"Masque" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... however, was not so sure. The lovely "nocturne" of the evening plain had passed into a Vision or Masque of Force that captured the mind. High above the gulf rose the towers of the great works, transformed by the surging fog and darkness into some piled and castled fortress; a fortress of Science held by Intelligence. Lights were in ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a carterly metre, "thinking thereby," says Anthony a Wood, in his delightfully colloquial fashion, "that the courtiers would sing them instead of their sonnets, but did not, only some few excepted." In the reign of Elizabeth, when the classical mythology reigned and revelled in pageant and masque, in court and town, one Thomas Brice, a painful preacher, cried out against the pagan fancies that had ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... verse, he succeeds only in becoming tediously ornate. His stanzas are nerveless, though not unmusical. His college exercise, "The Nativity," 1736, is a Christmas vision which comes to the shepherd boy Thomalin, as he is piping on the banks of Isis. It employs the pastoral machinery, includes a masque of virtues,—Faith, Hope, Mercy, etc.,—and closes with a compliment to Pope's "Messiah." The preface to his "Hymn to May," has some bearing upon our inquiries: "As Spenser is the most descriptive and florid of all our English writers, I attempted to imitate his manner in ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... my child; to you are known the mysteries of the human face, that flexible, mobile and deceptive masque, which, like the sea, reflects the hurrying clouds and the azure ether. Being green, the sea turns blue under the clear sky and black when the sky is black, when the heavy clouds are dark. What do you want of my face, ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... lord mayor, Sir Thomas Middleton, demurred, excusing himself on the ground that his house was too small.(186) This excuse was of no avail, and the supper took place in Merchant Taylors' Hall, the earl and countess being specially invited as well as the entire court. The supper was followed by a masque devised for the occasion by a namesake of the mayor, Thomas Middleton, the dramatic poet.(187) The entertainment cost the City nearly L700,(188) besides the sum of L50 which the Court of Aldermen directed to be laid out in a present of plate to Somerset.(189) In acknowledgment of the gift the earl ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... taken to the cattle business. Outwardly, to the last, little lines about his lips and eyes, he was his genial, optimistic, droll old self. His eye twinkled, his face beamed in the gray stubble, his voice was rollicking with the fun of life the same as ever. And like Pagliacci in his masque there was not the slightest exterior sign of the fear and despair that ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... Plafery.—In Carew's masque of Coelum Britannicum, acted before the court at Whitehall, the 18th of February, 1633; Momus, arriving from Olympus immediately ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 66, February 1, 1851 • Various
... like this costume?" she said. "Next bal masque I certainly will wear this kind, you may be sure. Of course all of this, and that must be chiffon, and silk, and...." A woman cannot get on without these chats. On the other hand—woman speaks to the man ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... England, and of Philip the Second, King of Spain, and several of their suite; by Abbe de Brantome; by M. Miron, the court physician; by Cosmo Ruggieri, the Queen Mother's astrologer; by the renowned poets and masque writers, Maitres Ronsard, Baif, and Philippe Desportes; by the well-known advocate of Parliament, Messire Etienne Pasquier: but also (and here came the gravamen of the objection to their admission) by the two especial favorites of his Majesty and leaders ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... you to take, Mrs. Shaw, was that of a nymph in an Elizabethan masque which Lumley has written, with music by Stephen Bampton. It's to be played in the rose garden and there's a chorus of nymphs who sing and dance. We want them to look perfectly lovely, don't you know, and as there can't be any ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... surroundings have such a delicate and playful grace that it is hard to believe the Moors had any of our strenuous, latter-day passions. Life must have been to them a masque rather than a tragi-comedy; and whether they belong to sober history or no, those contests of which the curious may read in the lively pages of Gines Perez de Hita accord excellently with the fanciful environment. In the Alhambra nothing seems more reasonable than those never-ending duels in ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... the finest composition brought out by this occasion was the "Masque of Anarchy," a magnificent poem of ninety-one verses. "Anarchy" he describes as riding "on a white horse,"[E] in alliance with theology and statecraft, and whose admirers ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... if we, Joseph et moi, were leaving this place. I tell you no. I am leaving it. I! To-night, when that boy comes back from the 'Masque,' he shall find himself once more unencumbered.—Well, I have allowed myself the luxury of explanation with you. But now I must finish—that, ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... both of them are men, while the little Monk on his arm is a lady, as you can see, and so is the masque that has the arm of the Indian Queen; ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... two ladies to dismount from their palfreys. To revert, as before, to Ariosto's programme, it was not the arme and audaci imprese which Keats sang, but the donne, the amori, and the cortesie. Feudal war array was no concern of his, but the "argent revelry" of masque and dance, and the "silver-snarling trumpets" in the musicians' gallery. He was the poet of the lute and the nightingale, rather than of the shock of spear in tourney and crusade. His "Specimen of an Induction to a ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... thing that led us to doubt its authenticity, was the striking resemblance that appears between the plan of the work, and Milton's celebrated Masque at Ludlow Castle. We do not mean however to hold forth this circumstance as decisive in its condemnation. The pretensions of Cadwallo, or whoever was the author of the performance, are very high to originality. If the date of the Romance ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... account of Haines in Davies's Miscellanies; Tom Brown's Works; Lives of Sharpers; Dryden's Epilogue to the Secular Masque.] ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... I know. Every girl says it; 'tis a stock property in the popular masque of Maiden Modesty. But with Hilda it is different. And the difference is—that ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... Is this the Mincius? And those the distant turrets of Verona? And shall I sup where Juliet at the masque Saw her loved Montague?" ...
— The Foreign Tour of Messrs. Brown, Jones and Robinson • Richard Doyle
... ocean's own, Topples o'er the abandon'd sea As the tides change sullenly. The fisher on his watery way Wandering at the close of day, Will spread his sail and seize his oar Till he pass the gloomy shore, Lest thy dead should, from their sleep Bursting o'er the starlight deep, Lead a rapid masque of death O'er the waters ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... fool, strikes a man, that man is to be dishonoured for his whole life, unless he wipes out the disgrace with blood, or makes his assailant beg forgiveness on his knees! I think that so very absurd and tyrannical. Lermontoff's Bal Masque is based on that idea—a stupid and unnatural one, in my opinion; but he was hardly more than a ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... joy-bells and the flare of the bonfires by which the mob celebrated its forcing Walpole into a war to safeguard British trade in the Spanish main. Seeley claims, indeed, that the growth of the Empire was always sub-conscious or semi-conscious at its best. This is not wholly true, for in "The Masque of Alfred" in which "Rule, Britannia" is enshrined, Thomson displays as keen and exact a sense of the lines of England's destiny as Seeley acquired by painful historic excogitation. For after a vision which irresistibly recalls ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... that I have kept in petto Now to produce in a "divine sestetto"!! "While Poesy," with these delightful doxies, "Sustains her part" in all the "upper" boxes! "Thus lifted gloriously, you'll sweep along," Borne in the vast balloon of Busby's song; 40 "Shine in your farce, masque, scenery, and play" (For this last line George had a holiday). "Old Drury never, never soar'd so high," So says the Manager, and so say I. "But hold," you say, "this self-complacent boast;" Is this the Poem which the ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... water-masque had been arranged by Catherine to take place on the Cher, with a banquet to follow in the Long Gallery in honor of her arrival ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... and ingenious, though not original, exhibition in this ballet. Among the festivities at Kenilworth Castle, in honour of the royal guests, a pantomimic "masque" of the gods and goddesses of Olympus is introduced. The divinities, instead of appearing in genuine Grecian attire, present themselves in the mongrel costume visual on such occasions in the time of Queen Elizabeth. This ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various
... and all that I had just witnessed in such vivid dumb-show might have seemed to me in truth some masque; so smooth had it been, and voiceless, coming and going like a devised fancy. And after the last of the players was gone from the stage, leaving the white cloth, and the silver, and the cups, and the groups of chairs near the pleasant arbor, ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... Masque is at home to visitors at all hours, day and night. I believe in my soul she doesn't ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... charming, Mrs. Babcock," Julia would say, "if you'll let me run away at three, for I must positively keep an appointment with Carroll at three, if I'm to have my gown for dear Mrs. Morton's bal masque Friday night. And if I'm just a tiny bit late you won't be cross? For we all do German at twelve now, you know, and it will run over the hour! Oh, you're very sweet! Oh, no, Mrs. Talcott spoke to me about it, but we can't—we're both so ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... contain abundant proofs that no nice feature of character, no peculiarity in the ordering of a house, a garden, or a court-masque, could escape the notice of one whose mind was capable of taking in the whole world ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Chevalier de Mouhy, a kind of literary braggart, who was in the pay of Voltaire, and whose work was published anonymously in 1746 by Pierre de Hondt of The Hague. It is divided into six short parts, and bears the title, 'Le Masque de Fer, ou les Aventures admirables du Prre et du Fils'. An absurd romance by Regnault Warin, and one at least equally absurd by Madame Guenard, met with a like favourable reception. In writing for the theatre, an author must choose one view of a dramatic situation to the exclusion of all ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... voice breathed up with pestiferous vapours from fear's dim cavern, while nature, laughing and scattering from her green lap flowers, and fruits, and sparkling waters, invited us to join the gay masque of young life ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... innovations were all in the service of these orchestral aspirations, and hence it is that his rhapsodies, for example, are much more effective in their orchestral garb than in their original pianoforte version. The same is true of many of Rubinstein's pianoforte works—the Bal Masque, for instance, which always has such an electric effect on Mr. Theodore Thomas's audiences. Not so with Chopin. Liszt remarks, somewhere, that Chopin might have easily written for orchestra, because his compositions can be so readily arranged for it. I venture to differ ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... humorous, and sometimes in an excessively indecent tone. Some of the worst in this respect are attributed to Lorenzo the Magnificent, probably because the real author did not venture to declare himself. However this may be, we must certainly ascribe to him the beautiful song which accompanied the masque of Bacchus and Ariadne, whose refrain still echoes to us from the fifteenth century, like a regretful presentiment of the brief splendor of ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... of spectacular interludes one finds much that resembles not only opera, but also the English masque and sometimes even the French pastoral. Yet close examination will convince any student of operatic history that almost every form of theatrical performance, from the choral dance to the most elaborate festival show, exerted a certain amount of influence on the hybrid product ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... fall in that Masque of the 'Gipsies Metamorphosed,' presented to the king in 1621, when Jonson was forty- seven; old enough, one would have thought, to know better. It is not merely the insincere and all but blasphemous adulation ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... mind me, please. You see, I have been educated in Paris. Francis the First—O Saint-Sauveur!—that's a man who has extreme views. Do you know what he told me at a bal masque during the last carnival? (Olof remains silent.) "Monsieur," he said, "la religion est morte, est morte," he said. Which didn't keep him from ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... have been sisters, those many successive loves, or one and the same lady over and over again, in slightly varied humour and attire perhaps, at the different intervals of some rather lengthy, mimetic masque of love, to which the theatrical dress of that day was appropriate; [65] for the mannered Italian, or Italianised, artists, including the much-prized, native Janet, with his favourite water- green backgrounds, aware of the poet's predilection, had given to all alike the same brown ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... was kept. We afterwards knew that it had been a religious dance. They had war dances, hunting dances, dances at the planting of their corn, ghost dances and others. This now was a thing to watch, like a beautiful masque. They were very graceful, very supple; they had their ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... court to Pope, and was rewarded by a travelling tutorship gained through the poet's influence. In 1731 his tragedy, Eurydice, was acted at Drury Lane. He joined Thomson, as we have said elsewhere, in the composition of the masque of Alfred, and 'almost wholly changed' the piece after Thomson's death. Amyntor and Theodora, a long poem in blank verse, appeared in 1747; Britannia, a masque, in 1753, and Elvira, a tragedy, in 1763. Mallet, who was without qualifications for the task, wrote a ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... seems to have been troubled by no shyness in asking questions of the General. She writes: "Is it true, General, I asked, that you once went to a bal masque at the opera with the Queen of France—Marie Antoinette—leaning on your arm, the King knowing nothing of the matter till her return? I am afraid so, said he. She was so indiscreet, and I can conscientiously ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... coloured masque or pantomimic play which is here printed in book form for the first time, was invented sometime in 1894 or possibly a little earlier. It was written, not for publication, but as a personal gift to the ...
— For Love of the King - a Burmese Masque • Oscar Wilde
... garrison seems to be more or less in a state of collapse! The bal masque is over, the guests have departed, and all that is left to us now are the recollections of a delightful party that gave full return for our efforts to ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... I said, just as I drank the poison off, The earth would be no longer earth to me, The life out of all life was gone from me. There are blind ways provided, the fore-done Heart-weary player in this pageant-world Drops out by, letting the main masque defile By the conspicuous portal: I ...
— A Blot In The 'Scutcheon • Robert Browning
... sensitive Government, and even the licenser, though he afterwards declared that the book was altered after it left his hands, could find nothing in it to condemn. But, as it happened, there was a passage concerning the presence of ladies at stage-plays, and as the Queen had shortly before attended a masque, the passage in question was held to allude to her, and accordingly Prynne, Sparke, and the printers—one of whom was William Jones—were thrown into prison, and in 1633 were brought to trial before the Star Chamber. The printers appear to have escaped punishment; but Prynne was condemned to ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer
... lawyer's greeting was brief and perfunctory, as if she forgot to masque her indifference; and just as unconsciously she betrayed her partiality for the young astronomer by those minute signals which a woman displays when off her guard. She swayed toward him almost imperceptibly, and looked at ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... a good story of Dr Goldsmith. Graham, who wrote Telemachus, a Masque, was sitting one night with him and Dr Johnson, and was half drunk. He rattled away to Dr Johnson: 'You are a clever fellow, to be sure; but you cannot write an essay like Addison, or verses like the Rape of the Lock.' At last he said, [Footnote: I am sure I have related this story exactly ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... masque dull grief in joy! A sad heart's jest—what bitter mockery! With vain deceit my laughing lips employ Loud ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... Lawes, and Ferabosco contributed the musical embellishments; the king, the queen, and the young nobility danced in the interludes. On these entertainments L3000 to L5000 were often expended, and on more public occasions L10,000 and even L20,000. "It seems," says Isaac Disraeli, "that as no masque writer equalled Jonson, so no 'machinist' rivalled Inigo Jones." For the great architect was wont to busy himself in devising mechanical changes of scenery, such as distinguishes modern pantomime. Jonson, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... however, and in "The Man of Adamant," the allegory is predominant and absorbs the tale. Perhaps it is as an offshoot of this allegorizing mood that the tales of pure fancy should be regarded, those masque-like inventions, "A Select Party" and "The Hall of Fantasy," together with "The Intelligence Office" and "A Virtuoso's Collection," also remnants of old-fashioned ingenuity. In such fantasy Hawthorne found a better channel for that ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... Suckling, Carew. Here came crowds to be touched for the King's evil. Here the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth implored pardon at his uncle's feet in vain. Whitehall was also the home of the short-lived masque, a form of ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... delight. The days passed through the hazy forest like stately figures from an old masque. In the pine grove on the knoll the man and the woman had erected a temple to love, and love showed them ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... Domenica) with the Marchesa Clelia Cavalli and the Countess Spinelli Rusponi. I promised to go. Last night there was a row at the ball, of which I am a 'socio.' The Vice-legate had the imprudent insolence to introduce three of his servants in masque—without tickets, too! and in spite of remonstrances. The consequence was, that the young men of the ball took it up, and were near throwing the Vice-legate out of the window. His servants, seeing the scene, withdrew, and he after them. His reverence Monsignore ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... themselves to each other, she told him she was glad he was come; that they would keep together the whole masquerade, provided he did not think it a confinement, to prevent her being persecuted with the impertinencies of some people there, who she found thought a masque a kind of sanction for saying ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... Mr. Barker possessed came from the enthusiasm created within him as a reader of wide range. For example, in 1804, he became the author of a one-act piece, entitled "Spanish Rover," furnished in plot by Cervantes. In 1805, he wrote what he describes as a Masque, entitled "America," in which poetic dialogue afforded America, Science and Liberty the opportunity of singing in unison. He confesses that this Masque was "to close a drama I had projected on the adventures of Smith in Virginia, ...
— The Indian Princess - La Belle Sauvage • James Nelson Barker
... the gabled houses, and under the shadow of the Gothic spires of his day, he saw a score of sights, moving to pity, or wrath, or wonder. He saw Paris as a city sacked; a slaughter-house, where for a week a masque had moved to stately music; blood on the nailed doors and the close-set window bars; and at the corners of the ways strewn garments, broken weapons, the livid dead in heaps. But he saw all with eyes which in all and everywhere, among ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... to achieve the chivalric ideal; but the work is that of a disciple, not of a master. Where Hertz, with his singing-robes fluttering about him, dances without an ungraceful gesture through the elaborate and yet simple masque that he has set before him to perform, Ibsen has high and sudden flights of metrical writing, but breaks down surprisingly at awkward intervals, and displays a hopeless inconsistency between his own ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... strains of soft and delicious music. At the upper end of the chamber was a throne and beside it a door which opened into a suite of apartments for the queen whenever it should be her pleasure to be private. The hall was thronged with spectators, for a masque was to be given, and menials as well as courtiers ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... should spontaneously arise. Now, this cause of war could and would be healed by a congress, and through an easy reform in European diplomacy.[Footnote: One great nidus of this insidious preparation for war under the very masque of peace, which Kant, from brevity, has failed to particularize, lies in the neglecting to make any provision for cases that are likely enough to arise. A, B, C, D, are all equally possible, but the treaty provides a specific course of action only for A, suppose. Then upon B or C arising, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... I have taken my plus-cafe; and now that it is very early morning, I take the nearest way to my virtuous home. On my way thither, I pause before the saloons of the Philharmonic, where a grand bal masque of genuine, and doubtful, whites is being held. From my position on the pavement I can see perfectly well into the salon de bal, so I will not evade the door-keeper, as others do, by introducing myself ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... the most notable English composer was Dr. Thomas Arne (1710-1778), who enjoyed a well deserved reputation as an excellent dramatic composer, the author of many songs still reckoned among English classics, and the composer of the national hymn "Rule Britannia," which occurred as an incident in his masque of "Alfred," 1740. Dr. Arne has all the characteristics of a genuine national composer. His music was immediately popular, and held the stage for many years. His first piece was Fielding's "Opera of Operas," produced in 1733. The full list ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... eminent critic had verified the meaning and detected the allusion underlying many a passage of Shakespeare in which the connection of moral idea was more difficult to establish than this. In the fifth act of either play there was a masque or dramatic show of a sanguinary kind; in the one case the bloodshed was turned to merry-making, in the other the merry-making was turned to bloodshed. Oberon's phrase, "till I torment thee for this injury," might easily be mistaken for a quotation from ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... he heard or saw was worthy of the summer sky, the still green woods, the gushing river, the gardens and terraces, the stately and fantastic dwellings, among which his life now glided as in some dainty and gorgeous masque. ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... o'er the park Attracts each light gay meteor of a spark, Agrees as ill with Rufa studying Locke, As Sappho's diamonds with her dirty smock; Or Sappho at her toilet's greasy task, With Sappho fragrant at an evening masque: So morning insects that in muck begun, Shine, buzz, and fly-blow in ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... aristocratic London set themselves to study the pages of Chaucer and Froissart. At the same time, though the Court was to be that of Edward III and his Queen, no limit was put to the periods and nationalities to be selected by the guests. The ball was to be a masque, and perhaps it would have lost a little of its motley charm had it been confined entirely to one age in history, and to one country of the world. A comical petition had to be presented, that the masquers might remain covered before the Queen, lest the doffing of ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... the present work makes a powerful statement of the position which a man, conscious of great and noble aims, would then have occupied; and shows, too, how familiar the age was with all methods of secret communication, and of hiding thought beneath a masque of conceit or folly. Applicably to this subject, I quote a paragraph from a manuscript of the author's, not intended for ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... be an occasion for a fancy dress party en masque. Invitations may be written on a large sheet of paper and folded or rolled into a small parcel and tied up in wrapping paper like ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... 400 AElla, bie nete moe thann hys myndbruche awed, Is gone, and I moste followe, toe the fraie. Celmonde canne ne'er from anie byker staie. Dothe warre begynne? there's Celmonde yn the place. Botte whanne the warre ys donne, I'll haste awaie. The reste from nethe tymes masque must shew yttes face. 405 I see onnombered joies arounde mee ryse; Blake[68] stondethe future doome, ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... art or dexterity, not only destroys all distinction of features, but renders the aspect really frightful, or at best conveys nothing but ideas of disgust and aversion. You know, that without this horrible masque no married lady is admitted at court, or in any polite assembly; and that it is a mark of distinction which no bourgeoise dare assume. Ladies of fashion only have the privilege of exposing themselves in these ungracious colours. As their faces are concealed under a ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... America probably appears for the first time in English print in the old play or masque the Four Elements, which was published about 1518. In a review of the geography of the Earth, as known at that period, a description is given of this vast New World across the Ocean: "But these new landys ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... away at my old Handel of nights, and delight in the Allegro and Penseroso, full of pomp and fancy. What a pity Handel could not have written music to some great Masque, such as Ben Jonson or Milton would have written, if they had known of such ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... said Honoria Pyne; "enact a masque for old Neptune's benefit? It would be so complimentary, you know; bring down the house, no doubt. I have a sea-green tarlatan lying so conveniently. Colonel Latrobe looks exactly like a Triton, with that wondrous beard. A little alum sprinkled over its red-gold ground would ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... So rose the day and widened into morning glow With rosy tints o'erstreaked, and faintly blurred With flecks of cloud. Still lay the child, nor stirred. Dumb Eve looked down, nor knew Death's pallid masque, And strove to wake the maid. In vain. Her task Was done. And as she gazed, a gentle grasp Soft loosed the dead from that cold mother's clasp, And Lilith laid the babe in its chill bed— Straightened the limbs, and kissed the little head. And o'er the sleeper, kneeling, she ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... course, alluded to Biron and Rosaline; and there are other obvious prolusions, as the scene of the masque with the courtiers, compared with the play in A ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... dealing on the part of an ambassador is set forth in a noble letter of Morvilliers, Bishop of Orleans, from which I permit myself to quote a few sentences: "Il y en a toutesfois qui pensent que, pour estre habille homme, il fault tousjours aller masque, laquelle opinion j'estime du tout erronee, et celluy qui la suit grandement deceu. Le temps m'a donne quelque experience des choses; mais je n'ay jamais veu homme, suivant ces chemins obliques, qui n'ait embrouille les affaires de son maistre, et, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... face with some foolish, grinning masque of horror. My heart beat as I think a bird's must when a snake has eyed it; and a cold moisture broke ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... Bastille, the duke took Helene home, promising to come and see her as usual in the evening; a promise which Helene would have estimated all the more highly if she had known that his highness had a bal masque at Monceaux. ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... dans le choeur jetta les personages: D'un masque plus honnete habilla les visages: Sur les ais d'un theatre en public exhausse Fit ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... the pomps of state, below The mitred juggler's masque and show, A prophecy, a vague hope, ran His burning ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... greeted these awful apparitions familiarly, as Dick and Harry and Joe. As for me, I was too big to run, too rapt to resist the magic and surprise. Whence came these outlanders, breaking in on us with song and ordered masque and a terrible clashing of wooden swords? And after these, what strange visitants might we not look for any quiet night, when the chestnuts popped in the ashes, and the old ghost stories drew the awe-stricken circle ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... The Baroness Bunsen in her Memoirs gives a pleasant picture which illustrates the character of the amusements current in the Royal family at their different homes at Windsor, Osborne, or Balmoral. This particular incident was a Masque devised by the children, when Prince "Bertie" was twelve years old, in honour of the anniversary of their parents' marriage. The Prince who represented Winter and was clad in a coat covered with imitation icicles, recited ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... The part of the attendant spirit was taken by Lawes (see Introduction), who, in his prologue or opening speech, explains who he is and on what errand he has been sent, hints at the plot of the whole masque, and at the same time compliments the Earl in whose honour the masque is being given (lines 30-36). In the ancient classical drama the prologue was sometimes an outline of the plot, sometimes an address to the audience, and sometimes introductory to the plot. The opening of Comus prepares the audience ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... pieces, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, of a kind quite new in English, giving to the landscape an expression in harmony with two contrasted moods. Comus, which belongs to the same period, was the perfection of the Elisabethan court masque, and was presented at Ludlow Castle in 1634, on the occasion of the installation of the Earl of Bridgewater as Lord President of Wales. Under the guise of a skillful addition to the Homeric allegory of Circe, with her cup of enchantment, it ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... is framed on the model of the Italian Masque, as the Samson is framed on the model of the Greek Tragedy. It is certainly the noblest performance of the kind which exists in any language. It is as far superior to The Faithful Shepherdess, as The Faithful Shepherdess is to the Aminta, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... as a profession, travelled and made distinguished friendships in Italy, Switzerland and France, and when little past his majority was before the public as a poet, author of the Ode to the Nativity, of a Masque, and of many songs and elegies. In later years he entered political life under the stress of his Puritan sympathies, and served under Cromwell and his successor as Latin Secretary of State through the time of the Commonwealth. While in public ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... in the dining-room of the hotel. The landlord demurred stoutly; he was an inn-keeper, not the proprietor of a play-house. Were not tavern and theater inseparable, retorted Barnes? The country host had always been a patron of the histrionic art. Beneath his windows the masque and interlude were born. The mystery, harlequinade and divertissement ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... of the tribes was always celebrated by a grand corroboree, a species of bestial bal masque. On such occasions they presented a most grotesque and demon-like appearance, their heads, faces, and bodies, liberally greased were besmeared alternately with clay and red ochre; large tufts of bushy twigs were entwined around ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... fortnight, when Rowden, feeling it incumbent upon him to return some of Gethryn's hospitality, issued very proper cards — indeed they were very swell cards for the Latin Quarter — for a "dinner," to be followed by a "quiet evening" at the Bal Masque ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... good bohemians. The French do not bring their misery with them to the table. To dine is to enjoy oneself to the utmost; in fact the French people cover their disappointment, sadness, annoyances, great or petty troubles, under a masque of "blague," and have such an innate dislike of sympathy or ridicule that they avoid it by turning ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... was useless. That last faint hope was gone. On the night of December 23d the King slept, a prisoner surrounded with hostile guards, in the noble castle which in the days of his youth had rung with Jonson's lyrics and ribaldry; and the "Gipsy of the Masque" had prophesied that his "name in peace or ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... harp, sung, to a lively air, the following verses of one of the fashionable songs of the period, which had found its way, marked as it was with the quaint hyperbolical taste of King Charles's time, from some court masque to ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... that uncouth spectacle, that Virginian [v]masque, as we had watched many another one, with disgust and weariness. It would last, we knew, for the better part of the night. For a time we must stay and testify our pleasure, but after a while we might retire, and leave the women and children the ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... phoenix; lay you an old courtier on the coals, like a sausage or a bloat-herring, and, after they have broiled him enough, blow a soul into him, with a pair of bellows! See! they begin to muster again, and draw their forces out against me! The genius of the place defend me!" — Ben Jonson's Masque "Mercury ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Nightingale. Ah, Mr. SPECTATOR! the many Moon-light Nights that I have walked by my self, and thought on the Widow by the Musek of the Nightingales! He here fetched a deep Sigh, and was falling into a Fit of musing, when a Masque, who came behind him, gave him a gentle Tap upon the Shoulder, and asked him if he would drink a Bottle of Mead with her? But the Knight, being startled at so unexpected a Familiarity, and displeased to be interrupted in his Thoughts of the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... exist not, if they are founded on popular belief. Of this nature are fairies, pigmies, and the extraordinary effects of magic; for it is still an imitation, though of other men's fancies: and thus are Shakespeare's "Tempest," his "Midsummer Night's Dream," and Ben Jonson's "Masque of Witches" to be defended. For immaterial substances, we are authorised by Scripture in their description: and herein the text accommodates itself to vulgar apprehension, in giving angels the likeness of beautiful young men. Thus, after the pagan divinity, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... by Antipater of Sidon,[7] that by some delicate magic crowd into a few words the fugitive splendour of the waning year, the warm lingering days and sharp nights of autumn, and the brooding pause before the rigours of winter, and make the whole masque of the seasons a pageant and metaphor of the lapse of life itself. Or a later art finds in the harsh moralisation of ancient legends the substance of sermons on the emptiness of pleasure and the fragility of loveliness; ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... Masque, costume ball, ballet, it was all one to the king and the court, who never wearied of the diverting vagaries of the dance. Now studying that pantomimic group of merrymakers, in the rhythmical expression of action and movement could almost be read the influence and relative ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... Each to his humour—Comus all allows; 650 Champaign, dice, music, or your neighbour's spouse. Talk not to us, ye starving sons of trade! Of piteous ruin, which ourselves have made; In Plenty's sunshine Fortune's minions bask, Nor think of Poverty, except "en masque," [100] When for the night some lately titled ass Appears the beggar which his grandsire was, The curtain dropped, the gay Burletta o'er, The audience take their turn upon the floor: Now round the room the circling dow'gers sweep, ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... beginning to make in dramatic form, and he said that if he were himself a young man he should write altogether for the stage; he thought the drama had a greater future with us. He was pleased when a popular singer wished to produce his "Masque of Pandora," with music, and he was patient when it failed of the effect hoped for it as an opera. When the late Lawrence Barrett, in the enthusiasm which was one of the fine traits of his generous character, had taken my play ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... intense denial of any reality in the universe beyond and behind this masque of life and things was still vibrating through his deepest being, it was as though a hand gently drew aside a curtain, and there grew clear before him, slowly effacing from his eyes the whole grandiose spectacle of buildings, sky, and ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... admired Dublin heartily, and gave to Sackville Street and Merrion Square their due meed of praise. At the last triumphal arch a pretty little allegory, like a bit of an ancient masque, was enacted. Amidst the heat and dust a dove, "alive and very tame, with an olive- branch round its neck," was let down into the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... all the farces. They could see the famous Norwich puppet-play. But he—what pleasure did he ever have? A tawdry pageant by a lot of clumsy country bumpkins at Whitsuntide or Pentecost, or a silly school-boy masque at Christmas, with the master scolding like a heathen Turk. ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... the Court as his opposite; Sir John Perrot was wont to say, by the galliard, for he came thither as a private gentleman of the Inns of Court, in a masque: and, for his activity and person, which was tall and proportionable, taken into her favour. He was first made Vice-Chamberlain, and, shortly after, advanced to the place of Lord Chancellor. A gentleman that, besides the graces of his person and dancing, had also the endowment of a strong and subtle ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... Rome, and that the interposition of the popular magistrates (the tribunes) was set aside, Caesar sent forward the troops, who were then at his head-quarters, but in as private a manner as possible. He himself, by way of masque, (per dissimulationem,) attended a public spectacle, gave an audience to an architect who wished to lay before him a plan for a school of gladiators which Caesar designed to build, and finally presented himself at a banquet, which was very numerously attended. From this, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... an evening in November, a sudden desire possessed her mind; she would go out into the streets of the town and see something of that life which she knew only in imagination, the traffic of highway and byway after dark, the masque of pleasure and misery of sin of which a young girl can know nothing, save from hints here and there in her reading, or from the occasional whispers and head-shakings of society's gossip. Her freedom was complete; her ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... luncheon they were content to dawdle in the picturesque streets, and Cynthia was reluctant to leave the fine old castle, in which Milton's "Masque of Comus" was first played on Michaelmas night of 1634. At first, she yielded only to the flood of memories pent in every American brain when the citizen of the New World stands in one of these treasure-houses of ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... What thinkest thou of this quaint masque which turns, Like morning from the shadow of the night, The night to day, and London to a place Of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley |
