"Farce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wretched and humiliating farce," was George's not altogether illuminating comment on this naive revelation of the workings of the female mind. He spoke doggedly, and then hummed the refrain of a song as though ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... Vol. II, p. 130. "Monsieur Tonson" was a very popular farce written by W. T. Moncrief in 1821. The French barber, Morbleu, is greatly troubled by a steady stream of visitors who come to make inquiries regarding a certain fictitious Mr. Thompson, hoping thereby to gain information regarding Adolphine de Courcy ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... women; he treated them all as if ignorant of their existence, with a painful timidity which he disguised under a mask of bravado. And that girl must really think him a downright fool, to bamboozle him with that story of adventure—only fit for a farce. Nevertheless, he ended by saying, 'That's enough. You had better come in out of the wet. You can sleep ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... February 2, 1923). Yet the Daily Herald reporter had seen nothing ungentlemanly in attending a garden party at Buckingham Palace and publishing a sneering account of it afterwards under the heading of "Pomp and Farce in the Palace" (date ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... Mr. Roscoe on Monday. Call upon Mr. Morille same day. Leave card at Colonel Digby's on Tuesday. Theatre Friday night—Richard III. and new farce. Present letter at Miss L——'s on Tuesday. Call on Sampson & Wilt, Friday. Get my draft on London cashed. Write home by the Princess. Letter bag at ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... do not wish, to see those whom we have no desire to see, and who do not care if they were never to see us again, except for the sake of their own reputation of playing well their own parts in the grand farce of mock civility" Helen was sorry to have joined in making an engagement for him which he seemed so much to dislike. But Lady Cecilia, laughing, maintained that half his reluctance was affectation, and the other ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... several firemen's helmets to be used in the Sunday's meetings, presumably to draw attention to sin as a fire, a destroyer. She impressed upon the brothers who were to wear the helmets, that unless the effort were made earnestly, it would be a farce. The men so entered into her spirit that they remained at the hall after the afternoon meeting in fasting and prayer, so that the message might go forth at night ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... This farce, for so they considered it, being ended and the stage, so to speak, cleared, the audience having laughed itself hoarse, set itself to watch the proceedings of the newly chosen high-priest of Little Bonsa, who by now had recovered from the blow dealt to him by one of the ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... was succeeded by a farce, at which Bessie laughed as heartily as she had wept a little while before, but which was utterly distasteful to Zelma; and at an alarmingly late hour, for that quiet community, the green curtain came heavily plunging down on the final scene of all, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... Walter Scott infers that he did not scruple to join the Musselmans in the external ceremonies of their religion. He embellishes his romance with the ridiculous farce of the sepulchral chamber of the grand pyramid, and the speeches which were addressed to the General as well as to the muftis and Imaums; and he adds that Bonaparte was on the point of embracing Islamism. All ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... perhaps to shoot Free-State men who disputed the right of the South to plant and to maintain slavery there. Under these circumstances the first election for members of the territorial legislature was a farce. Yet Reeder felt obliged to let the new assembly go on with its work of making easy the immigration of masters with their "property"; when he went East a little later he took occasion to protest in a ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... that matter now? It is all a horrible farce.—To begin so fair and lovely, and end so stormy and cold ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... seemed such babies, playing at love; and their love-making, if such it was, had been carried on in such an exceedingly open and lively way, not a bit of tragedy about it, rather genteel comedy, bordering on farce. It was such a contrast to—certain other love stories that she had known, quite buried out ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... was the greater from the extent and obscurity of the battlefield. On these accounts, some of those holding the positions used afterwards to say there was no battle at all, and one—Lieut. Delisle, who received a pension—that the whole thing was a farce. Frankly—and it may seem at first sight like a discourtesy to say it—it is doubtful whether the Voltigeurs would have stood much real fighting had they been opposed to veterans. On reasonable consideration ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall
... fond of her protege, yet she was possessed, as her customers emphatically remarked, "of the devil's own temper;" and her native coarseness never having been softened by those pictures of gay society which had, in many a novel and comic farce, refined the temperament of the romantic Paul, her manner of venting her maternal reproaches was certainly not a little revolting to a lad of some delicacy of feeling. Indeed, it often occurred to him to leave her house altogether, and seek his fortunes alone, after the manner ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the proposition to Virginia will be a farce. Gentlemen, we hold that as the soul is to man, so is honor to a nation. Honor is the soul of nations. Without it, no nation can have a place in history or among the nations. We of Virginia must have in this Confederation the position of an equal. Equal in dignity—equal in right. In the Congress ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... the tubes of his stethoscope and began the sounding, backwards and forwards from heart to lungs, and from lungs to heart again; while the Old Lady looked on as merry as Destiny, and nodded her head and smiled, as much to say, "Tchee-tchee, what a farce it is!" ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... wholly in Ah Moy's power, and quite well aware of it, exacted from all of his countrymen a certain amount of deference, and was loath that his visitor should prove an exception to this gratifying rule. Ah Moy knew this, but the little farce was becoming very irksome to him; it took up too much of his always valuable time, and he intended to forego it in future. Quong Lee, thought he, was a tiresome old goat who badly needed his whiskers trimmed and his horns sawed off; and he, Ah Moy, ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... carry on the war to the last moment, I get a hundred pike-thrusts, I return two hundred, and I laugh. I see near my door Geneva on fire with quarrels over nothing, and I laugh again; and, thank God, I can look upon the world as a farce even when it becomes as tragic as it sometimes does. All comes out even at the end of the day, and all comes out still more even when all ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... black side of humanity, he loves to show the strength of false reasoning, of sophistry antagonistic to truth, and of cold expediency in opposition to the natural feelings of humanity. From a similar reason, his occasional attempts at comedy degenerate into mere farce. We question whether the scene between Death and Apollo in the "Alcestis," could be surpassed in vulgarity, even by the modern school of English dramatists, while his exaggerations in the minor characters are scarcely to be surpassed by the ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... Perquisition without a plan is a farce!" said the man, this time addressing Gerald Burton. "An absolute farce! In such an old house as this there may ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... a parson, Dame Baucis next they play'd their farce on. Instead of homespun coifs, were seen Good pinners edged with colberteen; Her petticoat transform'd apace, Became black satin, flounced with lace. "Plain Goody" would no longer down, 'T was ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... the pleasure in life. I fancy we're changing our bill shortly, and, as farce is all the rage just now, I'll boom your Munition Mad directly I get a chance. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917 • Various
... are quite numerous, consisting of six moralities or comedies, a farce, epistles, elegies, philosophical poems, and the Heptameron, her principal work—a collection of prose tales in which are reflected the customary conversation, the morals of polite society, and the ideal love of the ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... were not laughing, and their serious countenance added to the fun of the performance. I marvelled at Bettina (who was always ready to enjoy a good laugh) having sufficient control over herself to remain calm and grave. Doctor Gozzi had also given way to merriment; but begged that the farce should come to an end, for he deemed that his father's eccentricities were as many profanations against the sacredness of exorcism. At last the exorcist, doubtless tired out, went to bed saying that he was certain that the devil would ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... pride, and left curiosity to play its part freely, as in a child or a man of science. You lay aside all your own hobbies to watch provincial humours develop themselves before you, now as a laughable farce, and now grave and ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... have me do? You make me vote that all is finished, that nothing remains, that the people is a slave! What! you say to me: "Since you are sovereign, you shall give yourself a master; since you are France, you shall become Haiti!" What an abominable farce! ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... living with them, I might try; but I know from experience I'm not. I haven't the need, and to pretend that I have, to forego my comforts and luxuries in a make-believe that I haven't them, would be too ghastly a farce, and ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... putting up of a station at Dogtown could have no kind of economic effect on the putting up of a station at Catsville. You and I do not think it candid to say that when we are at one end of a telephone we have no sort of connection with the other end. These things have got into the region of farce; and should be dealt with farcically, not ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... "I serve in a farce!" he was saying, smiting himself on the breast with his fist. "I disport myself in striped trunks for the sport of the sated mob! I have put out my torch, have hid my talent in the earth, like the slothful servant! But fo-ormerly!" he began ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... heroic, or at least presentable, in the kindly remoteness of legend, reveal some strange weakness when brought suddenly into the light. When the tradition is Satyric, as here, the same process produces almost an opposite effect. It is somewhat as though the main plot of a gross and jolly farce were pondered over and made more true to human character till it emerged as a refined and rather pathetic comedy. The making drunk of the Three Grey Sisters disappears; one can only just see the trace ...
— Alcestis • Euripides
... out, while Bazarov remained standing a minute before the door, and suddenly exclaimed, 'Pish, well, I'm dashed! how fine, and how foolish! A pretty farce we've been through! Like trained dogs dancing on their hind-paws. But to decline was out of the question; why, I do believe he'd have struck me, and then ...' (Bazarov turned white at the very thought; all his pride was up in arms at once)—'then it might ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... Canning and the Rabbit-woman were modest impostors in comparison of this, which goes on Without saving the least appearances. The Archbishop, who would not suffer the Minor to be acted in ridicule of the Methodists, permits this farce to be played every night, and I shall not be surprised if they perform in the great hall at Lambeth. I went to hear it, for it is not an apparition, but an audition. We set out from the Opera, changed our clothes at Northumberland-house, the Duke of York, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... a number of rooms all well and comfortably furnished, but although my imagination may have been responsible for the idea, they all seemed to possess a chilly and repellent atmosphere. I felt that to essay sleep in any one of them would be the merest farce, that the place to all intents and purposes was uninhabitable, that something incalculably ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... with that deliciously caressing Venetian familiarity, Popolo, ste cheto; Foscolo xe rochio! "People, be quiet; Foscolo is hoarse." While in this office, he brought out his first tragedy, which met with great success; and at the same time Napoleon played the cruel farce with which he had beguiled the Venetians, by selling them to Austria, at Campo-Formio. Foscolo then left Venice, and went to Milan, where he established a patriotic journal, in which a genuine love of country found expression, and in which he defended unworthy Monti against the attacks ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... both Mrs. Conner and Agnes had come out, asking in much surprise who the stranger could be, and what was the cause of her illness. As if there had been a previous understanding between them, the doctor and Guy were silent with regard to the recent farce enacted there, simply saying it was possible she was in the habit of fainting; many people were. Very daintily, Agnes held up and back the skirt of her rich silk as if fearful that it might come in contact with ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... a purely conventional value. Strictly speaking, it is a sham; its method is to exact an artificial respect, and, as a matter of fact, the whole thing is a mere farce. ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... one of the company, and a kick under the table to another, he endeavoured to make them join in his attempt to pass off the whole as mimickry of a Colonel Hallerton. His companions supported him as he continued the farce, and the laughter recommenced. Colonel Hauton filled his glass, and said nothing; by degrees, however, he joined or pretended to join in the laugh, and left the company without Buckhurst's being able exactly to determine whether he had duped him or not. After the colonel ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... irrelevant here to allude to the finale of the Confederate cruisers; and to recall the most inane farce of all those enacted by the madmen who held power ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... there present at that time an old gentleman well experienced in the wars, astern soldier, and who had been in many great hazards, named Echephron, who, hearing this discourse, said: 'J'ay grand peur que toute ceste entreprise sera semblable la farce du pot au laict duquel un cordavanier se faisoit riche par resverie, puis le pot ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... very quiet, however, when we reached the large building where Mrs. Conway had her apartment. McKnight left the power on, in case we might want to make a quick get-away, and Hotchkiss gave a final look at the revolver. I had no weapon. Somehow it all seemed melodramatic to the verge of farce. In the doorway Hotchkiss was a half dozen feet ahead; Richey fell back beside me. He dropped his affectation of gayety, and I thought he looked tired. "Same old Sam, I suppose?" ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... not over!" he exclaimed. "There are proofs which neither the baron nor his wife know that I have. I have the proof of the infamous swindle of which the Marquis de Tregars was the victim. I have the proof of the farce got up by M. de Thaller and myself to defraud the stockholders ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... of a Morris! O, poor devil of a Morris!' cried the lawyer in delight. 'And his keeping up the farce that you're at home! O, Morris, the Lord has delivered you into my hands! Let me see, Uncle Joseph, what do you suppose the ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... his teacher, and sufficient misery to the spectator to induce her to do that which the other sisters could scarcely have brought themselves to do on any provocation, namely to complain to Felix, and by and by make a representation, for the general good, she said, that it was a mere farce to leave the ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... such a farce! Just fancy; they say it was the Companions of Jesus. I don't believe a word of it, of course. Who are the Companions of Jesus if not the ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... quickly. "I was never sane till now. When I think of what I had to offer that dear child, when I realize to what a farce of love I was sacrificing her—oh, Alice dearest, you are a woman; you must ...
— The Courting Of Lady Jane • Josephine Daskam
... coins which one of them was jingling in his pocket. But if they were hard up for money they did not want for ingenuity, and all three arranged to play their parts like thieves at a fair. Theirs was a farce in which there was plenty of eating and drinking, since for five days they so heartily attacked every kind of provision that a party of German soldiers would have spoiled less than they obtained by fraud. These three cunning fellows made their way to the fair after ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... of the Empire hangers-on. The man was promptly arrested by Morton in his capacity of sheriff, and confined in chains. Morton, as sheriff, selected those who were to serve on the jury. I had the curiosity to attend the trial, expecting to assist at an uproarious farce. All the proceedings, on the contrary, were conducted with the greatest decorum, and with minute attention to legal formalities. The ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... some one bring him food to keep him alive while he does it. That—only that!—think of it—for the most precious things of this life, the things that alone save this life from being a barren mockery and a grinning farce! And he can not have them—and you, you enlightened society, you never care about it, you never ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... made use of no disguise on the subject of our mutual tendencies. I knew them to be selfish, beggarly in the midst of wealth, and artificial in the fulness of protestation. I disdained to play the farce of civility with them. I neither kissed nor quarrelled with them; but I quietly shut my door, and at last allowed no foot of their generation inside it. They hated me mortally in consequence, and I knew it. I despised them, and I conclude they knew that too. But I was resolved ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... thing gradually wore upon Truedale's tense nerves. If anything was going to happen he wanted it to happen! In another half-hour he meant to put an end to the farce and move his belongings back to the cabin and take Nella-Rose home. It ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... any more politics with him. We dined together, I calm and in the best of spirits; we went to a musical farce, and he watched me glumly as I showed my lightness of heart. Then I went alone, at midnight, to the Chicago Express sleeper—to lie awake all night staring at the phantoms of ruin that moved in dire panorama before me. In every great affair there is a crisis at which one must ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... theatres, and compare it with the vulgar daubs even of John Kemble's time. Some of the scenes by Stanfield, Roberts, Grieve, and Pugh, are "perfect pictures." Yet the language of the stage is at a stand, and insipid comedy, dull tragedy, and stupid farce are more abundant than before the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various
... die, and these books be as dead as Hugh Conway's "Called Back" in less than ten years. I am perfectly willing to admit all these mutations of taste, but there is something deeper than that. Do you know, I have a notion that the reign of cheap melodrama and farce-comedy on our stage and of the "shilling shocker" during the last two years is due largely to our financial condition. Many of you are business men, and I know how you talk. I ask you to go to see a serious play, and you say: "Well, I will tell ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... to have been the forerunner and origin of all musical farce and "opera comique," only naturalised in our country during the present generation. The theatres in all the provinces are always full, always popular; the pieces only run for short periods, a perpetual ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... arraign all plays after the new model of Spanish plots, where accident is heaped upon accident, and that which is first might as reasonably be last; an inconvenience not to be remedied, but by making one accident naturally produce another, otherwise it is a farce and not a play. Of this nature is the "Slighted Maid;" where there is no scene in the first act, which might not by as good reason be in the fifth. And if the action ought to be one, the tragedy ought likewise to conclude with the action of it. Thus in "Mustapha," the play should naturally ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... talking anarchy, and washing the dishes,—it sounds like a Weber and Field's farce," gurgled Conny. "He wrote Percy about lecturing in New York,—wanted to come East. But Percy couldn't do anything for him. It isn't a combination to make ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... Didymus, surnamed Chalcenterus, a man celebrated for his writings on many subjects of science, deserves especial mention; who, in the six books in which he, sometimes incorrectly, attacks Cicero, imitating those malignant farce writers, is justly blamed by the learned as a puppy barking from a distance with puny voice against the mighty ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... the royal palaces of St James's and Whitehall were exempted from the operation of this statute, so long as the sovereign was actually resident within them—which last clause probably showed that the entire Draconian enactment was but a farce. It is quite certain that it was inoperative, and that it did no more than express the conscience of the legislature—in deference to PRINCIPLE, 'which ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... proved less potent than the opinion of Dio, who often distorted what Plutarch related, but probably followed most closely the farce or the popular tales which, in Rome, did not venture to show the Egyptian in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... COX," a farce by J. M. Morton, remarkable for a successful run such as is said to ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... successful course of highway robbery runs in the channel of a swift accomplishment and a rapid getaway. Yet this crew, leaving the saddle-bags uninvestigated at their feet, were solemnly playing out their farce at the expense of valuable time—time which should have stood for miles ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... to the Duke's playhouse, where we saw the new play acted yesterday, "The Feign Innocence, or Sir Martin Marall;" a play made by my Lord Duke of Newcastle, but, as every body says, corrected by Dryden. It is the most entire piece of mirth, a complete farce from one end to the other, that certainly was ever writ. I never laughed so in all my life, and at very good wit therein, not fooling. The House full, and in all things of mighty content to me. Every body wonders that we have no news from Bredah of the ratification of the peace; and ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... or never parted. It is like a tragic rendering of the scene where Diana Vernon and Osbaldistone encounter each other on the moonlit moor. The wild words of Clara, "Is it so, and was it even yourself whom I saw even now?... And, all things considered, I do carry on the farce of life wonderfully well,"—all this passage, with the silence of the man, is on the highest level of poetic invention, and Clara ranks with Ophelia. To her strain of madness we may ascribe, perhaps, what Sydney Smith calls ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Four races were assembled to look on—the mess Chinaman, two black laundresses, all the whites in the place (on horse and foot, some with their hats left behind), and several hundred Indians in blankets. Duane had a thought to go away and leave this galling farce under the eye of Starr for the officers were at hand also. But his second thought bade him remain; and looking at Augustus and the howitzer, his laugh would have returned to him; but his heart was ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... influences, mazed and confused by the subtleties and partial statements of the lawyers, these twelve honest but ignorant men were called upon to decide between physicians offering precisely opposite opinions. It is well when this so-called administration of justice ends as a monstrous farce and not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... permitted to go to Richmond could get, for themselves or others, proper credentials. Mr. Greeley reported the situation, asking of the President further instructions. It now became apparent to everybody connected with the farce that if it was kept up further, Mr. Lincoln would be put in the attitude of suing the Confederacy for a peace. Lincoln determined to end the situation and at the same time define his position before the world, clearly. He dispatched John Hay to Niagara ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... back along the corridors of Time, until it reaches a certain day toward the close of our Freshman year. Remember, you had made a hilarious failure of every athletic event you tried-football, basketball, track, and baseball; you had just made a tremendous farce of the Freshman-Sophomore track meet, and to me, your loyal comrade, you uttered these rash words, 'Before I graduate from old Bannister, I shall have won my B in ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... the crucifix and prayed that the vengeance of God might fall upon him if ever he broke his oath. Immediately afterward he wrote to the Emperors of Austria and Russia, declaring that his conduct on this occasion was a mere farce and that he regarded his obligations as null ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... upon gatherings of teachers to 'win that old fellow who, when you begin to talk Negro education and Negro schoolhouse, scratches his head, leans to one side, and looks far away. That's the man,' he would say, 'that you've got to convince that Negro education is not a farce.' ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... with metal buttons came into fashion, and dandies of the first water appeared in bright snuff-coloured, pale green, and blue coats, such as are now only worn by Paul Bedford or Keeley, in broad farce. In 1836 a cheap mode of gilding, smart for a day, dull and shabby in a week, completely destroyed the character of gilt buttons, and brought up the Florentine again. This change was, no doubt, materially assisted and maintained by Bulwer's novel of "Pelham," ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... ourselves once more hugging the shore southwards. The day was exceptional for West Africa, and much like damp weather at the end of an English May; the grey air at times indulged us with a slow drizzle. After two hours we passed another maritime village, where the farce of yesterday evening was re-acted, but this time with more vigour. Ignorant of my morning's private work, Hotaloya swore that it was Sanga- Tanga. I complimented him upon his proficiency in lying, and poor Langobumo, almost in tears, confessed ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... remedies as mortal poisons. This was not enough permanently to shift the presumption about drugs where it belonged, and so at last, just as the sympathetic powder and the Unguentum Armarium came in a superstitious age to kill out the abuses of external over-medication, the solemn farce of Homoeopathy was enacted in the face of our own too credulous civilization, that under shelter of its pretences the "inward bruises" of over-drugged viscera might be allowed to heal by the first intention. Its lesson we must accept, whether ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... promenading to some pretty good music, was succeeded by a funny farce, which sent the audience ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... sat in Riddell's study with his books before him, could as soon have done a stroke of work as fly over the schoolhouse elms. Indeed, it was such a farce for him even to make the attempt that he shut up his books and ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... Committed Brethren, did get 'Ivan' accepted, read, and the parts distributed. But, lo! in the very heart of the matter, upon some tepidness on the part of Kean, or warmth on that of the author, Sotheby withdrew his play. Sir J.B. Burgess did also present four tragedies and a farce, and I moved green-room and Sub-Committee, but ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... accuse your wife of unfaithfulness to her friend, her guest, and even your reputation, I resolved to go myself with Dona Rosita to Los Osos and explain the matter to her father. Some rumor of the ridiculous farce I have just witnessed reached us through Ezekiel, and frightened the poor girl so that she declined—and properly, too to face the hoax which you and some nameless impersonator of a disgraced fugitive have gotten up for purposes of your own! I wish you joy of ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... were sufficiently attractive. The 'Frisco Opera Company were to produce the 'screaming farce,' 'The Gay and Giddy Dude'; after which there was to be a 'Grand Ball,' during which the 'Kalifornia Female Kickers' were to do some fancy figures; the whole to be followed by a 'big supper' with 'two free drinks to every man and one to the lady,' and all ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... reception of M. de Neuborg's envoy, an honest Jesuit, who draws out of his pocket victoriously two portraits of his good lord, ogles Mademoiselle as long as he could, and talks "goguette" to her for a whole hour, is one of the most amusing farces anywhere to be met with. Unluckily, the farce was not worth the candle in the opinion of certain judges, and all the diversions of Saint-Fargeau did not prevent our princess from regretting with all her heart that pompous Court of Versailles in which the young Louis was giving such graceful ballets, brilliant carousals, ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... intervened, and demonstrated to the offended parties, that, when Monsieur Edmond About called them stupid boobies, humbugs, tumblers, he had no intention whatever of offending them. Good gracious! far otherwise! In fine, one day the farce was played, the curtain fell upon the well-spanked critics, and all this little company (so full of talents and chivalry!) went arm-in-arm, the insulter and the insulted, to breakfast together at Monsieur About's rooms, where, between ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... a day's journey of the establishment, I pretended to have sprained my foot so badly, that I walked with the greatest seeming difficulty. My men, who were aware of the ruse, requested me to place my bundle on their sledges, to enable me to keep up with them. This farce commenced in the evening. Next morning my leg was worse than ever, until we came on the river at about ten miles' distance from the post. I was delighted to find but little snow upon the ice, so that I had a fair opportunity of putting the metal ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... Michael showing that he has got tastes. Can you wonder that I'm delighted? And not only has he got tastes, but he has the strength of character to back them. Michael, in the Guards too! It was a perfect farce, and he's had the sense to see it. He hated his duties, and he hated ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... night the Conservatives gave their annual performance of the good old farce entitled, Choosing a Candidate; or, Who's got the Money-bags? We are glad to be able to congratulate this distinguished body of amateurs on the modest success which attended their efforts. Most of the performers are well-known to the Billsbury ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 18, 1891 • Various
... no need to argue the question—the public has decided it long since, and, except in indelicate ballets, and occasional rather French passages in farce, our modern stage is free from immorality. Even in Garrick's days, when men were not much more refined than in those of Queen Anne, it was found impossible to put the old drama on the stage without considerable weeding. Indeed I doubt if even the ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... hundred clenches makes, And ductile Dulness new meanders takes; There motley images her fancy strike, Figures ill paired, and similes unlike. She sees a mob of metaphors advance, Pleased with the madness of the mazy dance; How Tragedy and Comedy embrace; How Farce and Epic get a jumbled race; How Time himself stands still at her command, Realms shift their place, and ocean turns to land. Here gay description Egypt glads with showers, Or gives to Zembla fruits, to Barca flowers; Glittering with ice here hoary hills are seen, There painted ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... herself many offensive and humiliating truths. So, for instance, she told herself that she never had been moral, that she had not come to grief before simply because she had had no opportunity, that her inward conflict during that day had all been a farce. . . . ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Huns had only removed to search. We were then locked in a room for ten days and told that we were in quarantine, no account being taken of the three weeks or a month that some of us had already spent in the German lines. The whole thing was a farce. We could then buy a change of underclothing, and daily consumed prodigious quantities of Dutch chocolate, also procurable from the canteen (which I afterwards bought in Holland for one-tenth of the price). ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... instantaneously formed a plan by which he would snatch victory out of defeat. He would take Gordon's suggestion, and himself drive the geese up to his residence in Hillport, that lofty and aristocratic suburb. It would be an immense, an unparalleled farce; a wonder, a topic for years, the crown of ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... a soft but mocking voice. "Be amiable! Let us talk. I come for peace, not for war. Let us make terms with each other. I am sick of this farce of hostility between husband and wife—let us ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... servants' belongings is invariably a useless proceeding," added the man in the corner, with a shrug of the shoulders. "No one, not even a latter-day domestic, would be fool enough to keep stolen property in the house. However, the usual farce was gone through, with more or less protest on the part of Mr. Shipman's servants, and ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... what coming down over that ridge above Boko Boko will be like! I do not fancy however it would ever be possible to get up the river, when it is at its height, with so small a crew as we were when we went and played our knock-about farce, before King Death, in his amphitheatre in the Sierra ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... him, ... and mine was this:—'Whatever Sheridan has done or chosen to do has been, par excellence, always the best of its kind. He has written the best comedy (School for Scandal), the best drama (in my mind, far before that St. Giles's lampoon, the Beggars Opera), the best farce (the Critic—it is only too good for a farce), and the best Address ('Monologue on Garrick'), and, to crown all, delivered the very best Oration (the famous Begum Speech) ever conceived or heard in this country.'"—Journal, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... and said he would forgive them; for some were so officious as to put on his shoes, and others to help him on with his gown, that his quality might no more be mistaken. When they had carried on this farce, and enjoyed it for some time, they let a ladder down into the sea, and bade him go in peace; and if he refused to do it, they pushed him off the deck, ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... jungles, bulls from the plains, and hippopotami from the waters of the Nile. Into the arenas patricians descended; in the amphitheatre there were criminals from Gaul; in the Forum philosophers from Greece. On the stage, there were tragedies, pantomimes and farce; there were races in the circus, and in the sacred groves girls with the Orient in their eyes and slim waists that swayed to the crotals. For the thirst of the sovereign there were aqueducts, and for its hunger Africa, Egypt, Sicily contributed grain. ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... Humour and Genius Great Poets good Men Diction of the Old and New Testament Version Hebrew Vowels and Consonants Greek Accent and Quantity Consolation in Distress Mock Evangelicals Autumn Day Rosetti on Dante Laughter: Farce and Tragedy Baron Von Humboldt Modern Diplomatists Man cannot be stationary Fatalism and Providence Characteristic Temperament of Nations Greek Particles Latin Compounds Propertius Tibullus Lucan Statius Valerius Flaccus Claudian Persius ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... This fearful farce was enacted in the cemetery of St. Ouen, behind the beautifully severe monastic church so called, and which had by that day assumed its present appearance. On a scaffolding raised for the purpose sat Cardinal Winchester, the two judges, and thirty-three assessors, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... type to awe the weak and timorous. He was much entertained on this particular morning,—one might almost say he was greatly amused. Quite a humorous little comedy was being played at the Vatican,—a mock- solemn farce, which had the possibility of ending in serious disaster to the innocent,—and he, as a student of the wily and treacherous side of human nature, was rather interested in its development. Cardinal Felix Bonpre, a man living far away in an obscure cathedral-town of France, ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... examine not for themselves; and are easily deluded, by the fairest promises, to surrender their opinions to another's guidance: these are the supporters of quackery, and the encouragers of those needy plunderers, who would render medicine a farce, that they ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... barrister had answered, "I suppose that neither your consent nor mine is to be asked; and it seems as though it were a farce ordered to be played over the poor governor's grave. He has prepared a romance, as to the truth or falsehood of which neither you nor I can possibly ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... information that Mr. Aimwell is converted by a sudden death in the world outside the scenes into Lord Aimwell, and can marry the lady in the light of day, it is to the credit of her vivacious nature that she does not anticipate your calling her Farce. Five is dignity with a trailing robe; whereas one, two, or three Acts would be short skirts, and degrading. Advice has been given to householders, that they should follow up the shot at a burglar in the dark by hurling the pistol after it, so that if the bullet ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... had been a considerable farce, in which I had played the most humiliating part. Indeed, but for the interposition of Barraclough I must have come out of it the butt of all shafts. As it was, I was sensitive in regard to my position, and more than once was tempted ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... they put my name down, that I must go, but you know I had much rather give the money outright. It is a farce ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a farce," Captain Blunt burst out, with a most unexpected exasperation. "As an officer of Don Carlos, I have no more standing than a bandit. I ought to have been interned in those filthy old barracks in Avignon a long time ago. . . Why am I not? Because Dona Rita exists and ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... her part was to be, Yram said they had better shake hands all round and take a couple of hours' rest before getting ready for the banquet. George said that the Professors did not shake hands with him very cordially, but the farce was gone through. When the hand-shaking was over, Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum left the house, and the Professors retired grumpily to ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... about myself. Like Canning's organ-grinder I have none to tell. It is the story of Paragot, the beloved vagabond—please pronounce his name French-fashion—and if I obtrude myself on your notice it is because I was so much involved in the medley of farce and tragedy which made up some years of his life, that I don't know how to tell the story otherwise. To Paragot I owe everything. He is at once my benefactor, my venerated master, my beloved friend, my creator. Clay in his hands, he moulded me according to his caprice, and inspired ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... indifferently, then turned to the doctor. "Now, monsieur, let us have done with this farce as quickly as possible. I ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... with a bitter laugh. "Who is the favorite of the public in this very town? Why, the girl who plays in that farce—who smokes a cigarette, and walks round the stage like a man, and dances a breakdown. Why wasn't I ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... bitter feeling now? Where that morbid pain at my heart? As I drank it all seemed to pass away. Magical change! What a fool I was! What was there to make such a fuss about? Take life easy. Laugh alike at the good and bad of it. It was all a farce anyway. What would it matter a hundred years from now? Why were we put into this world to be tortured? I, for one, would protest. I would writhe no more in the strait-jacket of existence. Here was escape, heartsease, happiness—here in this bottled ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... Protestants" had backed Lord Cornwallis in checking the reprisals of his troops and of the Orangemen; but the hideous cruelty which he was forced to witness brought about a firm resolve to put an end to the farce of "Independence" which left Ireland helpless in such hands. The political necessity for a union of the two islands had been brought home to every English statesman by the course of the Irish Parliament during the disputes over the Regency. While England repelled the claims of ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... pictures Dr. Brown of exclusive St. Thomas', New York, murmuring "Benedicite!" over an international marriage ceremony, his handsome face and melodious voice and aristocratic bearing doing full justice to the grandeur of the occasion—it is a contrast in which there is a bitter humor, a farce in which there is something horrible, a comedy that smells of the ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Still, he admitted that Tammany was synonymous with Democracy, and that its corruption, especially since its blighting influence had become so notorious and oppressive, impeded and dishonoured the party. Under its rule primaries had been absurdities and elections a farce. Without being thoroughly reorganised, therefore, the party, in ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... insignificant words rich with lowered tones, with smiles and the meeting of eyes. He told Martie of his college days; borrowing episodes at random from the lives of other men, men whom he admired. Martie believed it all, believed that he had written the Junior Farce, that he had been president of his class, that the various college societies had disputed for his membership. In return, she spun her own romances, flinging a veil of attractive eccentricity over ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... affected an interest in planning for the party and kept up a pretty show of concern which Marjorie alone knew to be false. Privately Mary's deceitful attitude was a sore trial to her. Honest to the core, she felt that she would rather her chum had maintained open hostility than a farce of good will which was dropped the moment they chanced to be alone. Still she resolved to bear it and look forward to a happier ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... that I thought we had had talk enough about the floor, we would now have a touch at the ceiling." I asked him if he ever huffed his wife about his dinner. "So often," replied he, "that at last she called to me and said, Nay, hold, Mr. Johnson, and do not make a farce of thanking God for a dinner which in a few minutes you will ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... an acknowledged belle in society, and she was quickly importuned by men eager for a dance. But as she laughed and jested with her partners, she was conscious of lagging time and numbing brain. Could she keep up the farce much longer? ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... birth to Tom Durfey's song of "Four and Twenty Fiddlers all on a Row," &c.: a humorous production, in which there is a mockery of every instrument, and almost every trade, and which used to be performed between the acts, or between the play and farce, by some ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... naked terrors of war, the agony, the travail, the icy chills, the sirocco heats, the grinding routine, the pitiless chastisements of its reality; to those who do, it can no longer be a spectacle dressed in the splendid array of romance. It is a fearful tragedy and farce woven close one in another; and its sole joy is in that blood-thirst which men so lustfully share with the tiger, and yet shudder from when they have ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... I not played this little farce, seated under a willow on the banks of my little stream, which ripples over the white stones, while the reeds bend tremblingly. The children would crowd round me to hear the watch, and soon questions broke forth in chorus to an accompaniment of laughter. They inspected ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... university and in the whole city. By these theses it was shown that the power to grant the pardon of sin, and to remit its penalty, had never been committed to the pope or to any other man. The whole scheme was a farce,—an artifice to extort money by playing upon the superstitions of the people,—a device of Satan to destroy the souls of all who should trust to its lying pretensions. It was also clearly shown that the ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... the Tower been otherwise than a mere formality, or "a farce," neither his wife nor his servants would under any circumstances have been permitted to attend or even see him whatever the state of his health might have been; and had he survived, nothing serious would have been done to him,[44] any more than was done ...
— The Identification of the Writer of the Anonymous Letter to Lord Monteagle in 1605 • William Parker
... only grateful, and do not republics forget? Is fame a travesty, and the judgment of mankind a farce? America had a parallel case in Captain Nathan Hale. Of the same age as Andre, he, after graduation at Yale College with high honors, enlisted in the patriot cause at the beginning of the contest, and secured ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter |
