Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons: Interspersed with Anecdotes of Authors and Actors

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Gibbings, 1893 - Actors - 471 pages

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Page 298 - I have given suck, and know How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me : I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you Have done to this.
Page 233 - Nay, take my life and all; pardon not that: You take my house, when you do take the prop That doth sustain my house; you take my life, When you do take the means whereby I live.
Page 307 - Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty ! make thick my blood ; Stop up the access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose...
Page 444 - It was on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page, in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent.
Page 322 - I have almost forgot the taste of fears : The time has been, my senses would have cool'd To hear a night-shriek ; and my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir, As life were in't : I have supp'd full with horrors ; Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, Cannot once start me.
Page 314 - Exposing what is mortal and unsure To all that fortune, death and danger dare, Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honour 's at the stake.
Page 297 - ... Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here ; And fill me, from the crown to the toe...
Page 42 - Alas ! poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio ; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy ; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times ; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is ! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.
Page 252 - For grief is proud and makes his owner stoop. To me and to the state of my great grief Let kings assemble; for my grief's so great That no supporter but the huge firm earth Can hold it up : here I and sorrows sit ; Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.
Page 211 - Looking tranquillity ! it strikes an awe And terror on my aching sight ; the tombs And monumental caves of death look cold, And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart.

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