"Barnum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was apparently a member of this species, although it was at one time regarded as a hybrid between a chimpanzee and a gorilla. These gorilla-like traits were still more pronounced in "Johanna," a female chimpanzee living in Barnum & Bailey's show in 1899, which has been described and figured by Dr A. Keith. The heavy ridges over the brow, originally supposed to be distinctive of the gorilla, are particularly well marked in "Johanna," and they would doubtless be still more noticeable in the male of the same race, which ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... and can talk," said he. "What's this thing about? It's been advertised like Barnum's museum; that poster of yours has set the Front talking. That's an objection in itself, for I'm laying a little dark just now; and, anyway, before I take the ship, I require to know what I'm ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... their flaky branches like snow, and the unfailing cocoa-nut rising out of banana groves, and clusters of gardenia smothering the red hibiscus. Here Hananui adopted a showman's air; he made me feel as if I were one of Barnum's placarded monsters. I had nothing to do but sit on my horse and be stared at. I felt that my bleached face was unpleasing, that my eyes and hair were faded, and that I had a great deal to answer for in the way of colour and attire. From ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... who is to be "it." This done, and a goal or home selected, "it" remains at the goal and counts up to one hundred as fast as he can, and this is usually so fast as to eclipse the lightning calculator whom Barnum charged an ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... the house-boat were gathered a merry party, some of whom were on mere pleasure bent, others of whom had come to listen to a debate, for which the entertainment committee had provided, between the venerable patriarch Noah and the late eminent showman P. T. Barnum. The question to be debated was upon the resolution passed by the committee, that "The Animals of the Antediluvian Period were Far More Attractive for Show Purposes than those of Modern Make," and, singular to relate, the affirmative was ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... Apache chief, a wampum belt, Indian knives and bows and arrows. He had made the acquaintance of Buffalo Bill, the famous hunter, and some Indian chief and cowboys in his troupe, men in whom natural instincts are combined with a Barnum and Bailey business sense, and real excellence with the actor's vanity. Willy's especial friend, whom he had been very eager for Frederick to meet, was a well-known acrobat who had jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge into the ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... but, strange to say, he didn't act during the entire evenin. I reckin he has left Niblo's, and gone over to Barnum's. ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... get anything you like here, from a fresh gutter-snipe to old Haroun-al-Raschid. It's the biggest jack-pot on earth. Barnum's the man for this place—P. T. Barnum. Golly, how the whole thing glitters and stews! Out of Shoobra his High Jinks Pasha kennels with his lions and lives with his cellars of gold, as if he was going to take them with him where he's going—and he's going fast. Here ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was a very human touch; and either Barnum's Circus or the byeways and hedges of Fairyland had sent their picked representatives with a dance seen usually only in shy moonlit glades. His master named them as the carriage rattled by. The Paris Express, of course, did not stop at little Bourcelles. ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... Broadway undoubtedly looked a little better— Barnum's streamers, "up town," floating out bravely over the heads of the "stage" drivers—but I was never able to overcome my first impressions of it and New York generally; and, to make an end of the matter, ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the expressive quality of a line made with pen in black ink on a piece of white paper. The appearance of The Parson and the Painter was one of the events of the Nineties—though it was not boomed into notoriety as were the performances of some other illustrators of the period as ingenious as Barnum in the art of advertisement—and there was not an artist who did not hail May as a master. But Hartrick and Sullivan went further. They were not only such good artists themselves that they could appreciate genius in others, they were young enough not to be afraid of their ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... possible removed from Havemeyer's humdrum existence was that of Phineas Taylor Barnum, the greatest showman the world has ever seen, the originator of the great travelling circus, the exploiter of Tom Thumb and Jenny Lind, the owner of Jumbo, the most famous elephant that ever lived, whose name has passed into the English language ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... your smiles—was a fat autobiography of P.T. Barnum, given me by a grateful farmer for saving the life of a valuable Jersey calf just as she was on the point of strangling herself. This book so inflamed a naturally ardent imagination, that I was with difficulty ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... is, then. Carrie, you are to be my housekeeper; these are my little girls;" clasping the children in a hearty embrace, "and see if we don't turn out a happier family than any Barnum ever exhibited." ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... the war, the Mississippi officer was in Baltimore at Barnum's Hotel. One day, he got into casual talk with a gentleman, at dinner, and, as he seemed to be a good fellow, they smoked their cigars together after dinner, and continued their conversation. By and by they got on the war. It came out, that both of them had served, and on opposite sides. ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... hungry slouch of boyhood into the stern and brooding adolescence, comes with the discovery of a controlling idea. Without any apparent cause, some illuminating purpose descends on the imagination, the future opens, and in the vision of a future Napoleon, a P. T. Barnum, a millionaire or a ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... instead of congratulation; but she was not the only conservative who fails to see a good cause and a heroic heart under a bloody nose and torn jacket. I resolved that if Billy was punished, he should have his recompense before long in an extra holiday at Barnum's ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... distinguish phenomena at their merging-points, so we look for them at their extremes. Impossible to distinguish between animal and vegetable in some infusoria—but hippopotamus and violet. For all practical purposes they're distinguishable enough. No one but a Barnum or a Bailey would send one a bunch of hippopotami as ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... condemned to four and three months' imprisonment. It is a pity that by the application of some such law, the disgustingly vulgar and brutalizing piece called The Drunkard, which has lately been played with "immense success" at Barnum's Theatre, (and in which the chief characters appear in all the stages of degradation until one of them is nearly dead with the delirium tremens), cannot be suppressed. With all its pretensions to morality, the play is irredeemably bad ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... an establishment to see a bearded woman and a water-dog. The woman was a man in disguise, and the dog was an ordinary dog, covered with a sealskin, and swimming in a bath. It was not in the least interesting, but the Barnum accompanied me to the exit very courteously, and, in addressing the people who were coming in, made an appeal to my testimony. 'Ask the gentleman if it is not worth seeing! Come in, come in! It only costs a franc!' And in my confusion I did not dare to answer that there ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... to these shores, he made the way to heaven so narrow that only a tight-rope performer could walk it. [Laughter.] Now, what with his Concord philosophies, transcendentalisms, and every heresy, he has made it so wide that you could drive all Barnum's elephants abreast upon it and through the strait gate. He compels us to send our sons to his colleges for his nasal note. He is communicating his dyspepsia to the whole country by means of codfish-balls and baked ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... chroniclers grow cynical. The answer is simple. They feel that they are persistently "jollied" along, and they assuredly are. It was so in the case of the Berkeley Lyceum plan that fell through simply because money failed to pour into the box office, and M. Antoine, of Paris, lacked the vitality of Barnum & Bailey's circus! It was so last year when Mr. Sydney Rosenfeld tried to "elevate" the stage with the Century Players. This is an age of get-rich-quickly, and there is no other object. Actors talk of art, and of unconventionality; they inveigh against commercialism and pose most picturesquely. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... and a Concordance, Shakespeare and Mrs. Cowden Clarke's book, and other classical works and books of grave aspect. I contrived to give it a turn, and on the side next the wall I got a glimpse of Barnum's Rhyming Dictionary, and several Dictionaries of Quotations and cheap compends of knowledge. Always twirl one of those revolving book-cases when you visit a scholar's library. That is the way to find out what books he does n't want you to see, which ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... hergan hefaenricaes uard, metud{ae}s maecti end his modgidanc, uerc uuldurfadur; sue he uundra gihuaes, eci Dryctin, or astelid{ae}. He aerist scop aelda barnum heben til hrofe, haleg scepen[d]. Tha middungeard moncynn{ae}s uard, eci Dryctin, {ae}fter tiad{ae} ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... of interest in our visit to Colorado Springs, was the presence of the great "Man of the Period," over whom the stupendous heart of Barnum throbbed with exultant pride, and scientists waxed wondering and eloquent. This august personage, who was no other than the since sensational "Stone Man of Colorado," was lying in state, in all the majesty of his marbleized grandeur, and was the magnet ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... had made $1,000,000 as an auctioneer; William L. Coggeswell had made half as much as a wine importer; Japhet Bishop had rounded out an honest $600,000 from the profits of a hardware store; while Phineas T. Barnum ranks high in the list by virtue of $800,000 accumulated in a business which it is hardly necessary to specify. Indeed his name and that of the great landlords are almost the only ones in this list that have descended to posterity. Yet they were the Rockefellers, ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... smelt a orful smell, surgestiv of a straw hat revivin shop, wen they burn sulfir and brimstone, I looked down and behold, I seen a cort room, with a lot of lawyers and clurks sittin round a table, and the judge in a pulpit wot over looked them. The peepel all looked like Barnum's skellyton man, ony they didnt have no skin over there bones, and there eyes was maid of fire balls and eech of em had a long tail, like a snake. Purty soon the judge sed the court was open for bisness, and the sargent at arms brot in a feller all dressed ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... Baronne's maid and Agnes to try and find the landlord; but, after exploring untold depths below and above, they only succeeded in unearthing Hippolyte. He came up from his bed looking just like that very clever Missing Link that was at Barnum's, do you remember?—the one that sometimes was an Irishwoman, and could do housework in a cage by itself. I don't know exactly what Hippolyte had on, but it ended up with a petticoat of red and black ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... old is the world? How many individuals is Mrs. BRIGHAM YOUNG? What becomes of the Fenian money? When will Cuba be free? we would willingly answer, but our correspondent cannot expect us to solve problems which are as old as BARNUM said JOYCE HETH was. He should be able to see such things as others see them. They are the unwritten law, and PUNCHINELLO does ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... remained to him of its many attractions, and he was trying to make a living for both in a country where the admission to a circus was six of our cents, with fifty for a reserved seat. But he was about to give it up and come to America, where he said Barnum had offered him an engagement. I hope he found it profitable, and is long since an American citizen, with as good right as any of us to wear a Prince Albert ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... shrines in the world, was hundreds of miles away back of anywhere. Those are the ruins, solitary, unseen, unchanging through the centuries, which appeal to one's imagination. But when I present a check at the door, and go in as if it were Barnum's show, all the subtle feeling of romance ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... little over-specialised. In merely travelling from circus to circus he would, so to speak, move in rather narrow circles. Jumbo the great elephant (with whom I am hardly so ambitious as to compare myself), before he eventually went to the Barnum show, passed a considerable and I trust happy part of his life in Regent's Park. But if he had written a book on England, founded on his impressions of the Zoo, it might have been a little disproportionate and even misleading in its version of the flora and fauna of that country. He might imagine ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... "Barnum's Baby-Show, on four wheels, in charge of the great showman himself, aided by that experienced nurse, Mrs. Gamp, in somewhat dilapidated attire, followed. The babies, from a span long to an indefinite length, of all shapes and sizes, black, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... have been among the monkeys, from time to time, certain Asiatic Yankees, who did a lively business in the manufacture of an article which would, no doubt, have found a ready purchaser at Barnum's Museum. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... call that gentle admonition? Why, uncle, you are enough to frighten most people to death with your fury. You are a perfect dragon! a griffin! a Russian bear! a Bengal tiger! a Numidian lion! You're all Barnum's beasts in one! I declare, if I don't write and ask him to send a party down here to catch you for his museum! ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... after to-morrow at nine sharp. You see he'd a fortune left him, but he run straight through it buying the goldarndest things you ever heerd tell on—calves with six legs, dogs with three eyes or two tails, steers that could be druv most as well as hosses (Barnum he got hold o' 'em and tuk 'em round with his show); all sorts o' curious fowl and every outlandish critter he could lay his hands on. 'T stands to reason he couldn't run that rig many years. Your goin's on here made me think o' Mason. He cut a wide ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... form, with a wandering air, A collar Byronic, and very long hair. 'Twas whispered about—'He's a genius and poet; And as for myself, I was happy to know it, For a package of genuine mental precocity Is certainly always a great curiosity, And worthy the cost and the toil of a visit— Like Barnum's astonishing creature—'What is it?' (A good advertisement for Phineas, that is, And kind of the author to put it in gratis: I hope he'll observe my benign disposition, And send for the season ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... their professions. Brandreth sent me samples of his pills, which he said were unequaled for purging politicians of all those ill humors they were heirs to. And both (moved by Brown, no doubt) sent me invitations to parties given in honor of me at their princely mansions on the Fifth Avenue. Barnum, too, considering me a remarkable curiosity, sent two tickets to his great show house, which the vulgar called a museum. And the Misses Whalebone & Gossamer sent to say that their assortment of baby clothes ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... scarcely wait. I stopped in front of St. Paul's Church, gaping up at a twenty-six story building opposite; a monstrous shaft with a gouge out of its south side as if lightning had rived off a sliver. I went over to it and saw that I had come to Ann Street, where Barnum's museum used to stand. The Post Office, the City Hall, the restaurant where I ate breakfast, studying upon the wall the bible texts and signs bidding me watch my hat and overcoat; the Tribune building, just as it looks on the almanac cover—all these made an ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... Hippodrome on the Fifth Avenue Hotel site had become a memory, but far downtown Barnum's Museum was flourishing, with the doors open from sunrise till ten at night. Early visitors from the country inspected the gallery of curiosities before sitting down to breakfast. The great showman was living in ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... many a riot and public disturbance during those stirring times. It was occupied as a dwelling house from the close of the Revolution until 1830, when it was converted into a Museum by John Scudder. In 1840 Phineas T. Barnum became the owner of the building and Museum. After the destruction of the Museum by fire in 1864, Mr. James Gordon Bennett purchased the site, and erected upon it the magnificent office of ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... in New York habitually characterized him as "that hideous baboon at the other end of the avenue," and declared that "Barnum should buy and exhibit him ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... the perusal of Marshall's "Life of Washington," which I had laid by in the fall. Lieutenants Barnum and Bicker and Mr. Johnston came to ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... it, don't permit this true and secret history of its origin to mar your bliss—and when you read about a gigantic Petrified man being dug up near Syracuse, in the State of New York, or near any other place, keep your own counsel—and if the Barnum that buried him there offers to sell to you at an enormous sum, don't you buy. Send him ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... dogs, cats—with now and then a country horse or mule, hitched to the town rack—with these, and a small vial of Gypsy Juice, Archie B., as he expressed it, "had mo' fun to the square inch than ole Barnum's show ever ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... at eleven o'clock in the morning! We talked music. She hated Verdi and all he had made, she hated Rossini and all he had made; she hated the French; she hated the Americans; she abhorred the very name of Barnum, who, she said, "exhibited me just as he did the big giant or ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... Tom Sayers, Tod Sloan, Spinoza, and Barnum, and Mrs. Chapone; For a bloke that has only just got his discharge, She's rather too dazzling ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... Carterson, and Cherub Challoner, not having given their brawn to the subduing of Butch, now kindly donated their brain, in all manner of weird suggestions. According to their various surmises, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., had lured the Strong Man away from Barnum and Bailey's Circus, had in some way reincarnated the mythical Norse god, Thor, had hired some Greco-Roman wrestler, or by other devices too numerous and ridiculous to mention, had produced a full-back according to Coach Corridan's blue-prints ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... time when the old projecting angular sign-board told all who approached "The immortal Shakespeare was born in this House." How near the old house came to sharing the fortunes of Jumbo under the management of our enterprising countryman, Mr. Barnum, I am not sure; but that he would have "traded" for it, if the proprietors had been willing, I do not doubt, any more than I doubt that he would make an offer for the Tower of London, if that venerable structure were ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... his triumph Michel Ardan could not escape any of the annoyances incidental to a celebrated man. Managers of entertainments wished to exhibit him. Barnum offered him a million dollars to show him as a curious animal in the different ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne |
