"Clown" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... them. The thing fancied was still a thing of this world, 'in its habit as it lived,' or no remoter acquaintance than a witch or a fairy. Its lowest depths (unless Dante suggested them) were the cellars under the stage. Caliban himself is a cross-breed between a witch and a clown. No offence to Shakespeare; who was not bound to be the greatest of healthy poets, and to have every morbid inspiration besides. What he might have done, had he set his wits to compete with Dante, I know not: all I know is, that in the infernal line he did nothing like him; and it is ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... hand which, as soon as he speaketh, he offereth unto one of the men or boys standing by.' He is apparently on familiar terms already with the 'gallery' (or, in the term of that day, 'groundlings'); as intimate as the modern clown with his stage-asides for the exclusive benefit of 'the gods'. When we read the first two lines we perceive the wit ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... lived longer than the Biblical patriarchs. The chromo portraits of the Pontiff had simply forced him out of business. Besides, he was old and the young painters who came to Rome did not know him; they were poor fellows who looked on him as a clown, and never laid aside their seriousness except to make sport of him. His time had passed. The echoes of Mariano's triumphs at home had come to his ears, had determined him to move to Madrid. Life was the same everywhere. He had ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... seminary of this fortunate teacher. [In pencil on opposite page—Mr. Pearson.] In the solitude of Grasmere, while living as a married man in a cottage of 8l. per annum rent, I often used to smile at the tales which reached me of the brilliant career of this quondam clown—for such in reality he was, in manners and appearance, before he was polished a little by attrition with gentlemen's sons trained at Hawkshead, rough and rude as many of our families were. Not 200 yards from the cottage in Grasmere just mentioned, to which ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... a simultaneous advance, we and the French on our right," he wrote in one place. "Our sector will bear the brunt of it. The thing has been kept wonderfully quiet, and so far the enemy knows nothing. All their attention is turned on the 'Clown' Prince's insane operations against Verdun, and the German General Staff seem to have forgotten the Somme region altogether, and to underrate the British as usual. But there will be a big surprise ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... to Win as he sat clown again, a discolored roll of papers in his hand, "the original Manor house has been added to from time to time. Let us see what it comprised in the days when Richard Lisle read his Psalter and wrote his letter. It is possible that something then outside the wall may ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... Seventeen, were five grotesquely clipped French poodles. Michael could not see them, save when he was being taken out or brought back, but he could smell them and hear them, and, in his loneliness, he even started a feud of snarling bickeringness with Pedro, the biggest of them who acted as clown in their turn. They were aristocrats among performing animals, and Michael's feud with Pedro was not so much real as play-acted. Had he and Pedro been brought together they would have made friends in no time. But through the slow monotonous drag of ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... its attitude is entirely pugilistic; two blunt fists rallying and countering. When harmless, as when the word 'fool' occurs, or allusions to the state of husband, it has the sound of the smack of harlequin's wand upon clown, and is to the same extent exhilarating. Believe that idle empty laughter is the most desirable of recreations, and significant Comedy will seem pale and shallow in comparison. Our popular idea would be hit by the sculptured group of Laughter holding both his sides, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a bright as a silver dollar. In the book we can smell the sawdust, hear the flapping of the big white canvas and the roaring of the lions, and listen to the merry "hoop la!" of the clown. ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.
... said, but with a scream She started from her favorite theme— A clown had on her fixed his pat. In vain she screeched—Hob did but smile; Rubbed with her leaves his nose awhile, Then bluntly ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... from another source. Besides, how could the boy be expected to feel as he did? Would he even understand if his father should explain it to him? . . . It was useless to expect anything from this lady-killing, dancing clown, from this fellow of senseless bravado, who was constantly exposing his life in duels in order to satisfy a silly ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... with whom I desire to live in friendly relations, has sent to me a clown. I can not consequently allow any of my people to accompany him back to Russia, lest they should find him offensive. Respected as I am from the east to the west, I blush in being exposed to such an affront. It is in consequence ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... son) is really an exquisite droll, and I don't remember to have seen him in better form. He has some of the authentic ingredients of the old circus clown—a very valuable inheritance. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... valet. He will be groom, cook, guide, interpreter and, whether you wish it or not, your chum. Moreover, he will do it all with the face of a clown and the manner of a tricksy monkey. As a panacea for the blues, you will ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... to be reconciled to that clown! Never! It shall not be, it shall not be!" Ivan Ivanovitch was in a ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... before him. The hermit bowed before the messenger with great gladness, for he knew that his wish was answered. "Go to the nearest town," the angel said, "and there, in the public square, you will find a mountebank (a clown) making the people laugh for money. He is the man you seek, his soul has grown to the selfsame stature as your own; his treasure on the celestial shore is neither less ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... superfluous line in it. Every word was necessary, although it might not have seemed so when read. It was only after the play was recalled as a whole, that the necessity for everything could be seen. The coming of the circus with the clown singing "Uncle Rat has come to town," and the noise of the drums, are instances of this. It seemed like halting the action to bring in a country circus procession, but its necessity is shown in the final scene when the little boy, William, passes away. It is always cruel to see a ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... forecastle with a leap and a gurgle of laughter. But there was something wrong with him, too. He was a dwarf, and, as I was to come to know, his high spirits and low mentality united to make him a clown. ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... phrase, this bit of old ware, this antique, come upon a dramatic scene and pulverise it. Nothing remained but a ridiculous dust. Coke, glowering, with his lips still trembling from heroic speech, was an angry clown, a pantaloon in rage. Nothing was to be done to keep him from looking like an ass. He, strode toward the door mumbling about ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... negative; which will give great disgust to the people, I doubt. Thence with Creed to Hercules Pillars by the Temple again, and there dined he and I all alone, and thence to the King's house, and there did see "Love in a Maze," wherein very good mirth of Lacy, the clown, and Wintersell, the country-knight, his master. Thence to the New Exchange to pay a debt of my wife's there, and so home, and there to the office and walk in the garden in the dark to ease my eyes, and so home ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... all she could: however, that is over now. As to Sophie [young Sister just betrothed to the eldest Margraf whom you know], she also is no longer the same; for she approves all that the Queen says or does; and she is charmed with her big clown (GROS NIGAUD) ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the girls and forgetting that he was an old fellow, and now his family rather surprised him; he seemed to think it a joke that all these children should belong to him. As the younger ones slipped up to him in his retreat, he kept taking things out of his pockets; penny dolls, a wooden clown, a balloon pig that was inflated by a whistle. He beckoned to the little boy they called Jan, whispered to him, and presented him with a paper snake, gently, so as not to startle him. Looking over the ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... ticket. The return half had afterwards been found in the dead man's pocket. Where he had been, or what he had done, between 4:20—from the time he left Newbury station, on foot—and 6:10, when he had looked in at the "Dog and Clown" and had a drink and a chat with the landlord, was unknown. He had not told the landlord why he was in Newbury, or said anything concerning ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... but a Flemish clown, noble sir," answered Dennis, as much overjoyed as if he had obtained some important advantage; "but I must needs say he is as stout and true as any whom you might trust; and, besides, his own shrewdness will teach him there is more to be gained by ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... blue and silver and pink and gold habits, and by knights in armor, all of whom carried umbrellas also. Pages walked beside the horses, waving banners and shields with "Visit Currie's World-Renowned Circus" painted on them. A droll little clown, mounted on an enormous bay horse, made fun of the pages, imitated their gestures, and rapped them on the back with his riding-stick in a droll way. A long line of blue and ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... terrifying narrative the partners made out that while Licorice Stick was on his way to embellish the wayside in strict accordance with instructions, he had encountered a spirit from the other world in the form of the carnival clown whom we have seen pass our ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... with all the women folk, an' the tarletan, an' the spangles, an' the pink lemonade, an' the little fellers slipping under the ropes, an' the Grand Parade coming in, an' the big tent so hot everybody's fanning with their hats—Oh, Lord!" "Yes, and the clown—and the ring master—" "What d'ye think of our ring master?" "Who d'ye mean? Him? Think of him? I think he's a damned clown! Don't ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... was that when the clown came tumbling into the ring to the blaring of the band that night, a girl with the green bow all askew upon her hat and her violet-blue eyes a shade darker and snapping with excitement was perched on one of the front row planks which served as seats, clutching a bag of peanuts and waiting in an ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... blocks and ashes, and instead of the clash of elemental forces, we see a dark mass, that glows dully. We can hardly believe that here is the origin of the explosions that shake the island, and are inclined to consider the demon of the volcano rather as a mischievous clown ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... Amoretto, with whom he had been intimate at college; two others endeavour to gain a subsistence by successively appearing as physicians, actors, and musicians: but the Man of Genius is disregarded, and at last prosecuted for his productions; the benefice is sold to an illiterate clown; and in the end three of the scholars are compelled to submit to a voluntary exile; another returns to Cambridge as poor as when he left it; and the other two, finding that neither their medicines nor their music would support them, resolve to turn shepherds, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... fabulous, glittering chandelier, the crimson draperies and great curtain with its equestrienne on a curvetting steed. The orchestra, with a blare of trombones, announced the raising of the curtain and appearance of Mr. John Mays, the celebrated clown. He was followed by Chinese sports, the Vision of Cupid and Zephyr, and the songs, the programme stated, of Lowrie and Williams. These gentlemen, in superb yellow satin, emphasized harmoniously ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... shot like a housekeeper's best silk gown, with blue and red, which certain of our celebrated artists consider the essence of the sublime, would be but a poor compliment. I might as well praise the portraits of Titian because they have not the grimace and paint of a clown in a pantomime; but I do say, and say with confidence, that there is scarcely a landscape artist of the present day, however sober and lightless their effects may look, who does not employ more pure and raw color than ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... tumbling out in the dead of night with frightful caterwaulings. Hereupon French, the footman, borrows a gun, loads it to the muzzle, discharges it twice in vain, and throws himself over with the recoil exactly like a clown. But at last, while I was in town, he aims at the more amiable cat of the two and shoots that animal dead. Insufferably elated by this victory he is now engaged from morning to night in hiding behind bushes to get aim at the other. He does ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... are amusing. Says Mrs. Burton in one of them, [255] "Khamoor was charming at the theatre. I cried at something touching, and she, not knowing why, flung herself upon my neck and howled. She nearly died with joy on seeing the clown, and said, 'Oh, isn't this delightful. What a lovely life!' She was awfully shocked at the women dancing with 'naked legs,' and at all the rustic swains and girls ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... upheaval, we made a pitch on the greensward opposite to the theatre we had seceded from. Spencer, I ought to mention here, was "the great man of strength;" Buckley, the "marvellous jumper;" while I myself filled a double role—being both the "clown" and "cashier" of the establishment. The latter is generally a safe post to hold. Spencer would willingly allow a stone to be broken on his chest with a sledge hammer, bend bars of iron across his arm, and the like; and Buckley would volunteer to jump over as ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... favorite child[4] Has been known to run wild At his too near approach, Her fear of him such, And to shriek and to howl And return scowl for scowl. Indeed few dare him face, And all shun his embrace; For though pleasant his smile, Yet one thinks all the while Of that terrible frown, Which the hardiest clown, Though a stout hearted man, Will avoid if he can. And though many maintain That he gives needless pain, I confess I admire This venerable sire. True his language is harsh, And his conduct oft rash, And we know well enough, That his manners are rough; Yet still in the main, We've ...
— The Kings and Queens of England with Other Poems • Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow
... would have to go West earlier than she had planned. She could not regard Ann's sister-in-law as suitable person for attendant at Major Darrett's wedding. That would be a little too much like playing the clown at a masked ball. ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... fresh ones in their places. I inquired after them among readers and booksellers, but I inquired in vain; the memorial of them was lost among men, their place was no more to be found; and I was laughed to scorn for a clown and a pedant, devoid of all taste and refinement, little versed in the course of present affairs, and that knew nothing of what had passed in the best companies of court and town. So that I can only avow in general to your Highness that ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... of a well-known clown in New York was followed by a special feature story about him in the Sunday magazine section ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... feel worse at a hanging now. And that white ox, Hattie you remember my telling you about him. He had to be killed, and father sent for the butcher. I was only a lad, and I was all of a shudder to have the life of the creature I had known taken from him. The butcher, stupid clown, gave him eight blows before he struck the right place. The ox bellowed, and turned his great black eyes on my father, and I fell in ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... I am called Lord Fermain Clancharlie, but my real name is one of poverty—Gwynplaine. I have grown up in poverty; frozen by winter, and made wretched by hunger. Yesterday I was in the rags of a clown. Can you realise what misery means? Before it is too late try and understand that our system of society is ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... sleeping, and Oberon, seeing a clown near her who had lost his way in the wood and was likewise asleep, "This fellow," said he, "shall be my Titania's true love"; and clapping an ass's head over the clown's, it seemed to fit him as well as if it had grown ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... manners; for his exposure of the tricks of foreign merchants, and for the humour and drollery which he has thrown into his principal comic personage. The name of this character is Simplicity, who is the fool or clown of the performance, and who, in conformity with the practice, not only of our earlier but sometimes of our later stage, makes several amusing appeals to the audience. We may pretty safely conclude, although we are without any hint of the ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... head to hide: What is there here to flatter human pride? The tow'ring fabric, or the dome's loud roar, And stedfast columns, may astonish more, Where the charm'd gazer long delighted stays, Yet trac'd but to the architect the praise; Whilst here, the veriest clown that treads the sod, Without one scruple gives the praise to GOD; And twofold joys possess his raptur'd mind, ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... Late Royal Highness the Princess Dowager of Wales Song ('Let School-masters,' &c.) Epilogue to 'She Stoops to Conquer' Retaliation Song ('Ah, me! when shall I marry me?') Translation ('Chaste are their instincts') The Haunch of Venison Epitaph on Thomas Parnell The Clown's Reply Epitaph on Edward Purdon Epilogue for Lee Lewes Epilogue written for 'She Stoops to Conquer' (1) Epilogue written for 'She Stoops to Conquer' (2) The Captivity. An Oratorio Verses in Reply to an Invitation to Dinner Letter in Prose and Verse to Mrs. Bunbury Vida's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... sailed every sea, with no other flag above him than the Union Jack, and felt maybe that even his misdeeds deserved not the covering of less bright colors. It was like a ringmaster fallen on hard times having to act the part of "clown." But needs must where necessity drives, and as his own country would have none of him, he was tolerant of the flag that hid him from ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... and with a thick brass hat-band. The weight of the whole thing had turned his ears entirely down, like a fancy rabbit's in our century; but even this, though it spoiled him as a man, was nothing remarkable. They had of late met scores of these dog's-eared rustics. The peculiarity was, this clown watching under a ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... a man of impious and scandalous habits, a wild, drunken, unmannerly clown, more inclined to look into the wine can than into the Bible. He would prefer drinking brandy two hours to preaching one; and when the sap is in the wood his hands itch and he wants to fight whomsoever ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... be borne in mind that there is a strictly defined "court costume" of so "stunning" a nature that it would make the clown in a circus look tame and commonplace by comparison; and each Hawaiian official dignitary has a gorgeous vari-colored, gold-laced uniform peculiar to his office—no two of them are alike, and it is ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to a guest who's payin' only $20 or $30 a day, and shoves past Vincent with his chin up. Judgin' by the name and complexion and all there must have been a lot of noble Prussian blood in this Schott person, for the Clown Prince himself couldn't have done the triumphal entry any better. And I expect I put considerable flourish into the business when I announces him to Dowd, omittin' careful to call ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... took her to her first theater—it was Sanger's Circus—and the clown pretended to fall from the tightrope, and the drum went bang! she said: "Take me away! take me away! you ought never to have brought me here!" No wonder she was considered a dour child! ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... war, different in its entire nature from the old, is marked primarily by the steady progress in range and efficiency of the rifle and of the field-gun—and more particularly of the rifle. The rifle develops persistently from a clumsy implement, that any clown may learn to use in half a day, towards a very intricate mechanism, easily put out of order and easily misused, but of the most extraordinary possibilities in the hands of men of courage, character, and high intelligence. ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... fellow-feeling to me, both as a brother and a medicus, that made him declare me on the point of death when I was still as lusty as a false credo. For the rest, I had sufficient science to hold in my breath while the clown tied me with cords, else had I been too straitened to breathe. But thou needest a biscuit ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... another. Nor are sentiments of elevation in themselves turgid and unnatural. Nature is never more truly herself than in her grandest form. The Apollo of Belvedere (if the universal robber has yet left him at Belvedere) is as much in nature as any figure from the pencil of Rembrandt, or any clown in the rustic revels of Teniers. Indeed, it is when a great nation is in great difficulties that minds must exalt themselves to the occasion, or all is lost. Strong passion, under the direction of a feeble reason, feeds a low fever, ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... or sea-water, the clock to point to all hours of the day at once, the candle to burn green or crimson, the door to open upon a lake or a potato-field instead of a London street. Upon any one who feels this nameless anarchism there rests for the time being the spirit of pantomime. Of the clown who cuts the policeman in two it may be said (with no darker meaning) that he realises one of our ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... our clown was a maker of lovely songs, and we knew it not! How well he meted out and shaped his harmony; woe is me for the beard that I have grown, all in vain! Come, mark thou too ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... senseless trappings—if he were an under-keeper now, or a water-bailiff, or even a gillie looking after the dogs and the ponies, he could have met the gaze of those clear hazel eyes without shame. But here he was the coadjutor of this grimacing clown; and she was sitting in her ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... has a bridge to it, this directly produces in some minds an image like Blackfriars Bridge; that it is straight, the AEginetan marbles; that it is retrousse, the dog in that Hogarth portrait. Suggest a cheerful countenance, and you stamp your subject for ever as a Shakespearian clown. So you must be content to know that Mr. Bradshaw was a good-looking young man, of dark complexion, and of rather over medium height and good manners. If he had not been, he would never, as an article of universal provision ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... said the child, more sensitive than the obtuse, middle-aged clown, "he does not laugh like a man that is glad. ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... may seem cold; but there, before the whole Chamber, that man's defence seemed to be instinct with an eloquent and imposing serenity, which aroused astonishment at first, coming from that clown, that upstart, unread, uneducated, with his Rhone boatman's voice and his street porter's bearing, and afterward moved his auditors strangely by its unrefined, uncivilized character, utterly at variance with all parliamentary traditions. Already ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... hand and speaks. In a long Latin speech he unfolds the order of creation and his will concerning man. At the end of it up leaps an ugly buffoon, in goatskin, with rams' horns upon his head. Some children begin to cry; but the older people laugh, for this is the Devil, the clown and comic character, who talks their common tongue, and has no reverence before the very throne of Heaven. He asks leave to plague men, and receives it; then, with many a curious caper, he goes down to Hell, beneath the stage. The angels sing and toss their censers ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... all tragedies end with death, and death in itself is but a scene of tragedy. Is any lament of Shakspeare's heroes more touching than his apostrophe to the scull of Yorick, the King's jester, the mad fellow that poured a flagon of Rhenish on the clown's head: "a fellow of infinite jest; of most excellent fancy. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning? ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... and even to look at him. It had been done so often. A few glanced at the antique valise to see what Coney "attraction" or brand of chewing gum he might be thus dinning into his memory. But for the most part he was ignored. Even the newsboys looked bored when he scampered like a circus clown out of the way of cabs ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... after the health of old "Von Woodenburg," old "One O'clock," the "Clown Prince," or "One Bumstuff." Hans would take this in a jocular way, slamming back something about Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Lloyd George, or Sir Sham Shoes, but when we really wanted to get Fritz's goat we would tease ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... like Cupid, manage wily art? Whate'er stupidity we may discern, His pupils more within a day can learn, Than MASTERS knowledge in the schools can gain, Though they in study should ten years remain; The lowest clown he presently inspires, With ev'ry tendency that love requires; Of this our present tale's a proof direct, And none that feel—its ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... a-tumbling through the hollow And trackless empyrean like a clown, Head pointed to the earth where weaklings wallow, Feet up toward the stars; not such renown Even our lord himself, the bright Apollo, Gets in his gilded car. For one bob down You shall behold the thing." "Right-o," I said, Clapping the old brown bay leaves ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... name, may be accounted one. Neither has he envious characters, excepting the short part of Don John, in 'Much Ado about Nothing.' Neither has he unentertaining characters, if we except Parolles, and the little that there is of the Clown, in 'All's Well ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... the ring-master, coming over after having settled a dispute concerning differences of opinions between a woman with trained dogs and a clown who exhibited an "educated" pig, "if you'll ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... cage, were the very first victims. The child himself, I think, and hope, never knew what hurt him. His skull was fractured by one stroke of the brute's paw. Signor Martigny escaped with his right arm slit into ribbons. Big Joe Pentland, the clown, with one well-directed stroke of a crowbar, smashed Old King of the Forest's jaw into a hundred pieces, but not before it had closed in the left breast of Charlie's mother. She lived for nearly an hour ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... circus in a mountain town. The mountaineers swarmed from far and near, and lined the streets on every hand with open mouth and bated breath, as the grand procession, with band, and clown, and camels, and elephants, and lions, and tigers, and spotted horses, paraded in brilliant array. The excitement was boundless when the crowd rushed into the tent, and they left behind them a surging mass of humanity, unprovided ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... lost his credit, pawned his rent, Is therefore fit to have a Government; Who in the secret, deals in stocks secure, And cheats the unknowing widow and the poor; Who makes a trust or charity a job, And gets an Act of Parliament to rob; Why turnpikes rise, and now no cit nor clown Can gratis see the country, or the town; Shortly no lad shall chuck, or lady vole, But some excising courtier will have toll. He tells what strumpet places sells for life, What 'squire his lands, what citizen his wife: And last (which proves him wiser still than all) What ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... (sitting clown at the table). What did you mean, when you asked if I could refuse ...
— Ghosts - A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... Euryalus brought up above the Third Cataract, don't you? and eighty-one-ton guns at Jakdul? Now, I'm quite satisfied with my breeches.' He turned round gravely to exhibit himself, after the manner of a clown. ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... connected with the other in a direct line, from the highest to the lowest. Others hold that they issued forth in three lines, parallel with each other, one on the right hand, one on the left, and one in the middle; so that, beginning with the highest and going clown to the lowest, Hakemah, Khased [or Gedulah], and Netsach are one over the other, in a perpendicular line, on the right hand; Binah, Geburah, and Hōd on the left; and Kether, Tephareth, Yesod, and Malakoth in the middle: and many hold that ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... parting visit to his sister, whom he had driven out of her own house to die at the inn. He had on his new blue frock-coat, and a buff waistcoat with gilt buttons, over which his watch-chain was gracefully arranged. His pantaloons were strapped clown very tightly over his polished boots; a shining new silk hat was on one side of his head; and in his hand he was dangling an ebony cane. In spite, however, of all these gaudy trappings, he could not muster up an easy air; and, as he knocked, he had ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... himself the victim of conflicting emotions. It had been easy while they were plotting the abduction to persuade himself that the man would grant anything to save his life. Now he doubted this. Looking clown at the battered face of the miner, so lean and strong and virile, he could not withhold a secret reluctant admiration. How was it possible for him to sleep so easily and lightly while he lay within the shadow of violent death? There was even a little smile about the corners ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... to make a gentleman one will not make a thinker. Instruction is acquired, but capacity for instruction is transmitted. The brain that is to contain a trained intellect is not the result of a haphazard marriage between a clown and a wench, nor does it get its tractable tissues from a hard-headed farmer and a soft-headed milliner. If you confess the importance of race and pedigree in a race horse and a bird dog how dare you ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... head. The theatre was always his delight. His bishops and clergy used to attend it, thinking it no shame to appear where that good man was seen. He is said not to have cared for Shakespeare or tragedy much; farces and pantomimes were his joy; and especially when clown swallowed a carrot or a string of sausages, he would laugh so outrageously that the lovely princess by his side would have to say, "My gracious monarch, do compose yourself." But he continued to laugh, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... purblind clown,' said Major de Blacquaire, rising, and fitting his crutches to his armpits. 'I am not. You have about as much notion of what a man is bound to do under these conditions as an ox would have. Please do as I have asked you, and leave me, and send the boy along. I don't think that ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... an honour to be Neptune's child, A grace to be so near with Jove allied. But yet, sweet nymph, with this be not beguiled; Where nature's graces are by looks decried, So foul, so rough, so ugly as a clown, And worse than this, a monster with one eye! Foul is not graced, though it wear a crown, But fair is beauty, none ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... Esq., dressed as a clown, and certainly looked very funny; but his bad cold prevented him from speaking his jokes distinctly, and so ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... reins, it occupied the center of the foreground. The band rode in it, far more fortunate than our local band whose best was, Charley Wells's depot 'bus. And nobler than all his fellows was the bass-drummer. He had a canopy over him, a carved and golden canopy, on whose top revolved a clown's head with its tongue stuck out. On each quarter of this rococo shallop a golden circus-girl in short skirts gaily skipped rope with a nubia or fascinator, or whatever it is the women call the thing they wrap around their heads ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... gaming. In the peaceful camp of the Third Alabama, in that state, the scenes were similar. There was always "a steady hum of laughter and talk, dance, song, shout, and the twang of musical instruments." It was "a scene full of life and fun, of jostling, scuffling, and racing, of clown performances and cake-walks, of impromptu minstrelsy, speech-making, and preaching, of deviling, guying, and fighting, both real and mimic." The colonel found great difficulty in getting men to work alone. Two would volunteer for any service. "Colonel," said ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... clown came walking toward them, and Dorothy could see that in spite of his pretty clothes of red and yellow and green he was completely covered with cracks, running every which way and showing plainly that he had been ...
— The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... could not recognise any one as she looked round upon Turks, clowns, Indians, the tinselled, sequined, beaded, ragged flutter of the room, then from the coloured and composite clothing of a footballer, clown or jockey grinned the round face and owlish eyes of little Duval, who flew to her at once to whisper compliments and stumble on the swelling fortress of her white skirt. She realised dimly from him that her dress was as ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... of the most pleasing description. Thus the player in an orchestra can enjoy such music only as would deafen common ears by its crash of sounds, in which they perceive no connection or harmony; while the simple rustic listens to the rude notes of a flageolet in the hands of a clown with feelings of ineffable delight. Nature, if the seekers after luxurious and exciting pleasures could but understand her language, would say to them, "Except ye become as this simple rustic, ye cannot enter ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... you, then?" and Melinda turned sharply upon him, with a look in her black eyes which made him wince as he replied: "Family interference—must have money, you know! But, zounds! don't I pity her!—tied to that clown, whom—" ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... communicative, however, than the stranger. Still his head and heart, alike, were full, and he talked more freely than was altogether consistent with his Yankee character. He told of Ralph's predicament, and the clown sympathized; he narrated the quest which had brought him forth, and of his heretofore unrewarded labors; concluded with naming the ensuing Monday as the day of the youth's trial, when, if nothing in the meantime could be discovered of the true criminal—for the pedler ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... mystic and a sad clown. The Saint Vincent de Paul of the loosened string, the Saint Francis of Assisi of the London Streets. Everything is gesticulation, and the gesticulations are ambiguous. When we think he is going to weep, he laughs; when we think he is going to laugh, he cries. A remarkable genius ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... Laporte, "although I am old and gouty, my legs as stiff as two pieces of wood, yet if a pretty woman were to tell me to go through the eye of a needle, I believe I should take a jump at it, like a clown through a hoop. I shall die like that; it is in the blood. I am an old beau, one of the old school, and the sight of a woman, a pretty woman, stirs me to the tips of ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... good Fatima!—spin out thy prayers a little longer. Stay! a cloud of dust, a horseman!—no doubt an outrider hastening on to announce his approach. Ah! he passes, the stupid clown! Another! Nay, that was only a Derby wagon; the stars forbid that our deliverer should come in a Derby! But now, hush! there's a bona fide barouche, two black horses, black driver and all. Almost at the turn! O gentle Ethiopian, tarry! this is the castle! Go, then, false ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... in whose career we meet the ridiculous episode of the life-boats of the Titanic, where women were obliged to take the oars from their hands and row the boats. Thus has the old-time hero of the waves been transformed into one fitted to serve as a clown ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... and a tiny appareil de chasse shot upward like a swallow. "A Nieuport," shouted the crowd as one voice. Eager to atone for his copain's failure, and impatient at his delay in getting out of the way, the tiny biplane tossed and tumbled about in the air like a clown in ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... contents of the two baskets hitherto borne by the couple, giving himself time, however, every now and then to look out of his little black eyes at the rightful owners, with rather a spiteful expression, but protruding at the same time his red tongue, like a clown at the circus, as if enjoying the joke of their picking and he eating. Afterward I learned that they had deposited their baskets on the ground under a loaded bush, for greater facility in securing the fruit, when suddenly ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... more of the world by travel, but more of human nature by remaining at home.... A youth just landed at the Brille resembles a clown at a puppet-show; carries his amazement from one miracle to another; from this cabinet of curiosities to that collection of pictures; but wondering is not the way to grow wise.... The greatest advantages which ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... brilliant reputation, failed in his suit to her? And has she ever so much as vouchsafed to look at Henry Howard, who is upon the point of being the first duke in England, and who is already in actual possession of all the estates of the house of Norfolk? I confess that he is a clown, but what other lady in all England would not have dispensed with his stupidity and his disagreeable person, to be the first duchess in the kingdom, with ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... fulfil what its form requires. Nor does any mind ever think or form conceptions in accordance with this law, nor does any existence conform to it.' Wisdom of this sort is well parodied in Shakespeare (Twelfth Night, 'Clown: For as the old hermit of Prague, that never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to a niece of King Gorboduc, "That that is is"...for what is "that" but "that," and "is" but "is"?'). Unless we are willing to admit that two contradictories may be true, many questions which lie at the threshold ...
— Sophist • Plato
... for death, immortal bird, No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I heard this passing night was heard In ancient days, by Emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same voice that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn, The same that ofttimes hath Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... interest as that of the Worship of the Sun, one of the most primitive and sacred foundations of adorative religion,—affecting as it has done, architectural structures and numerous habits and customs which have come clown to us from remote antiquity, and which owe their origin ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... Horses walked with downcast heads, and some of the men limped painfully. Altogether it was not a sight to arouse much enthusiasm in the heart of a boy, accustomed to seeing the outside glitter of a circus, with prancing steeds, gay colors, music, and the humorous antics of the clown. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... despotic statecraft, the supreme and essential mystery be to hoodwink the subjects, and to mask the fear, which keeps them clown, with the specious garb of religion, so that men may fight as bravely for slavery as for safety, and count it not shame but highest honour to risk their blood and their lives for the vainglory of a tyrant; yet in a free ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... more abject than the union of elaborate and recherche arrangements with an old and obvious point? The clown with the red-hot poker and the string of sausages is all very well in his way. But think of a string of pate de foie gras sausages at a guinea a piece! Think of a red-hot poker cut out of a single ruby! Imagine such fantasticalities ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... degrees, have something in them, but look at the others! Dominic, ambitious and sly, Jerome, a pompous prig, Dunstan, a nincompoop, Raymond, a milliner, Nicholas, a—well, you know what I think Nicholas is, Augustine, another nincompoop, Lawrence, still at Sunday School, and poor Simon, a clown. I've had a dozen probationers through my hands, and not one of them was as good as what we've got. I'm afraid I'm less hopeful of the future ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... and called me a brave lad, and set me on my feet, and asked me if I were sure I was not hurt. And by that time the archers were coming in, when all was over; and Long Robin must needs snatch up a joint stool and have a stroke at the Moor's head. I trow the Prince was wrath with the cowardly clown for striking a dead man. He said I alone had ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge |
