"Farce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of becoming, as it were, a patroness under the rose, did so effectually exert her influence over the captain, that, in a day or two afterwards, play-bills were posted all over the town, announcing that the play of The Stranger, with the farce of Raising the Wind, would be performed on Friday evening, for the benefit of Miss Mortimer under the patronage of the Honourable Captain Delmar, and the officers of his Majesty's ship Calliope. Of course the grateful young lady sent my ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... tell ye? 'Tis without eyes ye think me!" The policeman was resentful, and so, to tell the truth, was I. The whole maddening affair seemed bent on turning to farce at every angle; the doctor, as a final straw, had just offered sotto voce to ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... date the 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 received his ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... situation, and you might look far for a better passage than the description of Sir Condy's parting with his lady. But it is better to illustrate from a scene perhaps less genuinely humorous, but more professedly so—Sir Condy's wake. Miss Edgeworth does not dwell on the broad farce of the entertainment; she does not make Thady eloquent over the whisky that was drunk and the fighting that began and so forth, as Lever or Carleton would certainly have been inclined to do. She fixes ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... forerunners were equally reactionary. They found no constitutional grounds for reversal! Of course not, even though the right of free speech and assembly had been trampled underfoot at the Haymarket Square, the right to a fair trial made into a cruel farce. ...
— Labor's Martyrs • Vito Marcantonio
... production I've ever been in!" complained Mr. Hadley to Blake. "Did you ever see such a farce as when the Confederates were hidden in the orchard and the Unionists stormed over the stone wall? You'd think they were a lot of boys going after apples. Bah! ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... the unthinking soldiers of the party indulged in screams of laughter at the uncouth appearance of the whilom rebel; and certainly the character in tableau or farce need not have spoken, to convulse any audience that ever assembled in Christendom. Rip Van Winkle, with the devastations and dilapidations of five-and-twenty years hanging about him, did not present a more forlorn appearance than did ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... girl," said she succinctly, and forthwith changed the subject. "There are a few necessary details that must be attended to, Mr. Carroll. That is why I sent for you at this early hour. Mr. Leslie Wrandall will take charge—Ah!" she straightened up suddenly. "What a farce it ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... with careless gaiety through school and college, when his apparently sane and kind relative, growing tired of romantic drama, suddenly behaved like a guardian in an old-fashioned farce. Instead of making his wife his housekeeper, as most men do, he made his housekeeper his wife. She was a depressing woman. In a year he had a son and heir, and within two months after this event, he died, leaving his nephew ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... wrote farces, which she could not get accepted; but she obtained an increase of salary to three pounds a week by unwillingly consenting not only to act in plays, but also to walk in pantomime. At last, in July, 1784, her first farce, "The Mogul Tale," was acted. It brought her a hundred guineas. Three years later her success as a writer had risen so far that she obtained nine hundred pounds by a little piece called "Such Things Are." She still lived sparingly, invested savings, and was liberal ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... it is, youngster, we have played this farce long enough," Tom proceeded, in a rage. "I want you to understand that I am not to be trifled with. You may make a fool of the old man, but you can't make a ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... and both parties fired. No harm was done; but apologies were out of the question, and "another shot" was loudly and peremptorily called for, and the distance, eight paces was shortened to six. The farce was again repeated, when Murray, wondering at the bloodless result, espied a smile on the features of his second, which did not seem in keeping with the gravity of the occasion. His suspicions were aroused; and ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... debts, L5,670. They informed the house of commons of the offer, and ten of the leading citizens were confined for five days in Newgate, and afterwards knelt at the bar of the house and were reprimanded by the speaker—a solemn farce, for they sold the seats to two neighbouring magnates, and are said to have arranged the transaction while they were in prison. Holland bought a seat for his second son, Charles James Fox, then a youth of nineteen. As was natural in his father's son, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... carriage would appear; but when at last he had seen her brougham, she had driven rapidly past him, thickly veiled, and he did not think she had even noticed him. He would have written to her, but he was still unable to hold a pen; and he reflected that, after all, it would have been a hideous farce for him to offer condolences and sympathy, however much he might desire to hide from himself his secret satisfaction at her husband's death. Too proud to think of obtaining information through such base channels as Del Ferice was willing to use, he ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... away upon his mission. What a farce it was that he should be engaged to make straight the affairs of other people, when his own affairs were so very crooked! As he walked up to the old farm-house in which Mr. Saul was living, he thought of this, and acknowledged to himself that he could hardly make himself in earnest ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... of the consuls. After the death of Caesar, the comitia continued to be held, but was always controlled by the rulers, whose unlimited powers were ultimately complied with without resistance. Finally the comitia became a mere farce, and all legislation passed away forever, and was completely in the hands ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... house-work—scullion-work—for it, and eating and living with them, I might try; but I know from experience I'm not. I haven't the need, and to pretend that I have, to forego my comforts and luxuries in a make-believe that I haven't them, would be too ghastly a farce, ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... 