Cameo (gemstone)

“ There is nothing of the cameo-cutter's art about them. They are modelled not carved. The outline is no more important than it is in nature, so far as it is employed to the end of identification. It is used decoratively. ”

“ Before we came to England at all I had read in certain books that the real Camelot was in the county of Somerset. It was at Camelot that King Arthur lived more than anywhere else and where he had his finest castle. So of course we were anxious to see Camelot. Our trouble did not seem to be that we could not find it; it was that we found it in too many places. We had been to Camelford, a poor little village in Cornwall, earlier in our journey, and they had told us that that was Camelot. ”

“ The comet's more showy, and apparently better value; so that will please you best: and you won't notice its flimsiness as compared with the greater solidity of the little star."
"But what nonsense!" said James. "What in space would be the use of a comet or a star to one of us? What could we do with it?"
"You could give yours," said William, in that nasty tone of his, "to one of your humans. He would be delighted. It's exactly the kind of thing they are always longing for."
Then they looked about among humanity.
"I've chosen my baby," said James. ”

“ We were just in time. Hope whispered, "The king will be here any moment."
BENEATH the canopy was a broad arena of seats. A platform, like a stage, was at one end. It was brilliantly illuminated with colored torches held aloft by girls in flowing robes, each standing like a statue with her light held high. The place was crowded. In the gloom of the darkened auditorium we found seats off to one side, near the open edge of the canopy. We sat, with Hope between us.
Derek whispered, "Shakespeare might have staged a play in a fashion like this." ”

“ Consider the devices whereby the stage actor holds the audience as he goes out at the side and back. He sighs, gestures, howls, and strides. With what studious preparation he ripens his quietness, if he goes out that way. In the new contraption, the moving picture, the hero or villain in exit strides past the nose of the camera, growing much bigger than a human being, marching toward us as though he would step on our heads, disappearing when largest. There is an explosive power about the mildest motion picture exit, be the actor skilful or the reverse. ”

“ During the Medicean period of Italian art, cameos were cut in most fantastic forms; sometimes a negro head would be introduced simply to exhibit a dark stratum in the onyx, and was quite without beauty. One of the Florentine lapidaries was known as Giovanni of the Carnelians, and another as Domenico of the Cameos. This latter carved a portrait of Ludovico il Moro on a red balas ruby, in intaglio. ”

“ But all Comet's dreams were centred in fields of broomstraw where birds lay hid and in the thrillings his nose told him there.
At six months he set his first covey of quail, and though he was trembling with the excited joy of one who knows he has found his life's work, still he remained staunch several minutes. And though when the birds flushed he chased them, he came quickly and obediently back at Jim's command.
Everything—size, contour, nose, muscle, intelligence, spirit—pointed to a great dog. Yes—Comet was one of the favoured of the gods. ”

“ I am in a great hurry, dear, and have written you an inordinately stupid letter; never mind, the next shall be inconceivably amusing. Just now my head is stuffed full of amber-colored cashmere and white satin. My mother begs to be kindly remembered to Mrs. Kemble. Always affectionately yours,
F. A. K.
My determination to soften the character of Camiola is another indication of my imperfect comprehension of my business as an actress, which was not to reform but to represent certain personages. ”

“ This arrangement will render it less likely that the audience should imagine that there is anything interposed between them and the actors than if the glass plate remained permanently in position during the scene. The hidden or lower stage may be provided with a well or hole up which an actor can rise; he will then appear as a spectre rising out of the visible stage. ”

“ It is a wise plan to use familiar and conventional types to fill in the minor parts of a play. The comic valet, the pretty and witty chambermaid, the ingénue, the pathetic old friend of the family, are so well known upon the stage that they spare the mental energy of the spectators and leave them greater vigor of attention to devote to the more original major characters. What is called "comic relief" has a similar value in resting the attention of the audience. ”

“ The gem, however, is evidently in this part of it a mere copy from Michelangelo’s group, and therefore a subsequent production, probably by da Pescia.
In our own day the engraving of cameos has practically ceased to be pursued as an art. Roman manufacturers cut stones in large quantities to be used as shirt-studs and for setting in finger-rings; and in Rome and Paris an extensive trade is carried on in the cutting of shell cameos, which are largely imported into England and mounted as brooches by Birmingham jewelry manufacturers. ”

“ The s.d. ‘one of their wives come out’ (813) does not necessarily imply a clown’s domus. Cambyses fluctuates between the actor’s notion that personages come ‘out’ from the tiring-house, and the earlier notion of play-makers and audience that they go ‘out’ from the stage. Thus ‘Enter Venus leading out her son’ (843) , but ‘goe out Venus and Cupid’ at the end of the same episode (880) . ”

“ A few weeks—perhaps not so long—at one of the theatrical factories to be found in nearly all of the large cities where Juliets are prepared at short notice, Camilles manufactured for immediate use, and actors in every department of the calling are turned out by some superfluous veteran of the stage at so much per lesson, generally in advance, fits the aspirant for a debut on a starring tour. ”

“ She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces thro' the room, She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, She look'd down to Camelot. Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror crack'd from side to side; "The curse is come upon me," cried The Lady of Shalott. Part IV
In the stormy east-wind straining, The pale yellow woods were waning, The broad stream in his banks complaining, Heavily the low sky raining Over tower'd Camelot ”

“ To old play-goers there is a [Pg 137] similar delight in books of stage reminiscences which include memories of great actors whom those play-goers have seen in their youth. A few of these still survive to talk of the old glories and to prove by comparison of ‘cast’ that for the costly metal of other days we have nothing now but pinchbeck. We have heard one of the old gentlemen of the ancien régime talk, with unfeigned emotion, of the way in which ‘The Gamester’ used to be acted by Mrs. Siddons, John Kemble, Charles Kemble, and George Frederick Cooke. ”

“ Some of the inventions were real, and others were "faked" for the occasion, to make a "comic" film.
But nothing as risky as the rope escape was tried, though probably had Paul been required to go through an equally hazardous feat he would not have balked. Moving picture actors often take very big chances, and the public, looking at the finished film, little realize it.
"I have something for you to-day I think you'll like," said Mr. Pertell to Ruth and Alice, as they reported at the studio. ”

“ He was a brother of the Marquis de Gamache and of the Countess du Rumain, and was a fine young fellow of an excellent disposition. He was never so well pleased as when he saw his mistress surrounded by people—a taste which is rarely found, but which is very convenient, and the sign of a temperament not afflicted by jealousy. Camille had no other lovers—an astonishing thing in an actress of the kind, but being full of tact and wit she drove none of her admirers to despair. ”

“ The sterling merits of the play do not perhaps outweigh the one insuperable defect of the despicable character of the hero; one can hardly sympathize with Camiola's devotion to such an idol, and his unworthiness not only lessens the interest of the piece, but detracts from the effect of her otherwise very noble character. The performance of the part always gave me great pleasure, and there was at once a resemblance to and difference from my favorite character, Portia, that made it a study of much interest to me. ”

“ He reads xivthem out the plot, and explains every detail of the intrigue. In short, he acts the whole piece before them, points out to each player what his special business requires, indicates the customary sallies of wit and traits of humor, and shows how the several parts and talents of the actors can be best combined into a striking work of scenic art.’”
The four “Maskers” of my play, followers of Capocomico, are, of course, my own renderings of the types familiar to the old Italian comedies. ”

“ ZELIMA
My lady!
CAPO. [Rushing toward her, with Altoum]
Quick! She’s falling!
ALTOUM
Turandot!—Kill the beggar.
TURANDOT [Faintly, recovering]
No, ’tis nothing. 34 [To Capocomico]
Here, give him this.
CAPO. [Taking it, astounded]
Your ring?
TURANDOT
A token, Sire.—
A token of our new régime: to all
My people—blessing, and to beggars—love. [She goes out]
ALTOUM [Going with her]
Attend her well, Zelima. [All follow after, and at a gesture from Capocomico, pass out. Near the gate the Maskers pause and wait for Capocomico, who returns to Calaf]
CAPO.
Fellow, rise! ”

“ Almost every historian and writer of the eleventh century bears witness to the splendour of the comet of 1066, in which we are disposed to recognise the comet of Halley.” [68] {87} The legend to this part of the Tapestry is, ISTI MIRANT STELLAM—These men wonder at the star.
The minds of men were not long kept in suspense. The next compartment exhibits King Harold seated on his throne, bending down his ear very eagerly to a messenger who has arrived with important intelligence. The nature of it is explained by the dreamy-like flotilla which is shown in the lower border. ”

“ Gama returns in consequence to his ships, and weighs anchor to return to Europe with the news of his great discoveries. Camoëns then introduces a very singular, but agreeable episode, recounting the love adventures of his heroes in one of the islands of the ocean. Venus, in search of her son, journeys through all his realms to implore his aid, and at length arrives at the spot where Love's artillery and arms are forged. Venus intercedes with her son in favour of the Portuguese. The island of Love, like that of Delos, floats on the ocean. ”

“ Occasionally the two would glance at Alice and Ruth, and make remarks.
"Train will soon be ready for us," announced Russ Dalwood, coming back to join the rest of the theatrical troupe which, instead of presenting plays in a theater, posed for them before the clicking eye of the camera, the films later to be shown to thousands in the chain of moving picture playhouses which took the Comet Company's service. "We can go aboard in five minutes!" Russ added.
"That's good," sighed Ruth. "There's is nothing so tiresome as waiting. Which track will it be on, Russ?" ”

“ One evening I was in the foyer of the Italian Comedy, where between the acts the highest noblemen were in the habit of coming, in order to converse and joke with the actresses who used to sit there waiting for their turn to appear on the stage, and I was seated near Camille, Coraline's sister, whom I amused by making love to her. A young councillor, who objected to my occupying Camille's attention, being a very conceited fellow, attacked me upon some remark I made respecting an Italian play, and took the liberty of shewing his bad temper by criticizing my native country. ”

“ This arrangement admits of an actor on the visible stage passing across the space which the glass is to occupy, and this he can do just before the appearance of the phantom, and then immediately the glass is run up, the trap doors are opened, the actor or image on the hidden stage is illuminated and the phantom appears. ”

“ But it is more as a stage reformer than as an actor that he will be remembered. The old happy-go-lucky way of staging plays, with its sublime indifference to correctness of detail and its utter disregard of archaeology, had received its first blow from Kemble and Macready, but Charles Kean gave it much harder knocks and went further than either of them in the good work. ”

“ Kemble or Mr. Cooke, but he fortunately has not. The stage is a place where genius is sure to come upon its legs in a generation or two. We cannot conceive of better actors than some of those we now have. In Comedy, Liston is as good as Edwin was when we were school-boys. We grant that we are deficient in genteel comedy; we have no fine gentlemen or ladies on the stage—nor off it. That which is merely artificial and local is a matter of mimicry, and must exist, to be well copied. Players, however, have little reason to complain of their hard-earned, short-lived popularity. ”

“ In his first season Kemble played Hamlet, Edward the Black Prince, Richard III, Sir Giles Overreach, Beverley, King John, Shylock, Alwin in the ‘Countess of Salisbury,’ Cato, Carlos in ‘Love makes a Man,’ and Jupiter in ‘Amphitryon.’ In the nineteen years during which he remained with the Drury Lane company, accompanying it in its enforced migration, he presented over 120 characters, including almost all the great parts in Shakespearean tragedy and not a few comic parts, in which he could have been seen to comparatively little advantage. ”

“ Gilbert notwithstanding; but when we see a young lady of fifteen on the stage we wonder where her cradle is.
The comic lovers do not have the facilities for love-making that the hero and heroine do. The hero and heroine have big rooms to make love in, with a fire and plenty of easy-chairs, so that they can sit about in picturesque attitudes and do it comfortably. Or if they want to do it out of doors they have a ruined abbey, with a big stone seat in the center, and moonlight. ”