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Masquerade   Listen
noun
Masquerade  n.  
1.
An assembly of persons wearing masks, and amusing themselves with dancing, conversation, or other diversions. "In courtly balls and midnight masquerades."
2.
A dramatic performance by actors in masks; a mask. See 1st Mask, 4. (Obs.)
3.
Acting or living under false pretenses; concealment of something by a false or unreal show; pretentious show; disguise. "That masquerade of misrepresentation which invariably accompanied the political eloquence of Rome."
4.
A Spanish diversion on horseback.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Masquerade" Quotes from Famous Books



... was a great masquerade at the palace. I was out surveying the whole morning, and was occupied so late that I had barely half an hour to spare on my return for ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... the Song is in poetry the Essay is in prose. The producer pours out himself in his own way, and cannot be separated even in thought from that which he has produced. Jerrold's characters in plays and novels are interesting to me because they are Jerrold in masquerade. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... me when I say that no adventure is complete unless it necessitates an amount of ceremonial, the wearing of wigs, high bodices, stockings, and breeches? Every one likes to dress himself up, whether for a masquerade ball or to be enrolled in some strange order. Have you, reader, ever seen any one enrolled in any of these orders? If you have, you will excuse the little comedy and believe it to be natural—the comedy that Doris and I played in the old carriage driving from Orelay to Verlancourt, ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... in at eight o'clock, outside of our billets, a sort of masquerade party. I was disguised as a common laborer, had a pick and shovel, and about one hundred empty sandbags. The rest, about two hundred in all, were equipped likewise: picks, shovels, sandbags, ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey

... Falconer was a nurse, carrying a panacea to the wounded, doubtless a specimen of the sensational new remedy just recognized by the medical authorities, of which the one newspaper I had glanced through in Paris had been full. The masquerade was too preposterous to gain an instant's credence. It gave me, as the French say, furiously to think; ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... outcome—the inspiration of success brought with it renewed courage and confidence. The exciting incidents of the night had awakened me to the humor of the venture, and I smiled grimly at the rare conceit of the contemplated masquerade. Nor did it promise an especially difficult part to play. We were of similar size, broad-shouldered, stocky men, with smoothly shaven faces, the difference therein hardly likely to be observed by careless ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... minority! Human wills, intentions and aims, no matter how laudable and well known, are blandly strangled by judicial red tape, and laid away with pompous ceremonial in the dusty catacombs of legal form. Grimly grotesque, this masquerade of equity! Something must be done for Mr. Darrington, to enable him to finish his studies and embark on ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... I ween, is such costume seen, Except at a stage-play or masquerade; But who doth not know it was rather the go With Pilgrims and Saints in the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... as he lighted the cigar, "what a droll masquerade it has been! 'Pon my soul! I can scarce get the paint off; and my voice, after such yelling, won't recover for a week! Ha! ha! Never was maiden wooed and won in such a romantic, roundabout way. Shepherds attacked—sheep ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... judges sit bewigged in what was once the scene of imperial deliberations. Close by, in the High Street perhaps, the trumpets may sound about the stroke of noon; and you see a troop of citizens in tawdry masquerade; tabard above, heather-mixture trouser below, and the men themselves trudging in the mud among unsympathetic bystanders. The grooms of a well-appointed circus tread the streets with a better presence. And yet these are ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... his edged hat, as a certain tradesman, after having been once broke and set up again, 'I neither give nor take credit:' and as others set up in their shops, 'No trust by retail,' so he may say, 'No trust by wholesale.' In short, thus equipped, he is truly a tradesman in masquerade, and must pass for such wherever he is known. How long it may be before his dress and he may suit, it not ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe

... moment, using the uncompromising foot rule of prejudice, inherent or acquired. In the old days he had thought of these prejudices as standards, mistaking aversions for principles. He had tricked his loves, his hates, his preferences in a masquerade of pretenses ... he had labels for everybody and he pigeonholed them with the utmost promptitude. A man was a murderer or a saint or a bricklayer, and he was nothing else. But at this moment, standing in the light-flooded entrance ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... the ground and came over to the girls. "Of course you may if you want to," she said genially. "It's your dress. But do you want to? What does the ceremonial dress mean to you? Is it only a sort of masquerade costume to be decorated up just anyhow to make it look fantastic, or is it a record of achievements, written in a language that only Camp Fire Girls understand? Just think what it means to sit in a circle of girls and be able to tell by their costumes what kind of things they have done! We'll ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... freedom with which the press had given details of the explosion had been extremely hurtful to the credit of many of the best houses. In a crisis like that of Black Friday the sluice-gates of passion open. Cloaked in the masquerade of genuine distrust, came forth whispers whose only origin was in ancient enmities, long-treasured spites, the soundless depths of unquenchable malignities. Firms of staunchest reputation felt the rapier-stroke of old angers. The knowledge that certain ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... possible to the familiar realities of actual life and employment, in which the primary affections and passions had their play. A fantastic basis, varying according to the conventions of the fashion, was held essential for the representation of the ideal. Masquerade and hyperbole were the stage and scenery on which the poet's sweetness, or tenderness, or strength was to be put forth. The masquerade, when his subject belonged to peace, was one of shepherds: when it was one of war and adventure, it was a masquerade ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... rattle of dry bones rather than the heavenly harmonies of life. We have reason to be profoundly thankful for the signs to be seen on every side, that the dreary stuff which was called botany in the teaching of the past will soon cease to masquerade in its stolen costume, and that our children and our children's children will study not dried specimens or drier books, but the living things which Nature furnishes in ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... ghost," said the grocery man, recognizing the bad boy. "Ghosts do not go prowling around groceries stealing wormy figs. What do you mean by this sinful masquerade business? My ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck

... surrounded her, even dignified Professor Macon showing his enjoyment of the masquerade, while Professor Grandet spread out both hands, and cried, "Beautifool! Beautifool!" in ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... held my own, mostly Through all of this wild masquerade; But somehow the fog is more ghostly To-night, and the skies are more grayed, Like the locks of ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... birth, We wonder at ourselves, and curse our mirth. His walk of parts he fatally misplaced, And inclination fondly took for taste; 380 Hence hath the town so often seen display'd Beau in burlesque, high life in masquerade. But when bold wits,—not such as patch up plays, Cold and correct, in these insipid days,— Some comic character, strong featured, urge To probability's extremest verge; Where modest Judgment her decree ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... pass through the holes thus made in them, the finest fibril-roots of the fir, which they call Toobee, and commonly use for thread; but on this occasion serve to string certain small shells. This military masquerade, which they use at once for terror and disguise, being compleated, all the peltry of the beasts killed in the enemy's country, is piled in a heap; the oldest Sagamo, or chieftain of the assembly gets up, and asks, "What weather ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard

... nothing's wrong. Gnawing Care and aching Sorrow, Get ye gone until to-morrow; Jealousies in grim array, Ye are things of yesterday! When you marry, merry maiden, Then the air with joy is laden; All the corners of the earth Ring with music sweetly played, Worry is melodious mirth, Grief is joy in masquerade; ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... table, at a great supper, after a masquerade. About me were my friends, richly costumed, on all sides young men and women, all sparkling with beauty and joy; on the right and on the left exquisite dishes, flagons, splendor, flowers; above my head was an obstreperous orchestra, and before me my ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... I hate militia officers; a set of dunghill cocks with spurs on—heroes scratched off a church door— clowns in military masquerade, wearing the dress without supporting the character. No, give me the bold upright youth, who makes love to- day, and his head shot off to-morrow. Dear! to think how the sweet fellows sleep on the ground, and fight in ...
— St. Patrick's Day • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... tell us, and he, no doubt, so long in ignorance of it, had stumbled suddenly on his proper vocation at last. The role he was playing (so far successfully) had doubtless been the occasion of an exquisite delight to him, unknown to simpler mortals, who masquerade not without dread misgivings of detection. I for one, when affecting any costume not essentially belonging to me, or covering my face even with a paper-mask for holiday diversion, have had a feeling ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... invitation for a masquerade may be engraved, or it may be written, with the exception of the word "Masquerade," which should be engraved on ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... indeed, Miss Woppit—the fair-haired, shy-eyed boy who for months had masqueraded in the camp as a woman. Now, that masquerade disclosed and the dreadful mystery of the past revealed, the nameless boy, fair in spite of his crimes and his hideous wounds, lay dying in the dust ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field

... detective be worth if he could not disguise himself! A great merit, forsooth! And I tell you, I hate it! But I could not think of coming to Sauveterre in my own person, a detective. Ugh! Everybody would have run away; and what a pack of lies they would have told me! So I had to assume that hideous masquerade. To think that I once took six months' lessons from a music-teacher merely to fit myself for that character! A wandering musician, you see, can go anywhere, and nobody is surprised; he goes about the streets, ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... is given to you for splitting, And then, observe for whom you write! If one comes bored, exhausted quite, Another, satiate, leaves the banquet's tapers, And, worst of all, full many a wight Is fresh from reading of the daily papers. Idly to us they come, as to a masquerade, Mere curiosity their spirits warming: The ladies with themselves, and with their finery, aid, Without a salary their parts performing. What dreams are yours in high poetic places? You're pleased, forsooth, full houses to behold? Draw ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... window-seat—it was in an attic—and let the wind cool his forehead. But while the wind refreshed, the street itself gave his mind new nourishment. Down there it moved, to him unknown, and veiled and hidden as at a masquerade. What a treasure might not that easy virgin foot carry! What a fancy might there not be moving in the head under that little bonnet, and what a heart might there not be beating under the folds of that shawl! But, too, all this preciousness might ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various

... after fame and rush to war's alarms; To shining palaces let fools resort And dunces cringe to be esteemed at court. Mine be the pleasure of a rural life, From noise remote and ignorant of strife, Far from the painted belle and white-gloved beau, The lawless masquerade and midnight show; From ladies, lap-dogs, courtiers, garters, stars, Fops, fiddlers, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... continued, and being a favourite dance, there were about fifty couples going round and round the room. Such was the variety in the dress, country, language, and appearance of the parties collected, that you might have imagined it a masquerade. It was, however, getting late, and Frau Vandersloosh had received the intimation of the people of the police who superintend these resorts, that it was the time for shutting up; so that, although the widow was sorry on her own account to disperse so merry and so thirsty a party as they were ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... destiny approached. It was at a masquerade that she first saw the gay, the handsome Lovelace, who was just returned from his travels. She was immediately struck with his figure, and with the brilliant things that she heard fall from his lips ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... and drawn and keen mental distress showing in every line of it, faced the two men, pale and determined. The time had come to reveal the truth. This masquerade could go on no longer. It was not honourable either to her father or to herself. Her self-respect demanded that she inform the financier ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein

... 38), were in an execrable hand. The forger of the Journal of the First Voyage was no puzzle expert, and made mistakes in deciphering scrawls. Thus, for example, the note Giaua min., i.e., Java minor, was read Guanahin, the same destined to masquerade as Guanahani, the Indian name of the first island sighted ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... we could get up a fancy ball—a private masquerade, you know. I was speaking to Ada and Lucy about it last night. I said that I would be night, and Lucy thought ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings

... of 1815-16 there was a representation of the masquerade of 1814 given by 'us youth' of Watier's Club to Wellington and Co. Douglas Kinnaird and one or two others, with myself, put on masks, and went on the stage with the [Greek: hoi polloi], to see the effect of a theatre ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... Messrs. Bennet and Toleken, of Cork, and was first sung by them at a masquerade in 1814. It was afterwards lengthened for Webbe, the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... to see the establishment of a great slave empire, provided they themselves were free from the taint of connection with it. If any others let Southern proclivities lurk in the obscure recesses of their hearts they were too prudent to permit these perilous sentiments to appear except in the masquerade of dismal presagings. So in appearance the Northern men were united, and in fact were very nearly so—for ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... Myself, I wore a simply-cut frock-coat, with trousering in French grey. The doorkeeper explained to us that this was a costume ball; he was sorry, but gentlemen could only be admitted in evening dress or in masquerade. ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome

... was a short and eminently active one; Elizabeth triumphed first. At a masquerade at Lord Chesterfield's, in February, 1752, James, the sixth Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, who was enamoured of the younger Irish girl, wished to marry her at once. A clergyman was asked to perform the ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing

... to such follies, but at the same time I think it would be wrong to assert that they did not in any way contribute to it. As far as the apparition of the beautiful queen is concerned, I have always deemed it to be a dream, unless it should have been some masquerade got up for the occasion, but it is not always in the druggist's shop that are found the best remedies for severe diseases. Our ignorance is every day proved by some wonderful phenomenon, and I believe this ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... scarcely a person from whose eyes the joyful tenderness of the heart did not draw tears. At night all the walls around were illuminated, as well as many other places both within and without the city. Many sky-rockets were fired, and at about ten or eleven o'clock at night the soldiers in masquerade went through the streets on horseback with many torches, to display their joy; both men and horses were elegantly and splendidly adorned. May God send us many days like this, on which Christ Jesus may triumph over his enemy; and may He preserve ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various

... tool-houses, one feed stable, and twelve others that for one reason and another I shall not name. Yet this wretched husk of squalor spent thought upon appearances; many houses in it wore a false front to seem as if they were two stories high. There they stood, rearing their pitiful masquerade amid a fringe of old tin cans, while at their very doors began a world of crystal light, a land without end, a space across which Noah and Adam might come straight from Genesis. Into that space went wandering a road, over a hill and down out of sight, and up again ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... Tattooing and painting the body were well-nigh universal. Labrets, i.e. pieces of bone, stone, shell, &c., were worn as ornaments in the lip (Latin, labrum) or cheek by Eskimo, Tlinkit, Nahuatlas and tribes on the Brazilian coast. For ceremonial purposes all American tribes were expert in masquerade and dramatic apparel. A study of these in the historic tribes makes plain the motives in gorgeous Mexican ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... strongly impresses the student of games: namely, that these activities, which at first were serious rites have been used for sport by adults themselves before being handed down to children; as though the grown folk should masquerade for a time in their outworn garments before passing them on to following generations. Considering the varied interests that find expression in these games, one is further impressed with the fact that humanity passes thus ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft

... one occasion had to impersonate a laundress. Her grandson and great-grandson both were forced to masquerade as servants, and her great-great-grandson Prince James Frederick Edward passed through France disguised ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea

... mouth, so that the tongue fast cleaves to it, and he has no longer the power to complain of his misery! And such a crushed earth-worm this miserable, infatuated people call the vicegerent of God, before whom they bow in the dust! Ah, foolish children, are you not yourselves disgusted with your masquerade, and do you not blush ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... once more before the public, and to carry his name beyond his native France even as far as America. Leaving for the nonce his chosen field of antiquity, where yet he was to distinguish himself, he looked for a subject in the Paris of his own day. "The Duel after the Masquerade" opens for us a corner of the Bois de Boulogne—the fashionable park on the outskirts of Paris—where in the still dawn of a winter's day, a group of men are met to witness a duel between two of their companions who have ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... whose purse was so. A dissolution of all bonds ensued, The curbs invented for the mulish mouth Of headstrong youth were broken; bars and bolts Grew rusty by disuse, and massy gates Forgot their office, opening with a touch; Till gowns at length are found mere masquerade; The tasselled cap and the spruce band a jest, A mockery of the world. What need of these For gamesters, jockeys, brothellers impure, Spendthrifts and booted sportsmen, oftener seen With belted waist, and pointers ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... knew how to see them. Are not most of us just as blind to the thousand lights and shades in the men and women around us? We live in the world as we live among fellow-inmates in a hotel, or fellow-revellers at a masquerade. Yet this, to bring knowledge of ourselves and others "home to our business and our bosoms," is one of the most important parts ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... that ingenuity could devise or money could buy was brought into service. It was the life that Watteau painted, with its quaint and grotesque fancies, its sylvan divinities, and its sighing lovers wandering in endless masquerade, or whispering tender nothings on banks of soft verdure, amid the rustle of leaves, the sparkle of fountains, the glitter of lights, and the perfume of innumerable flowers. It was a perpetual carnival, inspired by imagination, animated by genius, and combining ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... governor of Stockholm, and named him President of the Council of Regency, which, in case of his death, was to govern Sweden during the minority of the heir to the throne. Shortly after these dignities had been conferred upon Armfelt, occurred the famous masquerade ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... on condition of a yearly tribute. Such was the defence of Orihuela, and while it involved no strenuous fighting, it was at the same time no mediocre test of womanly daring. After the first few trying hours of the masquerade had been passed, however, and it was evident that the ruse had been successful, it may well be imagined that these feminine warriors were not slow to see the humor of the situation, and many must have been ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... to accept a title—Non! It would mean that the name of Carpazzi,"—he lingered on the pronunciation—"could be improved! The name of Minotti, for instance, what does it say? Nothing! It is the name of a peasant. It may be dressed up to masquerade as noble, if it has 'Principe' pushed along before it. But it could not deceive a Roman. It is not the 'Principe' before Sansevero that gives it renown. Don Giovanni Sansevero is a greater title than the Marchese Di Valdo, by which Giovanni ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post

... plants reproduce their kinds through the sexual union of male and female elements, and that on the principle of homoeopathic or imitative magic this reproduction is supposed to be stimulated by the real or mock marriage of men and women, who masquerade for the time being as spirits of vegetation. Such magical dramas have played a great part in the popular festivals of Europe, and based as they are on a very crude conception of natural law, it is clear that they must ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... brother and usurp the throne. Accordingly, Lucian, aided by his mistress, stabbed John Grimaldi in his bed, and having thrown the body into the sea, proclaimed himself prince. He reigned but a short time. Bartolomeo Doria, nephew of the Genoese doge, Andrea Doria the Great, murdered him at a masquerade given in his palace to celebrate his infamous sister-in-law's birthday. The galleys of the doge awaited the assassin without the port, and transported him back in safety to Genoa—a circumstance which gave rise to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various

... the impossibility of being dull in Fleet Street, the crowds, the very dirt and mud, the sun shining upon houses and pavements, the print shops, the old bookstalls, parsons cheapening books, coffee-houses, steams of soups from kitchens, the pantomime, London itself a pantomime and a masquerade—all these things work themselves into my mind and feed me, without a power of satiating me. The wonder of these sights impels me into night-walks about her crowded streets, and I often shed tears in the motley Strand ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... walking in tight skirts. It's as impossible to convince a Middle West buyer that the exaggerated full skirt is going to be worn next summer as it would be to prove to him that men are going to wear sunbonnets. They thought I was trying to sell 'em masquerade costumes. I may believe in it, and you may believe in it, and T. A.; but the girls from Joplin—well, they're from Joplin. And they're waiting ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber

... appeared as if they were in such a hurry for a dance that they had not waited until they washed their hands and faces, but had just come directly from their work, although several of them had slipped on masquerade dresses; the women were cleaner (I suspect they were not of the most immaculate description), and were amusing themselves with quadrilles and waltzes alternately. Being of course very differently attired from the rest of the assemblage, we were very conspicuous, but they took ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... stepped up before the railing and faced the judge; there would be a few muttered words and they would move on. Everything went as a matter of routine, which had been going that way for ages. The judge, who was elderly and gray haired, looked like a prosperous business man in a masquerade costume. ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair

... something on the Gordon Dane order, he suspected. And it was not too soon to begin laying those unseen foundations—to think the thought that must come before the thing. He was veritably a king, yet for a time must he masquerade as a wage-slave, a serf to Breede, and an inferior of Bulger's, considered ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... was born to fade: Now the Rite is masquerade. Now a cockney paladin Winds a penny horn of tin. Where in reverence heads were bowed Surges now a careless crowd; "Muddied oafs" and "flanneled fools" Jostle "Yanks" with camping stools;— Gone the things that meaning gave "With the old ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor

... but my master expects thee, honest Lopez, to secure his retreat from Donna Clara's window, as I guess.—[Music without.] Hey! sure, I heard music! So, so! Who have we here? Oh, Don Antonio, my master's friend, come from the masquerade, to serenade my young mistress, Donna Louisa, I suppose: so! we shall have the old gentleman up presently.—Lest he should miss his son, I had best lose no time in getting ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... believe, I shall give you, Madam, my opinion of a diversion, which, I doubt, I shall like still less, and that is a masquerade; for I fear I shall not be excused going to one, although I have no manner of liking to it, especially in my present way. I am. Madam, your ladyship's most obliged ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... deserved a watchful spirit's care; Some dire disaster, or by force or slight; But what, or where, the fates have wrapt in night. Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law, Or some frail china jar receive a flaw; Or stain her honour or her new brocade; Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade; Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball; Or whether Heaven has doomed that Shock must fall, Haste, then, ye spirits! to your charge repair: The fluttering fan be Zephyretta's care; The drops to thee, Brillante, we consign; And, Momentilla, let the watch be thine; Do thou, Crispissa, tend her ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley

... From street and window and balustrade,— Ladies in jewels and brocade, Gray old grandam, and peasant maid With cap, short skirt, and dangling braid; And youngsters shouted, and horses neighed, And all the curs in concert bayed: 'T was thus with pomp and masquerade, On a broad triumphal chariot laid, Beneath a canopy's moving shade, By eight cream-colored steeds conveyed, To the ringing of bells and cannonade, King Cheese his ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... learning of Mr. Jones is more familiar to me, or even the polite masquerade of Monsieur ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... itself had knocked in vain; rhyme, which can turn man's utterance to the speech of gods; rhyme, the one chord we have added to the Greek lyre, became in Robert Browning's hands a grotesque, misshapen thing, which at times made him masquerade in poetry as a low comedian, and ride Pegasus too often with his tongue in his cheek. There are moments when he wounds us by monstrous music. Nay, if he can only get his music by breaking the strings of his lute, he breaks them, and they snap in discord, ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde

... the element both of self-deception and deliberate masquerade in Blougram's defence. He made him "say right things and call them by wrong names." The intellectual athlete in him went out to the intellectual athlete in the other, and rejoiced in every equation he seemed to establish. He played, ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... this masquerade, Christy," said he, as he seated himself at the cabin table. "What have you been telling this ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic

... purity. Some of them are men who, by insisting that it is corrupt and bad for men in office to take part in politics, are striving now to prove that the Republican party has been unclean and vicious all its life.... Some of these worthies masquerade as reformers. Their vocation and ministry is to lament the sins of other people. Their stock in trade is rancid, canting self-righteousness. They are wolves in sheep's clothing. Their real object is office and plunder. When Dr. Johnson ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... ministry. To get away safely he adopted a ruse. He started out as if to go to Marseilles; but costuming himself as a courier, he proceeded instead toward Los Pasajos, where his ship and friends were awaiting him. The masquerade was successful until he reached St. Jean de Luz where a hairbreadth escape was in store for him. Here certain officers were watching for Lafayette. The clever daughter of an innkeeper recognized him as the young nobleman who had passed some days before on the way to Bordeaux. A sign ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow

... a brilliant masquerade that evening at the palazzo of Count Giulio Colonna. Invitations had been issued to all the world, and all the world was present. The finest music, the richest wines, the most splendid decorations were lavished on the occasion. Perhaps, among that ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... or Hobbyhorse Races to the Temple of Fame, four folio plates; The Parson's Clerk (a comic song), four illustrations in ridicule of cant and hypocrisy; Legal Illustrations (seventy humorous applications of law terms); The Masquerade at the Argyll Rooms (a large plate full of vigour, life, and character); New Year's Morning: the Old One out, and the New One coming in, a party of topers, one of whom—the chairman, with the empty punch-bowl on his head (representing "the old one out")—merrily points at the waiter ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... was heaven, is zenith now. Where I proposed to go When time's brief masquerade was done, Is ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson

... he paid To the gross air of earth, this mystic seer, The tyrannies of sense were too severe For one of clay more fine than Adam's made. The inhumanity of man, the trade Of coining gold from the serf's groan and tear, The galling fetters of religious fear, And vain ecclesiastic masquerade Tortured his gentle soul, and made his life One bitter struggle with the powers that be: Yet not in vain he lived; his manful strife With all the deadening despotisms we see Will ring along the centuries, until Good has ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... wrote my first love-letter—a fairly warm and moving fragment of history. My family have urged me to let it go in the record, but I have firmly refused. There are some things which I can not do even in this little masquerade. It is enough to say that when the day ended I had deliberately chosen two of the many ways that ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... light seemed to illumine the page, caught from her recent experience of dramatic personation and scenic effects, limited and unsatisfactory though that experience had been. In fancy, she floated over the stage, as the gay young Juliet at the masquerade; then she caught sight of young Romeo, and, lo! his face was that of the sentimental hero of the last night's tragedy, but ennobled by the glow and dignity of genuine passion. In fancy, she sat on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... interpret it to our duller apprehension—this form of imaginative power must always be among the very rarest, because it demands as much accurate and minute knowledge as creative vigor. Yet we find ladies constantly choosing to make their mental mediocrity more conspicuous by clothing it in a masquerade of ancient names; by putting their feeble sentimentality into the mouths of Roman vestals or Egyptian princesses, and attributing their rhetorical arguments to Jewish high-priests and Greek philosophers. A recent example of this heavy imbecility is "Adonijah, a Tale of the Jewish Dispersion," ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... going to ask you for a few facts about your masquerade," said Sir Stanley kindly. "I understand that you appeared wearing the costume, and giving a fairly good imitation of the voice of Jack o' Judgment. Now, I'm telling you before we go any further that I do ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace

... cleaned," she explained. "I have been so busy: the masquerade season is on. The Fraulein is American, is ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... on a water butt one evening, but was to have been again performed in more magnificent costume the next day; just, however, as all the actors in this eccentric masquerade, High Sheriff, Lord Mayor, Head Constable, Assessor, Poll Clerks, and Members, were ready dressed, and preparing to start, the marshal interfered, stopped the procession, and, after some parley, was advised ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various

... terrestrial Life but a Symbolic Representation, and making visible, of the Celestial invisible Force that is in him? By act and world he strives to do it; with sincerity, if possible; failing that, with theatricality, which latter also may have its meaning. An Almack's Masquerade is not nothing; in more genial ages, your Christmas Guisings, Feasts of the Ass, Abbots of Unreason, were a considerable something: since sport they were; as Almacks may still be sincere wish for sport. But what, on the other hand, must not sincere earnest have been: say, a Hebrew Feast ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... material consisted in the fact that the tragic element was broken up in such a way that one could extract enjoyment even from its most affecting parts. That was just what pleased him in Mozart's Don Juan, one met the tragic types there, as if at a masquerade, where even the domino was preferable to the plain character. I admitted that I should get on much more comfortably if I took life more seriously and art more lightly, but for the present I intended to let the opposite ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... Harrowing of Hell, a miracle-play, edited from the original now in the British Museum, by T. O. Halliwell, London, 1840. One of the items still preserved is a sum of money paid for keeping a fire burning in hell's mouth. Says Hase (as above, p. 42): "In wonderful satyrlike masquerade, in which neither horns, tails, nor hoofs were ever... wanting, the devil prosecuted on the stage his business of fetching souls," which left the mouths of the dying "in the form of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... neckcloths; and then Sir Guy himself appeared in a costume of surpassing splendour; but still, although in his evening dress, brilliant with starch and polish and buttons and jewellery, looking like a coachman in masquerade; and "dinner" was announced, and we all paired off with the utmost ceremony, and I found myself seated between Frank Lovell and dear old Mr. Lumley, and opposite the elder Miss Molasses, who scowled at me with an asperity of which I should have believed her unmeaning face incapable, as ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... used to listen with delight to the reading of the "Jack Downing" letters, laughing heartily sometimes, and declaring: "The Vice-President must have written that. Depend upon it Jack Downing is only Van Buren in masquerade." It is a curious fact that the satirist is already the better remembered of the two, although Van Buren was in his day so powerful as to preside over the official patronage of the nation and to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... life we call it a "shell". Of itself a shell cannot communicate at a seance, or take any action of any sort; but such shells are frequently seized upon by sportive nature-spirits and used as temporary habitations. A shell so occupied can communicate at a seance and masquerade as its original owner, since some of his characteristics and certain portions of his memory can be evoked by the ...
— A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater

... their beauty. Both Belenus and Antinous are young and beautiful: why, therefore, should not Antinous be honoured equally with Belenus? The same reasoning would apply to all his impersonations. The pious imagination or the aesthetic taste tricked out this favourite of fortune in masquerade costumes, just as a wealthy lover may amuse himself by dressing his mistress after the similitude of famous beauties. The analogy of statues confirms this assumption. A considerable majority represent him as Dionysus Kisseus: in some of the best he is conceived ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... shall have all the soldiers called up, who were on duty at the castle to-night, and question them myself. The castellan's wife, too, must be summoned. She is an honest woman of bold and sober wits, and from her I shall be best able to learn what is the meaning of this masquerade. Good-night, Lehndorf, sleep off your fright, you sentimental man, over whom a childish shudder still creeps, whenever he hears a nursery maid's tale! I really envy you your implicit faith, you credulous man! One ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... inheritance, of personal taste, of interests, of intellectual persuasion that can stand in the way of an affirmative answer to this prayer. Every man who calls himself a Christian and yet is not praying and working to break down the self-will and the self-conceit that, so often under the masquerade of conscience, hold him back from a return, even if it is only step by step, to the original unity of the Catholic Faith, is guilty of sin, while it is sin of an even graver degree that stands to the account of those who consciously work to perpetuate the division ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram

... withered fairy godmother. And yet through it all it was clear that she was a great lady. There were certain poses and gestures about her, which made her thread gloves and rusty skirts seem a mere whim and masquerade, adopted, perhaps deliberately, from a high-bred love of congruity, to ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... crucible and by the fire of God's word. It is intended to turn your spirit inside out—to lay bare every insidious enemy that may have crept in and lie lurking in the walls of Mansoul. It exhibits sin in all its hideous deformity, stript of its masquerade and disguises; so that it appears, what it really is, the great enemy to human happiness. It is calculated to stir up our pure minds to incessant vigilance, lest we should wander upon tempting, but forbidden paths; and be caught by Giant ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... attending a masquerade, denotes that you will indulge in foolish and harmful pleasures to the neglect of business and ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... the point of tears, though I knew perfectly well at that moment that all this was out of Pushkin's SILVIO and Lermontov's MASQUERADE. And all at once I felt horribly ashamed, so ashamed that I stopped the horse, got out of the sledge, and stood still in the snow in the middle of the street. The driver gazed at me, ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky

... seeking to masquerade his relief under the semblance of responsible self-effacement, "common decency ter other folks lays thet need on both of ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... and moral non-entities, proved to be so on the pure principle that the names of these non-entities are participles, not nouns, or names of things. That is strange in so close a reasoner and in one who maintained that all language was a masquerade of words, and that the class to which they grammatically belonged had nothing to do with the class of ideas ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... gown. She took off her own school-girl dress, and put on the pink gown. It was the first time she had ever worn the clothes of a woman. When she had attired herself in the silken robe which had been so fatal to the fortunes and life of Judith Pacewalk, it had been slipped on in masquerade fashion, debased from its high position to a mere protection from spilt milk. Miriam had thought of the purple silk when Miss Panney was telling her story, and had said to herself that if the stall in the cow-stable had been ever so much darker and dirtier, and if the milk stains ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton

... and in the confusion Amelia drops her veil, thus revealing herself to Reinhart. Furious at the Governor's perfidy, he joins the conspirators. In the denouement the Secretary stabs his master at a masquerade, and the latter while dying attests the purity of Amelia, and magnanimously gives his secretary a commission appointing him to a high position ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton

... Meredith, the same lad, in spite of his masquerade of flesh; and Helen was right: ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... few days proceedings. Fred was keeping a woman named Laura of whom I shall say more; she was always with us. I don't recollect having a woman for a few days, but it may have been otherwise. On the fifth or sixth night we went to Vauxhall Gardens to a masquerade. It was a rare lark in those days. A great fun of mine was getting into a shady walk, tipping the watchman to let me hide in the shrubs, and crouching down to hear the women piss. I have heard a couple of hundred do so on one evening, and much of what they said. Such a mixture ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... doll Sour-dough up like that all the time?" demanded the Mixer, "or has he just come from a masquerade? What's he represent, anyway?" And these words when I had taken especial pains and resorted to all manner of threats to turn him smartly out in ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... Manti was teeming with life and action. Since the day that Miss Benham had viewed the town from the window of the private car, Manti had added more than a hundred buildings to its total. They were not attractive; they were ludicrous in their pitiful masquerade of substantial types. Here and there a three-story structure reared aloft, sheathed with galvanized iron, a garish aristocrat seemingly conscious of its superiority, brazen, in its bid for attention; more modest buildings ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer

... one medium, and that a false one, they are unable to discern in what true merit and happiness consist. False, indeed, must be the light when the drapery of situation hides the man, and makes him stalk in masquerade, dragging from one scene of dissipation to another the nerveless limbs that hang with stupid listlessness, and rolling round the vacant eye which plainly tells us that there is no mind ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... endeavouring to persuade the Jacobite aristocracy to rise in arms. But this was no easy task. Several consultations were held; and there was one great muster of the party under the pretence of a masquerade, for which tickets were distributed among the initiated at one guinea each. [663] All ended however in talking, singing and drinking. Many men of rank and fortune indeed declared that they would draw their swords for their rightful Sovereign as soon as their ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... winter night, As authors of the legend write, Two brother hermits, saints by trade, Taking their tour in masquerade, Disguised in tattered habits, went To a small village down in Kent; Where, in the strollers' canting strain, They begged from door to door in vain; Tried every tone might pity win, But not a soul would let ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift

... Alix, was fraternally received, and made acquainted with the sphere of his operations. The young man had a good deal of both ability and taste in the line he had assumed, and the part was not difficult to play. Some days were judiciously allowed to pass before the real object of the masquerade was pursued, and during that time cordial relations established themselves between the avocat and his guest. The young man was handsome, elegant, engaging, with all the external advantages, and devoid of the vices, errors, ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... of 1801, the first consul took it into his head to make a king, and a king of the house of Bourbon: he bestowed Tuscany upon him, designating it by the classical name of Etruria, for the purpose of commencing the grand masquerade of Europe. This infanta of Spain was ordered to Paris for the purpose of exhibiting to the French the spectacle of a prince of the ancient dynasty humbled before the first consul; more humbled by his gifts than he ever could have been by his persecution. Bonaparte tried upon ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... can never be in the smallest degree increased by it. Clothes and household furniture, in the same manner, sometimes yield a revenue, and thereby serve in the function of a capital to particular persons. In countries where masquerades are common, it is a trade to let out masquerade dresses for a night. Upholsterers frequently let furniture by the month or by the year. Undertakers let the furniture of funerals by the day and by the week. Many people let furnished houses, and get a rent, not only for the use of the house, but for that of the furniture. The revenue, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... limitless ocean of eternity—have been confronted with this same difficulty, and have woven an intricate and tedious design of words in their attempt to convey some single conception—some conception which themselves could see but dimly when disguised in the masquerade of language; some figure that as it was limned grew ever more confused beneath the wrappings of metaphor, so that we who read can glimpse scarce a hint of its original shape and likeness. We see, also, that the very philosophers who caricatured ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford

... perfect contempt; and he was quick to sense a taint of it in Seward, or any one whom it had infected. Such men as Stephens of the South were insisting now that the real intellect-of the North cared nothing about slavery, and only used it to masquerade their centralizing plots. If local self-government could be extinguished for the purposes of abolition why not for anything, in behalf of which a moral enthusiasm could be evoked? Why not a constitutional amendment establishing a state religion? Why ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... two or three centuries hence, it would create, to the people of that day, an impossibility of seeing the real man through the absurdity of his envelopment, after it shall have entirely grown out of fashion and remembrance; and Webster would seem as absurd to them then as he would to us now in the masquerade of some bygone day. It might be well, therefore, to adopt some conventional costume, never actual, but always graceful and noble. Besides, Webster, for example, had other costumes than that which he wore in public, and perhaps ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... a good man, a safe man for any girl to trust. And yet he was lending himself to a species of masquerade which, if ever it became known, would bring upon his head both derision and scorn. He risked this contumely cheerfully and with a reckless disregard for what might arise through the plans they had made while sitting beside each ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper

... nothing; on the other side was the still more dreadful fall into sentimentality, the tear of conscious tenderness, the redeeming glimpse of 'better things' in Alf or Emmy that could at one stroke have converted their reality into a genteel masquerade. The perfection of Alf and Emmy is that at no point does a 'nature's gentleman' or a 'nature's lady' show through and demand our refined sympathy. It is only by comparison with this supreme conversation that the affair of Keith and Jenny seems to fall short of perfection. ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... was recognised he was received with a loud burst of laughter. He sat down very coolly; but he found himself so encumbered and ill at ease in his turban and Oriental robe that he speedily threw them off, and was never tempted to a second performance of the masquerade. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... of the insane revel of partisan license, which, for thirty years, has, in the United States, worn the mask of government. We are about to close the masquerade by the dance of death. The nations of the world look anxiously to see if the people, ere they tread that measure, will ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell

... the zenith of her audacious charms. He met her at a masquerade at Bath, followed and intrigued with her all the evening, and at last, alone in an alcove with her after supper, induced her to take off her mask. Her beauty dazzled those experienced eyes of his, and he fell madly in love with her at first sight ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... a brilliant masquerade; But when of the first sight you've had your fill, It palls—at least it does so upon me, This ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... and disgraceful amusements of the vulgar men and women collected in the court of Elizabeth, was what was called masquerade balls, in which all the men were required to dress as women, and all the women as men, and yet no ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... God hath joined no man can put asunder," Edith retorted, "but did God do it? It doesn't seem right to blame Him for all the pitiful mistakes that masquerade as marriage. Mother used to say," she resumed, after a little, "that when you're more miserable without a man than you think you ever could be with him, it's time to marry him, and when you're more miserable with ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... permitted to approach and share in the ovation, bowing again and again in acknowledgment of the approbation of their patrons, and looking, thought Austin rather cruelly, exactly like a row of lacqueys in masquerade. This marked the close of the proceedings, and Austin, with a sigh of relief, soon found himself once more in the cool streets, walking briskly in the direction ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... where the final intentions are honorable. But in this case there seems to have been something more in motion than passion or the ardor of youth. "I like not," says Parson Evans, (alluding to Falstaff in masquerade,) "I like not when a woman has a great peard; I spy a great peard under her muffler." Neither do we like the spectacle of a mature young woman, five years past her majority, wearing the semblance of having been led astray ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... tawny-haired woman with the dead-white skin that goes with reddish hair, with steel for eyes, there was a grace and carriage to her that put her aside from the other peasant girls as a queen may masquerade as a slave and yet betray herself as a queen. Other girls there were as pretty, with their hair like flax and their eyes like blue water; with hair like a dim blue cloud and eyes like a smudge of charcoal. But none had her teeth, her small ankles, her ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... has tried his hand at it; and a correspondent of the "Gentleman's Magazine" suggests that Johnson had in his mind an epigram on a young lady who appeared at a masquerade in Paris, habited as a Jesuit, during the height of the contention between the Jansenists and Molinists ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi

... "I hope you will take more care of the house to-morrow; for your lady and I shall leave you alone to the care of it. Here, madam," said she, "here is a present from my lord to us; here are two tickets for the masquerade at Ranelagh. You will be so charmed with it! It is the ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... Spontaneous joys, where Nature has its play, 255 The soul adopts, and owns their firstborn sway; Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined. But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade, With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed— 260 In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain, The toiling pleasure sickens into pain; And, e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy, The heart distrusting asks if this ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various

... Night of Masquerade" I am guilty of quite arbitrarily discovering a reason to explain the mystery of Baron Bjelke's sudden change from the devoted friend and servant of Gustavus III of Sweden into his most bitter enemy. That speculation is ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... contrived, for this purpose, a splendid masquerade, where those, whom she appointed to dance, had to represent different nations; she allowed some time for preparation, during which we may suppose, the tailors, the mantua makers, and embroiderers, were not idle: nor were the beauties, who ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... possess is to be sated. And so you, in your wisdom, have refused any longer to pursue. You have elected surcease. Very well. You will become sated with surcease. You say you have escaped satiety! You have merely bartered it for senility. And senility is another name for satiety. It is satiety's masquerade. Bah!" ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... the Carnival of 18—, that I attended a masquerade in the palazzo of the Neapolitan Duke Di Broglio. I had indulged more freely than usual in the excesses of the wine-table; and now the suffocating atmosphere of the crowded rooms irritated me beyond endurance. The difficulty, too, of forcing ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... crowned at Frankfort, and great festivities were to be given in the town in his honour, among them a masquerade, at which knights and noble ladies rivalled each other in splendour. Joy was depicted on every face at this great assembly, only one knight among the many guests being noticeable for his gravity and restraint. He wore black armour, and the feather waving above his visor was ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland

... men's lives to account for, may go back and claim her who has given me her troth! Already I staked the fortune of my trust, on the bare chance that she would come. What though her heart failed her at the eleventh hour?—God forgive her for it!—surely she never sanctioned this masquerade?... Oh no! she would not stoop to such an act, and human life is not a thing to jest upon. She never played this trick, the thought is too odious. What have you done! Had I known, had I had word sooner—but half an hour sooner—those ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... the way to London. His nag gone lame in riding out here this blessed afternoon, and comfortably littered down in our stable at this minute; and he giving up a good hot supper and our best bed, because Miss Haredale has gone to a masquerade up in town, and he has set his heart upon seeing her! I don't think I could persuade myself to do that, beautiful as she is,—but then I'm not in love (at least I don't think I am) and ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... patient, conscientious English, half sadly, half playfully, and glancing at Florida, before he turned to Mrs. Vervain, "You are as rigid as the rest of the world, madama. I thought you would like this dress, but it seems that you think it a masquerade. As madamigella says, it is a relief to lay aside the uniform, now and then, for us who fight the spiritual enemies as well as for the other soldiers. There was one time, when I was younger and in the subdiaconate orders, that I put off the priest's dress altogether, ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells

... to be a masquerade—the dance which followed on the wide, clean floors—not the kind of a masquerade which the church societies gave from time to time to eke out the minister's salary and which, while he had never attended, Young Denny had often heard described as ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... hope to regain their political life. We noticed that the pure mountaineers, without a trace of Spanish adulteration, wore a black poncho underneath, and we were informed by one well acquainted with their customs that this was in mourning for the Inca. We attended an Indian masquerade dance at Machachi, which seemed to have an historical meaning. It was performed in full view of that romantic mountain which bears the name of the last captain of Atahuallpa. There is a tradition that after the death of his chief, Ruminagui burned the capital, and, ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

... it is you and no other," she said; then rising from her knee: "Gentil Dauphin, I am Jeanne the Maid. I am sent to you by the King of Heaven to tell you that you shall be consecrated and crowned at Rheims, and shall be lieutenant of the King of Heaven, who is King of France." The little masquerade had failed, the jest was over. There would be little more laughing among the courtiers, when they saw the face of Charles grow grave. He took the new-comer aside, perhaps to that deep recess of the window where in the darkening night the glimmer of the clear, ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... last term of imprisonment Haydon witnessed the masquerade, or mock election by his fellow-prisoners, and instantly decided that he would paint the scene, which offered unique opportunities for both humour and pathos. This picture, Hogarthian in type, was finished and exhibited before ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... the house," declared Adrian emphatically. "He may have put on some masquerade costume just to frighten these superstitious servants ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler

... Behold the masquerade's fantastic scene! The Legislature join'd with Drury-Lane! When Britain calls, th' embroider'd patriots run, And serve their country—if the dance is done. "Are we not then allow'd to be polite?" Yes, doubtless; ...
— English Satires • Various

... volunteered denial, subject to brief visitations of insanity; or was there here a disguise and a romance? I had read in old storybooks of such things. What if a boyish lover had found his way into the house, and sought to prosecute his suit in masquerade, with the assistance of a clever old adventuress. But there were many things against this hypothesis, highly interesting as it ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... "We are to masquerade as a blooming merchantman," chuckled "Dye." "This reminds me of my boyhood days when I read pirate stories. Do you remember that yarn about Kydd, where he rigged painted canvas about his ship and hid all the ports, 'Stump'? It was great. ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... Emperor who, a few years back, lodged over the bootmaker's; the out-at-elbow followers of imperial fortune, now raised to the highest splendour, and dispensing hospitalities more than regal in magnificence;—these are the spectacles which make the masquerade a tiresome mockery; and it is exactly because we get the veritable article for nothing that we neither seek playhouse nor ballroom, but go out into the streets and highways for our drama, and take our Kembles and ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... old lady, but the words were spoken, and she could only intervene as moderator: "Novels show us ourselves at a distance, as it were. I think they are good both for instruction and reproof. The best of them are but the Scripture parables in modern masquerade. Here is one—the Prodigal Son of the nineteenth century, going out into the world, wasting his substance with riotous living, suffering, repenting, returning, and ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr



Words linked to "Masquerade" :   domino, masque, costume, masquerade ball, mask, fancy-dress ball, pose, masquerader, masquerade costume, impersonate, personate, false face, masked ball, masquerade party, pretense, party, pretending, pretence



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