"Pantomime" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the old wag with a taste for ancient jests) that Sir AUGUST-US might add September, October, November, and December to his signature, as A Sailor's Knot seems likely to remain tied to the Knightly Boards until it is time to produce the Christmas Pantomime. So heave away, my hearties, and good luck ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various
... 6. In the Gent. Mag. xxii. 568, it is stated that he had acted pantomime, tragedy and comedy, and had ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... that I considers as one of the family," said the county Leitrim-man, when his pantomime was through, "but it isn't dacent to be bawling out sacrets through a whole nighbourhood; and then, as for Ould Nick—or Saucy Nick, or whatever ye calls him—Och! isn't he a pratthy Injin! Ye'll mar-r-ch t'rough Ameriky, and ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... mechanically, opened the door, started back, then stepped out and closed it after him. At the kitchen table Mrs. Toomey saw the pantomime ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... chance of being other than well cemented; the cohesion of its parts was intense; seven centuries of growth demand one or two at least for palpable decay; and it is only for harlequin empires like that of Napoleon, run up with the rapidity of pantomime, to fall asunder under the instant reaction of a few false moves in politics, or a single unfortunate campaign. Hence it was, and from the prudence of Augustus acting through a very long reign, sustained at no very distant interval by the personal inspection ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... the native village. The Indians began tossing spears, as Haswell thought, to amuse their visitors. That failing to inspire these white men, {221} rash as children, with fear, the Indians formed a ring, clubbed down their weapons in pantomime, and executed all the significant passes of the famous war-dance. "It chilled my veins," says Haswell; and the two mates had gone back to their clam digging, when there was a loud, angry shout. ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... these words, of course, the brawling was renewed a thousandfold worse than before, every man screaming at the top of his voice and gesticulating, as if in the hope that pantomime might succeed in conveying his opinions where words indeed must fail in the hubbub. Under cover of the clamor, men of the Red party and men of the Yellow party challenged one another to the arbitrament of steel, and what with the shouting and counter-shouting and the clatter of weapons, ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... possibilities. You should have seen my hair-dresser's face when I told her to do it up. Her face and Zora's were a pantomime for the gods. Yet it was done. It lay in some great twisted cloud and in that black net gown of mine Zora was simply magnificent. Her form is perfect, her height is regal, her skin is satin, and my jewels found a resting ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... 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
... passionate theatre of some old romance. Yes! the bright-eyed Greek page of her mysterious and absent lover was at her side-but then he spoke only Greek. In vain she tried to make him comprehend how much she desired to have tidings of his master. The graceful mute could only indulge in airy pantomime, point to the skies and ocean, or press his hand to his heart in token of fidelity. Henrietta amused herself in teaching Spiridion Italian, and repaid herself for all her trouble in occasionally obtaining some slight information of her friend. In time she learned that Ferrers ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... But the situation was too critical on every hand for the young friends to give way to the wonderment caused by the discovery. It speedily became clear that while the Shawanoe dare not speak, he was trying very hard to convey some message to his friends by means of pantomime. Holding the gun of the Miami in one hand, he kept the other going energetically, but neither Jack nor Otto could ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... were intended to be heard. Doubtless this imposes a special duty upon both the author of the scenario and the producer, and they do not always respond to it. Action is introduced that fails to be intelligible without the words, and to clear it up the actors are made to use pantomime. Pantomime is an interesting and valuable form of dramatic art, but it is essentially symbolic and stagy and has, I believe, no place in the moving picture play as we have developed it. If owing to the faulty construction of the ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... be hangers on and applauders in the train of that tyrant who has overthrown the hopes of France. To all that cruelty and injustice by which thousands of hearts are now bleeding, they appear entirely insensible. They speak with heartless levity of the revolutions of France, as of a pantomime got up for their diversion. Their time and thoughts seem to be divided between defences of American slavery and efforts to attach themselves to the skirts of French tyranny. They are the parasites of parasites—delighted if they can but get to an imperial ball, and beside themselves ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of the most striking of his traits. It was a method of speech that was little short of extraordinary. It grew out of the fact that his vocabulary could not express his enormous imagination. Instead of words he made motions. It was, as Augustus Thomas expressed it, "an exalted pantomime." Those who worked with him interpreted these gestures, for between him and his stars ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... goaded 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 his ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... going down on the dolls' pantomime, and the audience was applauding and hurrying off to make the rounds of the other attractions before dinner time. In clarion tones that made themselves heard above the din Emily Davis was advertising an auction of her animals, beginning with ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... us and the sun they completely obscured the light; a little later, with the sun's rays shining directly on their wings, they looked like a golden cloud, such as one sometimes sees in the transformation scene of a pantomime; and, at a greater distance, when viewed from the top of a slight eminence, they looked like a snow-storm, or a field of snow-white marguerites, which had suddenly taken to themselves wings. When ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... his life came. He was at a Bowery theatre, to see a Christmas pantomime. It was a fairy spectacle, and the stage was crowded with ballet-girls. There was one among them, the loveliest creature, it seemed to him, he had ever seen, with whom, in one mad moment, he fell passionately in love. A friend of his, by name Furniss, laughed at his raptures. 'Don't you ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... deg. Fahrenheit. With nothing to engage the eye save the blue sky and the bluer water, the most is made of every circumstance at sea, and even trivial occurrences become notable. The playful dolphins went through their aquatic pantomime for our amusement. Half a dozen of them started off just ahead of the cutwater, and raced the ship for two hours, keeping exactly the same relative distance ahead without any apparent effort. Scores of others leaped out of the water and ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... He went through the pantomime of shaking hands, but to his intense amazement it seemed that there was an answering clasp. A smooth, soft running touch closed gently on his own; it was cool and yielding, delicate as the down upon a robin's breast, yet firm as steel. And in that moment he knew that ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... dress," and then, after we had executed a picturesque Indian dance, the manager would strongly recommend the people to "Come forward, ladies and gentlemen, the show's just a-going to begin." The performance consisted of a short play, a comic song by "Billy," and a portion of the pantomime, "Jack and the Beanstalk," the whole lasting under half-an-hour. We gave about a score performances a day: it was very hard work, and, what was more, hot weather. I don't want to figure in these pages as a champion boozer—for I know that ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... titles, and such nonsense; no, Old Scratch, I want to know what he has written, when he had the curtain up, and whether he's a true son of the drama.—Harkye, don't make yourself uneasy on my account—In my next pantomime, perhaps, I'll let you know who I am, Old ...
— The Dramatist; or Stop Him Who Can! - A Comedy, in Five Acts • Frederick Reynolds
... organ. Next, the theatre attracted his energies; and in 1852 he secured a lease of Drury Lane at the moderate rental of L70 a week. On Boxing-night he offered his first programme there. This consisted of Uncle Tom's Cabin (with "fierce bloodhounds complete"), followed by a full length pantomime and a "roaring farce." Value for money in those palmy days. But, as an entrepreneur, Mr. Smith was always ahead of his period. Thus, he abolished the customary charge for booking; and, instead of increasing them, he lowered his prices when he had a success; and it is also to his ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... Mezrour, who, for his "other place," was engaged as a servant in the Caliph's household. Dane was thus not unfamiliar with the methods of unexpected evening visits; and it was fortunate for him that he was so. The little children whom he had picked up, explained to him, by pantomime which would have made the fortune of a ballet-girl, that they were much more comfortable in their new home than they had been in any other, and that they had no wish to leave it. But by various temptations addressed to them, in the ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... pretentious than that of Antony and Cleopatra. In this ballet I saw even the cold politician Octavianus, who until now had not so far lost his dignity as to appear as a character in any Italian opera, acting in pantomime and contriving fairly successfully to maintain an attitude of diplomatic reserve. The climax, however, was reached in the scene of Cleopatra's funeral. This afforded the immense staff of the ballet an opportunity for ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... could not 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 be something new; and why should he not have his fancy, and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... dined here, and all that. I was very tired of Artaxerxes, highly amused with the farce, and, in an inferior way, with the pantomime that followed. Mr. J. Plumptre joined in the latter part of the evening, walked home with us, ate some soup, and is very earnest for our going to Covent Garden again to-night to see Miss Stephens in the Farmer's Wife. He is to try ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... man's history the subjects of his discourse must have been almost wholly sensuous, and therefore readily expressed in pantomime. Not only was pantomime sufficient for all the actual needs of his existence, but it is not easy to imagine how he could have used language such as is now known to us. If the best English dictionary and grammar had been miraculously ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... motion toward an alarm. I took hold of my victim, and he looked at me with smiling security. Our weapons were hid under our academic robes; and even when we drew them out, and at the moment of applying them to the threat, they still supposed our gestures to be part of the pantomime we were performing. Did I relish this abuse of personal confidence in myself? No—I loathed it, and I grieved for its necessity; but my mother, a phantom not seen with bodily eyes, but ever present to my mind, continually ascended before me; and still I shouted aloud ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... could see—I thanked Heaven for it—and I began a most expressive pantomime, stuffing my fingers in my mouth and gnawing at them energetically. This I alternated with the action of one drinking from a basin. I hadn't the slightest idea whether he understood me; he turned and disappeared without a sign—at least, without ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... pitched the Manual away that got me in this mess, And in ingenious pantomime my wishes I express. They take me for an idiot mute, an error I deplore: But still—I'm better understood than e'er ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 6, 1890 • Various
... great deal might be done by signs and pantomime. Solomon John and the little boys began to show how it might be done. Elizabeth Eliza explained how "langues" meant both "languages" and "tongues," and they could point to their tongues. For practice, the little boys represented the foreign teachers talking in their different ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... her: the cup contains not the poison but the love-potion. In this stroke there is no fairy-tale or pantomime foolery. The course the drama now pursues is determined not by a magic draught, a harmless infusion of herbs, but by the belief of the lovers that they have taken poison and are both doomed. Whether Tristan had previously ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... been supposed dead, like Aboulfouaris the great voyager to his sister Canzade and his provident brother Hour. I am wrong id the story, I believe—Canzade was his wife—but Lucy may represent the one, and the Dominie the other. And then this lively crack-brained Scotch lawyer appears like a pantomime at the end of a tragedy.—And then how delightful it will be if Lucy gets back ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... come back joyous on a Sunday evening with six sovereigns chinking in our pockets. Alas, no one tips us now! Then there was the delight of comparing notes of the doings during the delightful preceding twenty-four hours. Thus, whilst Brown detailed the delights of the pantomime to which Uncle John had taken him on Saturday night, Robinson descanted on the marvels of the Zoological Gardens, with special reference to the free-and-easy life of monkeydom, and Smith never wearied of enlarging ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... 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 up her arms gaily. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... bronzed and wrinkled by long exposure, out of all likeness to human skin. The eyes were weirdly prominent and blue; the gestures had the deliberate extravagance of an actor; and the whole man recalled a wizard of pantomime. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... said coolly, as she ended her little pantomime. "Well, I can. To adopt Bobby's choice illustration, it would be like mixing potato and frappe. The potato would melt the frappe, and then the frappe would—well, would render the potato unpalatable. In other words, if we work together, I shall pulverize Mrs. Lloyd Avalons, and ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... his antagonist the statue. I feel sure you would like to know more of that statue—to draw him out when he is off duty, so to speak. To gratify you, I have resorted to the trick of the strolling theatrical manager who advertizes the pantomime of Sinbad the Sailor with a stock of second-hand picture posters designed for Ali Baba. He simply thrusts a few oil jars into the valley of diamonds, and so fulfils the promise held out by the hoardings to the public ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... he liked the sport; and when he had had enough, ended by flinging down the head of the animal with an air of contempt, to show that his warlike appetite craved meat of another sort."[496] Others followed with similar songs and pantomime, and the festival was closed at last by ladling out the meat from the kettles, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... right and left, kissing their hands to the audience, then saluting the trapeze in turn. (This pantomime introduction they had copied from Mathews and Hunting, noted trapezists in those days.) However, the same salutes have been employed by all aerialists these many years, therefore Alfred and Bindley should not be charged with stealing ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... With the Mexicans war was a passion, but warfare was little above the raid (Bandelier; Farrand). The lower tribes hunted their enemies as they hunted animals. In their war dances, which were only rehearsals, they disguised themselves as animals, and the pantomime was a mimic hunt. They had striking, slashing and piercing weapons held in the hand, fastened to a shaft or thong, hurled from the hand, from a sling, from an atlatl or throwing-stick, or shot from a bow. Their weapons were all individual, not one co-operative device ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... hooked the stirrup over the horn so that she could tighten the cinch, the eyes of Robert Grant Burns glistened at the "picture-stuff" she made. He glanced eloquently at Pete, and Pete gave a twisted smile and a pantomime of turning the camera-crank; whereat Robert Grant Burns shook his head regretfully and ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... 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 ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... ill-informed, who contended that such pageantry was ill-timed. They advanced against it all sorts of objections which would have been quite appropriate if the public had been bidden to witness some colossal farce or burlesque; some raree-show of tasteless oddities, or some untimely pantomime of fairy-lore. What was really intended, and was performed, at a great cost of toil and organizing skill, was the opposite of all this. All the best elements of a great and glorious ceremonial were displayed—colour and form and ordered motion; ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... That is enough for us, and we are going to do the best we can with it. Ordinary actors, together with all the necessary equipment of props and scenery, might be able to attempt a presentation of the famous pantomime, but it takes your strolling players, bred and brought up in the old stock school, to turn the trick ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... the simple 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, pantaloon following ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 saw all this, was beyond description. The weaker ones fled from the apartment. ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... have not (starts, then hesitates). Gee! I wish I had a job here. Somehow it seems kind of homelike in this place! (pantomime showing Jack's reluctance). Well—I suppose I've got to go on. Say—do you suppose ...
— The Pot Boiler • Upton Sinclair
... to a cacao-stem, and sat on a log among hothouse ferns, peeling oranges with a bowie-knife beneath the burning mid-day sun, the quaintest fancy came over me that it was all a dream, a phantasmagoria, a Christmas pantomime got up by my host for my special amusement; and that if I only winked my eyes hard enough, when I opened them again it would be all gone, and I should find myself walking with him on Ascot Heath, while the snow whirled ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... Abyssinian threw his weight Before her with a splash that hid them both, As the explosion of light-filled liquid parcels Shot forth in all directions. In his arms She re-appeared, a tragic terrified face Beside his coarse one laughing with success. Squeezing her with a pantomime of love, He turns to follow an arrow with his eyes That his companion, still upon the bank, Has aimed towards her son's small head that bobbed Like a black cork across the basking corn. But from the level of the sunk stream bed Neither ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... in a fierce whisper, only to have her grin recklessly back at him. In pantomime she gestured that he might try to make her. Val decided that he should have known the result of his efforts. Ricky was a Ralestone, too. And short of throwing her off the platform and so unmasking themselves completely, he could not move ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... and he began to moan, as well as the sand would let him, that he was a poor man, and an innocent, and the geese were the only things he ever stole in all his life. Then I went through a little pantomime with him, and I was very terrible in my threats, and he was choking and choking with the sand, though he never let go of the geese. At last I relented a little, and told him I would spare him that once, ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... mean—I mean she started taking it to make me stop. She says to me, Mannie, you're killing yourself, and you got to quit it; and if you don't, every time you take a grain, I'll take two. And she did! I'd come home, and she'd see what I'd been doing, and she'd up with her sleeves, and—" In horrible pantomime, the boy lifted the cuff of his shirt, and pressed his right thumb against the wrist of his other arm. At the memory of it, he gave a shiver and, with a blow, roughly struck the cuff into place. "God!" he muttered, "I couldn't stand it. ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... and COLLINS did in fact, as they claim, make the book of this year's pantomime at the Lane, Mr. GEORGE GRAVES gagged and bound it. This popular annual festival indeed tends to become more and more of a GRAVES solo (with of course the innumerable customary da capos) and a bright sketchy EVANS obbligato. As a Grand ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... we climbed the inclined plane to enter, and scrambled down the frail scaffolding to the "reserved seats." These cost twopence a head, and were "reserved" for us alone. The dolls were really cleverly managed. They performed the closing scenes of a pantomime. The policeman came to pieces when clown and harlequin pulled at him. People threw their heads at each other, and shook their arms off. The transformation scene was really pretty, and it only added to the joke that the dirty old ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... instructed him how to roast them on a forked stick over the embers. All shared the feast together, his entertainers using as napkins their own hair or that of their dogs; while Le Jeune, intent on increasing his knowledge of Algonquin, maintained an active discourse of broken words and pantomime. [ Le Jeune, Relation, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... 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
... few moments she turned to her sister and spoke to her, pointing out at something in the scenery, and the same pantomime was repeated, and again with the ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... All began with pantomime; and this was Chopin's invention. He sat at the piano and extemporized, whilst the young people acted scenes in dumb show and danced comic ballets. These charming improvisations turned the children's ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... you'll make the fellows die with laughing. And mind you illustrate it with plenty of life-like pantomime, do ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... I found one winter when caribou-hunting was wonderfully well placed. No engineer could have chosen better. It was made by the same colony the lynx was after, and just below where he went through his pantomime for my benefit; his tracks were there too. The barrens of which I spoke are treeless plains in the northern forest, the beds of ancient shallow lakes. The beavers found one with a stream running through it; ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... ended in Mrs. Mountjoy going and promising that she would send Florence down in her place. She knew that it would be in vain; but to a young man who had behaved so well as Mr. Anderson so much could not be refused. "Here I am again," he said, very much like Punch in the pantomime. ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... 12.55 P.M.) that in his closing hours he died for the benefit of the Public? We know not—except that both delinquents were let off—like squibs—and Mine Host, the Boniface, had to pay all the fines. He at all events had a Fine old time of it! Sic transit! So fitly ends the long run of a good Pantomime. Finis ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... Mac said abruptly, hoping to draw public attention from the pantomime. "Ought to get off as soon as possible, or we'll ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... Grace, Anne, Nora, Jessica, Eva and Miriam, accompanied by David, Tom, Hippy and Reddy disappeared, closing the massive doors between the drawing room and the wide hall. Half an hour later Arnold Evans announced that all those wishing to attend the pantomime, "The Mistletoe Bough," could obtain ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... Richard Strauss. His so-called ballet, "Josefs Legend," produced in Paris just before the war, is an attempt to write an opera without singers. All of the music is in the orchestra; the folks on the stage merely go through a pointless pantomime; their main function is to entertain the eye with shifting colors. Thus, the romantic sentiments of Joseph are announced, not by some eye-rolling tenor, but by the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... out the song in dancing pantomime and when it ends there are shouts and general exclamations ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes
... three trials of prowess, losing his head as a penalty of failure. Siegfried, donning the magic cloak of invisibility he had won from Alberich, king of the dwarfs, took Gunther's place and won the three trials for him, Gunther going through a pantomime of the appropriate actions while Siegfried performed the feats. The passage which tells of the encounter is curious. A great spear, heavy and keen, was brought forth for Brunhild's use. It was more ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... "Dulce est desipere in loco," he grants the proposition, with the commentary that he, at least, has very rarely been "in loco." He reads tragedies, and perhaps writes one; but he does not affect comedies, and he could have no sympathy with an uproarious burlesque or side-shaking Christmas pantomime. His brethren who seek the theatre for amusement are of similar opinion, and so are they who stand behind the foot-lights. Therefore it is, that, for every passable comedian, America can produce a whole batch of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... huge and bulky. Chunee was the largest elephant ever brought to England. Henry Harris, manager of Covent Garden, bought it for L900 to appear in the pantomime of Harlequin Padmenaba, in 1810. It was subsequently sold to Cross, the proprietor of Exeter 'Change. Chunee at length became mad, and was shot by a detachment of the Guards, receiving 152 wounds. The skeleton is preserved in the museum of the College of Surgeons. It is 12 ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... had put together a little story full of facetious suggestions, and accompanied it with pantomime, which made ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... the dancing began. There was invariably some musical genius present who could play the fiddle. The dances were what were called three or four handed reels, or square sets and jigs. With all sorts of grotesque attitudes, pantomime and athletic displays, the revelry continued until late into the night, and often until the dawn of the morning. As there could be no sleeping accommodations for so large a company in the cabin of but one room, the guests made up for sleep ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... wide, large platform, which was much like a miniature stage, Charles-Norton appeared for a moment in undignified pantomime. Leaning over the shining rail, chin thrust out, he shook both fists at the receding city, and spit into ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... that trio of wonderful artists, Nourrit, Levasseur, and Mdlle. Falcon, only one, Levasseur, remained. The art of music was taking a rest. To make amends for this, the opera shone in ballet, fairy-like performances in which pantomime and trap- doors played as important a part as the actual dancing. Nothing could have been more enchanting than the Diable Boiteux with its many and various tableaux and its dresses, and Fanny Elsler dancing the "cachucha," ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... work is all pantomime. The man who hired me said I had a face that was worth a fortune. I go up to a slot machine, and act as though I never saw such a thing before. Then I monkey around, and seem to be puzzled, and my face looks ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... him at the door) exchange an odd kind of smile—not at all a pleasant one in its expression—and return to the society of Mr Richard Swiveller, who, during their absence, has been regaling himself with various feats of pantomime, and is discovered at his desk, in a very flushed and heated condition, violently scratching out nothing with ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... opera cloak of brilliant cherry color, I felt sheltered from observation in her vicinity, and hoped that Ernest would find I could mingle in public scenes without drawing any peculiar attention. Indeed, I was so absorbed by the graceful and expressive pantomime, the novelty and variety of the scenic decorations, that I thought not where I was, or who I was. To city dwellers, a description of these would be as unnecessary as uninteresting; but perhaps some young country girl, as inexperienced as ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... little happy, and soothed in her hours of unrest by this penny legacy. Let me think as I write. (The next month's sermon, thank goodness! is safe to press.) This discourse will appear at the season when I have read that wassail-bowls make their appearance; at the season of pantomime, turkey and sausages, plum-puddings, jollifications for schoolboys; Christmas bills, and reminiscences more or less sad and sweet for elders. If we oldsters are not merry, we shall be having a semblance of merriment. We shall see the young folks laughing round the holly-bush. We shall ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... it impossible for them to make their escape and find their way home, when they relapsed their vigilance slightly, and they were permitted to walk about a little within short limits from the bivouacs; but they were given to understand by unmistakable pantomime that death would be the certain penalty of the first ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... 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
... 'em! but not with her hands, Doctor!"—The old woman's significant pantomime must be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... wonderfully beautiful under the blazing sunlight, and in the crystal-clear atmosphere, that the Guardsman refused to accept it as genuine. "It can't be real!" he cried, "this is January. We have got somehow into a pantomime transformation scene. In a minute it will go, and I shall wake up in Wellington Barracks to find it freezing like mad, with my owl of a servant telling me that I have to be on parade in five minutes." This lengthy ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... from his masters, turning their easel painting into painted scenes. He was a parvenu, but a parvenu whose whole bearing proved that if he did dedicate every story in 'The House of Pomegranates' to a lady of title, it was but to show that he was Jack and the social ladder his pantomime beanstalk. "Did you ever hear him say 'Marquess of Dimmesdale'?" a friend of his once asked me. "He does not say 'the Duke ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... in about four months. Our readers are aware that it will present a Panoramic View of London, taken from the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, and imitated in a bungling manner in a recent pantomime at Covent Garden Theatre. The picture covers 40,000 square feet, or nearly an acre of canvass; the dome of the building on which the sky is painted, is 30 feet more in diameter than the cupola of St. Paul's; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... that she sees him coming. She falls at his feet; she kisses them. He raises her—I suppose that panther spring from the ground means that he raises her. She caresses him with much fondling and many kisses. By Jove, what pantomime! Now she dances to please him. She stops and trembles; the dance does not satisfy. She tries another. No! No! Not that! It is too dreamy—the lover is in a martial mood. This time she strikes his fancy. Kara is playing a ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... from the wings, Abrahm Kantor standing counting them off on his fingers, and trembling to receive the Stradivarius. Then, finally, and against the frantic negative pantomime of his manager, a scherzo, played so lacily that it swept ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... legs, when they did not move in time to the strains of the cithara. Her son—a decrepit abortion, of no age and no sex—ill-treated the child, on whom he vented the hate he had for all womankind. Like the dancing-girls whose grace he affected, he knew, and taught Thais, the art of pantomime, and how to mimic, by expression, gesture, and attitude, all human passions, and more especially the passions of love. He was a clever master, though he disliked his work; but he was jealous of his pupil, ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... accompanies this. To perform it, hold the four fingers together and place the thumb against their tips. Now open and close your hand rapidly to suggest a biting action (much like what Pac-Man does in the classic video game, though this pantomime seems to predate that). The gesture alone means 'chomp chomp' (see "{Verb Doubling}" in the "{Jargon Construction}" section of the Prependices). The hand may be pointed at the object of complaint, and for real ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... still, because anything in the form of accidental injury, or any kind of illness or disability is so very serious in their own sphere. I will explain this seeming paradox of mine. Take the case of a Christmas Pantomime. Surely nobody supposes that the young mother in the pit who falls into fits of laughter when the baby is boiled or sat upon, would be at all diverted by such an occurrence off the stage. Nor is the decent ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... lady of great fancy and droll imagination, and having looked at the characters, she and I composed a history about them, which was recited to the little folks at night, and served as our FIRESIDE PANTOMIME. ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a 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. "Tomorrow we'll really ...
— The Terrible Answer • Arthur G. Hill
... minutes later when the older girl turned from the greetings and messages in pantomime with her friends below, she saw Ellen's rough head bending over a paper. It was a needlessly untidy head. During the weeks of close confinement and enforced companionship, she had felt her dislike ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... disguised in the dress that has been mentioned, and armed with the rod of public authority, announces his coming (whenever his services are required) by loud and dismal screams in the woods near the town. He begins the pantomime at the approach of night; and as soon as it is dark he enters the town, and proceeds to the bentang, at which all the inhabitants ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... and Shallow Passion Dyak Love-Songs The Girl With the Clean Face Fijian Refinements How Cannibals Treat Women Fijian Modesty and Chastity Emotional Curiosities Fijian Love-Poems Serenades and Proposals Suicides and Bachelors Samoan Traits Courtship Pantomime Two Samoan Love-Stories Personal Charms of South Sea Islanders Tahitians and Their White Visitors Heartless Treatment of Women Two Stories of Tahitian Infatuation Captain Cook on Tahitian Love Were the ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... modestly pretend to nothing more than the flattery of our senses by means of form and sound and colour, the wizards of "the new art" claim to express the most profound and subtle emotions. We prefer "1830" to The Miracle, because it is unpretentious and sincere. We prefer OEdipus to the pantomime because it is prettier and shorter. As works of art they all ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... of the Occident staggered beneath Wong's assault, as the cook described, partly in pantomime, the manner of Bill Talpers's downfall the ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... slap the wainscot fast and furiously with his walking-cane with a clatter like a harlequin's lath in a pantomime. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Craig, and did 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. His eyes ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... all, and to hear him talk with his father about Greek poetry and philosophy was a very fine thing indeed; how Phoebe Beecham, if the chance had been hers, would have prized it; but Ursula did not enjoy the privilege. She preferred a pantomime, or the poorest performance in a theatre, or even Madame Tussaud's exhibition. She preferred even to walk about the gay streets with Miss Dorset's maid, and look into the shop-windows and speculate what was going to be worn next season. ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... a pantomime (Forbidden treat to those who stood in fear of him), Roaring at jokes, sans metre, sense, or rhyme, He turned, and saw immediately in rear of him, His peace of mind upsetting, and annoying it, A curate, also ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... Bergenheim seemed to pay very little attention to the words addressed her; her uneasy glances wandered in every direction, into the depths of the bushes and the slightest undulations of the ground. Gerfaut understood this pantomime. He glanced, in his turn, over the place, and soon discovered at some distance a more propitious place for such a conversation as theirs. It was a semicircular recess in one of the thickets in the park. A rustic seat under a large oak seemed to have been placed ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... silently in his big arm-chair, with the quiet twinkle in his keen eyes, remarked, "And you will look like the principal boy at a pantomime." ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... made a fire in this Mr. Brady's flower-garden, over which they were cooking venison steaks. And, as I reached the door, the North Wind spied me, grinned, rubbed his stomach, made a false dash at me that frightened me out of my wits, and finally went through the pantomime of scalping me. I stood looking at him with my legs apart, for the son of the Great Chief must not run away. And I marked that the North Wind had two great ornamental daubs like shutter-fastenings painted on his cheeks. I sniffed preparation, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... man from the azure sky, over whose unspotted deeps the winds forevermore drive flocks of stormy clouds, and leave no wrinkle or stain? how much industry and providence and affection we have caught from the pantomime of brutes? What a searching preacher of self-command is ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... power and pathos of expression, resembling the celebrated exhibitions of Parisot and Bigottini, in the great tragic ballets in which dancing was a subordinate element to the highest dramatic effects of passion and emotion expressed by pantomime. After her marriage, my mother remained but a few years on the stage, to which she bequeathed, as specimens of her ability as a dramatic writer, the charming English version of "La jeune Femme colere," called "The Day after the Wedding;" the little burlesque of "Personation," ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... pantomime called Harlequin in Padmanaba. This elephant [Chunee], some years afterwards, was exhibited over Exeter 'Change, where, the reader will remember, it was found necessary [March, 1826] to destroy the poor animal by discharges of musketry. When he made his entrance in the pantomime above mentioned, ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... 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, and ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... me, and after some plunging at the train away went my steeds, and we turned almost at once into the drive. There is no park to Place that I could see, but the drive is sui generis! You keep going through cuttings in the rock, so that it has an odd feeling of a drive on the stage in a Fairy Pantomime. On your right hand the cliff is tapestried, almost hidden, by wild-flowers and ferns in the wealthiest profusion! Unluckily the wild garlic smells dreadfully, but its exquisite white blossoms have a most aerial effect, with pink campion, Herb Robert, ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... was saying this David was winking to her, and making faces to her not to go on that tack. His conduct now explained his pantomime. "Here, youngster," said he, "you take these things in-doors, and here is ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... held for 15 years to a man who had previously rented it, and as the good parson failed to see the force of this argument he is threatened with a violent death. In England such a thing could only happen in a pantomime, but some of the Irish think it the quintessence of reasonable action. These are the class that support the Bill; these are the men Mr. Gladstone and his conglomeration of cranks and faddists hope to satisfy. A brilliant kind of prospect for ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... mechanical figures dressed like German burghers of the sixteenth century came out of two little turrets, bowed gravely to each other, and then retired, like court functionaries, backwards. It was a source of great pleasure to me to watch these figures go through their hourly pantomime But after a time it came into my head to wonder whether they did their duty by night as well as by day; whether they came out and bowed to each other in the dark, or waited quietly in their turrets ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... OF PANTOMIME [Footnote: 'Pantomime' has been chosen as the most natural translation of orchaesis, which in this dialogue has reference for the most part to the ballet-dancer (pantomimus) of imperial times. On the other hand, Lycinus, in order to establish the antiquity ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... beside the Aesopus, or slides down the Pusterthal with the Rienz, or follows the Glommen and the Gula from Christiania to Throndhjem. Here is a mill with its dripping, lazy wheel, the type of somnolent industry; and there is a white cascade, foaming in silent pantomime as the train clatters by; and here is a long, still pool with the cows standing knee-deep in the water and swinging their tails in calm indifference to the passing world; and there is a lone fisherman sitting upon a rock, rapt in contemplation ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... pervaded the place, with which the occasional riot of the drivers of the long row of calashes and carriages in front of the cathedral did not discord. Whenever a stray American wandered into the Square, there was a wild flight of these drivers towards him, and his person was lost to sight amidst their pantomime. They did not try to underbid each other, and they were perfectly good-humored; as soon as he had made his choice, the rejected multitude returned to their places on the curbstone, pursuing the successful aspirant with inscrutable jokes as he drove off, while the horses ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... before, but she had not realized that her room-mate was a beauty. She stared almost fascinated at the vision of blue eyes, coral cheeks, white neck, and ruddy-brown hair. Was this indeed the same girl who had arrived at school last September? It was like a transformation scene in the pantomime. Clothes undoubtedly exercise a great effect on some people, and Rona seemed to put away her backwoods manners with her up-country dresses. There was a dignity about her now and a desire to please which she had never shown at The Woodlands. ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... 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 ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... always saying Why. Why should my Lord Bishop be cringing to that lady? Look at him rubbing his fat hands together, and smiling into her face! It's not a handsome face any longer. It is all painted red and white like Scaramouch's in the pantomime. See, there comes another blue-riband, as I live. My Lord Bamborough. The descendant of the Hotspurs. The proudest man in England. He stops, he bows, he smiles; he is hat in hand, too. See, she taps him with her fan. Get away, you crowd of little blackguard boys, and don't ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... did not, 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 creature seen in the nightmare of a ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... frequently repeated with emphasis. John also told me that an old man had made signs of a large water, but not fit to drink, and was very anxious for us to change our course, Mr. Roper had understood the same. But, as long as we were ignorant what was before us, the pantomime and words of the natives enabled us to form but very vague and hopeless guesses. It was easy to understand them, when we knew the reality. These natives must have had some intercourse with white men, or Malays, for they knew the use of a knife, and valued it so highly, ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... his head from one side to the other and stopped rubbing his hands. He had heard the packing of snow under webs and runners. After listening a moment, he nodded to himself, like a figure in a pantomime, ran into the kitchen, did something to the stove, then lighted a lantern and pattered out along the tunnel dodging the icicle stalactites. Between the firs he stopped and held his lantern high so that it touched a moving radius of ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... Giulio to pursue their studies in "theology and ecclesiastical jurisprudence." Think how you feel, boys and girls, when, after a particularly jolly vacation, or an entrancing evening at the circus or the pantomime, you go back to what seem to you dull school studies, and then consider whether this boy cardinal, after all the glitter and parade and excitement of the carnival days, could be expected to fully relish his tasks of dry and laborious study. I imagine his solemn old biographer tells ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... clustered a moment, then parted like beads, and went wide asunder on the plain. They veered singly over the level, merged in twos and threes, apparently racing, shrank together like elastic, and broke ranks again to swerve over the stretching waste. From this visioned pantomime presently came a sound, a tiny shot. The figures were too far for discerning which fired it. It evidently did no harm, and was repeated at once. A babel of diminutive explosions followed, while the horsemen galloped on in unexpected ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... gazing upwards. An aboriginal who stood by told me he was looking for the ghosts of dead men. At last he began to move very slowly, and soon rushed to and fro at full speed, flourishing a branch as if to drive away some foes invisible to us. When I thought this pantomime must be almost over, ten more, similarly adorned, suddenly appeared from behind the trees, and the whole party joined in a brisk conflict with their mysterious assailants. . . . At last, after some rapid evolutions in which they put forth all ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... same year (as Miss Lamb writes in December, 1808), Charles was invited by Tom Sheridan to write some scenes in a speaking Pantomime; the other parts of which (the eloquence not of words) had been already manufactured by Tom and his more celebrated father, Richard Brinsley. Lamb and Tom Sheridan had been, it seems, communicative over a bottle of claret, when an agreement for the above purpose was entered into between ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... moment, made an ugly mouth, closed his left eye, and hissed through his teeth, as if he would express by all this pantomime that there are things which cannot be held ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... Sometimes, in solitary pantomime, he encountered more than one opponent at a time, for numbers were apt to come upon him treacherously, especially at a little after his rising hour, when he might be caught at a disadvantage—perhaps standing on one leg to encase ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... is alleged that somebody is going to write another version of Faust—presumably the pantomime edition by Wills is copyright. In addition, it appears that Mr Stephen Phillips has concocted an adaptation of The Bride of Lammermoor in which the story and characters are vastly improved. Alas, poor Scott! On top of all this we hear of countless adaptations on the market, so ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette" |
