Word: victorians
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...life and pace into the vast windy spaces of Wilde's epigrammatic concoction. Wilde was a clever dramatist, but drunk with his own scintillating wit; as a result the first act is long-winded and talky. After that an excellent cast makes the most of the play's indisputable Victorian charm...
...Bedford one winter day in 1840. Other travelers' accounts (which he shrewdly disparaged) furnished the main basis for the "unvarnished truth" of his South Seas experiences-captivity by Typee tribesmen, cannibalism, "care-killing damsels," Queen Moana's erotic tattooing, the many other wonders which took mid-Victorian readers' breath away...
...Style. Today, somewhat naturally, crotchety, old-worldly Pianist Paderewski looks back with fussy nostalgia to the times of his greatest triumphs. On the present-day world and its modern customs he wastes little affection. For him civilization has been steadily slipping since Victorian days. The only contemporary composer he cares anything about is Germany's Richard Strauss. Musical modernism he abhors. Says he: "Modern music ended with Debussy...
Paderewski's real enthusiasms are all for the events and customs of the plush-upholstered '80s and '90s, for the theatre of Sarah Bernhardt, the court life of Victorian England, the restaurants of old New York. A recent indication of modern decadence, in Paderewski's eyes, was the fuss-&-feathers about Sir James Jeans's statement that there is no such thing as "touch" in piano playing - that a pianist will get the same tone whether he hits the key with his finger or the end of an umbrella. Says umbrella-thatched Paderewski...
Life in London nowadays is not calculated to settle the nerves. If you go into St. James Park to feed the ducks on the lake, you will see holes in the ground-bomb shelters. If you plan to remodel your Victorian house in Chelsea, you must make provision for a steel cellar-bomb shelter. If you go for a spin in your little Vickers monoplane, you must watch for preposterous balloons dangling wires-defense against bombers. If you have a disproportionately long nose, you must be specially fitted for a gas mask...