"Farce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... vanity made a farce of the funeral. A big, bull-necked publican, with heavy, blotchy features, and a supremely ignorant expression, picked up the priest's straw hat and held it about two inches over the head of his reverence during the whole of the service. The father, ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... garrison of Washington was a brigade of infantry and a battery of artillery. I never doubted Mr. Johnson's sincerity in wishing to befriend me, but this was the broadest kind of a farce, or meant mischief. I therefore appealed to him by letter to allow me to remain where I was, and where I could do service, real service, and ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the face, nor the great size of the man that rendered him ridiculous. Quite the contrary. A glance at these had rather an opposite tendency. What was laughable about him was his costume; and if he had been done up for a farce upon the stage, or a Christmas pantomime, he could not have been dressed in a more ludicrous manner. Upon his body was a uniform coat of bright-scarlet cloth, the cut and facings of which told that it had once done duty in the army of King George. It had been a ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... conclude with a farce, that I may not leave you in ill humour. I have so good an opinion of your taste, to believe Harlequin in person will never make you laugh so much as the Earl of Stair's furious passion for Lady Walpole (aged fourteen and some months). Mrs. Murray undertook to bring ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... greeted us with loud yells, and slapped us on our backs, as though they looked upon our capture as a most excellent joke. The majority of our fellow-prisoners were confined for attempting to leave the camp to visit their friends; but putting them in the guard-house was only a farce, for I had not been in the room fifteen minutes before I saw three men make their escape through a window. I determined to try the same thing; so, after waiting a few moments, to see that they were not brought back, I walked up to the window and looked out. A sentinel ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... understand his feeling about it, which was that with the soiled experience of her marriage another ceremony with him would be a mere legal farce. To the pure idealism of his nature it seemed cleaner, nobler for them to take this step without any attempt to regularize it in the eyes of Society. To him she was justified in doing what she had done, in leaving her husband for him, and that ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... kiss to him, at which he made as doleful a face as if a bee had stung him. To-day I hear how she is boxing his ears. He is perhaps now laughing at it, and thinks it is a rose-leaf which cools his cheek. That Hodge is such a queer bird! But we will at once see what there is to-day, and what farce is being performed now." ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... intrigues of the Macquarts and the Rougons. At intervals the trumpet-voice of the people rose and drowned the prattle of the yellow drawing-room and the hateful discourses of uncle Antoine. And vulgar, ignoble farce was turned into ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... my love with it,' said the Doctor, imprinting his upon them; 'and many happy returns of the - the idea! - of the day. The notion of wishing happy returns in such a farce as this,' said the Doctor to himself, 'is good! ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... thought we had had talk enough about the floor, we would now have a touch at the ceiling." I asked him if he ever huffed his wife about his dinner. "So often," replied he, "that at last she called to me and said, Nay, hold, Mr. Johnson, and do not make a farce of thanking God for a dinner which in a few minutes you will protest ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... In a rather low-class farce which I saw in a Chicago theatre, two men wandered through the action, with the charming irrelevance characteristic of American popular drama, attired, one as John Bull, the other as Brother Jonathan. ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... just us you please; but I assure you I have often heard the nuns say that they did not believe in any religion. The professions of holiness of heart and parity of life so often made by the priests they KNOW to be nothing but a hypocritical pretence, and their ceremonies they regard as a ridiculous farce. ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... and rankly, though my very growth disturb this dull equanimity,—though it be with struggle through long, dark, muggy nights or seasons of gloom. It would be well, if all our lives were a divine tragedy even, instead of this trivial comedy or farce. Dante, Bunyan, and others appear to have been exercised in their minds more than we: they were subjected to a kind of culture such as our district schools and colleges do not contemplate. Even Mahomet, though many may scream at his name, had a good deal more to live for, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... assertion; he is strong, as nature is strong, who lifts the land into mountain slopes without effort, and by the same rule as she floats a bubble in the air, and likes as well to do the one as the other. This makes that equality of power in farce, tragedy, narrative, and love-songs; a merit so incessant, that each reader is incredulous of the ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Didn't he all but get ignominiously left out of his own wonderful Club? And what do you think of him when he gets up here and tries to pass as a model of justice, when as likely as not, he has pre-arranged the whole affair, and told every one what part he is to play in the farce?" ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... proportion to the quantity of influence set in motion. It is really perhaps here the quantity of influence that was most remarkable. My lady and gentleman each declared to me and others that it was like the subject of a roaring farce. The reason first given had with time dropped-out of sight and fifty better ones flourished on top of it. They were so awfully alike: they had the same ideas and tricks and tastes, the same prejudices and superstitions and heresies; they said the same things and sometimes did them; they ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... Pot of Broth" in New York. They made, unfortunately, no great success in their appearances, as their plays were not presented in bills devoted solely to Irish plays, but as curtain-raisers to the usual conventional farce. Almost all the actors whom I have mentioned as leaving the National Players eventually found their way into the conventional plays, but almost none of them made successes there comparable in any degree to their successes in folk-drama or in plays out of old Irish legend. Nor can ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... Kit Carson, joined in the laugh at the fellow's impudence. Kit Carson's patience was exhausted in listening to the barefaced falsehoods which the man was uttering; so, with some excuse, he left the party. The fellow was unapprised of the farce which he had been acting; and, shortly after, left the town, believing that he had acquitted himself ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... for Miss LOTTIE VENNE'S voice; above all, for Mr. A. W. BASKCOMB'S face, My Aunt is worth while. As Aubrey Braxton Mr. BASKCOMB—the never-to-be-forgotten Slightly of so many Christmasses—goes through all the many troubles of a hero of farce with his own inimitable air of hopeless resignation. I hope that his efforts will not be unrewarded, and that the management will find that, without rivalling the success of that other aunt, Charley's, they will yet for some time be able to play to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 2nd, 1914 • Various
... formalities, and in procuring the necessary papers. The expense was great, as money was demanded at every step I had to take, though I was simply complying in this instance with the orders of the Spanish government in removing prohibited books from Spain. The farce did not end until my arrival at Gibraltar, where I paid the Spanish consul a dollar for certifying on the back of the pass, which I had to return to Cadiz, that the books were arrived at the former place. It is true that he never ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... induce her to do that which the other sisters could scarcely have brought themselves to do on any provocation, namely to complain to Felix, and by and by make a representation, for the general good, she said, that it was a mere farce to leave the boy ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... boast of 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
... thou, Son, behold the transient farce Of goods that are committed unto Fortune, For which the human ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... the other, Morales, Gallegos, a great flame of despair amid dust, rags, ulcers, human life rising in a sudden paean out of desolate abandoned dun-colored spaces. To me, Toledo expresses the supreme beauty of that tragic farce.... And the apex, the victory, the deathlessness of it is in El Greco.... How strange it is that it should be that Cypriote who lived in such Venetian state in a great house near the abandoned synagogue, scandalizing us austere Spaniards by the sounds of revelry and unabashed music that came from ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... girls at school. But it must be taught seriously to make it worth while, and as in the teaching of needlework, the foundations must be plain. To begin by fancy-work in one case and bonbons in the other turns the whole instruction into a farce. In this subject especially, the satisfaction of producing good work, well done, without help, is a result which justifies all the trouble that may be spent upon it. When girls have, by themselves, brought to a happy conclusion the preparation of a complete meal, their ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... crowns, and who most certainly would not even have given up the copper coins which one of them was jingling in his pocket. But if they were hard up for money they did not want for ingenuity, and all three arranged to play their parts like thieves at a fair. Theirs was a farce in which there was plenty of eating and drinking, since for five days they so heartily attacked every kind of provision that a party of German soldiers would have spoiled less than they obtained by fraud. These three cunning ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... Bean felt himself bold for any situation. He would carry the farce through if they insisted on it. He no longer planned to elude the waster. They were in the ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... communication in a tone of earnest, dignified remonstrance; but apparently the King was now too thoroughly committed to his scheme to be deterred by any reasoning or reproaches, and the tragical farce was played out. It had no good results for France; England was chilled and alienated, but the Spanish crown never devolved on the Duchess of Montpensier. Within two little years from her marriage that princess and all the French royal family fled from France, so hastily that they had scarcely ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... letter Charles 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 his Breton way: 'Nay, Miss, there's no wonder. 'Tis an honour ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... play; but I hope it will prove a farce, nevertheless, before it's over. We are to have a pic-nic party upon one of those little islands up the river by Kew. All sock and buskin, all theatricals: if the wherries upset, the Hay-market may shut ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... And on an ass another wife and new-born child; and one poor quean a-foot scarce dragged herself along, so near her time was she, yet held two little ones by the hand, and helplessly helped them on the road. And the little folk were just a farce; some rode sticks, with horses' heads, between their legs, which pranced and caracoled, and soon wearied the riders so sore, they stood stock still and wept, which cavaliers were presently taken into cart and cuffed. And one, more grave, lost in a man's hat and feather, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... of a life, perhaps—to open, and to read them. And what have we to do with books? The Herr Doctor might perhaps be asked for his advice; but we have no index expurgatorius in Gruenewald. Had we but that, we should be the most absolute parody and farce upon this ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you must put on a warm dressing gown and something to pad your chest—this nightgown is a farce," she said, sternly, rising. "Where shall ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... quiet; or perhaps you'd like to run away till the farce is over," said Madame, caressingly, for she has a penchant for the peer beside her; he is a new distraction and will amuse her until she can secure a tete-a-tete with the man who has some rare ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... his extravasations of whim could be kept within bounds, and if the comicality of his vein could be restrained by good taste." Reynolds, the dramatist, relates that on one occasion he was sitting in the front row of the balcony-box at the Haymarket, during the performance of O'Keeffe's farce of "The Son-in-Law," Parsons being the Cranky and Edwin the Bowkitt of the night. In the scene of Cranky's refusal to bestow his daughter upon Bowkitt, on the ground of his being such an ugly fellow, Edwin coolly advanced to the foot-lights, and said: ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... at his heroics. "Put that in your play," said she. "But this isn't the melodrama of the stage. It's the farce comedy ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... very close in the cabin, but neither door nor port-hole could be opened for fear of the water coming in. Dinner was a farce, to use Tom's way of expressing it, for everything was cold and had to be eaten out of hand or from a tin cup. Yet what was served tasted very good to ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... houses were appointed to high ecclesiastical offices, while the minor clergy were inconceivably ignorant just at the moment when the new critical learning, with knowledge of Hebrew and Greek, was revolutionising the study of the sacred books. The celibacy of the clergy had become a mere farce; and they got dispensations enabling them to obtain ecclesiastical livings for their bastards. The kings set the worst example: both James IV. and James V. secured the richest abbeys, and, in the case of James IV., the Primacy, for their bastard sons. All these abuses were of old ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... time mentioned had expired, we had reached a depth of five feet, and yet no signs of any treasure became manifest. A general pause ensued, and I began to hope that the farce was at an end. Legrand, however, although evidently much disconcerted, wiped his brow thoughtfully and recommenced. We had excavated the entire circle of four feet diameter, and now we slightly enlarged the limit, and went to the farther depth of two feet. Still nothing appeared. The gold-seeker, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... again congratulated White. White assured him that he was going in the morning. "So soon?" remarked Maroney; "well, I am happy to find you are. I don't want to see any man kept in jail. My own case will soon come up, and after I am cleared here, the trial in Montgomery will be a perfect farce. I shall write to my wife and tell her how well you have succeeded. Isn't it strange, White, that I have taken such a liking to you? You are the right man for me. There is not a soul in this jail but you whom I would trust." He walked ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... up the farce, within the last month of this present writing (1821), I have had my life threatened in the same way which menaced Mr. B.'s fame, excepting that the anonymous denunciation was addressed to the Cardinal Legate of Romagna, instead of to * * * *. I append the menace in all its barbaric but ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... saints; And go all filth, and never let a smile Bend their stern muscles, gloomy, sullen men, Barren of all affection, and all this To please their God, forsooth! and therefore SCORN Grinn'd at his patients, making them repeat Their solemn farce, with keenest raillery Tormenting; but if earnest in their prayer, They pour'd the silent sorrows of the soul To Heaven, then did they not regard his mocks Which then came painless, and HUMILITY Soon rescued them, and led ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... her. Though at the time I mentally gave her, I assure you, her full share, somewhat after the manner of the Pharisee condemning the publican. That also has come home to me: she believed herself to be legally my wife; I never gave a thought to that evening's farce, and should have supposed its bearing ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... answered Juan, instantly. "Lieutenant Tyler, this farce must end. My comrades will be impatient for my return. You were about to give an answer when ...
— Young Glory and the Spanish Cruiser - A Brave Fight Against Odds • Walter Fenton Mott
... loudly, "we shall do far better with the traitors when we get them outside. What say you, citizens? Shall we leave the judges here to conclude the farce, and arrange for its sequel ourselves outside the ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... poor minor seemed to have lost both his love and his property. But how can I touch off my feelings, when, in the fourth act; the villain was detected; and all ended as it should! And, oh! Tibbie, mommy enjoyed it nearly as much as I, though the farce at the end vastly shocked her—and, indeed, Tibbie, 't was most indelicate, and made me blush a scarlet, and all the more that Sir William whispered that he enjoyed the broad parts through my cheeks—and she says if dadda insists, we'll go again, though not to stay to the farce. ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... too clever for me, and so I suppose you have the right to mock me. There is no need to go on with this farce. The sight of your treasures gave me the gold-fever, I suppose, and it drove me mad, as it has driven many others mad, and I betrayed you. There is no use saying any more. I see that I have been betrayed too, and that my life is in ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... clearly; "we've played this farce too long, Harmon. I don't think I'm suited to you, and I'm sure you're not suited to me. We married under false ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... a gayety that rang hollow in the pathos of the mockery and farce.... But he smiled to be kind to her; and, to make the poor, clouded mind a little happier still, he took her hand again and said ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... within her breast, A greater than all knowledge, beat her down. And she had nursed me there from week to week: Much had she learnt in little time. In part It was ill counsel had misled the girl To vex true hearts: yet was she but a girl— 'Ah fool, and made myself a Queen of farce! When comes another such? never, I think, Till the Sun drop, dead, from the signs.' Her voice choked, and her forehead sank upon her hands, And her great heart through all the faultful Past Went sorrowing in a pause I dared not break; Till ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... Louis' face. Perhaps he had been too dazed to understand how completely Arthur had rescued him in the nick of time. To the lad's inexperience this cheap attempt of Claire to overcome his innocence by a modified badger game might have the aspect of a tragedy. Moreover, he remained ignorant of the farce into which ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... building or have any white teachers to eat and sleep in the same house with their Negro pupils. If these discretionary rights are not guaranteed by our national Constitution to American citizens, then the professed abolition of slavery and of the color line in citizenship is a wretched farce. Nobody can question the intent of the proclamation of emancipation of the constitutional amendment that places the Negro on the same legal plane with the white citizen of this country. We do not doubt the supreme and binding authority of this legislature. We mistake the temper of the American ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 6, June 1896 • Various
... 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, she took out her ear-rings, ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... the light burns, and the summer is on, the moths come out. Tragedy, comedy, and farce elbow each other through the rooms. I have seen very much myself, for bird of passage. I took part in a strange incident when I passed through ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... cereal selection, Farce, or forcemeat, Meaning of, Farina, custard, souffle, Fat and milk in bread, Cooking with hot, Fat in cereals, Fats, Ferments, or leavening agents, Field corn, Fig, Composition of dried, Fillet mignons, Meaning of, Fillets, Meaning of, Firebox, Coal-stove, Fireless cooker, cooker, Cooking cereals ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... dramatic company, as well as a light opera company, and a corps de ballet. Sunday, Tuesday and Saturday were devoted to grand opera, Monday to classical drama (Schiller or Shakespeare), Wednesday to modern comedy, Friday to light opera or farce. The bill was constantly changing, and every new piece produced in Berlin or Vienna was duly presented to the Brunswick public. There are certainly some things we can learn from Germany! The mounting of the operas was most excellent, and I have never seen better lighting effects than on ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... 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 replied ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... hempen ropes round the necks of the mock barbarians, and ever after had them dragged in the wake of his litter, even as if they were prisoners of war. No doubt he had paid them well for acting such a farce." ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... alignment was effected was industrial control and collective bargaining. All three groups, the employer and public groups and of course the labor group, advocated collective bargaining,—but with a difference. The labor group insisted that collective bargaining is doomed to be a farce unless the employes are allowed to choose as their spokesmen representatives of the national trade union. In the absence of a powerful protector in the national union, they argued, the workers in a shop can never feel themselves on a bargaining equality with their employer, nor can they be represented ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... amusement struck upon Rallywood. They were playing a farce; Count Simon, with his mortal enmity, was but acting his part. The whole procedure was hollow yet he Rallywood would have to give his life to prove that all this seeming was deadly earnest—that the blustering traitor opposite was not a defeated ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... might replace the stuff at some expense; but not in a day or an hour. And how—with one dose in all the world!