"Mummery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders, 'he has always said he was madly in love with me, and I quite believe it. Poor young man, if this mummery were to console him for the rest of his life, why should I ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... more he was interested to perceive how transparent the mummery of business was. He was interested to note how persistently men fled from success, how carefully most of them avoided the obvious principles of utility, honesty, prudence, and courtesy, which are inevitably rewarded. These sagacious, humorous fellows ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... In the whole mummery of international relations there is nothing more farcical than an international arbitration. It is always preceded by great popular excitement. A ship is seized, a boundary is run a few degrees north or south ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... we knew these disturbers of the public peace to be what in truth they were, the instant our eyes fell on them. One could not well be mistaken, indeed, under the circumstances in which we were placed; but the tomahawks that one or two carried, the manner of their march, and other pieces of mummery that they exhibited, would have told us the fact, had we met them even ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... Sunday, he attended the services at the Sistine Chapel, which he found rather tedious, with much mummery. Going from there to the cancellerie ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... cares, Anxious sighes, untimely tears, Fly, fly to Courts, Fly to fond wordlings sports, Where strain'd Sardonick smiles are glosing stil And grief is forc'd to laugh against her will. Where mirths but Mummery, And sorrows only ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton
... gone, and when Trabb and his men—but not his Boy; I looked for him—had crammed their mummery into bags, and were gone too, the house felt wholesomer. Soon afterwards, Biddy, Joe, and I, had a cold dinner together; but we dined in the best parlor, not in the old kitchen, and Joe was so exceedingly ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... mummery," I said sternly. "What new trick is this? Do you imagine I am to be trapped a second time? My cousin is dead and buried; the ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... old church of St. Remi, one of the sights of the Champagne capital, and notable among other things for its magnificent ancient stained-glass windows, and the handsome modern tomb of the popular Remois saint. It was here in the middle ages that that piece of priestly mummery, the procession of the herrings, used to take place at dusk on the Wednesday before Easter. Preceded by a cross the canons of the church marched in double file up the aisles, each trailing a cord after him, with a herring attached. Every one's ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... find them in such a noisome hole. This Carew must be some rough renegade. Perhaps he was not even white; perhaps he was a half-caste. That would explain his choice of lodgings. One would think from all the secret mummery with which he surrounded himself that he was the Mikado, himself. He certainly was not ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... letter was a well-intentioned but clumsy contrivance of Longways and other of Farfrae's men to get him out of the way for the evening, in order that the satirical mummery should fall flat, if it were attempted. By giving open information they would have brought down upon their heads the vengeance of those among their comrades who enjoyed these boisterous old games; ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... to it, what can I, a passing stranger, do? I don't want to know anything more about it. Why, man, it's diabolical! To warp and imprison a girl like that! To think of that bewitching creature as a common trickster—appalls me. And to think that good people, millions of them, believe in such mummery! It is incredible!" ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... dazzled eyes could accustom themselves to the footlights, I found myself enmeshed in intolerable drama. I was unprepared. I knew my part imperfectly. I missed my cues. I had the blighting self-consciousness of the amateur. And yet the idiot mummery was intensely real. Amid the laughter of the silent shadowy gods I thought to flee from the stage. I came to Verona and find I am still acting my part. I have always been acting. I have been acting since I was born. The reason of our being is to amuse the high ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... that you will hear truth, child? Well, have your way. Will you join us, Nell—the business is a pleasing one, for these knaves have the tricks of their trade. But harkee, friends, give no real heed to the mummery." ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... citizens for disport of the young prince, Richard, son of the Black Prince, in the feast of Christmas, in this manner: On the Sunday before Candlemas, in the night, one hundred and thirty citizens, disguised, and well horsed, in a mummery, with sound of trumpets, sack-butts, cornets, shalmes, and other minstrels, and innumerable torchlights of wax, rode from Newgate, through Cheap, over the bridge, through Southwark, and so to Kennington beside Lambhith, ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... that moment he was his father's son. If the world, or the world's law, said otherwise, then they were of the devil, and deserving to be damned. What rite, what jabbering ceremony, what priestly ordinance, what legal mummery, stood between him and his claim to his ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... romance; sciamachy^. sell, pun, verbal quibble, macaronic^. jargon, fustian, twaddle, gibberish &c (no meaning) 517; exaggeration &c 549; moonshine, stuff; mare's nest, quibble, self- delusion. vagary, tomfoolery, poppycock, mummery, monkey trick, boutade [Fr.], escapade. V. play the fool &c 499; talk nonsense, parler a tort et a travess [Fr.]; battre la campagne [Fr.]; hanemolia bazein [Gr.]; be absurd &c adj.. Adj. absurd, nonsensical, preposterous, egregious, senseless, inconsistent, ridiculous, extravagant, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... men died; and, in ten minutes more, his companion breathed his last. The medicine man turned them over, shook his rattle over them, howled, groaned and grunted; but it would not do; the men were dead, and all his mummery would not bring them back to life again; so, after a few antics of various kinds, he shuffled off with himself, shaking his rattle, and howling and groaning louder than ever. You may