How to Write a Good PlaySampson Low, Marsten & Company, 1892 - 224 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
acting actor actress adapted amusing Annerly Annerly's Artists attractive audience Bayard Series better Bromley called Camilla characters Charles Charles Kemble Charles Mathews Charles Reade Choice Editions clever cloth comedy construction daughter delightful dialogue difficulty Douglas Jerrold drama dramatist effect Effie English Enter equivoke Exeunt Exit farce favourite Foreign Countries fortune French Garrick Gentle Life Series gifts gilt give Hester humour illust interest John Lady literature Lord Lytton Lord Ogleby Lorrington Love Lovewell Low's Stand Low's Standard Books Low's Standard Novels Low's Standard Series Lucy Macready Major manager marriage marry matter Miss modern Molière mother motive Musicians mystery nature never Nursing Record piece play play-wright plot popular produced racter render says scene School for Scandal Shakespeare Sheridan speaking stage Stoops to Conquer story success sympathetic sympathy T. W. Robertson tells theatre things Tom Taylor tragedy treatment vols Witherby write young
Popular passages
Page 4 - Bloomfield's Farmer's Boy. Campbell's Pleasures of Hope. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. Goldsmith's Deserted Village. Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. Gray's Elegy in a Churchyard. Keat's Eve of St. Agnes. Milton's L' Allegro. Poetry of Nature. Harrison Weir. Rogers
Page 190 - One touch of nature makes the whole world kin, That all with one consent praise new-born gawds, Though they are made and moulded of things past, And give to dust that is a little gilt More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.
Page 15 - Before the curtain drew up, there were catcalls whistling, which alarmed Johnson's friends. The Prologue, which was written by himself in a manly strain, soothed the audience, and the play went off tolerably, till it came to the conclusion, when Mrs. Pritchard, the heroine of the piece, was to be strangled upon the stage, and was to speak two lines with the bow-string round her neck. The audience cried out 'Murder! Murder!' She several times attempted to speak; but in vain. At last she was obliged...
Page 53 - A jest's prosperity lies in the ear • Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it : then, if sickly ears, Deaf 'd with the clamours of their own dear groans.
Page 17 - A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe, on Rivers and Lakes of Europe.
Page 112 - ... learn a little ingenuity and artifice. Then, sir, she should have a supercilious knowledge in accounts; and as she grew up, I would have her instructed in geometry, that she might know something of the contagious countries. But above all, Sir Anthony, she should be mistress of orthodoxy, that she might not misspell and mispronounce words so shamefully as girls usually do; and likewise that she might reprehend the true meaning of what she is saying.
Page 209 - The initial consideration was that of extent. If any literary work is too long to be read at one sitting, we must be content to dispense with the immensely important effect derivable from unity of impression — for, if two sittings be required, the affairs of the world interfere, and everything like totality is at once destroyed.
Page 105 - tis but too plain she has not the least regard for me; but, what's worse, I have pretty good authority to suppose she has formed an attachment to another.
Page 11 - Sarah dined together, and after dinner, to the Opera, where there was a new play (" Cutter of Coleman Street "),' made in the year 1658, with reflections much upon the late times; and it being the first time, the pay was doubled, and so to save money, my wife and . I went up into the gallery, and there sat and saw very well; and a very good play it is.
Page 214 - ... are a Snob ; you, who forget your own friends, meanly to follow after those of a higher degree, are a Snob ; you, who are ashamed of your poverty, and blush for your calling, are a Snob; as are you who boast of your pedigree, or are proud of your wealth. To laugh at such is Mr. Punch's business. May he laugh honestly, hit no foul blow, and tell the truth when at his very broadest grin — never forgetting that if Fun is good, Truth is still better, and Love best of all.