"Farce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... death We were not so alone, who might not quit, Smiling, this tediousness of breath, These bubble joys that flash and burst and flit,— This tragicomedy of life, where scarce We know if it be farce, ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... Taylor. Last night, a little before sundown, until after dark, we were amused by a farce enacted by the natives, apparently to keep us quiet and render us powerless, while they approached the water hole and got what water they required. They commenced at some distance off, raising a heavy black smoke, (by setting fire to the spinifex), and calling out most lustily at the top of ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... handing me my cloak, "this is a richer farce than mine! 'Tis you who should wear the cap and bells! But come, I will be your guide to the ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... we always done in Russia when a Czar suggests reforms?—nothing. You forget we are diplomatists. Men of thought should have nothing to do with action. Reforms in Russia are very tragic, but they always end in a farce. ...
— Vera - or, The Nihilists • Oscar Wilde
... door—my cry had set her going, as if I had touched a spring—and there he was at the door himself, rushing back. He, too, had remembered. It was almost a collision, and nothing but their good Southern breeding, the way they took it, saved it from being like a rowdy farce. ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... imposing personage enough, of the very type to awe the weak and timorous. He was much entertained on this particular morning,—one might almost say he was greatly amused. Quite a humorous little comedy was being played at the Vatican,—a mock- solemn farce, which had the possibility of ending in serious disaster to the innocent,—and he, as a student of the wily and treacherous side of human nature, was rather interested in its development. Cardinal Felix Bonpre, a man living far ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... plan something splendid, a 'grand combination,' as you used to call your droll mixtures of tragedy, comedy, melodrama and farce," answered his sister, with her head already full of ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... Milton, Cromwell, were great men, for they showed great power by acts and thoughts, that have not yet been consigned to oblivion. They must needs be men of lofty stature, whose shadows lengthen out to remote posterity. A great farce-writer may be a great man; for Moliere was but a great farce-writer. In my mind, the author of Don Quixote was a great man. So have there been many others. A great chess-player is not a great man, for he leaves the ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... as Dioscorides says, l. 1. c. 128. And there is an excellent sweet water extracted from the distill'd leaves and flowers: To which the naturalist adds, that they us'd the berries instead of pepper, to stuff and farce with them. Hence the mortadella a mortatula, still so call'd by the Italians, perhaps the myrtides of Athenaeus, deip. l. 2. c. 12. The vinum myrtites so celebrated by the{290:1} ancients, and so the oyl; And in some places the leaves for tanning ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... sharply as to the actions of Dorothy and Tavia while they were in her department. Did they appear hurried, or did they seem to crowd others? These and like questions were put to the clerk. Dorothy felt by this time that the whole thing was a farce. How could they help crowding? And why would they not appear in a hurry, when there were not half enough clerks to attend to ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... conjure by in Lost Valley. Steptoe Service prated of Gov'ment. It was a farce, a synonym for juggled duty, a word to suggest the one-man law of the place, for even Courtrey, who made the sheriffs—and unmade them—did it under the grandiloquent name of Government. She looked at him keenly, and there was a sudden hardening in ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... cannot keep up the farce that she is a real lady-in-waiting. In one place he tells us that she dusts the throne of the Princess; can you see her ladyship, eighteen last February, doing that? At other times he allows her to take ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... of dramatic vivacity; in these the "Host," Master Harry Bailly, acts as a most efficient choragus, but the other pilgrims are not silent, and in the "Manciple's" Prologue, the "Cook" enacts a bit of downright farce for the amusement of the company and of stray inhabitants of "Bob-up-and-down." He is, however, homoeopathically cured of the effects of his drunkenness, so that the "Host" feels justified in offering up a ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... in the victory, the fellowship which, developed under Partow, who believed that Napoleons and Colossi and gods in the car and all such gentlemen belonged to an archaic farce-comedy, had grown under Lanstron. "The staff reports," began the messages that awakened a world, retiring with the idea that the Browns were grimly holding the defensive, to the news that three millions ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... asked Broderick. What's to prevent rascals taking advantage of such a movement—running it to suit themselves? They're much cleverer than honest, men; more powerful.... Else do you think I'd use my political machine? No, no, Benito, this is farce—disaster." ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... tendency of his disposition to 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... considered almost brutal. He calls on her and pretends he would like to take her to the theatre, if it is in town, or for a ride, if it is in the country. She pretends she would like to go. Both of them know what the real purpose is, and both of them pretend they don't. They start the farce by pretending a deceit which deceives nobody. They wait for nature to set up an attraction which shall overrule their judgment, rather than act by judgment first and leave it to nature to take care of herself. How much ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... is a gigantic farce of the most ingenious construction. The whole comedy hinges on a huge joke, played by a heartless nephew on his misanthropic uncle, who is induced to take to himself a wife, young, fair, and warranted ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... to enable her to pass the preliminary examinations necessary to begin her studies in the medical college which was an outcast among its kind and known among the profession as a "diploma mill." She selected it because the course was easy and the tuition light, though its equipment was a farce and its laboratory too meagre to deserve the name; one of the commercial medical colleges turning out each year by the hundreds, for a few dollars, illiterate graduates, totally unfitted by temperament and education for a ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... the effort or heard the agony? Why torture himself? Why torture others? If the world were good, why was he not to have his part? If it were bad, might he not find a quiet nook under the wall, out of the storm? Why must he try to breast it? If Ayre was right, what a tragical farce his struggle was, what a perverse delusion, what an aimless flinging away of the little joy his little life could offer! If this were so, then was he indeed alone in the world—except for Claudia. Was his choice in truth between this ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... I have none to 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, ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... extremely arduous. In the event of our having to give two representations, the time at our disposal was so very short that, for all the rehearsals, we had but ten days before us. And since we were concerned not with a light comedy or farce, but with a grand opera, and one which, in spite of the trifling character of its music, contained numerous and powerful concerted passages, the undertaking might have been regarded almost as foolhardy. Nevertheless, I built my hopes ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... knew of them. I have tried to be more careful this time. During the revising process "The Woman-Haters" has more than doubled in length and, let us hope, in accuracy. Even now it is, of course, not a novel, but merely a summer farce-comedy, a "yarn." And this, by the way, is all that it pretends ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... all, behind the Nieuport. We exchanged shots merrily. Finally the Fokker let the Caudron go, and the Nieuport stopped chasing the Fokker. I fired my last shots at the Nieuport and went home. The whole farce lasted over an hour. We had worked hard, but without visible success. At least, the Fokker (who turned out to be Althaus) and I had ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... however, I failed to see all the ins and outs of it. I could understand a desire to get rid of me; there would be one less of the afterguard, and then, too, I knew too much of the men's sentiments, if not of their plans. But why all this elaborate farce of the mock quarrel and the alleged mistake? Could it be to guard against possible failure? I could hardly think it worth while. My only theory was that they had wished to test my strength and determination. The whole ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... was all a farce. What's a ceremony? For all I knew it wasn't even legal. When you did not answer my letter I thought that was what your silence meant. I asked a girl to ask her father who was a lawyer if a marriage was legal when the girl was under age and the parents didn't know ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... prove so constant a Butt, to Farce-wrights, and Hackney Laughers; when, upon Examination, he is, by a thousand Degrees, preferable to the British Hobbinol, or French Gregoire? For Teague is a very Pattern of Hospitality; so much so, that if a Gentleman should happen to miss ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... is not over!" he exclaimed. "There are proofs which neither the baron nor his wife know that I have. I have the proof of the infamous swindle of which the Marquis de Tregars was the victim. I have the proof of the farce got up by M. de Thaller and myself to defraud the stockholders of ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... these occasions always irritates with its strangeness and discomfort. The few occupants seem odd and oddly dressed, and you wonder how they got there. The particular weekly that you want is not taken in; the dinner is execrable, and the ventilation a farce. All these evils oppressed me to-night. And yet I was puzzled to find that somewhere within me there was a faint lightening of the spirits; causeless, as far as I could discover. It could not be Davies's letter. Yachting in the Baltic at the end of September! The very idea ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... they have been gay; and age by age they have exchanged language imitated from the children they doubtless never studied, and perhaps never loved. Why so? They might have chosen broken English of other sorts—that, for example, which was once thought amusing in farce, as spoken by the Frenchman conceived by the Englishman—a complication of humour fictitious enough, one might think, to please anyone; or else a fragment of negro dialect; or the style of telegrams; or the ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... marquants, and mine was this:—'Whatever Sheridan has done, or chosen to do, has been, par excellence, always the best of its kind. He has written the best comedy ("School for Scandal"), the best drama (in my mind, far before that St. Giles's lampoon, the "Beggars' Opera"), the best farce (the "Critic,"—it is only too good for a farce), and the best address ("Monologue on Garrick"), and, to crown all, delivered the very best oration (the famous "Begum Speech") ever conceived or ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... estates of Compiegne and Chambord, receiving a yearly income of seven and a half million francs, payable by the French treasury. The Spanish princes were similarly treated, Ferdinand signing away his rights for a castle and a pension. To crown the farce, Napoleon ordered Talleyrand to receive them at his estate of Valencay, and amuse them with actors and the charms of female society. Thus the choicest humorist of the age was told off to entertain three uninteresting exiles; and the ex-Minister of Foreign ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... been a considerable farce, in which I had played the most humiliating part. Indeed, but for the interposition of Barraclough I must have come out of it the butt of all shafts. As it was, I was sensitive in regard to my position, and more than once was tempted ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... drunk than that the misery which his drunkenness causes to innocent people should be punished, or prevented. The helpless must always suffer for the selfishness of other people—that is one of the "divine" laws of civilisation. The liberty of the subject is not only a farce, but a crime, when the liberty jeopardises the lives of the minority. The liberty to harm others will be a "liberty" punishable by law in the state which is anything more than democratic, except as a ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... "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 ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... persuade people that 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 ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... Frenchman, dead or alive. And yet, because I chanced to be among the crew, I was to be hung by the neck! I knew well enough, from what I had heard of French justice, that any excuses would be but breath wasted. Indeed, as one of the few English of the party, I should probably be spared even the farce of a trial. My only hope was that Captain Cochin, who had not been unkind to me so far, would speak ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... not fully 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 would have to be enough ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... glance, steady as a rifle, had not wavered. "No, you needn't work yourself up into a passion—and as for your lordly, dictatorial airs, I am past the age when they affect me—keep them for your servants. By God!—what a farce it all is! Let us talk of something ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... poison, death, and hell. But he asks him, what is the use of a Council at all if the Pope arrogates to himself beforehand, as his decrees fulminate, the right of altering and tearing up its decisions. Far better to spare the expense and trouble of such a farce, and say, 'We will believe and worship your hellship without any Councils.' The piece of arch-knavery practised by the Pope in himself announcing a Council against Emperor and Empire was, in fact, nothing new. The Popes from the very first had practised all kinds of devilish wickedness, ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... "This farce must end. I cannot bandy words with such as you. Not another dollar shall you receive from me—not a penny. You had my final word at Massac, last Spring. Quit this boat instantly, and leave St. Louis. If I see you again, or hear of your hanging around the garrison, I'll ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... home worth defending, lies with the individual defenders. To attempt to put it into the hands of those who are not physically fitted to maintain the obligations that may result from any vote or any legislative act, is to render law a farce, and to betray the trust imposed upon them by the constitution they have sworn to uphold. Universal manhood suffrage is the crowning result in the long evolution of government. Our statesmen of the Revolutionary period did not contemplate it. But stability was the thing for which ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... 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 at Romilli-on-the-Seine, ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... a 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
... I am afraid folks might make a farce of it; and, therefore, should you change your style, I still advise a volume ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... laughing schools, Our author flies sad Heraclitus rules, No tears, no terror plead in his behalf, The aim of Farce is but to make you laugh Beneath the tragick or the comick name, Farces and puppet shows ne'er miss of fame Since then, in borrow'd dress, they've pleas'd the town, Condemn them not, ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... she will be true to herself. Let Dissenters, whether they be Church of England, as perhaps they may still call themselves, Methodist or Presbyterian, presume to grumble, and there shall be bruising of lips in pulpits, tying up to whipping-posts, cutting off ears and noses—he! he! the farce of King Log has been acted long enough; the time for Queen Stork's tragedy is drawing nigh;" and the man in black sipped his gin and water in a very ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... a fine thing or a foolish thing, as the case may be; an encouragement to friendliness, or a tribute to fashion; an expression of good nature, or a bid for favour; an outgoing of generosity, or a disguise of greed; a cheerful old custom, or a futile old farce, according to the spirit which animates it and the form ...
— The Spirit of Christmas • Henry Van Dyke
... 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
... most intelligent telegraphic despatch that it was possible for one human eye to convey to another, and said more plainly than words could—"You shall see how I can humbug them all." That look opened my eyes completely to the farce that was acting before me, and entering into the spirit of the scene, I must own that I enjoyed it amazingly. The blacksmith was mesmerised by a look alone, and for half an hour went on in a most funny manner, keeping the spectators with their ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... "So sweet, my dear! So perfectly wonderful! You really have got some dandy actors!" And, "Why don't you try something lighter—something simpler, don't you know. Something really popular that these poor people could understand and appreciate? A little farce! I could ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... what his or her part was to be, Yram said they had better shake hands all round and take a couple of hours' rest before getting ready for the banquet. George said that the Professors did not shake hands with him very cordially, but the farce was gone through. When the hand-shaking was over, Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum left the house, and the Professors retired ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... "No farce," said Susanna, gently. "Only a wedding—at which you shall give the bride away. And now—the launch is waiting. The sooner you are off, the sooner ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... answered the other, with sudden change to ostentatious indifference. "It's time the farce stopped. I, for one, have had enough of it. If you like, I will tell Lady Ogram myself, ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... the farce is both argument and comment. Walker was either a citizen of the United States, levying war upon a friendly foreign state, and as such amenable to the penalties of our neutrality laws,—or he was a citizen of Nicaragua, as he pretended to be, abusing our protection to organize warlike ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... 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 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... you have some honesty left in your composition. You acknowledge the deception, and we will let the farce end here. You have become a thief and a midnight incendiary. I have been weak and indulgent towards you. My eyes are opened, and I shall pursue ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... authorities at Bahia had remained quiescent, since officially no state of war existed, and in the eyes of the Government the Dutch were supposed merely to be quelling some revolutionary movements ere they departed for Europe! Now the time came for this farce to be ended, and the Governor of Bahia sent troops to the north to join the insurgents in their struggle against the Dutch. The traitor Hoogstraten now definitely joined these forces, and the whole of the country south ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... to be jealous or afraid that the other had come to raise the siege, as it was rumoured, nor did the said lady of Cleves show any sign of discontent at seeing her rival in her place. Moreover, Sire, if it please you to hear the end of this farce, that evening, and the next, the two ladies supped at the King's table together, although the lady of Cleves sat a little backward, in a corner, where the Princess of England, Madame Mary, is wont to be; and the following day, the said lady of Cleves returned with ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... supplant Bolivar, Marino convoked a congress, which proved to be a farce, having but ten members. Marino solemnly resigned his place of second in command of the army and also resigned on behalf of Bolivar, without the slightest authorization from his chief. The "congress" appointed Marino supreme chief of the army and decided to establish the capital of the republic ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... a farce. One run for each despatch rider every third day was the average. St Jans was not the place we should have chosen for a winter resort. Life became monotonous, and we all with one accord began applying for commissions. Various means were used to break the monotony. Grimers, under the Skipper's ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... humorous; and his work is informed with a genuine Irish raciness that gives it a perennial freshness. He is a man gaily in