"Pantomime" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fell back in her chair; whereupon, taking silence for consent, Peggy placed her cup on the table, and crossed to the end of the room, where she went through a life-like pantomime of the scene which had happened on the station platform an hour before. The bows, the hand-shakes, the strained smiles of greeting were all repeated, and two chairs being drawn together to represent a carriage, Miss Peggy seated herself on the nearer ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... were parchment color, and he bore the look of an active yet extreme old age. He was totally deaf. Dorcas advanced toward him, taking a bright five-cent piece from her pocket. She held it out to him, and he, in turn, extended the pennyroyal; but before taking it, she went through a solemn pantomime. She made a feint of accepting the herb, and then pointed to him ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... even in the act, his countenance cleared. He was standing in the window, and caught a glimpse of Bessie Gottley, who was passing at the moment on the opposite side of the road, and looked across at him, smiling and nodding invitingly. Mrs. Caldwell saw the pantomime, and her heart contracted with a pang when she saw how readily her husband responded. It was hard that the evil moods should not be conquered for her as well as for ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... and the wit of Congreve were now rather readers than play-goers, and were most ready to enjoy an appeal to their feelings when that appeal reached them in book form. In the playhouse they came to expect bustle and pantomime rather than literature. This decline in theatrical habits prepared a domestic audience for the novelists, and accounts for that feverish and apparently excessive anxiety with which the earliest great novels were awaited ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... one coming aboard, and the sailors began to undo the lashings of the gangways from the ship's side; files of men on the wharf laid hold of their rails; the stewards guarding their approach looked up for the signal to come aboard; and in vivid pantomime forbade some belated leavetakers to ascend. These stood aside, exchanging bows and grins with the friends whom they could not reach; they all tried to make one another hear some last words. The moment came when the saloon ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... pipes of reeds, while he seated himself on the ground "like a monkey," as Le Moyne has it in the grave Latin of his Brevis Narratio. A council followed, in which broken words were aided by signs and pantomime; and a treaty of alliance was made, Laudonniere renewing his rash promise to aid the chief against his enemies. Satouriona, well pleased, ordered his Indians to help the French in their work. They obeyed with alacrity, and in two days the buildings of the fort were all thatched, after ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... the little town and the shop-keepers came out to look. Some were in their shirt sleeves; the butcher had his white apron tucked up around his belt. They gathered together in twos and groups, nodding toward the procession, their lips moving as in pantomime. One man walked out to the crossing, counting aloud as the teams went by. "One, two, three, four, five, six—" he intoned. To him it was all a thing to amuse, like a circus parade,—interesting in ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... featherfans, tasselled dancecards, powdered with musk, a gaud of amber beads in her locked drawer. A birdcage hung in the sunny window of her house when she was a girl. She heard old Royce sing in the pantomime of Turko the Terrible and laughed with others when ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... But he escaped in the disguise of a livery servant. What odious folly! In such emergencies, no disguise can be a degradation. Do we remember our own Charles II. assuming as many varieties of servile disguise as might have glorified a pantomime? Do we remember Napoleon reduced to the abject resource of entreating one of the Commissioners to whistle, by way of misleading the infuriated mob into the belief that l'empereur could not be supposed present in that carriage when such an indecency ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... spunging-houses, and with the frequenters of all the clubs and coffee-houses in the town. He was liked in all company because he liked it; and you like to see his enjoyment as you like to see the glee of a box full of children at the pantomime. He was not of those lonely ones of the earth whose greatness obliged them to be solitary; on the contrary, he admired, I think, more than any man who ever wrote; and full of hearty applause and sympathy, wins upon you by calling you to share ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... still there is abundance of timber, for the grove has disappeared, and scores of new houses have sprung up with almost magical effect—and the whole scene reminds us of one of the change-scenes of a pantomime. The builder's share has turned over nearly every inch of the ground, and fresh gravel and loose loam remind the philosophical pedestrian that all is change beneath as well as on the surface. Of the mock villas that have been "put up" in this quarter, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various
... the note of success. Saved by Jack's skill from any hint of waxwork or pantomime, their subtle color and tranquil light made each picture a vision of past time, an evocation of ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... purse, he showed the money therein to the gendarme, at the same time exclaiming, "Hotel! hotel!" and pointing to himself. The officer evidently comprehended this pantomime, for, with a nod to the ticket agent, who had all the while been grinning through his little wicket, he motioned for Will to follow him ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... sure, she finds an English tongue and prattles away as merrily as she does when her old scapegrace of a father is the theme. Son-in-law to him! But the path of wisdom runs in the line of facts, and to have wild fun and romance on this pantomime path, instead of kicking to break away from it, we follow things conceived by the genius of the situation, for the delectation of the fair Countess of Fleetwood and the earl, her delighted husband, quite in the spirit of the Old Buccaneer, father ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... looked without wincing at the caricature of Christianity. It was like an act in a pantomime. He had seen funnier things in Africa. Among the Bitongos, for instance. They would have enjoyed this procession, the Bitongos. They were Christians; had taken to the Gospel like ducks to the water; wore top-hats at Easter. But liars—such dreadful liars! Just the reverse ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... "Is the pantomime parapet manned?" I asked. I alluded to the flat roof of the stable in which our Section slept. It had been damaged by shell fire, and was holed in several places, a sandbag parapet with (p. 164) loop-holes opened ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... still for the very life that was in him. He seemed to have some grand secret with the conductor and frequently looked around at him, his eyes full of careless laughter, and once or twice he called out—some jocose remark. He helped the conductor, in pantomime, to pull the cord and stop or start the car, and he watched with the liveliest interest each passenger getting on or getting off. A rather mincing young girl with a flaring red ribbon at her throat was to him the finest comedy in ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... have seen players make a minx out of Ophelia, a mild-mannered mouse out of Katherine, an honest woman out of Lady Macbeth and a benevolent old gentleman out of Shylock. I have seen French players cast as the servants of Petruchio invade "The Taming of the Shrew" with a comic pantomime in which they fought for their turns at the keyhole of Petruchio's bedroom wherein Kate was being subjected to a little off-stage taming. It would have amused Shakespeare immoderately, I imagine, and certainly it would have surprised him. ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... Bois-Guilbert-sans-Sullivan's heavy fall "at the ropes." This last effect, being as novel as it is effective, attracted the attention of the wily and observant DRURIOLANUS, who mentally booked the effect as something startlingly new and original for his next Pantomime. The combat between the Saxon Slogger, very much out of training, and the Norman Nobbler, rather over-trained as the result proved, is decidedly exciting, and the Nobbler would be backed at long odds. Altogether, the whole show was ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... told you all that Lucilla can tell. Permit me to reappear in these pages. Shall I say, with your favorite English clown, reappearing every year in your barbarous English pantomime, "Here I am again: how do you do?" No—I had better leave that out. Your clown is one of your national institutions. With this mysterious source of British amusement let no ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... who sees a curious passing show; the men he met on the street he greeted as creatures from another world. Yet he knew he smiled and spoke with them casually. But it was not he who spoke; the real Robert Hendricks he knew was separated from the pantomime about him. When he went into the bank at five o'clock, the janitor was finishing his work. Hendricks called up the depot on the telephone and found that No. 6 was an hour late. With the realization that a full hour of his fighting time ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... of their rareness, Caius was pleased with the birds fighting for the fruits, and with the violence wherewith the spectators seized upon them: and here he perceived two prodigies that happened there; for an actor was introduced, by whom a leader of robbers was crucified, and the pantomime brought in a play called Cinyras, wherein he himself was to be slain, as well as his daughter Myrrha, and wherein a great deal of fictitious blood was shed, both about him that was crucified, and also about Cinyras. It was also confessed that this was the same day wherein Pausanias, a friend ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... part in the potato dance. At first the performer leaps into the open space and dances around in a circle, clapping his hands as if warming up, the usual preliminary to all the dances. Presently in pantomime he finds a potato patch, and goes through the various motions of digging the potatoes, putting them in a sack, and throwing the sack over his shoulder, all the time keeping close watch to prevent his being caught in the act of stealing. He comes to ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... followed a meeting like this, And come down to business;—for such the intent Of the lady who now o'er the crucible leant, In the glow of a furnace of carbon and lime, Like a fairy called up in the new pantomime;— And give but her words as she coyly looked down, In reply to the questioning glances of Brown: "I am taking the drops, and am using the paste, And the little, white powders that had a sweet taste, Which you told me would brighten the glance of my eye, And the depilatory, and also the dye, And ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... (but if there is, I know it not) founded on the shivering of the reeds. There are not many things in nature more striking to man's eye. It is such an eloquent pantomime of terror; and to see such a number of terrified creatures taking sanctuary in every nook along the shore is enough to infect a silly human with alarm. Perhaps they are only a-cold, and no wonder, standing waist deep in the stream. Or, perhaps, they have never ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to match. Indeed, there was something more than his usual expansiveness of bodily action in his appearance at that moment. It almost seemed, so to speak, that the plumes on his hat had gone to his head. He flapped his great, gold-lined cloak like the wings of a fairy king in a pantomime; he even drew his sword with a flourish and waved it about as he did his walking stick. In the light of after events there seemed to be something monstrous and ominous about that exuberance, something of the spirit that is called fey. At the time it merely crossed a few people's minds ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... the Catholic party in Paris manifested itself in a variety of ways. At the principal theatre an uncouth pantomime was exhibited, in which his Catholic Majesty was introduced upon the stage, leading by a halter a sleek cow, typifying the Netherlands. The animal by a sudden effort, broke the cord, and capered wildly about. Alexander ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... true then he was a prisoner, and the other had been stationed there to guard him, and not the horses. Tom perceived this as soon as I, for I felt his fingers grip my arm, and, when I glanced around at him, he pictured his suspicions in pantomime. I nodded agreement, sinking down behind the ridge, until my lips ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... yes, an I give him kiss. Ugh! Arter that he say Squire an Deacon Edwards, and Deacon Nash, an Cap'n Stoddard an heap more, an Jake he go too, gonter git up arly, at tree o'clock to-morrer, with guns; make no noise go roun creepy, creepy, creepy." Here she expressed by pantomime the way a cat stealthily approaches its prey, culminating by a sudden clutch on Perez' arm that startled him, as she added explosively, "Catch you so, all abed, an Abe an Abner an heap more! Then when ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... few eloquent gestures, including the pantomime of swinging a whip, before the Martian understood and complied. After he backed into the circle of his fellows, Cleve dropped the cruel overseer manner and turned with satisfaction to Larkin. "I think there will be no trouble at all," he said. ...
— The Terrible Answer • Arthur G. Hill
... accompanying rhythmical gestures, were so simple, that a single person was able to do at the same time ample justice to both. The Romans, however, it would seem, preferred separate excellence to harmonious unity. Hence arose, at an after period, their fondness for pantomime, of which the art was carried to the greatest perfection in the time of Augustus. Prom the names of the most celebrated of the performers, Pylades, Bathyllus, &c., it would appear that it was Greeks that practised this mute eloquence in Rome; and the lyric pieces ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... imperiously, as if to summon his bodyguard. But bodyguards are no longer forthcoming, and train-guards are far from satisfactory. The fat man sat on, with a sneer-grin, very faint but very effective, round his nose, and a solidly-planted posterior. He quite enjoyed the pantomime of the young foreigners. The other passengers said something to him, and he answered laconic. Then they all had the faint sneer-grin round their noses. A woman in the corner grinned jeeringly straight in Francis' face. His charm failed entirely this time: and as for his commandingness, ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... in the Friendly Islands, we were entertained with great civility by Toobou, the chief, who gave us much amusement by a sort of pantomime, in which some prizefighters displayed their feats of arms, and this part of the drama concluded with the presentation of some laughable story which produced among the chiefs and their attendants the most immoderate mirth. This friendly reception was also repeated in the island ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... single act of it. He had planned this work upon novel lines: there was to be comparatively little singing, and much emphasis was to be laid upon the orchestral commentary; the action was to be carried on by a combination of pantomime and tableaux, and the scenic element was to be conspicuous—a suggestion which he got in part from E.A. Abbey's Holy Grail frescoes in the Boston Public Library. But he had determined to write his own text: and the prospective labour of this, made more formidable ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... pig struggled together in his face. It was an eloquent, sharp, ugly, earthly countenance. His hands were small and prehensile, with fingers knotted like a cord; and they were continually flickering in front of him in violent and expressive pantomime. As for Tabary, a broad, complacent, admiring imbecility breathed from his squash nose and slobbering lips; he had become a thief, just as he might have become the most decent of burgesses, by the imperious chance that rules the lives of human ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... in the direction of the stairs and led the way decisively into the drawing-room. His pantomime made it clear that he did not wish the rest of the slumbering household aroused. Considerate of him, of course, and all that, but the decisiveness of the action—as if he somehow felt himself in charge, despite the arrival of his host—roused in ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... dear Buckhurst, who had just been called out for styling his opponent a Venetian, and all their companions of early days. What a sudden and marvellous change in all their destinies! Life was a pantomime; the wand was waved, and it seemed that the schoolfellows had of a sudden become elements of power, springs of ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... languishingly from side to side in time with the music and the pitch of a thin Spanish tenor. It was a gypsy love song. Possibly Miss Mannersley's lingual accomplishments did not include a knowledge of Castilian, but she could not fail to see that the gestures and illustrative pantomime were addressed to her. Passionately assuring her that she was the most favored daughter of the Virgin, that her eyes were like votive tapers, and yet in the same breath accusing her of being a "brigand" and "assassin" in her attitude toward "his heart," he balanced with quivering ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... The pantomime rehearsal being over I was hurrying home (for the evening was cold, though I was so warm within) when I became aware of a number of newsmen who were flying up from the direction of the Strand, crying their papers at the top of ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... substantial, a family man, securely married; and Alice had with him one of those long acquaintances that never become emphasized by so much as five minutes of talk; yet for this inconsequent meeting she had enacted a little part like a fragment in a pantomime of ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... She was simply stunned by grief and benumbed by a sense of outrage put upon her by the king. So after a moment of inimitable pantomime, she answered, speaking softly:— ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... not answer—there was silence. Likewise the girl, her confession voiced, said no more; but her colour came and went expectantly, tantalisingly, and the eyes that still looked into the distance were unconscious of what they saw. From his place the man watched the transparent pantomime, read its meaning, stored the picture in his memory; but he did not speak. A minute had already passed; but still he did not speak. He was thinking of the night before, was the man, of that first look he had received—and of what had followed. ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... thought, might be vacant; no one appeared to live in it very long. At least the moving van seemed to have acquired a habit of stopping there; the one on the left had a more stable tenant; a lady who appeared in the pantomime, or the opera, he wasn't sure which,—only, foreign people ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... spread out so as almost to force the thick smoke to the ground, but such was not their purpose. The blanket was abruptly lifted, then swayed in a peculiar fashion, the two moving in perfect unison, without speaking, and repeating their pantomime with the regularity of machinery, for the space of ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... had gradually drawn nearer the corner, thrust his hand into his pocket as he heard Eliza's complaint. But he drew it out as quickly. His pocket was empty. Mortified and angry, he stamped his foot in despair. But no one noticed this pantomime. ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... show—a pantomime jerry-built to accommodate her particular talent. She walked through it—the dumb but irresistible model of a French atelier, who made fools of all her lovers, cheated them, sucked them dry and tossed them off with a merry cynicism. When the mood took her she danced and her victims ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... drinking?" So saying, he took up a flask of the baron's very best and poured out about half a glass. Having held the glass first on one side and then on the other, winked at it twice, sniffed it, and gone through the remainder of the pantomime in which connoisseurs indulge, he drank it with great deliberation, and smacked his lips scientifically. "Hum! Johannisberg! and not so very bad—for you. But I tell you what it is, baron, you'll have to bring out better stuff than ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... unfortunate princess for whose nuptials the first opera had been written. French opera grew out of the ballet. This term, which at present is restricted to entertainments in which dancing is the principal feature, and the story is entirely told in pantomime, had formerly a more extended signification. It was equivalent to the English term "Mask," a play in which dancing, songs and even dialogue found place. This light and sprightly form of drama has been favored in France from ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... single carriage arrive, more men in long cloaks and more soldiers. There was a brief but hearty greeting between two men, who seemed to be the principals in this little pantomime. Then they both got into the train which had arrived first, and I could see them sitting at a table talking, and a third man, who seemed to be a sort of secretary, was writing all the time. In about half an hour they both stepped back on to ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to suffocation. Every man present had a pipe or cigar in his mouth. It was a sulphurous place, a Pandemonium, a Zoological Garden, a Pantomime, a Comedy, a Backwoods Fourth of July, and a Donnybrook Fair, all combined. Women too were there, the fiercest in the place. Orators roared, and fingers were shaken. One speech was on the infringement of the liberties of the citizen because soldiers ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... Tom, "and of course produced with new scenery, music, dresses, and decorations; forming a combination of attractions superior to any ever exhibited at any theatre—egad! it would make a most excellent scene in a new pantomime." ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... plainer, made an unwise move, and attracted the attention of the man on the step. The boy flushed scarlet as their eyes met, for Anthony Crawford, without making a sound, went through a pantomime of an ecstasy of glee. He had evidently expected to arouse Oliver's curiosity by his suggestion the day before, and was overcome with ill-natured delight to catch him in the very act of ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... little fellow would wave his hand and smile. Following the direction of his glances, the passengers saw the other boy running along the sidewalk, straining every muscle to keep up with the car. They watched his pantomime in silence for a few blocks, and then a gentleman asked the lame boy who the other boy was: 'My brother,' was the prompt reply. 'Why does he not ride with you in the car?' was the next question. 'Because he hasn't any money,' answered the lame boy, sorrowfully. But the little runner—running ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... of that decided nature, which enabled Cromwell to throw off the mask, to dissolve that pantomime of a Parliament in whose name he had hitherto governed, and to assume the title of "Protector of the liberties of England." He now exercised a more despotic tyranny than this nation suffered either from her Danish ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... hankerings after marvels and magic, which make you the dupe of one charlatan after another. Take up science, for a change; study natural philosophy; try and acquire accurate notions of the system under which we live; realise that we are not moving on the stage of a Christmas pantomime, but in a universe governed by fixed laws, in which the miraculous performances you describe to me never can, and never could, have taken place. And be sure of this, that any book and any teacher, however ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... They have only two wheels, placed behind, so that the horse has to bear the weight of the vehicle as well as to draw it; and there is something so inexpressibly odd in the whole arrangement, that it put me in mind of the equipages brought on the stage in a Christmas pantomime. Our caless held four persons very conveniently, and was really a handsome vehicle, gaily lined with scarlet leather, and having spring seats. We saw others plying for hire, of a very inferior description; some only calculated for two persons, and of ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... sight, ay, and hearing, of the camp, and the events of the next hour float before my memory now as I write, like the shadowy pantomime of ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... Mrs. Cattermole's establishment. "Hungh!" he grunted, as he jabbed at the fringed doily under the silly pink-and-white tea-cup on the green-and-white lacquered tray brought him by a fat waitress in a frilly apron which must have been made for a Christmas pantomime fairy who was not fat. "Hurump!" he snorted at the pictures of lambs and radishes and cathedrals and little duckies ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... not penetrated the rouge and grease-paint of life and discovered the very ordinary material that lies beneath it. The glare of the footlights still blinded him. Like a child who is taken for the first time to a pantomime, he did not realise that their brilliance is there ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... with spears. Twenty musicians followed, blowing a hideous discord through pipes of reeds. Arrived, he seated himself on the ground "like a monkey," as Le Moyne has it in the grave Latin of his "Brevis Narratio." A council followed, in which broken words were aided by signs and pantomime. A treaty of alliance was made, and Laudonniere had the folly to promise the chief that he would lend him aid against his enemies. Satouriona, well pleased, ordered his Indians to aid the French at their work. They obeyed with alacrity, and in two ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... say I have no vacancy in my own company at present; but would you be willing to take a part in my Christmas pantomime? I may say that I myself began life ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... preserved had some story linking it with others, or with his peculiar fancies, and each one had its precise place in a sort of epos, as certainly as each of the persons in the confusion of a pantomime or a farce has his own ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... glances at the Skinner, until the fellow began to think himself an object of more than common attention. His satisfaction at this distinction was somewhat heightened, at observing a smile on the face of the captain, which, although it might be thought grim, certainly denoted satisfaction. This pantomime occupied the time they were passing a hollow, and concluded as they rose another hill. Here the captain and his sergeant both dismounted, and ordered the party to halt. The two partisans each took a pistol from his holster, a movement that excited no suspicion or alarm, as it was a precaution always ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... to be head of the river, and now we can't row for sour apples," Dennison chuckled, "the thing's a perfect pantomime." ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... conceive that any man "could sit down to read for amusement," but he enjoyed a party of pleasure in a good boat on the water, to one of the aits or islets in the Thames at the right season, to be regaled with eel-pie. One book he had read, and one play he liked—no, not a play, but a pantomime. The book was Robinson Crusoe—the pantomime, Harlequin Friday. He had been heard to say, that if ever he had a villa, there should be in it an island like Robinson Crusoe's; and why not a fortress, a castle, and a grotto? this would ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... went to tea in Lord Hopetoun's boat and their sailors gave a grand fantasia excessively like a Christmas pantomime. One danced like a woman, and there was a regular pantaloon only 'more so,' and a sort of clown in sheepskin and a pink mask who was duly tumbled about, and who distributed claques freely with a huge wooden spoon. It ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... condition of mind arose from long experience of the ways of doctors, or from an acquired philosophy, it is not our place to inquire. But that her opinion was sincere is not to be doubted. She had, as a matter of fact, gone to the pantomime, leaving the patient under the immediate eye ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... that ensued among the guests of the house who were witnesses of this extraordinary scene between Hammond and myself,—who beheld the pantomime of binding this struggling Something,—who beheld me almost sinking from physical exhaustion when my task of jailer was over,—the confusion and terror that took possession of the bystanders, when they ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... did not venture her usual 'would my Barney like a dish of tea?' but plied her worsted and knitting-needles with mild concentration, sometimes peeping under her lashes at Sturk, and sometimes telegraphing faintly to the children if they whispered too loud—all cautious pantomime—nutu signisque loquuntur. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... hairy-naked or fig-leaved Human Figures began, as uncomfortable dummies, anxious no longer to be dumb, but to impart themselves to one another; and endeavoured, with gaspings, gesturings, with unsyllabled cries, with painful pantomime and interjections, in a very unsuccessful manner,—up to the writing of this present copyright Book, which also is not very successful! Between that day and this, I say, there has been a pretty space of time; a ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... had hailed her. The lady, as she spoke, pointed to a street opposite, and the girl cast a quick glance in that direction; she seemed to be measuring a distance she was impatient to traverse, and moved a step forward at the same time, uttering some short sentence with rapid gesticulation. The pantomime was perfectly intelligible to the Boy, who understood that she was feverishly anxious to carry out some intention on the instant. The lady seemed to hesitate, then, laying her beautiful white ungloved hand on the girl's shoulder, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... approach, there is always the same pantomime. I propose to take some of the fruit he is sorting. With a knowing air, and an appearance of great mystery, he raises his left hand, the palm toward me, as one says hush. Having dispatched his business, he takes an empty ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... woodland jay, A voice chants, Woe to the weak! And along an insatiate feast, Women and men are one In the cup transforming to beast. Magian worship they paid to their sun, Lord of the Purse! Behold him climb. Stalked ever such figure of fun For monarch in great-grin pantomime? See now the heart dwindle, the frame distend; The soul to its anchorite cavern retreat, From a life that reeks of the rotted end; While he—is he pictureable? replete, Gourd-like swells of the rank of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and survey the strange and picturesque surroundings— semi-European, semi-Oriental, all tropical—of Singapore harbour, the capital of the Straits Settlements and great port of the Eastern Archipelago, amid which we now found ourselves. "I'm blowed if it doesn't look like the pantomime of 'Ali Baba and the Forty ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... was too contemptible for mention, and in the pantomime, or rather spectacle, became latterly so indelicate, that I found it necessary to withdraw. I should hope that the performances are not always of the same character: perhaps something must be allowed for the occasion. The French, however, have no idea of humour as separated from indecencies. ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... him, I want the average reader to discharge from his mind any idea of a Chinaman that he may have gathered from the pantomime. He did not wear beautifully scalloped drawers fringed with little bells (I never met a Chinaman who did); he did not habitually carry his forefinger extended before him at right angles with his body; nor did I ever hear him utter the mysterious sentence, "Ching a ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... action should be imagined; and from one station to another the actors passed as the play proceeded. At one end of the stage rose heaven, where God sat throned; at the other, hell-mouth gaped, and the demons entered or emerged. Music aided the action; the drama was tragedy, comedy, opera, pantomime in one. The actors were amateurs from every class of society—clergy, scholars, tradesmen, mechanics, occasionally members of the noblesse. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion had almost an exclusive right to present these sacred plays; in the provinces associations ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... Certainly, the pantomime was inimitably got up, but it had all been arranged by Moggy, the corporal, and the others. There was not one man of the crew who had not been sworn to secrecy, and whose life would not have been endangered if, by undeceiving ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of a cold, had to stay at home. To compensate for this, I was permitted to read the play to him; and that play was, "The Merchant of Venice." I will not dwell upon the effect. I had already become fond of such theatrical spectacles as were considered suitable for children—pantomime and broad farce—and like a child I gazed upon the glitter, and enjoyed the bustle; but now, seated in a corner, all quiet about me, and nothing to interfere with the mental world, I drank a cup of intoxication under which my brain reeled for many a year. The character of Shylock ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... from the lithe figure of Margherita, whose every motion revealed new grace and unsuspected depths of feeling. Margherita, whom he had thought so grave and cold! So intently was he watching her that he realized no others in the vivid pantomime until the music maidens had gathered closely about her with hushed lutes and a mysterious silence fell—as of night upon the plain—spreading with the slow movement of the down-turned palms of all that girlish throng—the ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... in Italy, where pointed architecture never developed its true character of complexity and richness, but was doomed to the vast vacuity exemplified in S. Petronio of Bologna. He left it a strange medley of mediaeval and Renaissance work, a symbol of that dissolving scene in the world's pantomime, when the spirit of classic art, as yet but little comprehended, was encroaching on the early Christian taste. Perhaps the mixture of styles so startling in S. Francesco ought not to be laid to the charge of Alberti, who had to execute the task of turning a Gothic into a classic building. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... only one which, up to the present century, had contributed nothing classic to the common stock of European wit and humor; for Reineke Fuchs cannot be regarded as a peculiarly Teutonic product. Italy was the birthplace of Pantomime and the immortal Pulcinello; Spain had produced Cervantes; France had produced Rabelais and Moliere, and classic wits innumerable; England had yielded Shakspeare and a host of humorists. But Germany had borne ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... (that is, Tommy and Mabel) have been sent to the pantomime by Sir George, and Barbara with her husband have dropped in towards the close of the day to see Lady Monkton, with a view to recovering the children there, and taking them home with them, Sir George having expressed a wish to see the little ones after the ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... Willis sat. Presently she found a very choice little china jug, which she carefully abstracted with her small fingers from a cabinet, which contained many valuable treasures. She sat down on the floor exactly beneath the cabinet, and began to play with her jug. She went through in eager pantomime a little game which Annie had invented for her, and imagined that she was a little milkmaid, and that the jug was full of sweet new milk; she called out to an imaginary set of purchasers, "Want any milk?" and then she poured some by way of drops of milk into ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... dinner bell at six o'clock and arrange one or two childish games to be played to fill in the time before tea or ask the guests to represent some noted character in pantomime, the others to ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... however, meet my skull. Hearing a slight scuffle, I peeped out to find that there were now two figures in the gloom. The Boss had crept up, seized the hag's left arm, and was pointing to the door. She held back, and in silent pantomime showed that Mick had not been gone over yet. With her free hand she gathered her one skirt over her dirty, skinny knees and danced with rage by the side of my bed. She looked like the parody of some carrion ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... children. Which is totally absurd. Adults have never yet invented any institution, festival or diversion specially for the benefit of children. The egoism of adults makes such an effort impossible, and the ingenuity and pliancy of children make it unnecessary. The pantomime, for example, which is now pre-eminently a diversion for children, was created by adults for the amusement of adults. Children have merely accepted it and appropriated it. Children, being helpless, are of course fatalists and imitators. They take what comes, and they do ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett
... well it sounded, recited with an air, and to an accompaniment of smiles and waving hands. Little Hilary Jervis, the youngest girl in the school, remarked rhapsodically that it was "Just like a pantomime!" and the finale to the address was so essentially dramatic that her elders were ready to agree with ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the way, the hero does nothing at all) was to satirize and proscribe infidels and freethinkers, to leave the ludicrous for the serious, Grub Street for theology, the mock-heroic for metaphysics—which occasion a marvellous mixture and jumble of images and sentiments, pantomime and philosophy, journals and moral evidence, Fleet Ditch and the High Priori road, Curl and Clarke." That reads like a bit of a prize-essay by a bachelor of arts in the "College of the Goddess in the City." The Dunciad is rendered not only a motley, but, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... Pantschatantra and Hitopadesa in Sanskrit, were distinctly intended for the education of princes, and though they may make the young listeners inclined to be superstitious, such superstitiousness is not likely to last long. Children delight in Maerchen as in a kind of pantomime, and when the curtain has fallen on that fairy world they often think of it as of a beautiful dream that has passed away. The stories are certainly more impressive than the proverbs and wise saws which many of them were meant to illustrate, without always saying, haec fabula docet. Even if ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... again. Why shouldn't the Sherrick be stupid, I say? About great beauty there should always reign a silence. As you look at the great stars, the great ocean, any great scene of nature: you hush, sir. You laugh at a pantomime, but you are still in a temple. When I saw the great Venus of the Louvre, I thought—Wert thou alive, O goddess, thou shouldst never open those lovely lips but to speak lowly, slowly: thou shouldst never descend from that pedestal but to walk stately to some ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... himself into a greater passion, during which Petellin, the storekeeper, entered, and forthwith began to cross himself devoutly. Observing this fervent pantomime, Balt turned upon the trader and directed ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... that in many senses we are still in mid-Renaissance. The evolution has not been completed. The new life is our own and is progressive. As in the transformation scene of some pantomime, so here the waning and the waxing shapes are mingled; the new forms, at first shadowy and filmy, gain upon the old; and now both blend; and now the old scene fades into the background; still, who shall say whether the new scene ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... than two eyes, they lie Beneath the many-changing sky And mirror all of life and time, — Serene and dainty pantomime. ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... afraid to speak freely," said the postmaster, who knew what the sailor meant by this pantomime. "There isn't a traitor within the hearing of your voice. We ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... on behaviour and deportment during French lessons did not coincide with those of M. Gerard. Pillingshot's idea of a French lesson was something between a pantomime rally and a scrum at football. To him there was something wonderfully entertaining in the process of 'barging' the end man off the edge of the form into space, and upsetting his books over him. M. Gerard, however, had a very undeveloped sense of humour. He warned the humorist twice, and on the ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... ravine at Budgery-Gar a big camp of blacks were feasting. With loathsome pantomime they were re-enacting the murders they had committed within the past few days; murders of innocent white women and children, and good men and true—among them the Cadi, God help him! Great fires were burning in the centre of the camp, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... will so beautifully and delicately trim out the curves of the throat or give a smoother turn to the waist. So with care and an indescribable affection, I added the final touches, trimming the helve until it exactly fitted my hand. Often and often I tried it in pantomime, swinging nobly in the centre of the sitting-room (avoiding the lamp), attentive to the feel of my hand as it ran along the helve. I rubbed it down with fine sandpaper until it fairly shone with whiteness. Then I borrowed ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... recipient of Macaire's jokes, and makes vicarious atonement for his crimes, acting, in fact, the part which pantaloon performs in the pantomime, who is entirely under the fatal influence of clown. He is quite as much a rogue as that gentleman, but he has not his genius and courage. So, in pantomimes, (it may, doubtless, have been remarked by the reader,) clown always leaps first, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in durance, and the baronet had not recovered from his profound inclination, when a noise from the neighbouring beechwood startled the two actors in this courtly pantomime. They turned their heads, and beheld the hope of Raynham on horseback surveying the scene. The next moment ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... names, and because I wished to see how the fact really stood. For, that Eastern police magistrates are not always the wisest men of the East, may be inferred from their course of procedure respecting the fancy-dressing and pantomime-posturing at St. George's in that quarter: which is usually, to discuss the matter at issue, in a state of mind betokening the weakest perplexity, with all parties concerned and unconcerned, and, for a final expedient, to ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... terrace. The native carriers were leaving the grounds, when Britt's shrill whistle brought them to a standstill. No word of the ensuing conversation reached the ears of the two white men on the balcony, but the pantomime was most entertaining. ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... enchanting pantomime, took a step towards her; but she raised her hand pleadingly, restrainingly, and he paused. With his eyes he asked her mutely why. She did not answer, but, all at once transformed into a thing of abundant sprightliness, ran down the hillside, tossing ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... for meeting his fair inamorata, and employs ingenious subterfuges to gain a stolen interview. He tells his passion not in words, but with profound sighs and significant glances, as he passes her flower-decked balcony, while she, although perfectly understanding his pantomime, assumes the most profound innocence and even indifference. This fires the suitor's ardor; he bows sadly when passing her balcony, with his right hand pressed vehemently upon his left breast, where a youthful lover's heart is popularly supposed to be located. ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... one by one disappeared, and Frances and Mr. Millborne were again masked by the commonplace differences of sex and age. It was as if, during the voyage, a mysterious veil had been lifted, temporarily revealing a strange pantomime of the past. ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... other of the parties to the conversation was very imperfectly acquainted with it, the conversation was necessarily carried on by means of very short and simple sentences, and the meaning was often helped out by signs, and gestures, and curious pantomime of all sorts, with an accompaniment, of course, of ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... of the forthcoming new Opera at the Savoy appears to be "all Dance to SOLOMON's music." Is it to be a pantomime-drama, like L'Enfant Prodigue, or simply a ballet? If neither, where do song-words and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 2, 1891 • Various |
