United States or Georgia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Millamant is an admirable, almost a lovable heroine. It is a piece of genius in a writer to make a woman's manner of speech portray her. You feel sensible of her presence in every line of her speaking.
Hazlitt never saw Mrs. Abington's Millamant. I have seen Miss Ethel Irving's Millamant, dulce ridentem, and it was that little giddy laugh of hers that reminded me of Marot's Epigram and of Frederick Locker's paraphrase. So do womanly charms endure from generation to generation, and it is one of the duties of poets to record them. In 1867 Mr. Locker published his Lyra Elegantiarun.
Sir Peter's whims and Timon's gall? And Millamant and Romeo? Into the night go one and all." "I was too young," says Chetwood, "to view her first dawn on the stage, but yet had the infinite satisfaction of her meridian lustre, a glow of charms not to be beheld but with a trembling eye! which held her influence till set in night."
I think I have and the horrid man looks as if he thought so too, etc. etc. One hears the tones, and sees the sketch and colour of the whole scene in reading it. Celimene is behind Millamant in vividness. An air of bewitching whimsicality hovers over the graces of this Comic heroine, like the lively conversational play of a beautiful mouth. But in wit she is no rival of Celimene.
His Way of the World might be called The Conquest of a Town Coquette, and Millamant is a perfect portrait of a coquette, both in her resistance to Mirabel and the manner of her surrender, and also in her tongue. The wit here is not so salient as in certain passages of Love for Love, where Valentine feigns madness or retorts on his father, or Mrs.
And, after an interview: 'Think of you! To think of a whirlwind, though 'twere in a whirlwind, were a case of more steady contemplation, a very tranquillity of mind and mansion. There is a picturesqueness, as of Millamant and no other, in her voice, when she is encouraged to take Mirabel by Mrs. Fainall, who is 'sure she has a mind to him': MILLAMANT: Are you?
Celimene is undisputed mistress of the same attribute in the Misanthrope; wiser as a woman than Alceste as man. In Congreve's Way of the World, Millamant overshadows Mirabel, the sprightliest male figure of English comedy. But those two ravishing women, so copious and so choice of speech, who fence with men and pass their guard, are heartless!
Congreve's Way of the World is an exception to our other comedies, his own among them, by virtue of the remarkable brilliancy of the writing, and the figure of Millamant. The comedy has no idea in it, beyond the stale one, that so the world goes; and it concludes with the jaded discovery of a document at a convenient season for the descent of the curtain. A plot was an afterthought with Congreve.
Millamant side by side with Celimene is an example of how far the realistic painting of a character can be carried to win our favour; and of where it falls short. Celimene is a woman's mind in movement, armed with an ungovernable wit; with perspicacious clear eyes for the world, and a very distinct knowledge that she belongs to the world, and is most at home in it.
In fine, solely to give thee pleasure, my Millamant, I will give the girl a trial no later than this very afternoon." Audrey stirred in her sleep, spoke Haward's name, and sank again to rest. Mr. Stagg took a second pinch of snuff. "There's the scandal, my love. His Excellency the Governor's ball, Mr. Eliot's sermon, Mr. Marmaduke Haward's illness and subsequent duels with Mr. Everard and Mr.
Word Of The Day