—keep up the farce? The dose consumed, the play was at an end. An end—or, no, was he losing his wits, his courage? On the instant, in the twinkling of an eye, ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... Three weeks after he and Lovell had been put in jail they first learned of what they were accused: Lovell of "being a Spy, and giving intelligence to the rebels," and Leach of "being a spy, and suspected of taking plans." Their examination was a farce, the witness against them not knowing them apart. They were remanded to jail, and lay there until October. Lovell fell sick, and got a little better food, but no attention from his jailers—"no Compassion toward him any more than a Dog." On the same day ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... the Act which would put a stop to it, I say it is too much to expect of any man that he should face the prospect of being ruined and probably murdered, and his family reduced to beggary, in order to enable the Government to keep up the farce of pretending that they are trying ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... a three-act farce," he cried. "Yes, you turnip, I am quite sure. I had the sense to make a duplicate of the right parcel, and now, my friend, you've got the duplicate and I've got the jewels. An old dodge, Father Brown—a very ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... difficulties, which seem in effect to reduce the whole question to the domain of farce, the Committee goes on to inquire whether it is desirable to legislate in the direction of forbidding the employment of foreign capital here in Joint Stock ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... against the surging tide, and Claude Bainrothe's grasp upon my hand strengthened and revived me. I was roused from my apathy by hearing Mr. Gerald Stanbury's loud, sonorous voice speaking out clearly: "I decline to serve, Mr. Bainrothe, after that erasure. You understand that, of course. It was a farce to send for me ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... had seen him and heard him. Forget him they could not. From that tremendous farce, then, France had gained directly one thing at least, and that was a sight ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... potent than the opinion of Dio, who often distorted what Plutarch related, but probably followed most closely the farce or the popular tales which, in Rome, did not venture to show the Egyptian in a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to an end and she raised her knife. Die or not, the thing was too incredible a farce to leave me unmoved. Yes, I laughed out of sheer delight. The drollery of this phantom hacking at Mallare with a non-existent dagger ... a mad windmill charging ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... were no one but you in this," he said concisely; "and that I didn't matter. You'll find that I have a little to say. Here it is: I am tired of your suspicions and questions and insinuations. You haven't any idea of marriage except as a bed-room farce. You're so pure that you imagine more indecencies in a day than I could get through with in five years. If there were one I hadn't thought of, you'd have me at it in no time. It was pleasant at the Groves' because there was none of this infernal ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... coffin out of their chests, while the washers of the dead came to perform their melancholy office. The protestant burial service was read over the body, in secret, during the night, and on the next day, the remains were committed to the grave. At the grave, it was deemed necessary to keep up the farce of Mahommadism, by publicly reciting the first chapter of the Koran, which the most serious Christian would consider as a beautiful and applicable form on such ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... man's statement it was plain that he harboured very bitter and contemptuous thoughts about himself. His auditors were led to imagine that his love affair was nearer his heart than he admitted, and that he had a design on his own life. The farce of the cream tarts began to have very much the air ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Difference. Fowl, to dress. Ditto to farce. Fricassee of Chickens, brown. Ditto white. Fish Gravey for Soups. Flounders, pickled. Frontiniac-Wine imitated. Fruits preserv'd for Tarts. Florence-Wine imitated. Frontiniac-Wine to make. Fowls, the Sorts. Fish, to boil firm. Fish ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... meeting was over, some of the actors being ashamed of themselves, the Rev. John Marsh tried to defend himself and his coadjutors, but Mr. Greeley very summarily brushed his sophistry aside, and placed all the actors in that disgraceful farce in their true colors. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... have had Sir Walter read to me first of a Night, by way of Drama; then ten minutes for Refreshment, and then Dickens for Farce. Just finished the Pirate—as wearisome for Nornas, Minnas, Brendas, etc., as any of the Scotch Set; but when the Common People have to talk, the Pirates to quarrel and swear, then Author and Reader are at home; and at the end I 'fare' to like this ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... An amusing farce. One of them saw something and could not be laughed out of it by his fellows. But the general report was unsatisfactory. The mistake was the employment of Irishmen in a ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... Yvon, as soon as he saw himself in the country. "Explain yourself, dear Finette; what farce are we playing now?" ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... Miss Leonora turned away hastily, with an exclamation of impatience. She made an abrupt end of her tea-making, and went off to her little business-room with a grim smile upon her iron-grey countenance. She too had been taken in a little by Jack's pleasant farce of the Sinner Repentant; and it occurred to her to feel a little ashamed of herself as she went up-stairs. After all, the ninety-and-nine just men of Jack's irreverent quotation were worth considering now and then; and Miss Leonora could not but think with a little humiliation of the contrast ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... be, the "Tango Trance" began. The band had practised it in Miss Brookton's honour; and it had been ordered as the first dance after her arrival. The aunt sat down, and Billie Brookton began "tangoing" with Max Doran. They were a beautiful couple to watch; but of course people had to keep up the farce of dancing, too. This was not, after all, a theatre. One was supposed to have come for something else than to stare at Billie Brookton without paying ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... she referred was probably that mentioned in the sequel to her memoirs, which was unhappily a failure. It is notable that the principal character in the farce was played by Mrs. Jordan, who was later to become the victim of a royal prince, who left her to die in ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... Balafre") the chateau of Blois, the execution of the Bourbon Duc d'Enghien the palace of Vincennes, or the murder of the boy princes the Tower of London. But bloodless tragedy, and exquisite comedy, and farce too, have doubtless had their hour within the walls. One such incident of the politico-tragic kind was that which passed only two years ago between the Emperor and his Imperial Chancellor, when Prince von Buelow went as deputy from the Federal Council, ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... but a sorry farce with any of them; but nevertheless, they went through the ceremony, each for ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... The farce was varied by a very amateur romance as between a young American and the niece of an hotel-keeper; also by a slab of melodrama (dealing with the girl's parentage) which only escaped from pure banality by the too brief glimpse it gave us of that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 27, 1914 • Various
... of the victorious Confederacy was sulking in his tent on the field of Manassas, playing this pitiful farce about the date of a commission, and allowing his army to go to pieces, George B. McClellan with tireless energy and matchless genius as an organizer was whipping into shape Lincoln's new levy of five hundred ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... remark, She strove in vain to ape Wood Park. Two bottles call'd for, (half her store, The cupboard could contain but four:) A supper worthy of herself, Five nothings in five plates of delf. Thus for a week the farce went on; When, all her country savings gone, She fell into her former scene, Small beer, a herring, and the Dean. Thus far in jest: though now, I fear, You think my jesting too severe; But poets, when a hint is new, Regard not whether false or true: Yet raillery ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... transports and was set ashore at the mouth of the Patapsco River while the ships sailed up to bombard Fort McHenry, where the star-spangled banner waved. To defend Baltimore by land there had been assembled more than thirteen thousand troops under command of General Samuel Smith. The tragical farce of Bladensburg, however, had taught him no lesson, and to oppose the five thousand toughened regulars of General Ross he sent out only three thousand green militia most of whom had never been under fire. They put up a wonderfully ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... all is well, when all is not well! That's exactly what women always do and always have done, and plume themselves upon it. And so this ridiculous farce is kept up, because these wretched women go smiling about the world, hugging their stupid resignation to their hearts, and pampering up their sickly virtue, at the expense of their ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... 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
... of 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; they spoke ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... who draws out of his pocket victoriously two portraits of his good lord, ogles Mademoiselle as long as he could, and talks "goguette" to her for a whole hour, is one of the most amusing farces anywhere to be met with. Unluckily, the farce was not worth the candle in the opinion of certain judges, and all the diversions of Saint-Fargeau did not prevent our princess from regretting with all her heart that pompous Court of Versailles in which the young Louis was ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... 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 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... right I had to imagine you understood me—you seemed to understand me—to fancy that we had anything in common, that in time—" He broke into a low wretched laugh. "And all the while you were engaged to another man! Good God, what a farce! what a miserable mistake from ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... dead. To find the moral of 'Coningsby' may be impracticable and is at any rate irrelevant. The way to enjoy it is to look at the world through the eyes of Sidonia. The world—at least the Gentile world—is a farce. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred are fools. Some are prosy and reasoning fools, and make excellent butts for stinging sarcasms; others are flighty and imaginative fools, and can best be ridiculed by burlesquing their folly. As for the hundredth ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... down, everybody. There's no need of keeping up this farce of your being slaves as long as ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... the most characteristic thing Oscar Wilde ever wrote, a thing produced in perfect health at the topmost height of happy hours, more characteristic even than "The Importance of Being Earnest," for it has not only the humour of that delightful farce-comedy, but also more than a hint of the deeper feeling which was even then forming itself into a master-work that will form part of ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... they both would have been on a bleak mountain-side eating stew out of a pot! Even champagne and old brandy failed to exercise mellowing influences. The twain were petrified in their own awful correctitude. Perhaps if they had proceeded to a musical comedy or a farce or a variety entertainment where Jaffery could have expanded his lungs in laughter, their evening as a whole might have been less dismal. But a misapprehension as to the nature of the play had caused Jaffery to book seats for a gloomy drama with ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... while wholly in Ah Moy's power, and quite well aware of it, exacted from all of his countrymen a certain amount of deference, and was loath that his visitor should prove an exception to this gratifying rule. Ah Moy knew this, but the little farce was becoming very irksome to him; it took up too much of his always valuable time, and he intended to forego it in future. Quong Lee, thought he, was a tiresome old goat who badly needed his whiskers trimmed and his horns sawed off; and he, Ah ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... common character; he is surrounded by hundreds who examine not for themselves; and are easily deluded, by the fairest promises, to surrender their opinions to another's guidance: these are the supporters of quackery, and the encouragers of those needy plunderers, who would render medicine a farce, that they might practice jugglery ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... Why did he not allow the cession to wear the honest colour of surrender to force? Why, "against his conviction," as he confessed in private, did he declare that Nice was not Italian? Why go through the farce of plebiscites so "arranged" that the result was a foregone conclusion? The answer, satisfactory or not, is easily found: Nice was stated to be not Italian to leave intact the theory of nationality for future use; the plebiscites were resorted to that Napoleon might be obliged to ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... of noodle is also known in Japan. He is the hero of a farce entitled Hone Kaha, or Ribs and Skin, which has been done into English by Mr. Basil Hall Chamberlain, in his Classical Poetry of the Japanese. The rector of a Buddhist temple tells his curate that he feels he is now getting too old for the duties of his office, and means to resign the ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... summoned so famous a physician, whose moments, even, were golden, to the heart of the Cumberlands on her own initiative and on the strength of her own childish guess, merely? It was incredible, a tragic farce. ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... When a new farce begins with duck and green peas, it promises well; the sympathies of the audience are secured, especially as the curtain rises but a short time before every sober play-goer is ready for his supper. Mr. Gabriel Snoxall is seated before the comsstibles above mentioned—he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... farmers, took part in the action. The Fenians imagining that a formidable army had arrived, became panic-stricken and fled, headed by their leaders, at quick march over the Border Line, where the "Fenian Tragedy" was magnificently concluded by the ludicrous farce of the Great O'Neill making a hasty exit as a "State prisoner," under the confidential protection ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... pathetic or humorous idealization. Perhaps in "The Old Curiosity Shop" these qualities are best seen in their struggle and divergence, and the result is a magnificent juxtaposition of romantic tenderness, melodramatic improbabilities, and broad farce. The humorous characterization is joyously exaggerated into caricature,—the serious characterization into romantic unreality, Richard Swiveller and Little Nell refuse to combine. There is abundant evidence of genius both in the humorous and the pathetic parts, but the artistic impression ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... them: for my part, the copy that sells best will be always the best copy in my opinion; I am no enemy to sermons, but because they don't sell: for I would as soon print one of Whitefield's as any farce whatever." ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... that they'll have a leg to stand on. When the old man dies the property will be exactly as it would have been. This latter intended fraud in favor of Augustus will be understood as having been old Scarborough's farce. The Jews are the party ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... adulterer and a polygamist, and finally it was urged that he had endeavored to incite an insurrection against the Spaniards. Such accusations came with a peculiarly bad grace from the conquerors. The whole thing, charges and all, would have been a farce had it not been for the ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... an additional shout of laughter, without the slightest effort for his relief. At last Caddy, taking compassion upon his forlorn condition, procured a basin of water, and assisted him to wash from his woolly pate what had been intended for the next day's meal. "This is the farce after what was almost a tragedy," said Mr. Walters, as they ascended the stairs again; "I wonder what ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... conception. His complexion was of a yellowish brown, and his nose not much smaller than the rest of his entire person. At the same time he kept grinning with stupid courtesy, exhibiting his huge mouth, and making a thousand scrapes and bows to me. As this farce was now becoming inconvenient to me, I thanked him briefly and turned about my still trembling steed, thinking either to seek another adventure, or in case I met with none, to find my way back, for during my wild chase the sun had already ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... perhaps of virtue. But the Tragic and Comic Muse of 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 their art, which sometimes ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... connection with them. And Spain delighted his heart not by immediately sending over the Infanta, but by proposing that he should mediate between the contending parties. It would be difficult to imagine a greater farce. All central Europe was now in arms. The deepest and gravest questions about which men can fight: the right to worship God according to their conscience and to maintain civil franchises which have been earned by the people with the blood and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... farce, elected him alcalde of San Francisco, which position is a combination of mayor and judge, as we would understand it, and his election was declared illegal. Then they elected him for spite. He served one year. There was a Mexican law that in any village in that country a person ...
— The Adventures of a Forty-niner • Daniel Knower
... crushed the perfumed imperial note in his hand, and muttered through his set teeth: "She has sacrificed me to an Orloff! She wishes to send me away, that she may more securely play this new farce of love. Very well; I will go, but not to return to be deceived anew by her vows of love and glances of favor. No! let this breach be eternal. Catharine shall feel that, although an empress, she ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... parents put on all the brakes to stop such a train of disaster. They have too often seen the gold ring put on the finger at the altar turning out to be the iron link of a chain of domestic servitude. What a farce it is for a man who cannot support himself, and not worth a cent in the world, to take a ring which he purchased by money stolen from his grandmother's cupboard, and put it on the finger of the bride, saying: "With this ring I thee wed, ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... "But it is a farce, this!" he exclaimed, fiercely. "Prince Ughtred and I are not strangers. I demand an ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... present at Jid Ali, had decided, as a final measure, on seizing everything I brought with me immediately I set foot in Jid Ali. Though I had had experience enough of the Abban's tricks to see that this was merely a farce, though a very useless and inconvenient one, I permitted the arrangement rather than make a row and retard my progress, and set out with the young prince, Hamed, Farhan, and two camels and drivers, leaving Imam and ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... spoken. Men talk of forgiveness when their anger rankles deepest in their hearts. In the course of years I shall forgive her. I hope I shall. But to say that I can forgive her now would be a farce. She has broken my ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... while the audience were separating, read some resolutions in favor of the Doctor and the Bible. "Less than one fourth of the audience," says the Philadelphia Register, "voted for them. The more serious part of the audience did not vote at all. The great majority seemed to take the thing as a farce. The result of the vote made a good many long faces on the stage and front seats. A short silence ensued, followed by a burst of obstreporous laughter, and cries of 'the Infidels have it!' And so ended the most remarkable ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... the most tremendous words, Since "MENE, MENE, TEKEL," and "UPHARSIN," Which hands or pens have ever traced of swords. Heaven help me! I'm but little of a parson: What Daniel read was short-hand of the Lord's, Severe, sublime; the prophet wrote no farce on The fate of nations;—but this Russ so witty Could rhyme, like Nero, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... lay much stress upon those laid down in this lecture. We doubt if the religion of Greece ever had that hold upon the feelings of the people, artists, or their patrons, which is implied in the supposition, that it was an efficient cause. A people that could listen to the broad farce of Aristophanes, and witness every sort of contempt thrown upon the deities they professed to worship, were not likely to seek in religion the advancement of art; and their licentious liberty—if liberty it deserved to be called—was of too watchful ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... to make inquiries at the docks. No; he must put them on a false scent—make them believe him dead; then he should be quite free—quite free. He laughed softly to himself at the thought of the Burtons searching for his corpse. What a farce the whole ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... was something very different from what it was generally supposed to be: he saw the futility of popular morals and popular metaphysics; but he neither swallowed the conventions nor threw up his hands in despair, declaring the whole thing to be an idiotic farce. He knew that truth and goodness had nothing to do with law and custom; but he never doubted that there were such things; and he went beneath the surface to find them. It was Ibsen's revelation of a new world, ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... barge paddling away rapidly towards land. Hitherto, the whole affair had been a farce; but now the natives, who had collected in great numbers along the shore, seeing their king and queen leap into the water with a terrified air, supposed that an attempt had been made to cut short their royal lives, and, under this impression, discharged ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... shown to the debased and unenlightened multitude that their force is physically irresistible, and recommended them to make use of it, promising that if they hold in power, they will only use that power to the abolition of our farce of a constitution, of a church, and of a king; and that if the nation is to be governed at all, it shall only be governed by the many. This is cheering. Hail, patriot lords! all hail! I am in hopes yet that the great ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... other member of the family ill than to acknowledge themselves to be so. "I have known the King," says Hervey, "get out of his bed choking with a sore throat, and in a high fever, only to dress and have a levee, and in five minutes undress and return to his bed till the same ridiculous farce of health was to be presented the next day at the same hour." It must be owned, however, that George made a stout fight against ill-health, and if he shammed being well, he kept up the sham for a good long time. He came into the world more than a dozen years before Lord Hervey was born, and he contrived ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... prophets; all are alike inspired; all alike worthy of trust and credence. Spontaneous reason has grasped a number of oddly conflicting doctrines, let me tell you, and the reconciliation of these would be an undertaking to which the dozen labors of Hercules seem a farce." ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... This little farce repeated itself every morning. All the household knew that the master's hour of meditation was merely an excuse for an after-sleep. But it was a tradition in the family that the master should study thus; and Mr. Fujinami's ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... Conservatives gave their annual performance of the good old farce entitled, Choosing a Candidate; or, Who's got the Money-bags? We are glad to be able to congratulate this distinguished body of amateurs on the modest success which attended their efforts. Most of the performers are well-known to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 18, 1891 • Various
... no sooner spoken than the musicians, who had orders to attend, entered, and answered fully the expectations the princes had been led to entertain of their abilities. After the concerts, an excellent farce was acted, and the entertainment was concluded by dancers ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... suite one morning, as he sometimes did in the effort to establish more amicable relations, and had found it occupied only by the valet, who was dusting the furniture and bric-a-brac with a feather broom rather in the style of a man-servant at the rise of the curtain of an old-fashioned farce. After a courteous exchange of greetings, Archie sat down and lit a cigarette. Parker ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... and sent to invade Galicia. Crossing the frontier, his officers declared their distaste for the task, and knew they were reflecting the sentiments of an overpowering majority of their own nation. The invasion turned out a farce, and was rather in the nature of a ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane |
