Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 24, 2025
Roscius, Roscius!" said Bonaparte, smiling, "have you grown a flatterer during my absence?" "Roscius was the friend of Caesar, general, and when the conqueror returned from Gaul he probably said to him about the same thing I have said to you." Bonaparte laid his band on Talma's shoulder. "Would he have said the same words after crossing the Rubicon?" Talma looked Bonaparte straight in the face.
"A curse on these Englishmen!" he muttered, as he passed down the narrow staircase. "If I could only see the article I could tell whether it is worth resorting to stronger measures or not. However, that is Talma's business to decide, not mine." Mr. Morgan closed the door of the small room and resumed his seat. He then laughed aloud, but Mr. Bodery did not respond.
The striking circumstance in Talma's acting is, that he alone seems to know how to act the French plays with all the feeling and interest which can be necessary to produce effect; and at the same time, to avoid that exaggerated representation of passion which represses the very emotions it is intended to excite.
If it weren't for Talma's kindness in letting me lead his armies on the stage at the Odeon, with a turn at scene-shifting when they are not playing war dramas, I don't know what I'd do for my meals; and even when I do get a sandwich ahead occasionally I have to send it to Marseilles to my mother. Give me your contract, and if I don't save your Convention you needn't pay me a red franc.
To those, therefore, accustomed to the greater variety of expression which the practice of the English stage renders necessary in the countenance of every actor, and to the strong and often exaggerated manner in which common sentiments and ordinary feelings are represented, there may perhaps appear some want of expression in Talma's countenance; but no one can attend fully to any of the more interesting characters which he performs, without feeling an impression produced by the power and intelligence of his countenance, which no length of time will ever wholly efface.
Ludwig Vavel turned toward her, bowed courteously, and said in Talma's most exquisite French: "Do not be alarmed, ladies. You are perfectly safe. We are Hungarian gentlemen!" "But what do you want of us?" demanded the elder lady, haughtily surveying the count. "What business have we with you? We do not belong to the combatants."
But he would sit by, lost in thought, finishing the brandy bottle in silence and only occasionally emitting a little contemptuous sniff. Where was Talma's tradition? Nowhere. Very well, let them leave him jolly well alone! It was too stupid to go on as they were doing! One evening he found Nana in tears.
The last scene of this interesting tragedy is the most celebrated and most admired part in the range of Talma's characters, and undoubtedly it is impossible to find any acting more admirable or more affecting: After the death of Pyrrhus, he rushes upon the stage to inform Hermione that he had obeyed her dreadful commission, and to receive the reward of such a proof of his attachment; the horror of the crime which he had committed is sunk in his confidence of the claim he has now acquired to her gratitude, and he triumphantly relates the circumstances of the scene which had passed, as giving him such undeniable titles to the reward which had been promised to his firmness.
During the evening this gentle and now temperate old man had been present while the actors of the French comedy, brought among other decorative trappings from Paris, had declaimed the "Death of Cæsar" from the stage of the ducal theater; he had listened to Talma's significant utterance of the words, "Rule without violence over a conquered universe," and then, wearied by the excitement of these strange experiences, had withdrawn from further revelry.
Every person who has been in Paris, since the collection of statues was brought there, must have remarked the striking resemblance of Talma's countenance to the first busts of Nero; and this singular circumstance, along with the admirable manner in which he represents the impatient, headstrong, and profligate tyrant, rendered his acting in this character remarkably interesting.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking