"Farce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... inadvertently selected as the frontispiece. It appears," Timbs continues, "that the landlady and her daughter were the reigning toast of the Templars, who then frequented Dick's; and took the matter up so strongly that they united to condemn the farce on the night of its production; they succeeded, and even extended their resentment to everything suspected to be this author's (the Rev. James Miller) for ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... generous hearts, regardless of party differences, rallied round Garibaldi, who drove back the French from Porta Pancrazia, April 29 and 30, 1849, defeated the Neapolitans in that campaign of Velletri, which was like the farce contrasting with the tragic drama soon to be acted at Rome, and withstood a three months' siege, in which many of the noblest champions of the Italian cause lavished their lives in a hopeless, yet, as it proved, not ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... through what at first had seemed to me to be a solemn farce, but which I began to see was quite important. Sometimes she would repeat the answer exactly as before. At other times a new word would occur to her. Kennedy was keen to note all the differences in the ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... uncomfortable, and almost tearful. She began to feel that she did not like life particularly well; it was too complicated: she saw nothing of the scene, and only longed to get away, and to get Bob away with her. At last the curtain fell on the final act, and then began the farce of 'No Song no Supper.' Matilda did not appear in this piece, and Anne again inquired if they should go home. This time Bob agreed, and taking her under his care with redoubled affection, to make up for the species of coma which had seized upon his heart for a time, he quietly accompanied ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... recall the fact that the late farce of this name, adapted from L'Hotel du Libre Echange, ran for five hundred nights before it expired. Some restorative music has now been applied to it and the corpse has revived. Indeed there are the usual signs ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... it was true. Afterward I was sure. I had entered into your life in a moment of frivolous recklessness, but you had entered into mine with another purpose, and I could not rid myself of you. Your hold upon me was strong. It grew stronger, do what I would, and the farce became deadly earnest." ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... a curious scene, and, under other circumstances, might have amused me. There was something irresistibly comic in the puzzled looks of the actors; but I had been too deeply affected by the tragedy to laugh at the farce. There was too much of horror around me. Seguin perhaps dead; she gone for ever, the slave of the brutal savage. My own peril, too, at the moment; for I knew not how soon I might be discovered and dragged forth. This affected me least ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... Had I not felt the weight of the world on my shoulders, I believe my sense of humor would have caused me to laugh outright; for the signing of such an agreement by one so situated was, even to my mind, a farce. After much coaxing I was induced to go so far as to take the pen in my hand. There I again hesitated. The supervisor apparently thought I might write with more ease if the paper were placed on a book. And so I might, had he selected a book of a different title. One more likely to arouse ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... has fallen. They always want a sixth act, and as soon as the interest of the play is entirely over they propose to continue it. If they were allowed their own way, every comedy would have a tragic ending, and every tragedy would culminate in a farce. They are charmingly artificial, but they have no sense of art. You are more fortunate than I am. I assure you, Dorian, that not one of the women I have known would have done for me what Sibyl Vane did for you. Ordinary women always console themselves. Some of them do ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... stood between the public and the prisoners, and a row of sentinels guarded these gates; but if one was enterprising and eager to see, one could glue one's nose against the ironwork and watch the ci-devant aristocrats in threadbare clothes trying to cheat their horror of death by acting a farce of light-heartedness which their wan faces and tear-dimmed eyes ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... 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 time. They are a medley of crude equivocalities, of the ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... behind the Fokker, the Nieuport, and I, last of all, behind the Nieuport. We exchanged shots merrily. Finally the Fokker let the Caudron go, and the Nieuport stopped chasing the Fokker. I fired my last shots at the Nieuport and went home. The whole farce lasted over an hour. We had worked hard, but without visible success. At least, the Fokker (who turned out to be Althaus) and I had dominated ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... they sail from shore to shore are like giant theaters. Every trip is an impromptu drama where comedy, farce, and often startling tragedy offer large speaking parts. The revelation of human nature in the original package is funny and pathetic. Amusement is always on tap and life stories are just hanging out of the port-hole waiting ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... formerly thought that pupils knew history adequately when they could rattle off a list of dates and tell something of the deeds and misdeeds of a set of unhappy persons who masqueraded as statesmen and courtiers. Such unedifying farce has nothing to do with history, which is a serious, instructive, and all-embracing study. The social life of the great mass of a nation is far more important and interesting than the eccentric deeds of a few high-placed rogues or saints. The old school-history was, unfortunately, ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... Gazette had actually perpetrated the folly of publishing side by side Imperial Edicts and Presidential Mandates —the first for Chinese eyes, the second for foreign consumption. Never before even in China had such a farce been seen. A rapid perusal of the Mandate of Cancellation will show how lamely and poorly the ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... a dull repertoire after all, for whether the piece be melodrama, farce, genteel comedy, or harrowing tragedy, it has to be played by ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... The farce was continued for some time longer, Bonaparte playing his part with singular ability. He sent to Kellermann, in Savoy, without the form of transmitting it through government channels, a subsidy of one million ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... of the morning was killed by what might be called an incident or a disaster or a farce—just as you look at it. First of all, right after breakfast I had the proof that I was right about the Germans. Evidently well informed of the movements of the English, they rode boldly into the open. Luckily they seemed disinclined to do any mischief. Perhaps the place looked too humble ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... fist, with a loud report, into the palm of his left hand. I burst into a shout of laughter at the comicality of Tom's melancholy face, and the smacking of his lips, as he called to mind the acidity of the wine; and R——, judge as he was, could not resist the farce. ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... rogue who had swaggered in Fools' hall, and made a farce of the affairs of the nation? His countenance seemed that of a courtier rather than a low-born scape-grace; his bearing in consonance, as, approaching the princess, he knelt near the edge of her sweeping crimson garment. Quietly the maid withdrew to a corner of the apartment where ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... a sick priest there. He should have no opportunity to prevaricate if I once challenged him. Now, he might have the effrontery to deny what I had seen with my own eyes, and could swear to. By lying in wait for him again, and accosting him whilst he was in the very act of perpetrating his solemn farce, I should deprive him of all power of evasion and escape. And so ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... of the newspapers were so friendly. Some labeled the gathering "a Tomfoolery convention" of "Aunt Nancy men and brawling women"; others called it "the farce at Syracuse,"[37] but for Susan it marked a milestone. Never before had she heard so many earnest, intelligent women plead so convincingly for property rights, civil rights, and the ballot. Never before had she seen so clearly that in a republic women ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... a tea-room in the outskirts army officers ate at a neighboring table. Later, it is likely, they were in the retreat from Mons: for the expeditionary force crossed the channel within a week. Yet so does farce march along with tragedy that our chief concern in Rochester was the old inn ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... colony turned into outlaws, as 'an act of executive authority.' The Imperial Government did I believe—what was perhaps the wisest thing it could do—nothing. Imperial supremacy in the colonies was, as regards the protection of unpopular individuals, admitted to be a farce. What, however, rendered the three travellers unpopular? They were Irish informers who had aided, unless I am mistaken, in the conviction of the Phoenix Park murderers. Let us now in imagination conceive our new constitution ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... are a farce," said Tom; "I've done all the books over and over again. They don't take me an hour a ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... pretend allegiance to the king any longer was a farce. Congress, therefore, appointed Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to write a declaration of independence, and on July 2, 1776, resolved: "That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... Transatlantic humour should be interpreted exclusively by a native cast, and that an Anglo-American alliance is a mistake. I trust President WILSON'S recent policy will not be affected by this view. Certainly, though the combination was responsible for the noisiest fun of the farce, the purely American performance of Miss MARGARET MOFFATT at the opening of the First Act was as good as anything in the play. But happily this is not one of those imported creations that overwhelm my uninstructed intelligence with exotic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... 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 Madeline's plain delaine; then, as it was not very interesting for ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... or a toy, to be kept in a luxurious cage. To soil her pretty hands would be disgraceful! Even f she can't afford a maid, the modern devices of science make the care of her four-room apartment a farce. Electric dish-washer, clothes-washer, vacuum-cleaner, and the near-by delicatessen and the caterer simply rob a young wife of her housewifely heritage. If she has a baby—which happens occasionally, Carley, in spite of your assertion—it very soon goes to the ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... 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
... old as his rider, who has ridden him time out of mind, and is, indeed, the only one that can do any thing with him. Sometimes, however, they have a complete quarrel, and a dispute for mastery, and then, I am told, it is as good as a farce to see the heat they both get into, and the wrong-headed contest that ensues; for they are quite knowing in each other's ways, and in the art of teasing and fretting each other. Notwithstanding these doughty brawls, however, there is nothing that nettles old Christy ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... such is not the case. Our wives and our daughters, our sisters and our mothers, are subjected to the same insults and to the same uncivilized treatment. You may ask why we do not institute civil suits in the State courts. What a farce! Talk about instituting a civil-rights suit in the State courts of Kentucky, for instance, where decision of the judge is virtually rendered before he enters the court-house, and the verdict of the jury substantially rendered before it is impaneled. The only moments of my life when ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... saying that as a military or naval factor the United States might be considered as less than nothing. This was the situation when the last Sussex Note of America brought matters to a crisis, and even the crisis itself was considered a farce as it had been simmering for so long ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... 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
... effect of this transfer of power to ignorant, reckless men would be felt at the polls in New York City, where this class was in the greatest number. The elections here soon became a farce, and the boasted glory of a free ballot-box a taunt and a by-word. That gross corruption and villany practised here should eventually result in the open violation of law, as it did in the charter ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... is a gigantic farce of the most ingenious construction. The whole comedy hinges on a huge joke, played by a heartless nephew on his misanthropic uncle, who is induced to take to himself a wife, young, fair, and warranted silent, but who, in the end, turns out neither silent nor a woman at all. In ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... and ran a locomotive; also a freight train conductor and check clerk in a freight house; worked on the section; have been a shot gun messenger for the Wells, Fargo Company. Have been with a circus, minstrels, farce comedy, burlesque and dramatic productions; have been with good shows, bad shows, medicine shows, and worse, and some shows where we had landlords singing in the chorus. Have played variety houses and vaudeville houses; have slept in a box car one night, and a swell hotel the next; have been a ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... was merrily pursuing its three years' course through Parliament—passed by the House of Commons and rejected by the House of Lords after the usual farce and formality of debates which had very little reality in them. What counted was that Ulster was in arms and determined to resist and that "the Home Rule Government" had proved themselves incapable either of conceding or of resisting. Other things began to count also in Ireland. The young ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... of the order of Seraphins, the head and front of all, Easas, Celcus, Acaos, Cedon, Asmodeus, of the order of Thrones, Alez, Zabulon, Nephtalim, Cham, Uriel, Achas, of the order of Principalities! In the following April he was brought back to Loudun, and consigned to the prison there. The farce of exorcism was now recommenced; but the fatigue of sustaining the parts they had assumed, and perhaps a conviction of the fearful nature of the deceptions they had practised, caused some of the actors in this drama to rebel, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... a frog liv'd in a well, And a farce[2] mouse in a mill; Cock me cary, Kitty alone, Kitty ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown
... Church of England, as perhaps they may still call themselves, Methodist, or Presbyterian, presume to grumble, and there shall be bruising of lips in pulpits, tying up to whipping-posts, cutting off ears and noses—he! he! the farce of King Log has been acted long enough; the time for Queen Stork's tragedy is drawing nigh'; and the man in black sipped his gin and water in a very ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... was a farce, or rather play, in three acts, called "Jupiter," written in imitation of the burletta of Midas, whose popularity seems to have tempted into its wake a number of these musical parodies upon heathen fable. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... rather too serious a turn for the taste of any of the three,—Festus, Agrippa, or Bernice. If this strange man was going to shake their consciences in that fashion, it was high time to end what was, after all, as far as the rendering of justice was concerned, something like a farce. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... edge or the swords drawn, mutual friends took the case out of the hands of the seconds and declared an adjustment. The terms of the fight as written by Mr. Lincoln show plainly enough that in his judgment it was to be treated as a farce, and would never proceed beyond "preliminaries." There, of course, ensued the usual very bellicose after-discussion in the newspapers, with additional challenges between the seconds about the proper etiquette of such farces, all resulting only in the shedding of much ink and furnishing Springfield ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... nature; for though by act of parliament he cancelled the former act that had deprived her, as against all reason, conscience, and course of nature, and contrary to the laws of God and man,(57) and restored her possessions to her, this was but a farce, and like his wonted hypocrisy; for the very same year he obliged her to convey the whole estate to him, leaving her nothing but the manor of Sutton for her maintenance. Richard had married her daughter; but ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... all was a mere farce together, and the people were always stringing together lampoons in rhyme, and singing them in the streets. One still rings in my head, about a dissolute impoverished Marquis d'Elbeuf, one of the house of Lorraine, whom ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and misfortune to us all. The Emperor will interfere, for this is going too far. We must hinder this farcical ceremony; his Highness cannot marry two wives! It will be Moempelgard over again! Think how absurd, Graevenitz! Cannot you see that this farce is bigamy?' ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... that I—a noble gentleman of ancient family, Semyon Matveitch Koltovsky—would ever give my consent to such a marriage? Or did you mean to dispense with the parental blessing?... Did you mean to run away, get married in secret, and then come back, go through a nice little farce, throw yourself at my feet, in the hope that the old man will be touched.... Answer me, ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... several puppet emperors were set up by the different leaders of the invading tribes. A final seditious movement placed upon the shadow-throne a child of six years, named Romulus Augustus. Chiefly because of the imperial farce he was forced to play, this child-emperor became known as Augustulus, "the little Augustus." He had reigned only a year, when Odoacer, the leader of a tribe of German mercenaries, dethroned him, and abolishing the title of emperor, took upon ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... rustlers and outlaws. And what struck Duane strangest of all was the fact that Longstreth was mayor here and held court daily. Duane knew intuitively, before a chance remark gave him proof, that this court was a sham, a farce. And he wondered if it were not a blind. This wonder of his was equivalent to suspicion of Colonel Longstreth, and Duane reproached himself. Then he realized that the reproach was because of the daughter. Inquiry had brought him the fact that Ray Longstreth had just come to live ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... only reasonable thing to do. Our present mode of life is a farce. We are drifting farther apart every day. Perhaps I have changed. I know you have. We are two strangers chained together. We have made a muddle of it, and the best thing we can do is to ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... half-dressed, yawning and stretching, with haggard eyes, as if he scarcely recollected what had passed the preceding evening. He fixed his eyes on me for a moment, then, calling me a fool, asked 'How long I intended to continue this pretty farce? For his part, he was devilish sick of it; but this was the plague of marrying women who pretended to ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... and deeper." Mr. Tilley showed the great advantages which would accrue to New Brunswick eventually in consequence of confederation. He combated the statement made by Mr. Smith that after confederation the provincial legislature would become a mere farce, showing that of all the Acts passed during the previous two years there were only seven which would have come under the control of the general legislature. Mr. Tilley closed by dwelling on the impression of power which union would have on the ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... "This farce, says Delta, composed at Quebec by J. Galt, and performed there before the Earl of Dalhousie (then Governor-General), was named "The Visitors, or a Trip to Quebec," and was meant as a good humoured satire on some of the particular usages of the place. ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... schools will respond and how many parents will respond and just as a geometrical problem is difficult, because it does not admit of easy proof, so also because a certain stage in national evolution is difficult, you may not avoid that step without making the whole of the evolution a farce. ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... throughout assumed is drawn from what may be called the ordinary educated public of London and New York. It is not an ideal or a specially selected audience; but it is somewhat above the average of the theatre-going public, that average being sadly pulled down by the myriad frequenters of musical farce and absolutely worthless melodrama. It is such an audience as assembles every night at, say, the half-dozen best theatres of each city. A peculiarly intellectual audience it certainly is not. I gladly admit that theatrical art owes much, ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... love with you. Once married, you will show signs of uneasiness and remorse; for a couple of weeks you will be depressed. Then, some night after sundry grimacings, comes the confession, between two kisses, 'Two hundred thousand francs of debts, my darling!' This sort of farce is played every day in Paris, and by young men of the highest fashion. When a young wife has given her heart, she will not refuse her purse. Perhaps you are thinking that you will lose the money for good? Not you. You will make ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... the Romans, who seldom aspired beyond the imitation of Attic genius, [62] had been almost totally silent since the fall of the republic; [63] and their place was unworthily occupied by licentious farce, effeminate music, and splendid pageantry. The pantomimes, [64] who maintained their reputation from the age of Augustus to the sixth century, expressed, without the use of words, the various fables of the gods and heroes of antiquity; and the perfection of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... sides. It was very funny! The smoking shell, in front, and those fellows shooting through that hole at the back, and alighting all in a heap, and then the scramble for that tree. As the shell went out, it was a roaring farce. If it hadn't, it would have been a tragedy. The Captain said that these three men were his whole company, and when that lighted shell struck, he thought that his company was "gone up" for good ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... the bird when he did finally find himself in prison. As for the adventures, they belong to the region of the fantastic, which does not pretend to be anything else. The idea of a yacht which endeavours the capture of a smuggler, and is herself made prize by him, is of course a motive for farce. ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... just now. Rising to take part in resumed Debate on Irish Local Government Bill, he announced in loud angry tone that it would be waste of time to discuss a Bill the Government evidently did not intend to press through this Session, and he for one would be no party to such a farce. Then he went on to talk for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... are not—I fear that you are not! Oh, may that heart be melted! may you be brought to see the peril of your evil ways!" Followed by this devout prayer, Ida went up to her room. As she paced up and down she tried to tell herself that the whole thing was too ridiculous, was too much like a farce to make her wretched; but she felt unutterably miserable, and she knew that she could no longer endure Laburnum Villa and the petty tyranny ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... said Devereux, who liked Puddock, and would not annoy him, and saw he was hurt by Othello's borrowing his properties from the kitchen; 'I venture to say you were well entertained: and for my part, Sir, there are some characters'—(in farce Puddock was really highly diverting)—'in which I prefer Puddock to any player I ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... once. "There is no possible motive," he said. "The arrest is a mere farce. It will surely ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... When this farce is well under way, people make ready to hunt for the cabbage. They bring a stretcher and place upon it the "infidel," armed with a spade, a cord, and a large basket. Four powerful men raise him on their shoulders. His ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... course of an hour the farce turned into a tragedy, in the following manner. Two women, one of them with a baby at her breast, and followed by four brats, all of whom might have been put under a bushel measure, came before me, and falling on their knees made me guess the reason of this pitiful sight. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... idle to deny that the ingredient which, more than its humour, or its wisdom, or the fertility of invention or knowledge of human nature it displays, has insured its success with the multitude, is the vein of farce that runs through it. It was the attack upon the sheep, the battle with the wine-skins, Mambrino's helmet, the balsam of Fierabras, Don Quixote knocked over by the sails of the windmill, Sancho tossed in the blanket, the mishaps and misadventures of master and man, that were originally ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... wrote another letter, the composition of which, although it engaged his care, was apparently so much pleasanter, that perhaps the doing of it was chosen on the same principle as one hears a farce after a tragedy, in order to sleep ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... be restored to her rank of priestess: that point was decided against her. These instances may serve as a specimen of the trifling declamations, into which such a man as Seneca was betrayed by his own imagination. Petronius has described the literary farce of the schools. Young men, he says, were there trained up in folly, neither seeing nor hearing any thing that could be of use in the business of life. They were taught to think of nothing, but pirates loaded with fetters on the sea-shore; tyrants by their edicts commanding sons to murder their ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... Mr. Travers. "The man wouldn't be above plundering the natives. . . ." He sat down heavily on the chest. "A most appropriate costume for this farce," he continued. "But do you mean to wear it in ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... of literary composition the drama holds the most important position; for it is a picture of real life, and, as such, of national interest. It consists of two principal species, tragedy and comedy; the minor species are tragi-comedy, farce, burlesque and melo-drama. Both tragedy and comedy attained their perfection in Greece long before the Christian era. There it originated in the ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... a loss to know what to do," said Alice, with emphasis. "Here is Christmas, only a month distant—I have made no preparation, for I have had no heart for it; we can not hang up the stockings after the usual merry fashion, for it would be only a farce; we should cry instead of laugh when we see them, so I feel almost desperate to know what to do. O, Alsie, can't we think of some plan by which we may give dear grandfather a merry Christmas, especially if it is to be his ...
— Grandfather's Love Pie • Miriam Gaines
... the insignificance of all earthly possessions, took his leave, knelt down to prayers, slept calmly, rose, prayed again, and about eleven in the forenoon, October 4th, taking his watch in his hand, said, "Thanks be to my God, my last hour approaches." All laughed at such a farce from a man of such a character; yet they remarked that the left side of his face grew pale. He then leaned his arm on the table, prayed, and remained motionless, with his eyes closed. The clock struck twelve—no signs of life or motion could be discovered; ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... and printed many of his verses in the Dorset County Chronicle. His chief studies, however, were philological; and in 1829 he published An Etymological Glossary of English Words of Foreign Derivation. In 1832 a strolling company of actors visited Mere, and Barnes wrote a farce, The Honest Thief, which they produced, and a comedy which was played at Wincanton. Barnes also wrote a number of educational books, such as Elements of Perspective, Outlines of Geography, and in 1833 first began his poems in the Dorsetshire dialect, among them the two ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... so the Duke was obliged to sit near him. Whenever the royal servant filled the Duke's glass with wine and water, Mr. B. invariably drank it off; until at length, the Duke asked his servant for more wine and water, and anticipating a repetition of the farce that had so often been played, drank it off, and said, "Well, Blackburn, I have done you at last." After dinner the Duke and the men went to join the ladies in the drawing-room, where the servant in royal livery was waiting, holding a tray upon which was a cup of tea for the Duke. ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... Reich; finds the Reich quite empty of enemies before his arrival;—and at least saves his own skin. A month or two more, and Stollberg will lay down his Command, and the last Reichs-Execution Army, playing Farce-Tragedy so long, make its exit from the Theatre ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... after page in a few days, and why should the musician go stumbling along for months in his endeavor to learn something which he could master in a few hours with the proper interest and the burning concentration without which all music study is a farce? ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... 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 put ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... sir. The civil government in Richmond has become a farce. I acknowledge it sorrowfully. Your soldiers are ill clothed, half starved, and the power to recruit your ranks is gone. The people have lost faith in their civil leaders. Disloyalty is rampant. ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... doggedly. "Of course when Mr. and Mrs. Gay died, everyone pitched in and helped the children; I suppose they did, though I wasn't here to see. But I do know that now when they need advice and practical help, they're apparently forgotten. Their attendance at school last winter was a farce and yet the authorities let an investigation slide; Mr. Hildreth promises vaguely to 'look after them' in the fall—and there they are, six fine American children ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... contract a marriage with Anne, [Sidenote: January 6, 1540] the duke's sister. As Henry had offered to the European audience three tragedies in his three former marriages, he now, in true Greek style, presented in his fourth a farce or "satyric drama." The monarch did not like his new wife in the least, and found means of ridding himself of her more speedily than was usual even with him. Having shared her bed for six months {307} he divorced her on the ground that ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... nothings! and that beings can be found, and those too the flower of the land, who, day after day, can act the same parts in the same dull, dreary farce! The officer had discoursed sufficiently about "his intimate friend, the Soudan," and about the chain armour of the Sockatoo cuirassiers; and one of the M.P.'s, who was in the Guards, had been defeated in a ridiculous attempt to prove that the breast-plates of the household troops of Great ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... character and manners, it may be questioned whether they can be much relished out of their own country, and whether even there, the effect must not be weakened as fatuity and absurdity shall discover new methods of fastening ridicule upon themselves. They border more nearly on farce than comedy. They have neither of them any thing of fancy, that power which can give a new and higher interest to the laughable itself, by mingling it with the marvellous, and which has placed Aristophanes so far above all ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... not a whit behind Catholic in following out such teachings. The people of Elbing made themselves merry over a farce in which Copernicus was the main object of ridicule. The people of Nuremberg, a Protestant stronghold, caused a medal to be struck with inscriptions ridiculing the philosopher ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Cheesacre again prepared to throw himself into his former position, but to this Mrs Greenow decidedly objected. If he were allowed to go down again, there was no knowing what force might be necessary to raise him. "Mr Cheesacre," she said, "let there be an end to this little farce ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... In contrast to this case, we see these men with their murderous schemes, deliberately planned, attempted and partially executed, we see these men condemned to one month's imprisonment with hard labor! What a farce is the law! Is it any wonder that indignation is aroused in the hearts of the conscientious and God-fearing members of the community, and that men as they meet ask each other the question, 'Why is this? Did the jury fear that they, too, might ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... ... you could make out a very good case for handsome Judith Arkroyd as an up-to-date Ethel Newcome ... the stuff that tears in hardened and careless hearts are made of ... singularly perceiving, mellow, wise, charitable, humorous ... a plot as well defined as if it were a French farce."—The Times ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... mere human invention. While we, with careful regard to scenery, place our conventional puppets on the stage and bid them play their old old parts in a manner as ancient, she rings up the curtain and starts a tragedy on a scene that has obviously been set by the carpenter for a farce. She deals out the parts with a fine inconsistency, and the jolly-faced little man is cast to play Romeo, while the poetic youth with lantern jaw and an impaired digestion finds no Juliet to ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... Ironworker as an innocent victim; but he was to be set at liberty at any time by the magistrate who was tired of his deceptions and his lying tales. The boy spoke of him with scorn. That chicken could not pride himself on having wounded a man. A mere farce! ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... fire of the Greeks, Armenians and Copts, whose priests make their people believe, that on holy Saturday fire descends from heaven into the holy Sepulchre, and on that account make each of their pilgrims, who are very numerous, pay some money. This solemnity appears rather a comedy or a farce than a church-ceremony, and is very unbecoming in a place so sacred as the holy Sepulchre. After we had finished our service, which was about eight in the morning, they, extinguished all their lamps and those of the holy Sepulchre, and ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... not to have recognized himself; so by a wink to 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 was fairly gone,—for this ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... ostensibly it is written about New York. On its first presentment, it challenged good writing on the part of the critics. High Comedy always does that—tickles the brain and stimulates it, drives it at a pace not usually to be had in the theatre. Is it comedy or is it farce, the critics queried? Is Mr. Mitchell sincere, and does he flay the evil he so photographically portrays? Does he treat the sacred subject of matrimony too flippantly? And should the play, in order to be effective, ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... about the excessive conservatism of the English people. I agree with him that it is monstrous that English lads should nowadays have no chance of thoroughly learning any trade. The old system of apprenticeship is almost dead, and the modern device of technical education remains a pure farce, mainly owing to the political influence of trade unions. In the same way I agree that it is ridiculous that Great Britain should go on using a clumsy and exclusive system of weights and measures, when the rest of the world is rapidly adopting the almost ideally perfect system ...
— Are we Ruined by the Germans? • Harold Cox
... were taken to the city jail which was to be the scene of an inquisition unparalleled in the history of the United States. After this, as an additional punishment, they were compelled to face the farce of a "fair trial" in ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... drawing room talking to the prince. The prince frowned and coughed, listening to the doctor. As a man who had seen something of life, and neither a fool nor an invalid, he had no faith in medicine, and in his heart was furious at the whole farce, specially as he was perhaps the only one who fully comprehended the cause of Kitty's illness. "Conceited blockhead!" he thought, as he listened to the celebrated doctor's chatter about his daughter's symptoms. The ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... require more police to watch those who are at large and preying on society. We expend more yearly for apprehending and trying those caught, for the machinery of criminal justice, and for the recurring farce of imprisoning on short sentences and discharging those felons to go on with their work of swindling and robbing. It would be good economy for the public, considered as a taxpayer, to pay for the perpetual keep of these felons in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... went twice to an English play-house. The first time "The Nabob" was represented, of which the late Mr. Foote was the author, and for the entertainment, a very pleasing and laughable musical farce, called "The Agreeable Surprise." The second time I saw "The English Merchant:" which piece has been translated into German, and is known among us by the title of "The Scotchwoman," or "The Coffee-house." I have not yet seen the theatres of Covent Garden and Drury Lane, ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... 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 ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... upon possessors—was nearer to liberty and equality than any nation has been since. If the Senate had been intelligent and just,—if, at the time of the retreat to the Mons Sacer, instead of the ridiculous farce enacted by Menenius Agrippa, a solemn renunciation of the right to acquire had been made by each citizen on attaining his share of possessions,—the republic, based upon equality of possessions and the duty of labor, would not, in attaining its wealth, have degenerated in morals; Fabricius ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... to the saloon, the first comic singer of the age excelled himself; and when they rejoined their fair friends, the primo-tenore and the prima-donna gave them a grand scene, succeeded by the English performers in a favourite scene from a famous farce. Then Mrs. Gamme had an opportunity of dealing with her diamond rings, and the rest danced—a waltz of whirling grace, or merry cotillon of ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... so far indulged his resentment as to introduce him in a farce, and direct him to be personated on the stage, in a dress like that which he then wore; a mean insult, which only insinuated that Savage had but one coat, and which was, therefore, despised by him rather than resented: for, though he wrote a lampoon against Miller, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... the possible situations of marital farce are becoming exhausted. Certainly we have lost the power of being staggered by the emergence of an old wife out of the past. But Mr. SALISBURY FIELD, who wrote Wedding Bells for America, is not content with a single repetition of this ancient device; he must needs give us these ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... with them "dark-lanterns?" Not they—they are opposed to all secrecy—they are opposed to all disorderly conduct—they are the "harmonious Democracy," and labor alone for the good of the country, and of posterity! What a farce their Cincinnati Convention was! ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... last. Still, it was Liszt, and not Lola, who cooled first. "With Lola, as with others, known and unknown, it was," observes William Wallace, "Da capo al Segno." The story of the final rupture between them, as given by Guy de Pourtales, has in it something of the element of farce: ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... capital, if, instead of bayonets, they carried only trusses of straw. The road is open before them, but they will look only behind. The war was almost a feint from the beginning. The invasion was the second act of the farce—the retreat will be the third. Poland has been the true object; and, to cover the substantial seizures there, has been the trick of the French invasion. I predict that, in one month from the date of this letter, there will not be an Austrian ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... in the streets of Quebec, on such distinguished occasions as the Prince's visit. But it is with a manifest consciousness of the ludicrous that these industrials now do their little drama of the war-dance and the oration and the council-smoke. That drama has degenerated into a very feeble farce now, and the actors in it would be quite outdone in their travesty by any average corps of "supes" at one of our theatres. By-and-by all this will have died out, and the "Indian side" of the stream at Lorette will be assimilated in all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... feel herself in a false position. Freddy's lessons were, of course, a farce; and Cecil now seemed never to care to practise with her. Miss Prosody, with every hour of the day marked out for herself and pupils, made sarcastic reflections on her want of occupation; but, unhappy though she was, she could not make up her mind ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... my cloak, "this is a richer farce than mine! 'Tis you who should wear the cap and bells! But come, I will be your guide to the ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... thus left undefended for forty-eight hours, while a daring criminal and his associates mingled unsuspected with all classes. We have always regarded the present system—facetiously called police protection—as a farce. This latter fiasco will probably confirm the idea with the public at large. We, unlike a contemporary, have no morbid sympathy with crime—embroidered or otherwise; our wishes, as loyal subjects, are ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... been continued in a friendly spirit. Moreover, the so-called ruthless submarine campaign was, according to the opinion of Admiral von Tirpitz, who was at that time still in office, although he was not consulted until the decision was taken, a military farce. He declared the order to be technically nonsense, and the pompous way in which it was issued as unnecessarily provocative and a challenge. The whole thing ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... La Baudraye to her two visitors, and the farce was duly played out of remembering the papers left by Bianchon in his room at Anzy. Gatien flew off at a gallop to obey his sovereign; Madame Piedefer went to do some shopping in Sancerre; and Dinah went on to Cosne alone ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... proclaimed: the consuls were commanded to divide the management of the war between them; that the Volscians should be the sphere of action of the one, the AEquans of the other. The tribunes loudly declared openly in the forum that the story of the Volscian war was nothing but a got-up farce: that the Hernicans had been trained to act their parts: that the liberty of the Roman people was now not even crushed by manly efforts, but was baffled by cunning; because it was now no longer believed that the Volscians and the AEquans who ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... drunkenness is to stop before you begin. Entire legal suppression of the dram shop is successful where a stiff, righteous, public sentiment thoroughly enforces it. Otherwise it may become a delusion and a farce. ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... adds his scene in the farce: "La Plessis said to Rahuel (he was the concierge) yesterday that she had been gratified at dinner to find that Madame had turned the child out of her seat and put herself in the place of honour. And Rahuel, ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... confess, the precaution was superfluous, the managers having apparently entered into league to ensure me as much obscurity as I had any use for. But at length in an unguarded moment the manager of the Duke of Cornwall's Theatre (formerly the Euterpe) accepted a three-act farce. It was poorly acted, yet for some reason it took the town. 'Larks in Aspic, a Farcical Comedy by George Anthony,' ran for a solid three hundred nights; and before it ceased my unsuspecting uncle had closed his earthly career, leaving me with seventy thousand pounds (the bulk of it ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... shock of disgust as I passed out. Masquerading, it must be admitted, is not pleasant to the taste; and the whole farce, as it flashed through my mind,—his advertised trip, his turning up here under an assumed name, had an ill savor. Perhaps some of the things they said of him might be true, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... contained humorous elements, such as the realistically comic figure of the merchant who sold spices and ointment to the Maries on their way to the tomb of Christ. In the later plays these interpolations developed into scenes of roaring farce. When Herod learned of the escape of the Wise Men, he would rage violently about the stage and even among {25} the spectators. Noah's wife, in the Chester play of The Deluge, refuses point-blank to go into the Ark, ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... trooped down to the station, of course; it is only in later years that the farce of "seeing people off" is seen in its true colours. Edward was the life and soul of the party; and if his gaiety struck one at times as being a trifle overdone, it was not a moment to be critical. As we tramped along, I promised him I would ask Farmer Larkin not to kill any more pigs ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... Characters too, and drew Men often more Vicious, more Covetous, more Foolish, &c. than generally they were; and this to set the People a gazing and wondering. With these sort of Characters many of our modern Comedies abound, which makes 'em too much degenerate into Farce, which seldom fail of pleasing the Mob. But our Author had not many of these; for a great part of 'em were very true and natural, and such as may stand the Test of the severest Judges. His two most remarkable Characters, are his ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... man, by way of showing her respect for the superior sex. (Niebuhr, 50.) The birth of a daughter is regarded as a calamity, mitigated only by the fact that she will bring in some money as a bride. Marriage is often little more than a farce. Burckhardt knew Bedouins who, before they were fifty years old, had been married to more than fifty different women. Chavanne, in his book on the Sahara (397-401), gives a pathetic picture of the fate ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... of physical pain. After that, I gave little heed to the stage. I was only conscious that the curtain had gone down, and that Mr. Wilde was thanking us for our kind attention, and expressing a flattering hope that another year would find him again in our midst. We did not want the farce, that night, even as our rightful due. We got up, and filed out in silence. I was just behind Dana and Mary; so near that I could have touched him when, half-way, down the hall, he put out a clumsy hand and drew her shawl closer about her shoulders. ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... result of the referendum was disappointing, and, I shall always consider, a grave reflection on a democratic community which permits a referendum to be taken under a system of plural voting which makes the whole proceeding a farce. But the citizens of Adelaide have need to be grateful to the patriotic zeal of those who, led by the late Cornelius Proud fought for the public ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... plays had the same chance that our writers of novels have, we might now have a school of American dramatists of which we should be as proud as of our school of American novelists. In dramatic composition, the equivalent of the Short-story is the one-act play, be it drama or comedy or comedietta or farce. As the novelists have learned their trade by the writing of Short-stories, so the dramatists might learn their trade, far more difficult as it is and more complicated, by the writing of one-act plays. But, while the magazines of the United States are hungry for good Short-stories, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... he said to his chums, "we are going into a game to-night that may lead to bloodshed. Again, it may prove a farce. I have only my own judgment to go on, but the matter is so serious that I'm going to take a risk. I should prefer to have Lieutenant Gordon with us, but that seems to be impossible. Get your guns ready, and I'll arrange for a railroad motor ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... demands an encore, or heralds an offering of cabbages and ripe poultry fruit. I myself did not witness the production, but I did chance to meet the star just as he was leaving the stage. To me he confided the fact that he does not know whether it was a one-act farce he put on, or a five-act tragedy played accidentally hind-side before, with the villian-still-pursuing-her act set first instead of fourth. I am but slightly versed in the drama as played in the Black Rim the past two years. Perhaps if the ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... 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 ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... so. She stuck to me; and gave me, as I told thee, a good deal of uneasiness, by her sensible and serious expostulations. Mrs. Smith put in now-and-then; and the two Jack-pudding fellows, John and Joseph, not being present, I had no provocation to turn the conversation into a farce; and, at last, they both joined warmly to endeavour to prevail upon me to give up all thoughts of seeing the lady. But I could not hear of that. On the contrary, I besought Mrs. Smith to let me have one of her rooms but till I could see her; and were ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... Congress. But what has the House of Commons done? Threatening motions were announced in favor of Recognition,—in defence of the Confederate rams. They were all set aside by the good sense of the House and of the nation. It ended in a solemn farce,—in the question being put very formally to the Government whether it intended to recognize the Confederate States, to which the Government ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... between the novel and the drama. Two stories, entitled respectively Coquecigrue (an imaginary animal) and Stella, were abandoned before they were begun. A comic opera had the same fate. The Two Philosophers, a farce in which a couple of sham sages mocked at the world and quarrelled with each other, while secretly coveting the good things they affected to despise, appears to have been worked at, but uselessly. Next a tragedy, tackled with greater resolution, was composed and entirely finished. ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... on the frontier, they enacted a little farce for the benefit of the custom-house officers. Lavinia and Amanda had old passports, and had been told they would be needed. Mat had none, so she was ordered to try the role of maid. Before they arrived, ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... of an announcement of a sale of furniture. Once, most ironical of all, a gaping and smoke-stained building showed the half-torn remnant of a cinematograph picture, a fat gentleman in a bowler hat entering with a lady on either arm a gaily painted restaurant. Over this, in big letters, the word "FARCE." ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... often careless and futile: he will squander—(as in Vingt-neuf Degres a l'Ombre and l'Avare en Gants Jaunes)—an idea that rightly belongs to the domain of pure comedy on the presentation of a most uproarious farce. But he is never any falser to his vocation than this. Now and then, as in Moi and le Voyage de M. Perrichon, he is an excellent comic poet, dealing with comedy seriously as comedy should be dealt with, and incarnating ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... in the two country-houses above named, where they saw but little company, Madame du Maine made many attempts at reconciliation with her husband, which he repelled. This farce lasted from the month of January (when they arrived at Sceaux and at Clagny) to the end of July. Then they thought the game had lasted long enough to be put an end to. They had found themselves quit ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... will hear tidings of the farce, for Charles is to go in a few days to the Managers to inquire about it. But that must now be a next-year's business too, even if it does succeed; so it's all looking forward, and no prospect of present gain. But that's better than no hopes ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Local Education Authority—a man of some note in the larger world—and it seems that you cannot be exempted unless you convince the Authority that your knowledge is such that to give you a Council school education would be the most absurd farce." ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... To this we owe the full-length portrait of Major Gahagan, and a whole gallery of other drawings, usually of Irishmen, which have been the delight of innumerable readers. The striking alternation between two extremes of character and conduct, between tragedy and farce, between ridiculous meanness and pathetic unselfishness, is to be found in all his novels, though in his later and finer work it is controlled and tempered to more artistic proportions. But in the productions ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... person of a jackass, and the recollection filled me with penitence. That was in my old light days, before this trouble came upon me. God knows at least that I shall never laugh again, thought I. But O, what a cruel thing is a farce to ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... up to Verrina as a competent savior of society, however much one may sympathize with him in his private feud. His cynical tergiversation at the end makes his previous conduct ridiculous. It seems to say that he has been participating in a tragic farce which is now ended. One might almost get the impression that the whole play is only a ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... of water then over what are rocky rapids now. Just think 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
... mighty farce which for more than two months held in suspense the hopes and fears of three nations. But the friends of Cromwell resumed the subject in parliament. It was observed that he had not refused to administer the government under any other title; the name of king was expunged for ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... a quiet once more since the Kerveguen incident has died its beautiful death. Was it not a farce? and silly? ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... the cynic, "isn't it rather overdoing your saintly simplicity? Do you remember the farce 'Occupe-toi d'Amelie?' Do I appeal to you as a squire of deserted dames, grass-widows endowed with plenty? I—a man of such indefinite morals that so long as I have mutton cutlets I don't in the least care who pays for them? Aren't you paying ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... brand, And rail at arts he did not understand? Where made he love in Prince Nicander's vein, Or swept the dust in Psyche's humble strain? Where sold he bargains, Whip-stitch, Kiss me ——, Promis'd a play, and dwindled to a farce? When did his muse from Fletcher scenes purloin, As thou whole Eth'rege dost transfuse to thine? But so transfus'd as oil and waters flow; His always floats above, thine sinks below. This is thy province, this thy wondrous way. New humours to invent for each new play; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... 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 ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... Drakes and Morgans of old, if the facts only bore us out. Instead of that, however, we are forced to say that the pirates proved sheer caitiffs when matched against honest men, and the battle was a barren farce. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... chamber where that dread scene had been enacted—that scene which seemed to her a double tragedy—that scene which had burned itself in her memory, combining the horror of the death of her dearest friend with the ghastly farce of a forced and unhallowed marriage. In that place a full tide of misery rushed over her soul. She broke down utterly. Chetwynde Castle, the Earl, Mrs. Hart, all were forgotten. The past faded away utterly. This only was her true home—this place darkened ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... are they of this, that they have caused, in many instances, those who were no Christians to be presented at their tribunals, who have then, after being threatened with torture and death, renounced a faith which they never professed. Once and again has this farce been acted before the Roman people. Their real triumphs of this sort have as yet been very few; and the sensation which they produced was swallowed up and lost in the glory—in the eyes even of the strangers who are in Rome—which ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... to conjure by in Lost Valley. Steptoe Service prated of Gov'ment. It was a farce, a synonym for juggled duty, a word to suggest the one-man law of the place, for even Courtrey, who made the sheriffs—and unmade them—did it under the grandiloquent name of Government. She looked at him keenly, and there was a sudden hardening ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... busy, shrieking tug-boats, and the great statue would vanish into the sea, leaving it gray and bare. He closed his eyes and shut the vision out. It was so beautiful that it tempted him; but he would not be mocked, and he buried his face in his hands. They were carrying the farce too far, he thought. It was really too absurd; for now they were at a wharf which was so real that, had he not known by previous suffering, he would have been utterly deceived by it. And there were great crowds of smiling, cheering ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... branches of the Government, and magnate after magnate had committed not only one violation, but constant violations, of the criminal law. They were unmolested; having the power to prevent it they assuredly would not suffer themselves to undergo even the farce of prosecution. Such few prosecutions as were started with suspicious bluster by the Government against the Standard Oil Company, the Sugar Trust, the Tobacco Trust and other trusts proved to be absolutely harmless, and have had no result except to strengthen the position ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... them he will either outrage truth, for we prefer to think him a liar than to believe that well-trained men can act in a base manner; or his personages will offend our moral sense, and, what is worse, excite our imagination. I do not mean by this to condemn farces; a farce implies between the poet and the spectator a tacit consent that no truth is to be expected in the piece. In a farce we exempt the poet from all faithfulness in his pictures; he has a kind of privilege to tell us untruths. Here, in fact, all ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller |
