There was something mystical in all this conception, and something theatrical in all this agency.

"You looked so sleepy, I thought I'd wake you up with a bit of a scene from 'Lara Aboukir, the Pirate Chief'; you know we have a great deal of private theatricals at Baltimore; you should see me in that play as Flashmoria, the Bandit's Bride.

" "You need not trouble to be theatrical with me," put in Etta scornfully.

Theatricals of all sorts, especially ballets, had a great attraction for him and elicited his enthusiastic comments.

Enjoying better spirits and not crushed under material cares, he is far more theatrical than average man.

It all must seem very theatrical to you.

His gestures and movements, elegant though they were, had nothing theatrical about them, and his oratory, though quick and fluent, was neither redundant nor verbose.'

" I must not quit the subject of French theatricals without speaking of the Opéra comique at the Théâtre Faydeau.

This arch-maniac, who might have been something if he had left himself in your hands, has some notion of standing aloof: he writes against theatricals after having done a bad play; he writes against France which is a mother to him; he picks up four or five rotten old hoops off Diogenes' tub and gets inside them to bay; he cuts his friends; he writes to me myself the most impertinent letter that ever fanatic scrawled.

I think he was aware he was playing a part; his sofa was his stage; and he lay there theatrical as Leo XI.

In the Eikon Basilikê a strain of majestic melancholy is kept up, but the personated sovereign is rather too theatrical for real nature, the language is too rhetorical and amplified, the periods too artificially elaborated.