love with life, and with a quick eye for all the varied humours of it. "Handy Andy" is one of the most amusing books ever written; a roaring farce, written by a man who combined the liveliest sense of fun with a painter's gift of portraying real character in a few vivid touches. Samuel Lover died ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... that we were now to thread. The huge system of the trades is, for some reason, quite confounded by this multiplicity of reefs, the wind intermits, squalls are frequent from the west and south-west, hurricanes are known. The currents are, besides, inextricably intermixed; dead reckoning becomes a farce; the charts are not to be trusted; and such is the number and similarity of these islands that, even when you have picked one up, you may be none the wiser. The reputation of the place is consequently infamous; insurance offices exclude it from their field, and it was not without misgiving that ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Elizabeth received him at the palace. The Spanish ambassador, De Silva, met him there at dinner. He talked freely of where he had been and of what he had done, only keeping back the gentle violence which he had used. He regarded this as a mere farce, since there had been no one hurt on either side. He boasted of having given the greatest satisfaction to the Spaniards who had dealt with him. De Silva could but bow, report to his master, and ask instructions how ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... 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, and there fell ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... farce if I could have heard the words which this detective was at that moment whispering into the ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... was sliding swiftly through the woods, Berlin now nigh, there occurred a thing at Regensburg; tragic thing, but ending in farce,—Finale of REICHS-ACHT, in short;—about which all Regensburg was loud, wailing or haha-ing according to humor; while Berlin was paying its ransom and left-hand gloves. One moment's pause upon this, though our haste ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... the underling, the tool, the servile, brainless, little fetcher-and-carrier of these men, was punished—was hanged, and upon the narrow shoulders of this pitiful scapegoat was packed the entire sin of Jefferson Davis and his crew. What a farce! ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... had inadvertently selected as the frontispiece. It appears," Timbs continues, "that the landlady and her daughter were the reigning toast of the Templars, who then frequented Dick's; and took the matter up so strongly that they united to condemn the farce on the night of its production; they succeeded, and even extended their resentment to everything suspected to be this author's (the Rev. James Miller) for ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... the young king, the fashion at the new court to despise and distrust the Greeks, to underrate their exploits, and to declaim against their honesty. The revolution was treated as a war of words, the defence of Missolonghi as a trifle, and the naval warfare as a farce. The Greeks have since, on the mountains of Maina, and on the plain of Phthiotis, shown themselves so far superior to the Bavarians when engaged in the field, that we shall say nothing on that subject. Their honesty has been generally ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... day," Smith slowly said— "Let us plan to carry out the crowning farce, May it serve to charm the haughty Powhatan, As it pleases England's monarch for the time. Yes, the scarlet robe will dazzle Indian chief, An' it is your wish to make of him a clown. 'Tis a trifling matter that; more serious far Charges given you by the London Company, Who from distant lands ...
— Pocahontas. - A Poem • Virginia Carter Castleman
... every respect. The figures were different; their voices, one a contralto, the other soprano; one delicate, the other robust. Rose is living and the other passed out of life. It is so in everything in life. The petty jealousy of singers and players is a laughable farce. Even our grandest singers have shown this weakness because a rival was billed with lettering a quarter of an inch larger. This lowers the singer in the eyes of the public. No two singers can sing alike, even if they sing the same song. The interpretation belongs to the individual ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... 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 fellow ...
— Young Glory and the Spanish Cruiser - A Brave Fight Against Odds • Walter Fenton Mott
... began the great farce of the invasion of England; flat-bottomed boats were ordered to be built from one end of France to the other; they were even constructed in the forests on the borders of the great roads. The French, who have in all things a very ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... every citizen had his price; that neither virtue nor genius was proof against clever although selfish corruption; that political honestly was a farce; and that the only way of governing those knaves who elbowed their way up through the masses was to rule them by cunning more acute than their own and knavery more subtle and ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... trying to kill each other came out of opposite trenches and fraternised. They took photographs of mixed groups of Germans and English, arm-in-arm. They exchanged cigarettes, and patted each other on the shoulder, and cursed the war.... The war had become the most tragic farce in the world. The frightful senselessness of it was apparent when the enemies of two nations fighting to the death stood in the grey mist together and liked each other. They did not want to kill each other, these Saxons of the same race and ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... declarations, soon fled to the Legation Quarter and besought an asylum. His men held out until two in the afternoon, when their resistance collapsed and the cease-fire sounded. The number of casualties on both sides was infinitesimal, and thus after eleven days' farce the Manchu dynasty found itself worse off than ever before. It is necessary, however, not to lose sight of the main problem in China, which is the establishment of a united government and a cessation of internecine warfare,— issues which have been somewhat simplified by Chang Hsun's ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... sister's heart? No! the father might resign himself to his quiet philosophy, but he, at least, would have none of it. It should never be said within the college walls that he looked tamely on while a farce of this kind was being played out, especially as some of his most intimate fellow-students, and a beloved one in particular, took more than a common interest ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... transcendent conceptions for the most part in foreign personages. Of Shakespeare's fourteen comedies, the scene of only one is laid in England; and that one, "The Merry Wives of Windsor"—the only one not written chiefly or largely in verse—is a Shakespearean farce. Of the tragedies (except the series of the ten historical ones) only two, "Lear" and "Macbeth," stand on British ground. Is "Hamlet" on that score less English than "Lear," or "Othello" than "Macbeth"? Does Italy count Juliet ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... This fearful farce was enacted in the cemetery of St. Ouen, behind the beautifully severe monastic church so called, and which had by that day assumed its present appearance. On a scaffolding raised for the purpose sat Cardinal ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... "'Where is this farce, or freak, or whatever you call it, to end?' said I, as Harriot pulled me into the dark passage ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... they are accustomed to remain for the farce and the Canzonettisti Napoletani which close the performance; so at the Sicilia they remain for the cinematograph. Every evening during Holy Week the programme posted up at the door concluded with these words "Indi Cinematografo," and there were ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... on distinct subjects, through an innovation introduced by Sophocles, if not before—the tragic poet added a fourth or satyrical drama; the characters of which were satyrs, the companions of the god Dionysus, and other historic or mythical persons exhibited in farce. He thus made up a total of four dramas, or a tetralogy, which he got up and brought forward to contend for the prize at the festival. The expense of training the chorus and actors was chiefly furnished by the choregi,—wealthy ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... buffoonery; even of its near cousins, scuffling and fighting, only one of the three plays has more than a trace. Hence the earlier remark, that Heywood was before his time. It is not devils in bearskins and wooden-sworded vices that create true comedy; they belong to the realm of farce. Yet they continued to flourish long after Heywood had set another example, and with them the cuffing of ears and drunken gambolling which we may see, in the works of other men, trying to rescue prosy scenes from dullness. In Johan Johan is simple ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... it I asked myself the questions that I have asked here; what was the soul in all those stones? They were varied, but it was not variety; they were solemn, but it was not solemnity; they were farcical, but it was not farce. What is it in them that thrills and soothes a man of our blood and history, that is not there in an Egyptian pyramid or an Indian temple or a Chinese pagoda? All of a sudden the vans I had mistaken for ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... good as 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, ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... tragic-farce has palled us long, Why actors and spectators do we stay?— To fill our so-short roles out right or wrong; To see what shifts are yet in the dull play 25 For our illusion; to refrain from grieving Dear foolish friends by our untimely ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson
... region. But Arkansas and North Carolina were soon swept along by the current, and seceded in May. Virginia and Tennessee were finally carried (the former in May, the latter in June) by the aid of troops, who swarmed in from the seceded States, and turned the elections into a farce. Unionists in the Virginia Convention were given the choice to vote secession, leave, or be hanged. Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland resisted all attempts to drag them into the Confederacy, though the first two, after ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... a species of farce adopted by the Romans from the Oscan town of Atella in Campania. See Livy, vii. 2, for this and the early history of ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... farce amused her at first. It was soon to become interesting, exciting, terrible, even to the ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... the Virgin Mary had appeared to him and called him to repentance. After the Revolution, he attempted to make his peace with the town by a penance more scandalous than his offence. One night, before he acted in a farce, he appeared on the stage in a white sheet with a torch in his hand, and recited some profane and indecent doggerel, which he called ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Watts. Strictly speaking he should have had my Album verses, but a very intimate friend importuned me for the trifles, and I believe I forgot Mr. Watts, or lost sight at the time of his similar Souvenir. Jamieson conveyed the farce from me to Mrs. C. Kemble, he will not be in town before the 27th. Give our kind loves to all at Highgate, and tell them that we have finally torn ourselves out right away from Colebrooke, where I had no health, and are about to domiciliate for good at Enfield, where I ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... "It's I who stand for truth here! Believe in you! In you, who by a heartless falsehood—and nothing else, nothing else, do you hear?—have brought me here, deceived, cheated, as in some abominable farce!" She sat down on a boulder, rested her chin in her hands, in the pose ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... me." In the newcomer's voice there was no longer any mockery. "I gave you credit for more intelligence. We played our little farce and it is done—the episode is closed, so far as I am concerned. I supposed you understood that much. I helped you and I came here to ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... all; the worst one risks is to sleep on straw in return for making them sleep on rosewood. But when their beauty is bought by the ounce at the perfumer's, and will not stand three drops of water on a rag; then their wit consists in a couplet of a farce, and their talent lies in the hand of the claqueur, it is hard indeed to understand how respectable men with good names, ordinary sense, and decent coats, can let themselves be carried away by a common place passion for these most ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... patronage. The application succeeded, coloured coats with metal buttons came into fashion, and dandies of the first water appeared in bright snuff-coloured, pale green, and blue coats, such as are now only worn by Paul Bedford or Keeley, in broad farce. In 1836 a cheap mode of gilding, smart for a day, dull and shabby in a week, completely destroyed the character of gilt buttons, and brought up the Florentine again. This change was, no doubt, materially assisted and maintained by Bulwer's novel of "Pelham," ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... skin and black of heart. I have submitted to the farce of this durbar, but that is as far as my patience will go. God ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... another, and the third was Father Zamora. A reference in a letter of his to "powder," which was his way of saying money, was distorted into a dangerous significance, in spite of the fact that the letter was merely an invitation to a gambling game. The trial was a farce, the informer was garroted just when he was on the point of complaining that he was not receiving the pardon and payment which he had been promised for his services in convicting the others. The ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... understanding as is best calculated to strengthen the body and form the heart; or, in other words, to enable the individual to attain such habits of virtue as will render it independent. In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason. This was Rousseau's opinion respecting men: I extend it to women, and confidently assert that they have been ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... this particular characteristic, the arrondissement of Issoudun was governed, in 1822, by men who all belonged to Berry. The administration of power became either a nullity or a farce,—except in certain cases, naturally very rare, which by their manifest importance compelled the authorities to act. The procureur du roi, Monsieur Mouilleron, was cousin to the entire community, and his substitute belonged to one of the families of the town. The judge ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... narrowness and pride, and left curiosity to play its part freely, as in a child or a man of science. You lay aside all your own hobbies to watch provincial humours develop themselves before you, now as a laughable farce, and now grave and beautiful like an ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... closer to the horizon. The heavens in that quarter grew red and bloody. The shadows lengthened, the light dimmed, and in the sombre recesses of the forest life slowly died away. Even the wild fowl in the river softened their raucous chatter and feigned the nightly farce of going to bed. Only the tribesmen increased their clamor, war-drums booming and voices raised in savage folk songs. But as the sun dipped they ceased their tumult. The rounded hush of midnight was complete. Stockard ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... "superlunatical" attempt at serious farce or farcical morality marks the nadir of Dekker's ability as a dramatist. The diabolic part of the tragicomic business is distinctly inferior to the parallel or similar scenes in the much older play of "Grim the Collier ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne |
