be a master of vigorous yet subtle style, a keen psychologist, a born humorist and a born
tragedian. A rare combination of gifts is needed.
Sir Charles had asked an eminent
tragedian of his acquaintance to place the work on the stage and to enact one of the patriot martyrs.
In an- other bill he was the "world-renowned Shakespearian
tragedian, Garrick the Younger, of Drury Lane, Lon- don." In other bills he had a lot of other names and done other wonderful things, like finding water and gold with a "divining-rod," "dissipating witch spells," and so on.
`Is that a dagger that I see before me?" muttered Jo, rolling her eyes and clutching at the air, as she had seen a famous
tragedian do.
But when Tragedy and Comedy came to light, the two classes of poets still followed their natural bent: the lampooners became writers of Comedy, and the Epic poets were succeeded by
Tragedians, since the drama was a larger and higher form of art.
In old times, you see, a man who wanted to educate himself--a Frenchman, for instance--would have set to work to study all the classics and theologians and
tragedians and historiaris and philosophers, and, you know, all the intellectual work that came in his way.
These old legends, so brimming over with everything that is most abhorrent to our Christianized moral sense some of them so hideous, others so melancholy and miserable, amid which the Greek
tragedians sought their themes, and moulded them into the sternest forms of grief that ever the world saw; was such material the stuff that children's playthings should be made of!
Neither Hamlet, nor Macbeth, nor Othello, nor Douglas, nor The Gamester, presented anything that could satisfy even the
tragedians; and The Rivals, The School for Scandal, Wheel of Fortune, Heir at Law, and a long et cetera, were successively dismissed with yet warmer objections.
At the beginning of their acquaintance Hayward, as a member of so celebrated a university, had adopted a patronising attitude towards Weeks, who was a graduate of Harvard; and when by chance the conversation turned upon the Greek
tragedians, a subject upon which Hayward felt he spoke with authority, he had assumed the air that it was his part to give information rather than to exchange ideas.
Thence what the lofty grave
Tragedians taught In chorus or iambic, teachers best Of moral prudence, with delight received In brief sententious precepts, while they treat Of fate, and chance, and change in human life, High actions and high passions best describing.
tragedian - a writer (especially a playwright) who writes tragedies
tragedian - an actor who specializes in tragic roles