remember, that I told you of the death of Oseola, the Seminole chief: he who struck his dagger through ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... not try!" I told her, again and again. "How can I tak up again with that old mummery? How can I laugh when my heart is breaking, and make others smile when the tears are in ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... carols, or Bethlehem Plays. There are elements in all that has come to us from the more morally simple society of the Middle Ages: elements which moderns, even when they are mediaevalists, find it hard to understand and harder to imitate. The first is the primary idea of Mummery itself. If you will observe a child just able to walk, you will see that his first idea is not to dress up as anybody—but to dress up. Afterwards, of course, the idea of being the King or Uncle William will leap to his lips. But it is generally suggested by the ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... in a voice quivering with rage, fastening his flashing looks on Douglas with an annihilating expression—"who, then, is that woman there? Who has dared with such cursed mummery to deceive the ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... of beauty on thy face should ever rest before mine eye. 'Twas a mask that memory might fill, serving to fashion out thy presence from the past, and give it strength to wander in the habitations of my thought, clad in a mummery of life that stayed my appetite with ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... stand this mummery any longer," said Yeo. "Here's a soul perishing before my eyes, and it's on my conscience to speak a word ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... mummery, strange acts, dress and ritual, affect to know and impart the inmost secrets of creation and ultimate destiny, had their rise in Egypt. In Egypt now are only graves, tombs, necropolises and silence. The priests there need no soldiery ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... lain in the Compter about a week, on the 4th of February, Bonner came to degrade him, bringing with him such ornaments as appertained to the massing mummery; but the Doctor refused these trappings till they ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... outrageous; all that my poor brother used to tell me of the superstitions of the high Barbary shore rushed into my mind, and I thought they were acting them over here; above all, the idea that the sweet young ladies, to say nothing of my poor old governor, were, after the conclusion of all this mummery, going to deliver themselves up body and soul into the power of that horrid-looking old man, maddened me, and, rushing forward into the open space, I confronted the horrible-looking old figure with the sugar-loaf ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... superstition, or mesmerism, or deception of some kind, why do you insist on all this mummery of soot and ashes for my friend and me?" King demanded. "Why do you use a temple full of Hindu idols to conceal your science, if it is a ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... length, swifter than the winged hawk, she flew towards the spot, and seized the sacred and inviolable arm of the holy Druid, which was lifted up to strike the final blow. "Barbarous and inhuman priest," she cried, "cease your vile and impious mummery! No longer insult us with the name of Gods. If there be Gods, they are merciful; but thou art a savage and unrelenting monster. Or if some victim must expire, strike here, and I will thank thee. Strike, and my bosom shall heave to meet the welcome blow. ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... symbols moved in grave morrice, in the mummery of their letters, wearing quaint caps of squares and cubes. Give hands, traverse, bow to partner: so: imps of fancy of the Moors. Gone too from the world, Averroes and Moses Maimonides, dark men in mien and movement, flashing in their mocking ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... of the grande nation. It is this same taste, which, in that solemn commemoration of the death of their king, the service solennel for Louis XVI. contrived to introduce a species of affected parade,—a detailed and theatrical sort of grief,—a kind of meretricious mummery of sorrow, which banished all the feelings, and almost completely destroyed the impression which such a scene in any other country would inevitably have produced. Any thing, it may be easily imagined, which gratifies this general taste for public exhibitions, and any thing ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... be denied that a secret society, with the grand and almost awful purposes of the Hetria, spite of some taint which it had received in its early stages from the spirit of German mummery, is fitted to fill the imagination, and to command homage from the coldest. Whispers circulating from mouth to mouth of some vast conspiracy mining subterraneously beneath the very feet of their accursed oppressors; ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... which deals with that large class of people who imagine they are ill—those people whose numbers are directly proportionate to periods of so-called prosperity, who call forth innumerable cults of curing, and who are the mainstay of much of the mummery in medicine. ...
— Some Personal Recollections of Dr. Janeway • James Bayard Clark
... of the German Christmas; we may next give some attention to English customs of the same sort during the Twelve Days, and then pass on to the strange burlesque ceremonies of the Feast of Fools and the Boy Bishop, ceremonies which show an intrusion of pagan mummery into the ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... boys and their attendants approached the first of these figures, the men who formed it began to move themselves from side to side, lolling out their tongues, and staring as wide and horribly with their eyes as they could open them. After this mummery had continued some minutes, the men separated for them to pass, and the boys were now led over the bodies lying on the ground. These immediately began to move, writhing as if in agony, and uttering a mournful dismal sound, like very distant ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... too—but not so stoutly—that she did not believe it; but in her heart she felt that it must be true. As for Thorbeorn, who had heard it all through the wall, whatever he may have thought, he was very indignant, and angry with her too. "Put such mummery out of your head. We are not Christians for nothing, I should hope. A scandalous hag with her bell-wether voice and airs of a great lady! What has she to do with good women, well brought up? A woman's duty is to leave match-making to her parents, and the future to God and His Angels. Who ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... be in some sort his cousin, since Kate, who was his cousin, also spoke of me as one. I told him nay, but that thou wert cousin only on my mother's side; but he laughed, and would not listen, and bid me fetch thee, that he might place thee well to see the mummery. So come with me, fair cousin, for we must ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... an expected verdict, influenced largely by what Etheredge had to say. I had given my testimony, but I could not make it sound as I wanted it—Alf's own words were against him, as I repeated them that day. The preliminary trial, the mummery before a justice of the peace, also went against Alf; the grand jury had brought in its finding, and the next step was the formal arraignment before the circuit judge. And I was now on my way to town to engage additional legal help, as the lawyer whom we had retained appeared to be luke-warm and ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... The mummery of it vexed Margaret. There was no excuse for his looking at her in that way. It irritated her. She was almost as angry with him for doing it as she would have been for not ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... thoughts, or greatest secret. [A Romish missionary must, with a very bad grace, blame the Jugglers, for what himself makes such a point of religion in his auricular confession. Even the appellation of Juggler is not amiss applicable to those of their craft, considering all their tricks and mummery not a whit superior to those of these poor savages, in the eyes of common-sense. Who does not know, that the low-burlesque word of Hocus-pocus, is an humorous corruption of their Hoc est corpus meum, by virtue of which, they make a God out of a vile wafer, and think it finely solved, by ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... thus—not as you mean it. I knew not what I said. But it will indeed change all things for me if you do but come. Then I shall have some one to speak with—some one with whom to laugh at their pitiful Court mummery, their fiasco of dignity. You are not like these other beggarly Scots, my Lord ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... history of the English drama, by the acts which he contributed to 'The Tragedie of Tancred and Gismunda, compiled by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple, and by them presented before her majestie;' and he was one of the chief actors in that ponderous and extravagant mummery with which the Inner Temple kept Christmas in the ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... yielding to untruth of heart. Self and false ambition had now become his god: self-deception once yielded to, all other deceptions follow naturally, more and more. What a paltry patch-work of theatrical paper-mantles, tinsel and mummery, had this man wrapped his own reality in, thinking to make it more real thereby! His hollow Pope's-Concordat, pretending to be a reestablishment of Catholicism, felt by himself to be the method of extirpating it, 'la vaccine de ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... stones, or passionately kissing the spots which their traditions have consecrated as the authentic places of the Saviour's sufferings. More honest or more civilised, or from opposition, the Latin fathers have long given up and disowned the disgusting mummery of the Eastern Fire—which lie the Greeks continue annually ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the prince with marked disrespect; and the latter likewise taxed him with the design of converting the monarchy into a republic, with a regent, annually elected, nominally at its head. Against the regency bill he burst into a paroxysm of rage. He exclaimed, "It is a mere mummery, a piece of masquerade buffoonery, formed to burlesque every species of government. A hideous spectre, to which, with Macbeth, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... a skeleton, blackened by age; a necklace of teeth from some animal's jaw; worthless trifles for the mummery of the priests. Then, beneath them, he saw two great fangs, a foot in length. They were curved, sharply pointed and yellow as ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... his eye there was but one strait gate to the Celestial City, and that any wearing the furbelows of Rome should ever enter thereat could only come of God's exceeding mercy; for himself, it must always be a duty to cry aloud to such to strip themselves clean of their mummery, and do works "meet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... yourselves seemingly with what might be a harmless mummery, were it not for the weapons in your hands," he began, in a firm tone; "put them down, and let me hear what ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston
... steel-filing number one! what heart-drawings I feel to thee! what prodigious virtues are these of thine! how constitutional to thee, and incommunicable.' Whilst we speak the loadstone is withdrawn; down falls our filing in a heap with the rest, and we continue our mummery to the wretched shaving. Let us go for universals; for the magnetism, not for the needles. Human life and its persons are poor empirical pretensions. A personal influence is an ignis fatuus. If they say it is great, it is great; if they ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... unpleasant and toilsome necessity for delving on speculation for the discovery of their desired object. But, alas, divining rods, like dogs, have had their day. The want of faith in the operators, or the growth of a new and obstinate assortment of hazel twigs, threw discredit on the mummery and the mummers. Still the passion existed; and in no case was it more observable than in that of the celebrated witch-finder. An actual presence at the demoniacal rites of the broom-riding sisterhood would have been attended with much danger and considerable difficulty; indeed, it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... I hope, it is clear that the flimsy argument of this prattler fails utterly, and, together with everything he constructs upon it, is found to be without any basis whatever. But that he may the better understand his own mummery, even in case I should grant that a process of reasoning might be entirely valid without the Scriptures, I will show that neither of his arguments is valid, neither the first, A, nor ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... Lent. The first day of Lent we had coffee without milk for breakfast; vinegar and vegetables, with a very little salt fish, for dinner; and bread for supper. The Carnival was nothing but masking and mummery. M. Heger took me and one of the pupils into the town to see the masks. It was animating to see the immense crowds, and the general gaiety, but the masks were nothing. I have been twice to the D.'s" ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... elements. Yet, damme, but you possess rare advantage over the rest of us in holding converse with these people, while I must remain dumb as an oyster, save for a glance of the eye. Perhaps, now that we have time for it, you will kindly explain the meaning of all this mummery with which we passed the night, for, by all the gods of Rome, it was weird enough to turn my hair gray, yet I understood neither word nor deed. How came that grim preacher to attain such honor, taking position beside their ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... The Herr was annoyed, as I have never seen him; and I too was angry, the more because what he said had some truth, but it was not, you understand, the moment to say it. After this we had no great trouble until we had passed the place where Herr Mummery turned back. About thirty metres from the summit we came to a bit requiring caution; a small couloir filled with good ice but at a slope—so!" Here Christian held his open hand aslant, but Mr. Frank did not lift his eyes. "They ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... find this profane mummery going on instead of the holy services to which Christina had looked forward for strength and comfort; she was far too well instructed not to be scandalized at the profane deception which was ripening fast for Luther, only thirty years later; and, when the stone was held up by the ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Mere mummery, a laugh to raise! Pray don't be so fastidious! She But as a leech, her hocus-pocus plays, That well with you her potion may agree. (He compels ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... And the lovesick girl, whose heated brain Is sowing the cloud to reap the rain; But it's a long road that has no turn! Let them quietly hold their way, I have also a part in the play. But first I must act to my heart's content This mummery and this merriment, And drive this motley flock of sheep Into the fold, where drink and sleep The jolly old friars of Benevent. Of a truth, it often provokes me to laugh To see these beggars hobble along, Lamed and maimed, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... mummery, flummery and vulgar waste of wealth than characterized even the late Marlborough- Vanderbilt wedding, Nicholas Two-Eyes was crowned Emperor of the rag-tag and bob-tail of creation, officially known as "all the Russias." Nick has a nice easy job at a salary considerably in excess of ye average ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... comical words of encouragement, the "consolation lavishly poured forth" in prize-book phrases by voices suggestive of young roosters with the influenza, called forth emotional blessings, the whining, sickening mummery of a church porch after vespers. And as soon as the young visitors' backs were turned, what an explosion of laughter and shouting in the garret, what a dancing around the offerings brought, what an overturning of armchairs in which they have been feigning ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... popery! strong as harts-horn! Your papists keep these outlandish hours for their masses and mummery. Surely we might let God alone at twelve o'clock! ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... streets, with groups about them in such old-fashioned garbs, that they looked like the fantastic figures that roam the streets in carnival time. Even the stately dames who gazed from the balconies, which they had hung with antique tapestry, looked more like effigies dressed up for a quaint mummery, than like ladies in their fashionable attire. Every thing, in short, bore the stamp of former ages, as if the world had suddenly rolled back a few centuries. Nor was this to be wondered at. Had not the Island of the Seven Cities been for several hundred ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... and quiv'ring fears, Anxious sighs, untimely tears, Fly, fly to courts, Fly to fond worldling's sports; Where strain'd sardonic smiles are glozing still, And Grief is forced to laugh against her will; Where mirth's but mummery, And sorrows ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... they make this mummery? Would not a brave man gladly die For a much smaller thing Than to be Christ ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... Dutch have carried the art of carving in wood to a most extraordinary pitch of perfection. I am surprised it has not been more spoken of; some of their pulpits are really quite marvellous. Religion increases and, I think, improves. There is less mummery here than at Aix and some other places I have lately seen, with the exception of a few little Saviours in powdered wigs and gilt satin and muslin frocks, and a very singular figure as large as life, supposed to represent the deposition in ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... a world of gnomes and hob-goblins, of ghouls and of laughing angels. The realist of the Thackeray School finds nothing but monstrous exaggeration here—and fantastic mummery. If he were right, par-dieu! If his sleek "reality" were all that there was—"alarum!" We were indeed "betrayed"! But no; the children are right. Dickens is right. Neither "realist" or "psychologist" hits the mark, when it comes to the true diablerie of living people. There is something ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... nothing that a man had been compelled to make all those ridiculous declarations? Children to be brought up Catholics! Wife not to be influenced! Even to keep an open mind himself to all the muss and mummery of the Church! ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... you mean, sir; but I thought he was a writer of stage plays, and such things as on all sides I hear called foolish, and mummery.' ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... protector, he who must be shielded from importunities and given his drops or his beef-juice though the skies were falling. The routine of the sick-room bewildered her; this punctual administering of medicine seemed as idle as some uncomprehended religious mummery. ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... affairs straight. He left everything in perfect order, but not a line to a soul, not even to his sister. The following day he set out alone about three in the morning for the Grepon. He took the road up the Nantillons glacier to the Col, and then he must have climbed the Mummery crack by himself. After that he left the ordinary route and tried a new traverse across the Mer de Glace face. Somewhere near the top he fell, and next day a party going to the Dent du Requin found him on the rocks thousands of ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... "It is no mummery, worthy Issachar, but a ceremony of public sacrifice, which is to be offered in the temple yonder, for the recovery from her sickness of the Lady ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... felt the freedom of the action as an intrusion on his fallen condition, pulled back his hand, and bid the minstrel, with as stern frown, arise, and remember that misfortune made not De Lacy a fit personage for a mummery. ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... a curious scene, a cosmopolitan confusion of Egypt, Rome, Isis, table-turning, the late Mr. Home, religion, and mummery, while Christian hymns of the early Church were being sung, perhaps in the garrets around, outside the Temple of Isis. The discovery that he had a god for his guardian angel gave Plotinus plenty of confidence in dealing ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... uncle's body-servant who told me all this; Herdegen when he came home answered none of my questions. He would not grant my prayer that he should show himself to Ann in his knight's harness, and said somewhat roughly that she loved not such mummery. Thus it was not hard to guess what was in his mind; but how came it to pass that this old man, whose princely wife had wrought ruin to his peace and happiness, could so diligently labor to lead him he best loved on earth into the like evil course? And among many ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and drolling, with an air of masquerading. Whether they may not likewise be used as a defence for the head against stones, for which, they seem best designed; or in some of their public games; or be merely intended for the purposes of mummery, we could never ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... daily his love had grown for these kindly, simple folk. And now, what would he not have given could he have stretched forth his hands, as did the Master, to heal them of their ills and lift them out of the shadows of ignorance! Ah, if he could have thrown aside the mummery and pagan ceremonialism which he was there to conduct, and have sat down among them, as Jesus was wont to do on those still mornings in Galilee! Instead, he stood before them an apostate vassal of Rome, hypocritically using ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... conjuration, and the devil, and all that.' The old woman, whose cue I found was to be dumb, opened a door at the top of a narrow staircase, and pointing to a tall figure, completely enveloped in fur, left us to our fate. I will not trouble you with a pompous description of all the mummery of the scene, my dear, as I despair of being able to frighten you out of your wits. I should have been downright angry with Harriot Freke for bringing me to such a place, but that I knew women of the first fashion ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... ended? Had we found her whom we sought, or were we, perchance, but enmeshed in the web of some marvellous mummery and about to make acquaintance with the secret of another new and mystical worship? For years and years we had searched, enduring every hardness of flesh and spirit that man can suffer, and now we were to ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... come to your help, but I knew you were amply able to take care of yourself. I was sure you would worst the duke in some way. It was better than a mummery, and I was glad to see it. ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... of feeling, knew not how to form itself into utterance at all, and preferred formless silence to any utterance there possible,—what should we say of a man coming forward to represent or utter it for you in the way of upholsterer-mummery? Such a man,—let him depart swiftly, if he love himself! You have lost your only son; are mute, struck down, without even tears: an importunate man importunately offers to celebrate Funeral Games for him in the manner of ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... high taper half hid behind the altar, with the crowds of figures assembled round the chapel moving about in the obscurity of the aisles and columns, produced the most striking effect I ever beheld. It was curious, interesting, and inspiring—little of mummery and much of solemnity. The night here brings out fresh beauties, but of the most majestic character. There is a colour in an Italian twilight that I have never seen in England, so soft, and beautiful, and grey, and the moon rises 'not as in northern climes obscurely bright,' ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... of the hangman blunted with mangling the ears of harmless men. Then our very minds were fettered, and the iron entered into our souls. Then we were compelled to hide our hatred, our sorrow, and our scorn, to laugh with hidden faces at the mummery of Laud, to curse under our breath the tyranny of Wentworth. Of old time it was well and nobly said, by one of our kings, that an Englishman ought to be as free as his thoughts. Our prince reversed the maxim; he strove ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... this was a mere masking or mummery," said Craigdallie, "our townsman, Harry of the Wind, did far wrong to cut off a gentleman's hand for such a harmless pleasantry, and the town may be brought to a heavy fine for it, unless we secure ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... Duke of Northumberland, was the first of the aristocracy in England who inveighed publicly against the superfluity of episcopal habits, the expense of vestments and surplices, and ended in denouncing altars and the 'mummery' of crucifixes, pictures and images ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... sports. Amongst the Germanic nations, from a very early period, popular amusements consisted in pantomimes, mummery with animal masks, horseplay by clowns, etc. The feast of Holda, or Berchta, during the first twelve days of January, was an especial period for those sports. From the sixth century there was also a pantomime of the ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... wrath. Alwyn's eyes grew dark with an infinite pain. His thoughts always fled back to his Dream of Al-Kyris, with a tendency to draw comparisons between the Past and the Present. The religion of that long-buried city had been mere mummery and splendid outward show, —what was the religion of ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... must be severe. I have tried gentle means. As your tutor, in whose charge you have been left by your father, I command you to give up all this silly mummery. You have something better to do than to waste time over such childish tricks. Go to your room, and stay there for a while before you come to mine with an apology. Quick! ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... husband with a newly furnished house and an ample income. My wife is ready to admit that purely from the point of view of common sense she would have preferred to have the child do almost anything peculiar rather than engage in her present mummery, because some people will consider her crazy; but, on the other hand, she maintains that the chances of losing her altogether are much less serious than if she had become a Toynbee Haller, for instance. "Mind you," said Josephine, "however much I might have fumed, I should really ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... no man can be assured of his sincerity, who does not pray. Prayer is faith passing into act; a union of the will and the intellect realizing in an intellectual act. It is the whole man that prays. Less than this is wishing, or lip-work; a charm or a mummery. 'Pray always', says the Apostle;—that is, have the habit of prayer, turning your thoughts into acts by connecting them with the idea of the redeeming God, and even so reconverting your ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... no longer a child living happily in his imagination but a human being and an artist who had entered upon a royal possession of her own. She had outstripped him. She had become an artist without loss of humanity. Henceforth she must deal with realities, leaving him to his painted mummery... She could understand his frenzy, his fury, ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... sister! Welcome, here! Away with all this mummery, but quick! Don't take my head off, too! How ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... don't suppose I should have let these lunatics out of their cells without good reason. I have the best and fullest reason. They can be let out of their cell today, because today the whole world has become their cell. I will have no more medieval mummery of chains and doors. Let them wander about the earth as they wandered about this garden, and I shall still be their easy master. Let them take the wings of the morning and abide in the uttermost parts of the sea—I am there. Whither shall they go from my presence and ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... addressing mankind from, as good as broken and abolished: alas, yes! if you have any earnest meaning which demands to be not only listened to, but believed and done, you cannot (at least I cannot) utter it there, but the sound sticks in my throat, as when a solemnity were felt to have become a mummery; and so one leaves the pasteboard coulisses, and three unities, and Blair's Lectures, quite behind; and feels only that there is nothing sacred, then, but the Speech of Man to believing Men! This, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... "Cease that mummery," roared the Baron, "and read without more waiting or the rod's upon thy back again. Who sends ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... cathedral. This mock dignity lasted till Innocents' day; and, during the intermediate time, the boy performed various episcopal functions. If it happened that he died before the allotted period of this extraordinary mummery had expired, he was buried with all the ceremonials which were used at the funerals of prelates. In the voluminous collections relating to antiquities, bequeathed by Mr. Cole, who was himself of Eton and King's colleges, to the British Museum, is ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... he. "Do you imagine that citizen Schneider has not thrown off the absurd mummery of priesthood? If you were a little older you would go to prison for calling him Father Schneider—many a man has died for less;" and he pointed to a picture of a guillotine, which ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in 1844 by secession from the Catholic Church of Germany, under the leadership of Johann Ronge, on account of the mummery under papal patronage connected with the exhibition of the Holy Coat of Treves and the superstitious ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... he said. "The Emperor is as easily diverted by shows as the Brocken by its clouds. Yet I think I can find a way to make him serve you. Be ready to-night with your puppets and put your own soul into the jesting and the mummery. That is the only thing for you to do. If that fails we will ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... a passage in an acute writer(39), whose talents singularly fitted him, even when he appeared totally immerged in mummery and trifles, to illustrate the most important truths, that is applicable to ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... burgomaster of Tergon, an old man redolent of wealth, came riding by while Gerard was preparing a meal of soup and bread by the roadside. He reined in his steed and spoke uneasily: "Why, Peter—Margaret—what mummery is this?" Then, seeing Gerard, he cast a look of suspicion on Margaret, and rode on. The wayfarers did not know that more than half the wealth of the burgomaster belonged to old Peter Brandt, now dependent on Gerard ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... form of that cross," said the oyster-man. "It is Spanish. Many a year ago, no doubt, some high-pooped galleon, running close to the coast, went ashore on Chincoteague and drifted piecemeal through the inlet, wider then than now. This mummery, this altar toy, destined for some Papist mission-house, has lain all these years in the brackish Sound. Ha! ha! That Issachar the Jew should raise a cross, and on the Christian's Christmas eve! But it is mine! My tongs, my vessel, ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... all this mummery the Australian women attach great sacredness to the very name of the turndun. They are much less instructed in their own theology than the men of the tribe. One woman believed she had heard Pundjel, the chief supernatural being, descend in a mighty rushing noise, that is, in the sound of the turndun, ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... probably there are few nurseries in those parts of England where "mumming" and the sword-dance still linger, in which the children do not play some version of St. George's exploits, a little of the dialogue goes a long way, and the mummery (which must almost be seen to be imitated) is the ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the idea of rules; they develop and complicate them greatly to excess. A man finds far more regulations and definitions in his club, where there are rules, than in his home, where there is a ruler. A deliberate assembly, the House of Commons, for instance, carries this mummery to the point of a methodical madness. The whole system is stiff with rigid unreason; like the Royal Court in Lewis Carroll. You would think the Speaker would speak; therefore he is mostly silent. You would think a man would ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... Kenilworth, at which latter place he died, December 23rd, 1875. He was buried in the family vault at Aston, the coffin being carried to the grave by six old students at the College, funeral scarfs, hatbands, and "other such pieces of mummery" being dispensed with, according to the deceased's wish. He left many charitable legacies, among them being L15,000, to be dealt with in the following manner:—L3,000 to be applied in building and endowing a church then in course of erection at Balsall Heath, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... levelled pikes, but at a motion from the Seigneur his men fell back before them, and, making a lane, disclosed Michel de la Foret at the end of it. Michel had not approved of Lempriere's mummery of defence, but he understood from what good spirit it sprung, and how it flattered the Seigneur's vanity ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and amuses himself with things of this sort. In old times there really was a hermit here, and this is his effigy. Come down these narrow stairs, if you please, and see the rest of the mummery." ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... the river. His back was no sooner turned, than Ferret, who had been peeping from behind the pantry-door, ventured to rejoin the company; pronouncing with a smile, or rather grin, of contempt, "Hey-day! what precious mummery is this? What, are we to have the farce of Hamlet's ghost?" "Adzooks," cried the captain, "My kinsman Tom has dropped astern—hope in God a-has not bulged to, and gone to bottom." "Pish," exclaimed the misanthrope, "there's no danger; the young ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... views, which, I confess, to be sustained in their main features by my own views and researches here on the ground and in the midst of the Indians, and men will rise to sustain the old views—the original literary mummery and philological hocus-pocus based on the papers and letters and blunders of Heckewelder. There was a great predisposition to admire and overrate everything relative to Indian history and language, as detailed by this good ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... swell'd, Thrust himself forward into power, and held The reins on principles which he alone, Grown drunk and wanton with success, could own; 200 Betray'd her interest and abused her trust; Then, deaf to prayers, forsook her in disgust; With tragic mummery, and most vile grimace, Rode through the city with a woful face, As in distress, a patriot out of place! Insults his generous prince, and in the day Of trouble skulks, because he cannot sway! In foreign climes embroils him with allies, And bids ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... answered yes. With this elaborate farce the ceremony ended and the people scattered, being first ordered to return on the following Sunday and share in the coronation festivities of the king whom they had thus elected against their will. The ostentatious mummery of these mock ceremonies would cause a smile but for the frightful tragedy with which they were to close. None but the blindest partisans could have felt anything else than aversion for this monster on whose head they were to place the crown. Even his own friends hated him, ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... quite right about it. You may think it pure laziness. Maybe it is, but I hardly think so. Perhaps I went back to lectures too soon after the war. I was hardly fit, I guess, and the whole thing, the inside life, the infernal grind of lectures, the idiotic serious mummery of the youngsters, those blessed kids who should have been spanked by their mothers—the whole thing sickened me in three months. If I had waited perhaps I might have done better at the thing. I don't know—hard to tell." The boy ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... said Thor sulkily, for he was ill pleased, and wore his maiden robes with no good grace. "It is fitting that you go; for I like not these lies and masking and I may spoil the mummery without you at ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... by this time beginning to feel very tired, as well as distinctly dissatisfied with himself for taking part in all this mummery, noticed vaguely that something out of the common was evidently toward, but he was too thoroughly distrait to even seek an explanation from Motahuana, and he watched, as in a dream, the long procession of priests file out of the building to the ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... parish, and the thought of the confessions he would have to hear on Saturday night and of the Mass he would have to say on Sunday was bitter indeed, for he had ceased to believe in these things. To say Mass, believing the Mass to be but a mummery, was detestable. To remain in his parish meant a constant degradation of himself. When a parishioner sent to ask him to attend a sick call, he could barely bring himself to anoint the dying man. Some way out of the dilemma must ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... deceased more than the wounded and diseased, he resolved with himself to promote his design, which was, to have masses said for the King, Queen, and himself, etc. while living, and for their souls when dead." And that mummery the old foolish rogue thought more efficacious than ointments and medicines for the wretches he had made! And of the chaplains and clerks he instituted in that dormitory, one was to teach grammars and another prick-song. How history makes one shudder ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... "Wilfrid Reginald and the Dark Horse," by James Mahoney, and "Mr. Downey Sits Down," by L.H. Robbins. For laughter the reader is recommended to each of these, the latter of which is reprinted in this volume. For humour plus a trifle more of excitement, "Mummery," by Thomas Beer, is included. Mr. Beer has succeeded in handling Mrs. Egg as Miss Addington manages Miss Titwiler, the "Cactus"; that is, as the equal of author and reader, but also—and still without condescension—as reason for twinkles ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... the most effectual chord in the great system which they modulated; some few, by a rare endowment of nature; others, as Napoleon Bonaparte, by elaborate mimicries of pantomimic art. [Footnote: In the true spirit of Parisian mummery, Bonaparte caused letters to be written from the War-office, in his own name, to particular soldiers of high military reputation in every brigade, (whose private history he had previously caused to be investigated,) alluding ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... cavalry from Fezzan to Bornou. Yet these tourists, surrounded with such protection, were actually circumcised at Tripoli by Dr. Dickson[72], and were accustomed to attend the mosques and perform prayer as Mussulmans. Colonel Warrington certainly told me the people saw through all the mummery, and laughed, or were angry. As to the Frenchman, Caillié, his eternal tale of fabrication, repeated every day, and every hour of the day, to every Sheikh, and every merchant, camel-driver, and slave of The Desert, produces a very painful impression on the mind ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... bacteria that cause specific diseases. This fact has rendered more intimate the relations between dentistry and the general practice of medicine, and has given a powerful impetus to scientific studies in dentistry. Through the researches of Sir J. Tomes, Mummery, Hopewell Smith, Williams and others in England, O. Hertwig, Weil and Rse in Germany, Andrews, Sudduth and Black in America, the minute anatomy and embryology of the dental tissues have been worked out with great fulness and precision. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... incessantly by some hidden hand, forced into playing parts they did not want to play, saying words they had no wish to speak, cutting antics for which they had no aptitude or liking. Cruelties lurked everywhere, waiting in the confused mummery. Reality was being left and with it the practical grasp of those powerful simplicities that alone can guide life through confusion. I felt this with stinging certainty. Everyone seemed playing a part, goaded with the urgency of seeking an escape ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... their names mentioned. They of the Guises reserved the chief of them, after dinner, to make sport for the ladies; the two sexes were ranged at the windows of the castle, as if it were a question of seeing some mummery played. And what is worse, the king and his young brothers were present at these spectacles, as if the desire were to 'blood' them; the sufferers were pointed out to them by the Cardinal of Lorraine with all the signs of a man greatly rejoiced, and when the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... were keyed to the highest pitch of hysterical excitement. They needed little to release the accumulated pressure of static nerve force which the terrorizing mummery of the ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... existence this unspeakable horror would lift its obscene form between them. Constance had never been so unhappy. Occasionally, when by herself, she would rebel for a brief moment, as one rebels in secret against a mummery which one is obliged to treat seriously. "After all," she would whisper, "suppose he HAS taken a few shillings out of the till! What then? What does it matter?" But these moods of moral insurrection against society and Mr. Povey were very transitory. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... morbid sensibilities pandered to; firmness in the cause of truth or virtue is called obstinacy; and strength of soul, a refractory blindness. The bases of morality are sapped in the name of liberty; the discipline of the Church, when not branded as sheer "mummery," is held up as hostile to personal freedom; and her dogmas, with one or two exceptions, are treated as opinions which may be received or rejected with ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... Mummery, who was killed by an avalanche in attempting the ascent of Nanga Parbat in the Himalayas, was probably the greatest climber of his day. He was the first, for example, to ascend that most formidable of the Chamonix Aiguilles, the Grepon, where the "Mummery Chimney" still commemorates ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... as I am, compared with you, I laughed heartily at all this mummery, and yet it was possibly wise, at this period of pulling down all law and order, all privilege and subordination, however frivolous was ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... was silent. Then the King found voice. "What does this mean?" he cried again. "How have this vagrant and his vile beasts found entrance to my palace? It is the hour for execution, not for mummery. Why is ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... forth by symbol of the very same truth which, stated in words, is the doctrine of His atoning death? This rite does not, indeed, explain the rationale of the doctrine; but it is a piece of unmeaning mummery, unless it preaches plainly the fact that Christ's death is the ground ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the curate to take the saint out, and that good priest—a fat, kindly, but rather shrewd fellow—always objected to what he called a bit of old-fashioned mummery. The truth was he looked forward with little pleasure to a tramp out in the rain at the head of a procession, trying to keep dry under an umbrella, with his soutane rolled up to his knees, and his shoes coming off at every step in the ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... induced Scott to write novels tending to make people Papists and Jacobites, and in love with arbitrary power? Did he think that Christianity was a gaudy mummery? He did not, he could not, for he had read the Bible; yet was he fond of gaudy mummeries, fond of talking about them. Did he believe that the Stuarts were a good family, and fit to govern a country like Britain? ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... those who imagine they are defying it. As in their Christian burials, following unwittingly the example of the hated Moors, they bear the corpse with uncovered face to the grave, and follow it with the funeral torch of the Romans, so the formula of the Church clings even to the mummery of the atheists. Not long ago in Madrid a man and woman who belonged to some fantastic order which rejected religion and law had a child born to them in the course of things, and determined that it should ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... amused by his mummery, but felt no great delight in his guardianship, and, after a short time, arose, with intention to walk to another place; but the black gentleman, adroitly moving round her, held out his wand to obstruct her passage, and therefore, ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney |
