"Figaro" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... day Wolff wrote a polemical dissertation in the Figaro and carried away his colleagues. The volume was a brilliant success, thanks to Boule de Suif. Despite the novelty, the honesty of effort, on the part of all, no mention was made of the other stories. Relegated to the second rank, they ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... found that Deane had already made himself a respectable position, and that, through Caron de Beaumarchais, the brilliant author of "Figaro," the French Government had begun that system of pecuniary aid which it continued to render through the whole course of the war. Vergennes granted the Commissioners an early interview, listened respectfully ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... nature is the symptom of all symptoms, the surviving Literature of the Period. Abbe Raynal, with his lubricity and loud loose rant, has spoken his word; and already the fast-hastening generation responds to another. Glance at Beaumarchais' Mariage de Figaro; which now (in 1784), after difficulty enough, has issued on the stage; and 'runs its hundred nights,' to the admiration of all men. By what virtue or internal vigour it so ran, the reader of our day will rather wonder:—and indeed will know so much ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... now filling rapidly; the rows of chairs fronting the red curtain were almost all occupied, and a hubbub of children's voices was rising. The boys were flocking into the room in groups. There were already three Harlequins, four Punches, a Figaro, some Tyrolese peasants, and a few Highlanders. Young Master Berthier was dressed as a page. Little Guiraud, a mere bantling of two-and-a-half summers, wore his clown's costume in so comical a style that every one as he passed lifted ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... he lose his head in his quick leap into fame. He still lived in the upper room in the musty Latin Quarter, and remained a poor man, without stain of dishonor, though he might easily have made himself a millionaire. When he died the "Figaro" said, "The Republic has lost its greatest man." American boys should study this great man, for he loved our country, and took our Republic as the pattern ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... wretched style of the Italian opera of the period, although the work itself was written in Italian. His next opera was in German, "Die Entfuehrung aus dem Serail," and was given with great success at Vienna, in 1782. It was followed by "The Marriage of Figaro," "Don ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... Sauce Figaro.—To Hollandaise sauce add one teaspoon tomato puree. To prepare tomato puree stew tomatoes, force through a strainer and cook until reduced to ...
— The Starvation Treatment of Diabetes • Lewis Webb Hill
... messengers; Bruin the bear has his nose torn off; Tybert the cat loses half his tail; Renard jeers at them, at the king, and at the Court. And all through the story he triumphs over Ysengrin, as Panurge over Dindenault, Scapin over Geronte, and Figaro over Bridoison. Renard is the first of the family; he is such a natural and spontaneous creation of the French mind that we see him reappear from century to century, the same character ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... kindness and good-nature, however, the people of Laon are not lukewarm in politics. I found a hairdresser, the local Figaro, a raging Boulangist. 'He had served in Tonkin; he had seen, with his own eyes seen the soldiers robbed and starved and left to die. He had seen, with his own eyes seen the Government people taking huge "wine-pots" from the natives. It was infecte! ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... widely heralded beforehand, was the address of the celebrated critic, M. Rene Doumic of the Academy, on "The Soldier of 1914." "Every sentence, every word of it, was punctuated with acclamations from the audience," says Le Figaro in its report. Below is a ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... bright gray eyes. The animation of his brown and rosy face, the moulding of his rather large lips, the ears detached from his head, his slightly turned-up nose,—in fact, all the details of his face proclaimed the lively spirit of a Figaro, and the careless gayety of youth, while the vivacity of his gesture and his mocking eye revealed an intellect already developed by the practice of a profession adopted very early in life. As he had already some claims to personal value, this child, made man by Art or by vocation, ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... hands on it and let us enjoy ourselves." A dozen times if she had liked Musette could have secured a good position, which is termed a future, but she did not believe in the future and professed the scepticism of Figaro respecting it. ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... sundry hopeless ways, and at last she took to literature. She was living in a garret, with little to eat, and sometimes without a fire in winter. She had some friends who helped her as well as they could, but though she was attached to the Figaro, her earnings for the first month amounted to ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... one's price," said the infant. "My master calls me a little Robert-Macaire, and since we have learned how to invest our money we are Figaro, plus a ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... Theuriet has also contributed to various journals and magazines: 'Le Moniteur, Le Musee Universal, L'Illustration, Le Figaro, Le Gaulois, La Republique Francaise, etc.; he has lectured in Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland, and has even found leisure to fill the post as Mayor of Bourg-la-Reine (Seine et Oise), perhaps no onerous office (1882-1900). ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Figaro hat, which was then in fashion, and managed that the low door-way of the little cottage should knock it off his head, in order to be able to say, "Oh, these confounded new-fangled hats! but that's sure to happen when one is used to high ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... were very fashionable among the upper classes, and this will explain how it was that Patience, though opposed to all the authorities in the province, yet found himself supported and applauded by every man who prided himself on his intelligence. They all thought they saw in him Figaro under a new form. The fame of his private virtues had spread; for you remember that during my stay in America, Patience had made himself known among the people of Varenne and had exchanged his sorcerer's ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... doubt, waited until the present moment to recognize in Master Olivier that terrible Figaro whom Providence, the great maker of dramas, mingled so artistically in the long and bloody comedy of the reign of Louis XI. We will not here undertake to develop that singular figure. This barber of the king had ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... the famous Duke of Morny, who admitted him among his secretaries before he was twenty years old. Then he had the good fortune to attract the attention and to take the fancy of Villemessant, the editor of the Figaro, who at first sight gave him a place in his nursery of young talents. He had a kind and devoted brother, who cheerfully shared with him the little money he had to live upon, and thus saved him from the unspeakable ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... has fixed a black mark on thy door! I tell thee no; not a stranger shalt thou have next year to eat so much as a plate of macaroni under thy base roof! I will advertise thy behavior in all the foreign papers,—in Figaro, in Galignani, in the Swiss Times, and the English one which is read by all the nobility, and the Heraldo of New ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... I came instinctively to the conclusion that 'En fait d'amour,' as Figaro puts it, 'trop n'est pas meme assez.' From Miss Aglae's point of view a lover was a lover. As to the superiority of one over another, this was - nay, is - purely subjective. 'We receive but what we give.' And, from what Mademoiselle then told me, I cannot ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... they were said to prove infallibly fatal with women, while not a few men, perhaps for that reason, did their possessor the honour to imitate them. The revues burlesqued him; Sem caricatured him; Forain counterfeited him extensively in that inimitable series of Monday morning cartoons for Le Figaro: one said "De Morbihan" instinctively at sight of that stocky figure, short and broad, topped by a chubby, moon-like mask with waxed moustaches, ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... greatest effect. They are distinguished from intrigue, inasmuch as they are momentary, and that their aim, whenever they are to have one, must not be remote. Beaumarchais has seized their full value, and the effects of his "Figaro" spring pre-eminently from this. Whereas such good-humored roguish and half-knavish pranks are practised with personal risk for noble ends, the situations which arise from them are aesthetically and morally considered of the greatest value for the theatre; as, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... of praises for the performance; Figaro gave a picture of an immense mastiff running away with the General's horse ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... corner of the world. I'll defy you to name a paper that Tony doesn't handle, from Timbuctoo to Tarrytown, from South Bend to South Africa. A paper marked Christiania, Norway, nestles next to a sheet from Kalamazoo, Michigan. You can get the War Cry, or Le Figaro. With one hand, Tony will give you the Berlin Tageblatt, and with the other the Times from Neenah, Wisconsin. Take your choice between the Bulletin from Sydney, Australia, or the Bee ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... semibreves of other countries. The most rapid runs, performed according to Quiquendonian taste, had the solemn march of a chant. The gayest shakes were languishing and measured, that they might not shock the ears of the dilettanti. To give an example, the rapid air sung by Figaro, on his entrance in the first act of "Le Barbier de Seville," lasted fifty-eight minutes—when the actor ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... "London Figaro."—"It cannot be said that the author is partial; clergymen and Nonconformist divines, Liberals and Conservatives, lawyers and tradesmen, all come under his lash.... The sketches are worth reading. Some of the characters ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... played twenty times. In Milan, two years later, he composed his opera "Lucio Silla," and the same year his opera "Idomeneo," for Munich. His other celebrated operas followed in fairly rapid succession: "Figaro," 1785; "Don Giovanni," 1787; "Cosi fan Tutte," 1790, and the "Magic Flute" in 1791. His last was his "Requiem." The works of Mozart included thirteen operas, thirty-four songs, forty-one sonatas, thirty-one divertisements for orchestra. The best ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... was on the side of Dubois; and in the long struggle with Spain, which the nature of our subject does not allow us to do more than indicate, all the advantage was with the son of the apothecary over the son of the gardener. Dubois preceded Figaro, to whom he probably served as type; but, more fortunate than he, he passed from the office to the drawing-room, and from the drawing-room to the court. All these successive advantages were the rewards of ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... admirateurs.—NISARE, Lit. fr., Conclusion. Les hommes superieurs doivent necessairement passer pour mechants. Ou les autres ne voient ni un defaut, ni un ridicule, ni un vice, leur implacable oeil l'apercoit.-BARBEY D'AUREVILLY Figaro; 31st ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... went to the Emperor's court at Vienna, and there at last he began to receive something of his due. Not only other musicians, but the public generally admitted his great gifts. He wrote operas, "Don Giovanni," "The Magic Flute," and "The Marriage of Figaro," being the most popular of them. Finally he was able to do somewhat as he pleased, instead of writing only to suit the order of a prince or noble who could pay him with some position in his ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... that our mass of celibates should sow their wild oats? And who is deceived on this point? as Figaro asks. Is it the governments or the governed? The social order is like the small boys who stop their ears at the theatre, so as not to hear the report of the firearms. Is society afraid to probe its wound or has it recognized the fact that evil is irremediable and things must ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... hours of drink and quiet afterwards, up comes the carriage, in bursts my Jemmy, as fine as a duchess, and scented like our shop. "Come, my dear," says she, "it's 'Normy' to—night" (or "Annybalony," or the "Nosey di Figaro," or the "Gazzylarder," as the case may be). "Mr. Foster strikes off punctually at eight, and you know it's the fashion to be always present at the very first bar of the aperture." And so off we ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... her husband, adding the remark that her father and his wife, who would have come up the previous night or that morning, had evidently gone to an hotel. The Prince was in his "own" room, where he often sat now alone; half-a-dozen open newspapers, the "Figaro" notably, as well as the "Times," were scattered about him; but, with a cigar in his teeth and a visible cloud on his brow, he appeared actually to be engaged in walking to and fro. Never yet, on thus approaching him—for she had done it of late, under one necessity or another, several ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... volubility of an Italian charlatan at a fair, and, like him, appeared to be proclaiming the merits of some quack remedy. Opodeldoc-opodeldoc-try-Doctor-Lincoln's-opodeldoc! he seemed to repeat over and over again, with a rapidity that would have distanced the deftest-tongued Figaro that ever rattled. I remember Count Gurowski saying once, with that easy superiority of knowledge about this country which is the monopoly of foreigners, that we had no singing-birds! Well, well, Mr. Hepworth Dixon(1) ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... long as the journey lasts, while the Mapu, one of the stock features of Corean everyday life, looks well after the pony and leads him by the head as one might a big Newfoundland dog. The Mapu in Corea occupies about the same position as Figaro in the "Barber of Seville." While leading your pony he takes the keenest interest in your affairs, and thinks it his business to talk to you on every possible subject that his brain chooses to ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... Michel Columb, Jean Goujon, Phidias, Praxiteles, Polycletes, Puget, Canova, Albert Durer, are the brothers of Milton, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Tasso, Homer, and Moliere. And such an achievement is so stupendous that a single statue is enough to make a man immortal, as Figaro, Lovelace, and Manon Lescaut have immortalized Beaumarchais, Richardson, ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... should instantly cut off the offending hairs. A barber being sent for, the operation was instantly performed; and Sir Peter, with a spirit of generosity only to be equalled by his cutting humour, actually put his hand in his breeches-pocket and handed over to the official Figaro his fee of one shilling. The shorn tailor left the office protesting that Sir Peter had not treated him handsomely, as he had only consented to sacrifice his flowing locks, but that the Alderman had cabbaged his whiskers ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the correspondence of the Figaro, if you think there is anything in it, addressing the ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff
... something of the same kind found in the following sally of Figaro's (though here an attempt is perhaps made to suggest the image of an animal rather than that of a thing): "Quel homme est-ce?—C'est un beau, gros, court, jeune vieillard, gris pommele, ruse, rase, blase, qui guette et furette, ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... an operatic singer. An unsuccessful debut was made at Norwich in Der Freischuetz. In 1825 he was taken to Rome by Count Mazzara, being introduced to Cherubini on the way. In Italy he wrote his first dramatic work, a ballet, La Perouse. At the close of 1827 he appeared as Figaro in Rossini's Barbiere, at the Italian opera in Paris. Balfe soon returned to Italy, where, during the next nine years, he remained, singing at various theatres and composing a number of operas. During this time he married Mdlle Luisa Roser, a Hungarian singer whom he had met at Bergamo. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... hold up his head again. He resisted the death-warrant. He had friends in influential houses. He soon found lint enough for his wounds. The next winter the town heard that Monsieur Edmond About's wounds had been well dressed and were cured, and that he was going to write in "Figaro." The amateurs of scandal began at once to reckon upon the gratification of their tastes. They were not mistaken. The moment his second contribution to "Figaro" appeared, it became evident to all that he had taken this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... nor Mozart need have been ashamed to own as theirs; and especially there is much in it that is in the very spirit of Mozart—Mozart as we find him in the Requiem, rather than the Mozart of "Don Giovanni" or the "Figaro." The opening bars are, of course, ultramodern: they would never have been written had not Wagner written something like them first; but the combination of poignancy and lightness and poise with which the same phrase is delivered ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... her body on one side, and thus throwing herself into flying attitude, answered my grave lecture by singing, in a very sweet voice (significantly bowing her head and smiling at the same time), the following lines from the vaudeville, in the play of Figaro: ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... Northern Figaro.—"Mr Martin's descriptive paragraphs are couched in trenchant, convincing language, without a superfluous word sandwiched in anywhere.... 'Shadows' may be read with much profit, and will give more than a superficial insight into various phases of ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... Marriage de Figaro, representative of one of the old noblesse of France, recalling all their manners and vices, who is duped by his valet Figaro, a personification of wit, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... upon the stage, and rarely dwarf by their own cleverness, as do often those of Moliere, their master's roles.[130] "Three of these valets are real creations. Dubois of les Fausses Confidences, Trivelin, of la Fausse Suivante, Lepine of le Legs."[131] Trivelin is the ancestor of Beaumarchais' Figaro.[132] ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... Clarissa Harlowe for Figaro!" I cried, with a glance of scorn and mockery. "When you see me with my right hand ungloved, you will give the lie to this impertinent gossip, and will mark ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... brought out "Idomeneo" at Munich, which left no doubt as to his position as a dramatic composer. In 1782 his "Entfuhrung aus dem Serail" was produced at Vienna by the Emperor's command. His next great opera was "Le Nozze di Figaro," which was performed in 1786, and made all Vienna go wild. "Don Giovanni" followed it the next year, and was received with equal enthusiasm. In 1789 he composed the famous "Requiem;" and the same year the "Zauberfloete," his last great opera, appeared, and ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... 'Figaro' publishes a telegram from Petrograd which contradicts the German announcement that Lodz is occupied by the ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... poor unfortunate personage, like Figaro, knows not to whom to listen, nor where to turn. The hundred thousand mouths of the press and of the platform cry out ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... in our pilot's countenance showed that our situation had become critical. The little, stout, and hitherto phlegmatic fellow became suddenly animated by a new spirit. His black eyes lightened; he uttered several times the well-known English oath which Figaro declares to be "le fond de la langue," rubbed his bands violently together, and at length exclaimed, "Captain! I should like a glass of grog—Devil take me if I don't bring you safe into Portsmouth yet!" His wish was of course instantly complied ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... Mitouflet, married to a rich widow, the illustrious traveller, after a brief consultation with the landlord, betook himself to the knave of Vouvray, the jovial merry-maker, the comic man of the neighborhood, compelled by fame and nature to supply the town with merriment. This country Figaro was once a dyer, and now possessed about seven or eight thousand francs a year, a pretty house on the slope of the hill, a plump little wife, and robust health. For ten years he had had nothing to do but take care of his wife ...
— The Illustrious Gaudissart • Honore de Balzac
... way along the Syrian coast, on which I for the last time had wandered from home, I perceived my poor Figaro coming toward me. This excellent poodle, which had long expected his master at home, seemed to desire to trace him out. I stood still and called to him. He sprang barking toward me, with a thousand moving assurances of his inmost and most ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... for the absolute personality of Punch has long been recognised. It has been the usual custom of comic papers to indulge in a similar fiction, mildly humorous and conveniently anonymous—"Figaro in London," "Pasquin," "The Puppet Show"-man, "The Man in the Moon," and the rest. But Punch was not only a personality himself, but at the outset began by introducing the rest of his family to the public. Nowadays he ignores his wife, especially since a contemporary ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... of being musical—that is to say, a famous pianist had been engaged to let off a lot of rockets from his finger-tips, and a buffo singer from the opera roared out his "Figaro la, Figaro qua," with all the strength of his brazen lungs; while one or two gifted amateurs sang glees in washed-out, apologetical accents, which were nearly lost in ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... she coveted." She became the articled pupil of Mr. Maeder, the husband of Clara Fisher, actress and vocalist, and the musical director of Mr. and Mrs. Wood. Instructed by Maeder, Miss Cushman undertook the parts of the Countess in "The Marriage of Figaro" and Lucy Bertram in the opera of "Guy Mannering." These were her first appearances ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... nice regard for the rules of neutrality and helped the colonies in every way possible. It was a French writer who led in these activities. Beaumarchais is known to the world chiefly as the creator of the character of Figaro, which has become the type of the bold, clever, witty, and intriguing rascal, but he played a real part in the American Revolution. We need not inquire too closely into his motives. There was hatred of the English, that "audacious, unbridled, shameless people," ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... Japanese. They all say the same thing. I need only copy my article on the last comer, word for word, changing the heading, names, titles, and ages: in that there must be no error, or I shall be hauled over the coals by the 'Figaro' or 'Gaulois.' But on that subject the porter of the hotels will post me in five minutes. We will smoke our cigars and stroll in that direction. Total—one hundred sous for cabfare. That is the way, ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... There was an Italian who wrote an opera that was all about Figaro,—the Nossy di Figaro was the name of it. Oh, it is perfectly splendid; ever ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... but incapable of executing any but simple passages, constructed according to an ascertained routine of intervals. Lord Mount-Edgcumbe truly conjectured, that Mozart was led to make the bass so prominent a part in the Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro, by writing for a particular singer. The part of Figaro was, in fact, composed for Benucci. The sparkling brilliancy of Rossini would perhaps never have been so fully developed, had not the skill and flexibility of voice possessed by the singer David, for whom he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... accomplished in four days, landing at the Exposition buildings, Champs de Mars, before an immense concourse of people. The crowds that lined the banks of the Seine were estimated at half a million by the Figaro. As he passed under Pont Neuf he stood up and dipped the stars and stripes in salute. A mighty shout went up from thousands of throats, "Vive ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... and to these he added in 1840 Pierrette, Pierre Grassou, and A New Prince of Bohemia. His prices had risen, new illustrated editions of his earlier works had been issued, and he was receiving high rates for his short stories, not only from the magazines but from newspapers such as the Figaro, the Presse, the Siecle and the Constitutionnel; yet nothing could extinguish his debts, those debts which he had been so long carrying like a cross. "Why," said he, "I have been bowed down by this burden ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... mere artist"—writes M. de Villemessant, founder of the Figaro,—"he has nevertheless been able to seize on those dramatic effects which have so much distinguished his theatrical career, and to give those sharp and distinct reproductions of character which alone can present to the reader ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... betrothed. Spanish colour and Italian intrigue are added to the old mirth of France. From Regnard the author had learnt to entangle a varied intrigue; from Lesage he borrowed his Spanish costumes and decoration—Figaro himself is a Gil Blas upon the stage; in Marivaux he saw how women may assert themselves in comic action with a bright audacity. The Mariage de Figaro resumes the past; it depicts the present, as a social ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... patriotism as the broadening of their love of home; to make them see that that mother will be most respected whose son does not, when a downy beard is grown, suddenly tower above her in the supercilious enjoyment of an artificial superiority—a superiority which consists simply, as Figaro says, in his having taken the trouble to be born; to make them see, finally, that in the highest exercise of all the powers with which God has endowed her, woman can no more refuse the duties of citizenship, than she can refuse the duties of wifehood and motherhood, once having accepted ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... enough to do, and, as they pay nothing for shop-rent, every baiocco they get is nearly clear profit. They are generally as poor as Job's cat; but they are far happier than the proprietor of that interesting animal. Figaro is a high ideal of this class, and about as much like them as Raffaello's angels are like Jeames Yellowplush. What the cobblers and Figaro have in common is song and a love of scandal. One admirable specimen of this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... played by Geoffroy, who conceived Balzac's creation admirably, and at the Comedie Francaise less successfully by Got, is a second Figaro, with a strong likeness to Balzac himself. He is continually on the stage, and keeps the audience uninterruptedly amused by his wit, good-humour, hearty bursts of laughter, and ceaseless expedients for baffling his creditors. The action of the play is simple and natural, and the ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... first quarter they strike up a verse of the stirring "Watch on the Rhine;" at the half-hour the familiar notes of "God save the Queen" fall upon the listener's ear; at the third quarter an air from the well-known opera of the "Marriage of Figaro," enlivens the palace; while the hour is hailed with the bridal chorus from ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... Prince Kulmametov hobbling along the boulevard; and his friend, Serge Varaksin, waves his hand to him, shouting: "Ivan Stepanitch, allons souper, make haste, zhay angazha Rigol-bouche itself!" Take me away from these furnished apartments and maisons dorees, from the Jockey Club and the Figaro, from close-shaven military heads and varnished barracks, from sergents-de-ville with Napoleonic beards, and from glasses of muddy absinthe, from gamblers playing dominoes at the cafes, and gamblers ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... French writers and painters of caricatures, the King tried the experiment of bribery; which succeeded occasionally in buying off the enemy, and bringing him from the republican to the royal camp; but when there, the deserter was never of any use. Figaro, when so treated, grew fat and desponding, and lost all his sprightly VERVE; and Nemesis became as gentle as a Quakeress. But these instances of "ratting" were not many. Some few poets were bought over; but, among men following the profession of the press, a change of politics ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... train of nearly intolerable abuses." It gave aristocracy some hits, which aristocracy gave back again. The best notice which appeared of it was in the famous Paris gazette entitled Figaro, before Figaro was bought out by the French government. The change from the biting wit which characterized this periodical, to the grave sentiment of such an article, was really touching, and added an indescribable grace ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... 1857, Alphonse fled from the horrors of his life at Alais, and joined his brother Ernest, who had just secured a post in the service of the Duc de Morny in Paris. Alphonse determined to live by his pen, and presently obtained introductions to the "Figaro." His early volumes of verse, "Les Amoureuses" of 1858 and "La Double Conversion" of 1861, attracted some favourable notice. In this latter year his difficulties ceased, for he had the good fortune ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... that, willingly or forcibly, America must belong to the Americans. The New World must gird up its loins and be ready to fulfill its mission. And this must be done by force when persuasion is not sufficient. And when the Americans shall have rejoined Europe in some portion of Asia, concludes the Figaro, and closed the ring of white civilization around the globe, will they stop or can they stop? That is the secret of the future. Its solution will depend upon what they will find before them—a Europe torn ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... men and women in books, who seem more really alive to us than men and women who have lived and died—Richardson's Clarissa, Chenier's Camille, the Delia of Tibullus, Ariosto's Angelica, Dante's Francesca, Moliere's Alceste, Beaumarchais' Figaro, Scott's Rebecca the Jewess, the Don Quixote of Cervantes,—do we not owe these deathless creations to ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... boundaries in case an intended victim might be in a position to take his revenge. That I am not alone in seeing things this way I noted in an interview with the 79 year old French author Michel Deon in Le Figaro on the 16th of May 1998 in which Mr. Deon said: "Everywhere we are still in a nursery. A great movement attempting to turn us all into half-wits (une grande campagne de cretinisation est en route). When these are the only ones left, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... admit, I was a shallow farceur. My work lacked depth. I wrote flippantly simply because I was having a thoroughly good time. Then I took up golf, and now I can smile through the tears and laugh, like Figaro, that I may not weep, and generally hold my head up and feel that ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... all the forces which Henri could dispose of would be useful. He was about to play in that eternal old comedy which will be always fresh, and the characters in which are an old man, a young girl, and a lover: Don Hijos, Paquita, De Marsay. If Laurent was the equal of Figaro, the duenna seemed incorruptible. Thus, the living play was supplied by Chance with a stronger plot than it had ever been by dramatic author! But then is not Chance too, ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... his Tour in Italy and Sicily, tells us that the Coliseum is too ruinous—that the Egyptian Museum in the Vatican puts him in mind of the five wigs in the barber Figaro's shop-window—that the Apollo Belvidere looks like a broken-backed young gentleman shooting at a target for the amusement of young ladies. Speaking of the Etruscan vases, he says, "As to the alleged elegance of form, I should be inclined to appeal from the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... Cointet guaranteed his costs than he vowed to lead Cachan a dance, and to dazzle the paper manufacturer with a brilliant display of genius in the creation of items to be charged to Metivier. Unluckily for the fame of the young forensic Figaro, the writer of this history is obliged to pass over the scene of his exploits in as great a hurry as if he trod on burning coals; but a single bill of costs, in the shape of the specimen sent from Paris, will no doubt suffice for the student of contemporary ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... for an evening at the theatre?" said Othro, one evening, as they were passing from their place of business, having left it in care of their servants. "At the Gladiate the play is 'Hamlet,' and Mr. Figaro, from the old ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... read the following psychological avowal, for instance, without indignation, seeing that it is obviously but an offshoot from this vicious gospel of comfort?—"Beethoven remarked that he could never have composed a text like Figaro or Don Juan. Life had not been so profuse of its snubs to him that he could treat it so gaily, or deal so lightly with the foibles of men" (p. 430). In order, however, to adduce the most striking instance of this dissolute vulgarity of sentiment, let it suffice, here, ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... since the Crusades and spread them out upon a wicker tea-table, from which Niccolas had just removed some empty coffee-cups, half filled with the ends of cigarettes, some yellow-backed novels, and a copy of the Paris Figaro. It was also interesting to him to note how the sight of the little heir-apparent affected both the peasants from the mountains and the young nobles from the Club Royale. The former fell upon their ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... same Lacroix as had issued Zola's preceding efforts in novel writing. I was living in Paris at the time, and I well recall the yell of disapprobation with which the volume was received by the reviewers. Louis Ulbach, then a writer on the "Figaro," to which Zola also contributed, and who subsequently founded and edited a paper called "La Cloche," when Zola, curiously enough, became one of his critics, made a particularly virulent attack on the novel and its author. ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... Dartelle handed him a Figaro, still damp from the printing-press, but crumpled and worn, as if it had already passed through more than a ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... Embassy, where Baron Solvyns, the Belgian Minister, amused me with the saying that diplomacy meant "to pass one's life a expliquer les choses sans les comprendre."' [Footnote: Adapted from Beaumarchais, who thus describes "la politique" in 'Le Mariage de Figaro,' Act III., ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... one train of thought pursued with increasing ardor; so that taken as a whole they form a grand trilogy.... These three grandest of Mozart's symphonies (the first lyrical, the second tragic-pathetic, and the third of ethical import) correspond to his three greatest operas, "Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... undertake a perilous voyage to the antipodes, for the purpose of performing an operation in a desert, where there were neither newspapers to proclaim it, academicians to discuss it, nor ribbons to reward it? As for the gentlemen of the dentist and barber school, like Drs. Sangrado and Fontanarose of Figaro, the remedy was even worse by a great deal than the disease. But, as we have said, Jack promised to find a surgeon, and the research was so arduous, that he was scarcely ever seen during the day by either ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... recognized us as newspaper men, and in order to save his country from destruction clamored to have us hung. It was for this pest that the one with the newspaper lay in wait. And the instant the pest opened his lips our man in reserve would shove the Figaro at him. "Have you seen this morning's paper?" he would ask sweetly. It never failed us. The suspicious one would grab at the paper as a dog snatches at a bone, and our chauffeur, trained to our team-work, would ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... frivolity, gaiety, and idleness—a vision of endless intrigue and vapid love-making among the antiquated remains of feudal privileges and social caste. In this fairyland one being alone has reality—Figaro, the restless, fiendishly clever, nondescript valet, sprung from no one knows where, destined to no one knows what, but gradually emerging a strange and sinister profile among the laughter and the flowers. 'What have you done, Monsieur le ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... Listen to this: le Figaro not knowing with what to fill its columns, has had the idea of saying that my novel tells the life of Chancellor Pasquier. Thereupon, fear of the aforesaid family, which wrote to another part of ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... [Mozart's opera of "Le Nozze di Figaro," then being given at Covent Garden, my sister singing the part of Susanna]. It draws very fine houses, and Adelaide's acting in it is very much liked and praised, as it highly deserves to be, for it is capital, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... Though I had never borrowed money from him, I owed him pleasures which my father's economy denied me. Without my generous comrade I should never had seen the first representation of the 'Marriage of Figaro.' Mongenod was what was called in those days a charming cavalier; he was very gallant. Sometimes I blamed him for his facile way of making intimacies and his too great amiability. His purse opened freely; he lived in a free-handed way; he would ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... for tragedy and comedy, the expences of which are defrayed principally by the King. The boxes are generally let to the nobility and the parterre is open to every body on payment. I witnessed the representation of Mozart's Nozze di Figaro. The King was present and was greeted with much affection. He has a very benignant expression of countenance. He is much beloved by his subjects, for he has governed them paternally. He has given to them a constitution unasked; for they were so contented with the old Government, that they ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... Carlton took up his post in the open court of the Meurice, with his coffee and the Figaro to excuse his loitering there. He had not been occupied with these over-long before Nolan approached him, in some excitement, with the information that their Royal Highnesses—as he delighted to call them—were at that moment "coming ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... wonderful life. In his brief life Mozart composed more than fifty great works, besides hundreds of minor ones in every possible form of musical writing. His greatest compositions may be classed in the following order: "Idomeneus" (1780); "Entfuehrung aus dem Serail" (1781); "Figaro's Hochzeit" ("The Marriage of Figaro"), (1785); "Don Giovanni" (1787); "Cosi fan tutti," "Zauberfloete" ("The Magic Flute"), and "Titus" (1790); and the "Requiem" (1791, the year of his death). The catalogue ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... of him you can shut him off with a word. There are few Spanish servants so uninteresting but that you can find in them from time to time some sparks of that ineffable light which shines forever in Sancho and Figaro. ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... exceedingly improved; the colouring less inharmonious, the drawing more correct; but our Parisians are not just now thinking about such matters; they are all wild for love of a new comedy, written by Mons. de Beaumarchais, and called, "Le Mariage de Figaro," full of such wit as we were fond of in the reign of Charles the Second, indecent merriment, and gross immorality; mixed, however, with much acrimonious satire, as if Sir George Etherege and Johnny Gay had clubbed their powers of ingenuity at ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... rearranged it. 'The Barber of Seville' was like the 'Gil Blas' of Lesage in that, while it was seemingly Spanish in its scenes, it was in reality essentially French. It contained one of the strongest characters in literature,—Figaro, a reincarnation of the intriguing servant of Menander and Plautus and Moliere. Simple in plot, ingenious in incident, brisk in dialogue, broadly effective in character-drawing, 'The Barber of Seville' is the most famous French comedy of the eighteenth century, with the single exception of its ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... dozing, or else he was buried in one of those deep meditations which overtake statesmen. When I pointed out the famous minister to Beaumarchais, who happened to come near me at that moment, the father of Figaro explained the mystery of his presence in that house without uttering a word. He pointed first at my head, then at Bodard's with a malicious gesture which consisted in turning to each of us two fingers of his hand while he kept the others doubled up. My first impulse ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... protagonists of the realistic school. He wrote considerable verse and short plays. In 1878 he was transferred to the Ministry of Public Instruction and became a contributing editor to several leading newspapers such as Le Figaro, le Gil Blas, le Gaulois and l'Echo de Paris. He devoted his spare time to writing novels and short stories. In 1880 he published his first masterpiece, "Boule de Suif", which met with an instant and tremendous success. Flaubert characterized it as ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... only an accomplished university man, but something else besides, as we learnt from a copy of the Figaro, which our eldest brother brought back from college. In this newspaper we read, in fact, a set of ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... more rapidly than they rose, till their grace and their cultivation, for them they could not lose, made them the willing ministers to the luxury, the frivolity, the sentimentality, the vice of the whole old world—the Scapia or Figaro of the old world—infinitely able, but with all his ability consecrated to the service of his own base self. The Greekling—as Juvenal has it—in want of a dinner, would climb somehow to heaven itself, at the ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... the Indies, at the price of Canada, Louisiana, Isle Royale, Acadia, and Senegal." Equally successful in gaining the king's interest was a curious French adventurer, Beaumarchais, a man of wealth, a lover of music, and the author of two popular plays, "Figaro" and "The Barber of Seville." These two men had already urged upon the king secret aid for America before Deane appeared on the scene. Shortly after his arrival they made confidential arrangements to furnish money, clothing, powder, and other supplies to the struggling colonies, ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... beginning. Ufeig, the humorist, is the servant and deputy of the Comic Muse, and there can be no doubt of the validity of his credentials, or of the soundness of his procedure. He is the ironical critic and censor of the heroic age; his touch is infallible, as unerring as that of Figaro, in bringing out and making ridiculous the meanness of the nobility. The decline and fall of the noble houses is recorded in Sturlunga Saga; the essence of that history is preserved in the ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... whom she had constant intercourse, and with whom she was most closely connected, came, like herself, from Berry. Henri de Latouche (or Delatouche, as George Sand writes), a native of La Chatre, who was editor of the Figaro, enrolled her among the contributors to this journal. But she had no talent for this kind of work, and at the end of the month her payment amounted to perhaps from twelve to fifteen francs. Madame Dudevant and ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... important to move the tongue from one position to another with great rapidity. Such a composition as Figaro's song (cavatina) in Rossini's "Barber of Seville" could not be properly sung by any one not possessing great control over the tongue. Indeed, this composition may be considered a perfect test of the extent to which ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... age, situation, and outward show. If ever Lord Byron attempted to exhibit men of a different kind, he always made them either insipid or unnatural. Selim is nothing. Bonnivart is nothing. Don Juan, in the first and best cantos, is a feeble copy of the Page in the Marriage of Figaro. Johnson, the man whom Juan meets in the slave-market, is a most striking failure. How differently would Sir Walter Scott have drawn a bluff, fearless Englishman, in such a situation! The portrait would have seemed to walk out of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... murmured slowly, "Certainly what they call 'the world' deserves scorn. And all the same, taken separately, every individual of this collectivity is a man or woman like any other, a suffering being, who laughs just the same, like an eternal Figaro, for fear of ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... he exclaims, in justifiable indignation, 'at the unheard-of treatment which the masterpiece of the immortal composer has received at English hands! You will hardly believe me when I tell you that neither the count, the countess, nor Figaro sang; these parts were given to mere actors, and their principal airs were sung by other singers. To add to this the gardener roared out some interpolated English popular songs, which suited Mozart's music just as a pitch-plaster would suit ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... of an attack on the part of M. Caillaux. M. Doumerge, a political associate of the latter, formed a new one with M. Caillaux in charge of the Finance Ministry. On March 16, 1914, his wife killed M. Calmette, the editor of the Paris "Figaro," in which he had attacked M. Caillaux most violently and consistently. The Minister of Finance resigned on the evening of the murder, and the rest of the cabinet followed on June 1, 1914. The new cabinet, under M. Ribot, a moderate Republican, lasted one day and was succeeded by another, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... off Japan? Would I greet this famous man, Prince or Prelate, Sheik or Shah?— Figaro ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Figaro did not interest the Chicago people when it was produced in that peculiar city. Had it been called the "Divorce of Figaro," it would ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various
... of their art; but they were the first whose works made it clear that the dramatic and subjective powers of sound were enthralling enough to stand by themselves quite apart from the decorative musical structures of which they had hitherto been a mere feature. After the finales in Figaro and Don Giovanni, the possibility of the modern music drama lay bare. After the symphonies of Beethoven it was certain that the poetry that lies too deep for words does not lie too deep for music, and that the vicissitudes of the soul, from the roughest fun to the loftiest ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... into possession of a newspaper, the "Figaro" from Paris, dated September 6th. We were delighted to have it loaned us for an hour, greasy and dirty as it was, for in these days a newspaper is the most precious article on earth. It is brought in ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... Mathilde. Macbeth. Machiavelli. Mackeprang. Macmahon. Madvig. Malgren. Manderstroem, Count. Marat. Marcelin. Maren. Margharita, Princess. Maria. Mariage de Figaro, Le. Marmier, Xavier. Martensen, Bishop. Martial. Mary. Mathilde, Princess. Maximilian, Emperor. Merimee. Meza, General de. Michelet. Micromegas. Milan. Mill, James. Mill, John Stuart Misanthrope, Le Moehl Moliere ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... rang the bell, and ordered a pint: of this she drank one spoonful. The remainder, co-operating with triumph and claret, kept Ashmead in a great flow of spirits. He traced her a brilliant career. To be photographed tomorrow morning as Siebel, and in plain dress. Paragraphs in Era, Figaro, Galignani, Inde'pendance Belge, and the leading dailies. Large wood-cuts before leaving Homburg for Paris, London, Vienna, St. Petersburg, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... to slip. It was composed further, to his perception, of a table with a green velvet cloth, of a fireplace with a great deal of fringe and no fire, of a window with a great deal of curtain and no light, and of the Figaro, which he couldn't read, and the New York Herald, which he had already read. A single person was just now in possession of these conveniences—a young lady who sat with her back to the window, looking straight ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... from the world. Samuel Brohl rose up from his grave at Bucharest, and took the name of Kicks, and emigrated to America some time before the marriage of Mlle. Moriaz to M. Camille Langis was announced in the "Figaro." ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... cannot help being reminded of what Beaumarchais makes Figaro say upon the liberty of the press in another country. "On me dit que pendant ma retraite economique il s'est etabli dans Madrid un systeme de liberte sur la vente des productions, qui s'etend meme a celles de la presse; et, pourvu que je parle dans mes ecrits, ni de l'autorite, ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... to "trip it on the light, fantastic toe," she would entertain him with one of the negroes' clumsy, shuffling dances. Her sentimental songs fell into disuse, and were replaced by livelier tunes. Instead of longing to rest in the "sweet vale of Avoca," she was heard musically chasing "Figaro here! Figaro ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... throughout, told with such a cheery spirit, in so genial a manner, that even those they sometimes hit hard cannot, when they read, refrain from laughing, for Mr. O'Shea is a modern Democritus; and yet there runs a vein of sadness, as if, like Figaro, he made haste to laugh lest ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... carriage, with a pretty woman by my side, playing the great lord, dining at Very's, deciding not to go back home till the morrow; but was prepared for my father with a plot more intricate than the Marriage of Figaro, which he could not possibly have unraveled. All this bliss would cost, I estimated, fifty crowns. Was it not the artless idea of playing truant that still ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... a number of well-known cosmopolitan cafes you can always read The London Times and The Daily Chronicle, only three days old, and for a small cash consideration the waiter will generally be able to produce from his pocket a Figaro, not much older. Not only English and French, but, even more, the Italian, Dutch, and Scandinavian papers are widely read and digested by Germans, while the German papers not only print prominently the French ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... story brought my mind around again to memories of Lucien. One day, I saw a notice in Le Figaro to the effect that his book, 'The Force of the Wind,' had appeared in a second large edition, and had aroused much attention, particularly in spiritualistic circles. I seemed to see him again before me, ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... of the delay to set everything tidy, and we had a great washing day. He sent for a barber in the village to trim his hair and beard. The Naiband Figaro was an extraordinary creature, a most bare-faced rascal, who had plenty to say for himself, and whose peculiar ways and roaming eyes made us conceal away out of his sight all small articles, for fear that he should walk away with them. He carried all the tools ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... monastic. He had a big brown frock and cowl, but he had also a shirt and a pair of shoes; he had, instead of a hempen scourge round his waist, a stout leather thong, and he carried with him a very profane little valise. He also read, from beginning to end, the "Figaro" which the old priest, who had done the same, presented to him; and he looked altogether as if, had he not been a monk, he would have made a distinguished officer of engineers. When he was not reading the "Figaro" he was conning his breviary or answering, with rapid precision and with ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James |