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 ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... The allusion is to the farce Better Late than Never (attributed to Miles Peter Andrews, but really, according to Reynolds (Life, vol. ii. pp. 79, 80), by himself, Topham, and Andrews), in which Pallet, an artist, is a prominent character. It was played at Drury Lane for the ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... conspicuously demonstrated, as the speakers represented the East, the South, the Middle West and the Pacific Slope. Mrs. Florence Howe Hall (N. J.), the highly educated daughter of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, read a charming farce entitled The Judgment of Minerva, the suffragists and the antis, as goddesses, bringing their cause before Jupiter, with a decision, of course, in favor of the former. Miss Diana Hirschler, a young lawyer of Boston, presented Woman's Position in the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... always cry when I am particularly well pleased. It is a family peculiarity. You should see me at the theatre. At a farce comedy I am a depressing sight, and that is the reason I always avoid the ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... 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 ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... the offended parties, that, when Monsieur Edmond About called them stupid boobies, humbugs, tumblers, he had no intention whatever of offending them. Good gracious! far otherwise! In fine, one day the farce was played, the curtain fell upon the well-spanked critics, and all this little company (so full of talents and chivalry!) went arm-in-arm, the insulter and the insulted, to breakfast together at Monsieur About's rooms, where, between a dozen oysters ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... constituents at home while voting against any temperance law, however stringent, and this gave the friends of the law good warrant to make just such a law as was needed. And so the bill became a law; and then there followed such a farce in the courts as might make us lose faith in our Christian civilization and in our civilized jurisprudence. And it came to be understood that a coach-and-four could be driven through the loopholes that had been left in the law, and saloonkeepers began ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... clerk who swore the latter to his affidavit in my office. This treacherous rascal not only testified that Hawkins took his oath to the contents of the paper, but at the same time had told me that it was false. The farce went on, a mere formal giving of testimony, until at length the district attorney announced that he had ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... said Curlie when the farce was ended. "Bet he never even guessed he was being chased. But you ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... he, 'if you will follow me into this room, I will explain to you the meaning of this little farce which we have been acting. I beg, Berthier, that you will remain in this chamber, and so make sure that no ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... communion, to-morrow's ceremony is only a farce. Do you think that anyone is ever really fit according to the rubric? Away with such silly nonsense, there is nothing in heaven or earth to compare with the delights of coition!" And his movements went on, each stroke of that fine cock filling her vagina to repletion, and ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... irritably. "All our medicine is but a contrivance to keep up the farce, to continue the ills of humanity, to keep the wretched and diseased where they have ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... and associations like these no demoralizing influence? How can parents admonish their children against novel reading after they have taken their names from novels? The giving of Christian names at the present time is indeed a ridiculous farce, an insult to christianity, and a representation of stoical infidelity before the baptismal altar. It is there an act of the Babylonish king to heathenize the child. We might almost say that the folly has become a rage. The rage ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... maintain the line of action she had resolved upon. She had thought, "I won't try to appear happy when I am not. I won't adopt the conventional mask of gayety when the heart is wounded. How often I have seen through it and smiled at the transparent farce—farce it seemed then, but I now fear it was often tragedy. At any rate there was neither dignity nor deception in it. I have done with being false, and so shall simply act myself and be a true woman. Though my heart break a thousand times, not even by ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... children, and accordingly was prompt to discipline us; but we discovered early in our acquaintance with her that the child who got a spanking was sure to get a hot cookie or the jam pot to lick, so we did not stand in great awe of her punishments. Even if it came to a spanking it was only a farce. Grandma generally interposed a pillow between the palm of her hand and the area of ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... 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 to PENITENCE, That She ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... I have waited patiently for you to end this farce," said Somers, in deep disgust apparently. "You have looked at the pictures, and you are not satisfied yet. I can stand it no longer; I am tired of the whole thing. You have treated me very handsomely, and I am grateful to you for your kindness to me; but I ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... bomb. So they were able to bring a loudspeaker van to its edge and boom at him to come out. He allowed them to do that for some inscrutable reason; perhaps to demonstrate that his powers were selective. Then it seemed he got tired of the farce, and cruel fingers twined themselves into the nerve centers of the President of Italy and the Prime Minister of the government of United Europe. He made them dance a horribly twisted pas de deux on the banks of the Danube for his ...
— The Mightiest Man • Patrick Fahy
... marks of treachery, that it could not be attributed to the general trepidation and disorder which possessed the army, and circumstances proved that a correspondence subsisted between Monthault and the Parliamentary general, which the farce of taking him prisoner and committing him to close custody, when the King's forces were generally permitted to disband and return to their houses, strongly confirmed. Lord Hopton recollected that his designs had been counteracted by Fairfax, in a manner which implied previous ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... parliamentary knowledge and man[oe]uvre of a Duke of Newcastle, not only held it, but acted upon it, professing, in his own words, to "know nothing of the management of a House of Commons, and to throw himself upon the people alone for support." This farce operated as it might be expected; and although the negotiation between Lord North and Mr. Fox was matter of perfect notoriety for several weeks, those moments were suffered to pass away without any attempt to avail himself ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... in the organ-loft and squall a tune that nobody knows, and worshipers, with two thousand dollars' worth of diamonds on the right hand, drop a cent into the poor-box, and then the benediction is pronounced and the farce is ended. ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... full. That was denied me. God, or whoever was responsible, had my eyes knocked out, and made it impossible for ever. He or somebody must be enjoying the farce." ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... none," 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 this ...
— Young Glory and the Spanish Cruiser - A Brave Fight Against Odds • Walter Fenton Mott
... of the question. I must abide by the spirit of my orders: the farce must be played out; so, touching the flanks of my horse, I rode forward to the edge of the verandah, and placed myself vis-a-vis with ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... men and women passed me, just as I was going to let myself in again. They were in a great hurry. 'Step out,' says one of the men; 'the theatre's close by, and we shall be just in time for the farce.' I turned about and followed them. Having been piously brought up, I had never been inside a theatre in my life. It struck me that I might get taken, as it were, out of myself, if I saw something that was quite strange to me, and heard something which ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... after Forrester had become too well known to the police in connection with it. Davitt, too, had a hawker's licence; and, at first, there was really no evidence to connect him with the Fenian movement. The farce was gone through of bringing Corydon to identify him—not a very difficult task in the case of a one-armed man—though this was the first time Corydon ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... which he saw in the galleries of Edinburgh, he saw the skilful painter, "the style of men who know how to handle a brush, and carry a good effect," but he missed that closeness and fidelity to Nature which to him so much outweighed mere technique. Landseer's "Death of a Stag" affected him like a farce. It was pretty, but not real and true. He did not feel that way about the sermon he heard Sydney Smith preach: "It was a sermon to me. He made me smile and he made me think deeply. He pleased me at times by painting ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... the imprudent, hot-brained 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 ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... affecting. "The reason," says the Spectator, "is, that persons think it makes them look ridiculous, by betraying the weakness of their nature. But why may not nature show itself in tragedy, as well as in comedy or farce? We see persons not ashamed to laugh loudly at the humour of a Falstaff,—or the tricks of a harlequin; and why should not the tear be equally allowed to flow for the misfortunes of a Juliet, or the forlornness of ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... be it observed, was the only real barrier interposed by them against absolute despotism. Could this trial, then, have been such an entire farce as it necessarily must have been, if the jury had had no power to judge of the justice of the laws the people were required to obey? Did it not rather imply that the jury were to judge independently and fearlessly as to everything involved in the charge, and especially as to its intrinsic ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... hands. I thought of their taloned grip and put my own hands in my pockets, and the androids relaxed, looking up at Jerry for instructions. No one paid any attention to the little dishwasher, now staring worshipfully at the back of Jerry's neck. This farce, I decided, had ...
— Robots of the World! Arise! • Mari Wolf
... all ready for him. Everything will be nice and proper and in strict order, and every man will say precisely what he's been ordered to say—and there you are! The Inspector will issue his report that he's carefully examined everything and found all correct, and the comedy will conclude with the farce of votes of thanks all round! That's the ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... stir at Venice. Petrarch seems at first to have smiled with sensible contempt at so impertinent a farce; but will it be believed that his friends, and among them Donato and Boccaccio, advised and persuaded him to treat it seriously, and to write a book about it? Petrarch accordingly put his pen to the subject. He wrote a treatise, which he entitled "De sui ipsius et aliorum Ignorantia—" (On ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... of romantic spirit. Again, in the sacre rappresentazioni, the burlesque interpolations from actual life, which with us aided the genesis of the interlude, and through it of the romantic comedy, are as a rule so conspicuously absent that the rustic farce with which one nativity play opens can only be regarded as a direct and conscious imitation from the French. It is, on the other hand, a remarkable fact, and one which, in the absence of any evidence of direct imitation,[205] must be taken to indicate ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... ship and of the artillery, and went off in high style, applauded, as it deserved to be applauded, with the loudest acclamations. The quarter-deck of a British line-of-battle ship has often enough been a stage for the exhibition of bloody tragedies; but to witness a comedy and a farce upon that stage, and in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, was delightful from its very singularity. When the performance came to an end, the stage was knocked down, the seats removed, and everything cleared for ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... 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; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... the Fokker; 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 ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... apartment. McKnight left the power on, in case we might want to make a quick get-away, and Hotchkiss gave a final look at the revolver. I had no weapon. Somehow it all seemed melodramatic to the verge of farce. In the doorway Hotchkiss was a half dozen feet ahead; Richey fell back beside me. He dropped his affectation of gayety, and I thought he looked tired. "Same old Sam, ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... rampant. The shabby little theater on South Street was no longer relegated to opprobrium, but put in some repair and made a place of fashionable entertainment; the versatile Englishmen turning their hands and their wits to almost anything in that line, from scene-painting to acting in comedy, farce, or tragedy. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... need to argue the question—the public has decided it long since, and, except in indelicate ballets, and occasional rather French passages in farce, our modern stage is free from immorality. Even in Garrick's days, when men were not much more refined than in those of Queen Anne, it was found impossible to put the old drama on the stage without considerable weeding. Indeed I doubt if even the liberal upholder of Paul de Kock ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... not a farce,' Hazel said, knitting her brows. 'Leave fashions of speech a one side. John Charteris, with all his faults, would never grow tired of you, Josephineif you gave him half a chance to help it; but ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... should reveal to us its predestined fatal termination. This idea meets us again in the first act of "The Lonely Way." The fourth of those one-act plays, "Literature," is what Schnitzler has named it—a farce—but delightfully ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... a farce, stripped of all dignity and justice by the fact that the judge upon the bench, the prosecuting attorneys, and other officials were personally interested, each holding New York grants for many thousand acres in the disputed territory. All ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... tell. It is the story of Paragot, the beloved vagabond—please pronounce his name French-fashion—and if I obtrude myself on your notice it is because I was so much involved in the medley of farce and tragedy which made up some years of his life, that I don't know how to tell the story otherwise. To Paragot I owe everything. He is at once my benefactor, my venerated master, my beloved friend, my creator. Clay in his hands, he moulded me according to his caprice, and ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... planning for the party and kept up a pretty show of concern which Marjorie alone knew to be false. Privately Mary's deceitful attitude was a sore trial to her. Honest to the core, she felt that she would rather her chum had maintained open hostility than a farce of good will which was dropped the moment they chanced to be alone. Still she resolved to bear it and look forward to a happier day when ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... favorite with her. One of them was to love the other and to die broken-hearted because the loved one would not requite the passion. For Agatha, prompt to ridicule sentimentality in her companions, and gifted with an infectious spirit of farce, secretly turned for imaginative luxury to visions of despair and death; and often endured the mortification of the successful clown who believes, whilst the public roar with laughter at him, that he was born a tragedian. There was much in her nature, she felt, ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... paper pointed out, it seemed a farce and a waste of money to have any trial at all. The assassin had not only been caught red-handed, but had actually confessed. Why waste time over a trial? True, one paper timidly suggested that it might have been a case of suicide. ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... Tired of this long farce, the minister at last assumed a serious tone, and threatened the obstinate duke with the Emperor's resentment, if he persisted in his refusal. "Low enough had the imperial dignity," he added, "stooped already; and yet, instead of exciting ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... Girl-Abbess was elected: the superior of the convent resigned to her the abbatial stall and crozier at vespers, as soon as they came to the verse of the Magnificat, beginning "Deposuit potentes de sede;" and the farce was kept up till the same hour the succeeding evening. The Abbe De la Rue, who mentions this fact, observes with justice, that another circumstance, which appears from these accounts, is still more extraordinary;—that, even as late as 1546, the abbess was ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... the extraordinary drama—farce would be a better name were its possibilities not so tragic—which is being staged at Fiume would be complete without some mention of the romantic figure who is playing the part of hero or villain, according to whether your sympathies are with the Italians or the ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... before. He had not lived at peace with his people; he had quarreled bitterly with some of them, and the scandal had been noised abroad. He was a man of brutal temper, and without moral integrity. These were the dramatis personae employed by Cotton Mather in the first scene of his hideous farce. ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... 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
... 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
... coach rolled over silent commons, where cottage windows twinkled, and by darkling woods under calm starlit skies, Pen was vowing to reform and to resist temptation, and his heart was at home. Meanwhile the farce was going on very successfully, and Mrs. Leary, in a hussar jacket and braided pantaloons, was enchanting the audience with her archness, her lovely ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and the federal government, including the federal judiciary, from absolute control of corporate monopoly. How to restore the voice of the citizen in the government of his country; and how to put an end to those proceedings in some of the higher courts which are farce and mockery on one side, and a criminal usurpation and oppression ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... of obtaining a decent position in England in anything like a reasonable time seem to me greater than ever they were. To attempt to live by any scientific pursuit is a farce. Nothing but what is absolutely practical will go down in England. A man of science may earn great distinction, but not bread. He will get invitations to all sorts of dinners and conversaziones, but not enough income to pay his cab fare. A man of science ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... contract should not be considered binding. We kept up a regular correspondence during the time, and in June, 1848, we had the happiness to be joined in holy wedlock. Not in slaveholding style, which is a mere farce, without the sanction of law or gospel; but in accordance with the laws of God and our country. My beloved wife is a bosom friend, a help-meet, a loving companion in all the social, moral, and religious relations of life. She is to me what a poor slave's wife ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... was very well pleased with your capital long letter. A better farce than the whole affair of that letter-opening (ducks and Mr. Weightman included) was never imagined. {282} By-the-bye, speaking of Mr. W., I told you he was gone to pass his examination at Ripon six weeks ago. He is not come ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... he had missed in battle. The sudden swelling of rivers and downpour of rain stopped all movement at once, and the "Mud March" came to an end. A Federal general could retain his hold on the men after a reverse, but not after a farce: Burnside was replaced by General Joseph Hooker, who had a splendid reputation as a subordinate leader. The new commander displayed great energy in reorganizing the Army of the Potomac, the discipline of which had not ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... 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 of a tragedy ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... theater dress it might be tentatively remarked that prinking and "making up" in public are all part of an age which can not see fun in a farce without bedroom scenes and actors in pajamas, and actresses running about in negliges with their hair down. An audience which night after night watches people dressing and undressing probably gets into an unconscious ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... The Jacobite farce, or tragedy, was speedily brought to a close by the battle of Culloden; there did Charlie wish himself back again o'er the water, exhibiting the most unmistakable signs of pusillanimity; there were the clans cut to pieces, at least those who could be brought to the charge, ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... warmth of my fire, and the sweet monotony of that low, mournful chanting, were by degrees gliding into my troubled senses, and lulling them into a treacherous security. "Just so," I reasoned, "shock and countershock. The terrible scourge has by this time exhausted its strength. It was only a farce, after all. Much ado about nothing. The people of this town have become so familiar with the earthquake that they make a carnival of it. By this time they are perhaps feasting and rioting under their booths. Ho! am I the only craven here? And had I not my desire? Am I not now on speaking terms ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... evening began with a capital farce, "Away with Melancholy," and then came the great play, "Henry VIII.," the greatest theatrical treat I ever had or ever expect to have. I had no idea that anything so superb as the scenery and dresses ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... a tall, upright, mantled and hooded figure, stepping through the heavy rain that had fallen since noon, under a quaint monster of a cotton umbrella with ribs of ancient whale,—Tragedy carrying Farce. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... mingled yarn of human life, tragedy is never far asunder from farce; and it is amusing to retrace in immediate succession to this incident of epic dignity, which has its only parallel by the way in the case of Vasco de Gama, (according to the narrative of Camoens,) when met and confronted by a sea phantom, whilst attempting to double the Cape ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... Petit Jehan de Saintre (a work which itself has some affinities with the class of story before us), not only the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, but the famous satirical treatise of the Quinze Joyes du Mariage, and the still more famous farce of Pathelin. Some of the Nouvelles, moreover, have been putatively fathered on Louis XI. himself, in which case the royal house of France would boast of two distinguished taletellers instead of one. However this may be, they all display the somewhat ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... said," I have been tortured by this useless and expensive farce. If counsel for the People had been other than play-actors, they would have known in the beginning that Victor Ancona could not be convicted for murder, unless he were confronted in this court room with a living witness, who had looked into the dead face of Nina San Croix; or, if not ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... by such as you?" he exclaimed. "That is a joke. But go ahead with the farce, and let's have it over with as soon ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... 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 sex. Hang ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... 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 ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... sitting in a London flat and projecting a mission into the enemy's citadel without an idea what we were to do or how we were to do it. And one of the three was looking at the ceiling, and whistling softly through his teeth, and another was playing Patience. The farce of the thing struck me so keenly that ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... astounded, that such strong, clear words of Christ are treated as a farce by these Romanists. For by these words it is clear to every one that the kingdom of God (for so He calls His Church[25]) is not at Rome, nor is it bound to Rome or any other place, but it is where there is faith in the heart, be a man at ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... presently assumed a grave cast of its own accord, and in that new shape spread itself out into a book. Much the same thing happened with PUDD'NHEAD WILSON. I had a sufficiently hard time with that tale, because it changed itself from a farce to a tragedy while I was going along with it—a most embarrassing circumstance. But what was a great deal worse was, that it was not one story, but two stories tangled together; and they obstructed and interrupted each ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... date far back to Egyptian times, when even prostitution was countenanced by the priests, and when they practiced all sorts of impostures upon the ignorant masses. In the Middle Ages they turned Christianity, the richest of blessings, into a snare, a delusion, a rank farce. They arrogated to themselves all learning, all science. In Peru it was even illicit for any one not belonging to the nobility to attempt to acquire learning. That was the sole privilege of priests and kings. In all nations, from the remotest antiquity, and whether civilized ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Shears, with a gaiety that was too boisterous to be quite natural. "Of course I'm sure! I never saw anything more amusing in my life. It's first-rate farce.... What a master of chaff this Arsene Lupin is!... He tricks you, but he does it so gracefully!... I wouldn't give my seat at this banquet for all the gold in the world.... Wilson, old chap, you disappoint me. Can I have been ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... to you for sisterly help and comfort, such as you gave just now, I would have frozen in the snow, and been less cold. Unless you break down the bar you put between us, I never want to see your face again,—never, living or dead! I want no sham farce of friendship between us, benefits given or received: your hand touching mine as it might touch Bone's or David Gaunt's; your voice cooing in my ear as it did just now, cool and friendly. It maddened me. Rest can scarcely come from you ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... Welshman a "goat." All the schoolboys who were not Welsh delighted in teasing us by applying the uncomplimentary nickname. This once resulted at the Sharon operahouse, in turning a dramatic episode into a howling farce. ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... 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 ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... to an end for us a quarter of a year's captivity, and all the prisoners, at least, were glad when the dismal farce of Christmas under such ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes
... institution—whatever they were—and to submit to such restraint as might be deemed necessary. 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 ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... your sense of justice," cried our prisoner impatiently. "Hasn't this farce been allowed to go far enough? Is there any reason why this fake detective should make fools out of us all and keep my wife longer in this court? I'm not disposed to let the matter drop. I wish to enter a charge against him of false arrest and malicious prosecution. I shall ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... elect. He saw that the universe 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 ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... here is Michael showing that he has got tastes. Can you wonder that I'm delighted? And not only has he got tastes, but he has the strength of character to back them. Michael, in the Guards too! It was a perfect farce, and he's had the sense to see it. He hated his duties, and he hated his diversions. ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... ourselves and with everybody else. If we are story writers or story readers, and practically every one is either one or the other in these days, we must come to grips with life in the fiction we write or read. Sloppy sentimentality and slapstick farce ought to bore us frightfully, especially if we have any sense of humor. Life is too real to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... sup: When all the while you might 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 gives no offence, Where truth ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... on the other hand, was always on a broad grin—or rather roar. He breathed farce, both in story and feature. Unlike the boatswain, who was middle-sized and very trig, as well as scrupulously neat, the carpenter was over six feet, broad in proportion, with big, round, red, close-shaven face, framed with abundance of white hair. He looked not unlike one's fancies ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... I came home on a vacation to-day, and was sitting up to watch father's melon-patch for the pure fun of it, expecting to catch some small boys, and when I caught you, I couldn't resist the temptation of a little farce. As for Amy, that only occurred to me at the last; and if you think it unfair, you may ...
— Hooking Watermelons - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... though without education, learns everything. He possessed an inexhaustible, imperturbable store of talk. His words gushed forth abundantly in original remarks, laughable images, the metaphors that flow from the comic genius of crowds. He had the natural picturesqueness of the unadulterated farce. He was brimming over with amusing stories and buffoonery, rich in the possession of the richest of all repertories of house-painter's nonsense. Being a member of divers of the low haunts called lists, he knew all the new tunes and ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... my song, A terrible end of the farce shall see, If you join the inquisitive throng That follow'd poor George to the Marshalsea. If Milwood were here, dash my wigs, Quoth he, I would pummel and lam her well; Had I stuck to my prunes and figs, I ne'er had stuck Nunky at Camberwell. ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... 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
... little books we find much of the plain sense of law. There is no mystification by technicalities, but all the information is practical, all ready to hand, we mean mouth; so that, as Mrs. Fixture says in the farce of A Roland for an Oliver—"If there be such a thing as la' in the land," you may "ha' it." Joking apart, they are sensible books, and of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 479, March 5, 1831 • Various
... tubes of his stethoscope and began the sounding, backwards and forwards from heart to lungs, and from lungs to heart again; while the Old Lady looked on as merry as Destiny, and nodded her head and smiled, as much to say, "Tchee-tchee, what a farce ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... scarcely smaller than the rest of him together. The fellow's mouth was slit almost from ear to ear, and he showed his teeth with a grinning smile of idiot courtesy, while he overwhelmed me with bows and scrapes innumerable. The farce now becoming excessively irksome, I thanked him in the fewest words I could well use, turned about my still trembling charger, and purposed either to seek another adventure, or, should I meet with none, to take my way back to the city; for the sun, during ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... locked up the letters in the safe, and I now rummaged the small bookcase in the smoking-room, then the large one in my study, and finally pretended to be greatly astonished at finding the two reviews under a heap of newspapers on my table. What a silly farce! Was my stepfather taken in by it? When I had handed him the two numbers, he rose from the chair that he had sat in during my pretended search in the chimney-corner of the smoking- room, with his back to my father's portrait. But, again, what did ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... till eight o'clock, but it was of course, uncertain if he would adhere to this hour. If I were right in my suppositions (and I could see no flaw in my reasoning), he would present himself at that time and carry out the farce. It was due to his men, to the other scoundrels of the pack whom he was cheating. And what would happen when we maintained that we had no knowledge of the treasure? It was clear that the men would insist on an assault. And if so, what chance had we against the infuriated ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... to municipal law in the State of Alabama, its administration is a farce. The ministers of the law themselves are too often desperadoes and engaged in the perpetration of the very crime they are sent forth to prohibit or to punish. Without the aid of the bayonets of the United States Alabama ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... 7th.—The farce continued, and how to manage these haughty capricious blacks puzzled my brains considerably; but I felt that if I did not stand up now, no one would ever be treated better hereafter. I sent Nasib to the queen, to explain why I had not been to see her. I desired to do so, because I admired ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... air with a most Quixotic fury—then crouch on bent knee, to make ready their pistols, while in their rear, marines and pikemen, musket and rifle armed, snap their pieces, and pour into an imaginary foe a vast volley of imaginary balls; then pierce the air with savage bayonet thrusts. The farce, and yet a most useful farce, is gone through with. The retreat is ordered to be beat, and all retire; refill the armory with their deadly rifles and side arms, and then return to their respective watches, work, or recreation—some gathering ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'He has a singular talent of exhibiting character.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is not a talent; it is a vice; it is what others abstain from. It is not comedy, which exhibits the character of a species, as that of a miser gathered from many misers: it is farce, which exhibits individuals.' BOSWELL. 'Did not he think of exhibiting you, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, fear restrained him; he knew I would have broken his bones. I would have saved him the trouble of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Adrienne Le Couvreur, a beautiful actress, denied burial. After all, we do feel an interest in what is to become of our bodies. There is a modesty that belongs to death. Upon this subject Voltaire was infinitely sensitive. It was that he might be buried that he went through the farce of confession, of absolution, and of the last sacrament. The priests knew that he was not in earnest, and Voltaire knew that they would not allow him to be buried in any of the cemeteries of Paris. His death was kept a secret. The Abbe Mignot made arrangements for the burial ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... it still remains true that, in another sense of the words "purity" and "delicacy," he possesses humour more pure and delicate than, perhaps, any other writer in the world can show. For if that humour is the purest and most delicate which is the freest from any admixture of farce, and produces its effects with the lightest touch, and the least obligations to ridiculous incident, or what may be called the "physical grotesque," in any shape—then one can point to passages from Sterne's pen which, for fulfilment ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... partial statements of the lawyers, these twelve honest but ignorant men were called upon to decide between physicians offering precisely opposite opinions. It is well when this so-called administration of justice ends as a monstrous farce and not as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... "If this farce continues longer than an hour and a half, I shall throw down my harp and go away," said Carlo, in a tone of severity. "I swear it to you by the spirit of my mother! Remember it; I shall show you the time every ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... sufficient sorrow and shame to American ears even now—this tale of how we failed to carry Quebec. Judge how grievously the recital fell upon my ears then, in the little barrack-chamber of Holland House, within hearing of the cannonade by which the farce of a siege was still maintained from day to day! Teunis told me how, by that first volley of grape at the guard-house, the brave and noble Montgomery had been instantly killed; how Arnold, forcing his way from the other direction at the head of his men, and being early ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... 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 ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... family of magpies, grey-blue above, with barred tails and yellow beaks, flitted about in restless quest, their constant cries being the only sound which broke the peaceful stillness, until the faint and distant sound of shouts and tom-toms showed that the first act of the farce had begun. ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... when the 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, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... but they will not hear Ireland speak. All the real amiability which most Englishmen undoubtedly feel towards Irishmen is lavished upon a class of Irishmen which unfortunately does not exist. The Irishman of the English farce, with his brogue, his buoyancy, and his tender-hearted irresponsibility, is a man who ought to have been thoroughly pampered with praise and sympathy, if he had only existed to receive them. Unfortunately, all the time that we ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... mean that, notwithstanding the risk to which you were subjecting him with his weak heart, you kept up the farce simply that Barbara might win an idiotic ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... 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. ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... 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
... the many agile counter-thrusts we should have to make against that "blockade" for which the Yankee frigates were already hovering off Ship Island. So said the Lieutenant, but Constance explained to him (Captain Mandeville having explained to her) what a farce that blockade ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... addition to the opera company, there was a fine 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 ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton |
