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Masquerade   Listen
verb
Masquerade  v. i.  (past & past part. masqueraded; pres. part. masquerading)  
1.
To assemble in masks; to take part in a masquerade.
2.
To frolic or disport in disquise; to make a pretentious show of being what one is not. "A freak took an ass in the head, and he goes into the woods, masquerading up and down in a lion's skin."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Masquerade" Quotes from Famous Books



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

... brown and yellow October landscape, they spent a couple of hours romping over the farm, had milk and ginger cookies in Mrs. Spence's kitchen; and started back, wedged in between cabbages and eggs and butter. They chatted gaily on a dozen different themes—the Thanksgiving masquerade, a possible play, the coming game with Highland Hall, and the lamentable new rule that made them read the editorials in the daily papers. Finally, when conversation flagged for a moment, Miss Sallie ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster

... yarn, which ranks among the cheapest in cotton goods. It is used for innumerable purposes. The bleached fabric is used for wrapping cheese and butter after they are pressed. It is also much in demand for bunting for festival occasions, light curtains, masquerade dresses, etc. When used for bunting, draperies, and the like it is usually in colors, red, blue, cream, and yellow seeming to have the greatest demand. The weave is one and one ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley

... ignorance of it, had stumbled suddenly on his proper vocation at last. The role he was playing (so far successfully) had doubtless been the occasion of an exquisite delight to him, unknown to simpler mortals, who masquerade not without dread misgivings of detection. I for one, when affecting any costume not essentially belonging to me, or covering my face even with a paper-mask for holiday diversion, have had a feeling of unusual transparency ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... he, in the slang of his dog's day. 'I say; you're one at Duke Fitz's masquerade to-night? Tell us your toggery. Hang it, you might go for the Black Prince. I'm Prince Hal. Got a headache? Come to my Club and try my mixture. Yoicks! it'd make Methuselah and Melchisedec jump up and have ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... months since, excepting only Miss Jenny, that none could persuade from fear of the lancet. All recovered after a day or two's disagreeables, but poor Miss Jenny catching the distemper, supposedly at a masquerade, fell a victim at the age of eighteen, and was buried a week last Monday in all the forms. 'Tis certain there are those would sooner die with the approval of the doctors than live to dance on ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington

... nothing from the perfection of the dish, but rather adds to it, being clean and delicate. I like not these French cooks who make all dishes in disguise, and set them forth with strange foreign savours, like a masquerade. Give me my food in its native dress, even though it be a little dry. If we had but a cup of sack, now, or a glass of good ale, ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke

... money and papers stolen. He himself is pinioned hand and foot, the foreign lord bound fast in his own room, and all his followers secured. Sir Timothy having married Diana discovers that she is none other than his nephew's mistress, and, moreover, the Polish ambassador was Tom in masquerade, the attendants and burglars his friends, who by obtaining his treasonable correspondence are able effectually to silence the old knight. Wilding is united to Charlot, whilst Lady Galliard ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... peremptorily. "When you masquerade as a policeman again, my friend, make sure you have a letter of the right division on your collar. This district is B, not M. I am a police officer, and I shall arrest you on a charge of being concerned in an attempt at housebreaking. ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... a crew of West Indian cut-throats—the very scum of hell, and under the order of a Portuguese devil, whose ambition coolly plotted murder. I was sailing under the black flag, to be hung if captured, compelled to act out the masquerade, a satellite of the most infamous villain who ever sacked a merchantman. Why, the very name of Sanchez had been horror to me in the past—yet here I actually was in charge of the deck of his death ship, searching for new victims, and only hoping ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

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

... remarked Myra, with perplexity in her blue eyes. "Do you mean to say you lead a double life and occasionally masquerade as a brigand, without anyone knowing that Don Carlos and Cojuelo are one and the same? Is there no ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage

... that very reason his son would fain avenge him," said Hubert flippantly, "and flout the ghosts, if such things there be. And if men—Frenchmen or the like—see fit to attire themselves in masquerade, no coward fear will blunt ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... event in the Grove:—"The glittering Azure and the noble Or of the peacock's wings, under the meridian sun, cannot afford greater exultation to that bird, than some of our beautiful belles of fashion promise themselves, from a display of their captivating charms at the intended masquerade ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... hangs on the berry-bush When comes the poet's eye, And the whole street is a masquerade When ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine

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

... Babrius which are unparalleled by Phaedrus. Consequently, as I have shown, he has a much larger proportion of Eastern elements than Phaedrus. There can be little doubt that the Ass in the Lion's Skin is from India. As Prof. Rhys-Davids remarks, the Indian form gives a plausible motive for the masquerade which is wanting in the ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs

... strange figures suddenly presented themselves. These men were clad in a garb which to the lads was strange and wild indeed. The kilt, as worn by Highlanders on show occasions in the present day is a garment wholly unlike that worn by their ancestors, being, indeed, little more than a masquerade dress. The kilt of the old time resembled indeed the short petticoat now worn by savage peoples. It consisted of a great length of cloth wound round and round the loins, and falling like a loose petticoat to the knees, a ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... educated gentleman, who gave his children every advantage of learning and travel. The Vesper custom I saw for myself every time I took an evening drive. We witnessed a very gorgeous procession on the feast of the Epiphany. All the city functionaries, the military, the priests, bands of music, and a masquerade of the three kings on horseback, surrounded by troops of children beautifully dressed in white and scattering flowers, passed through the streets to a church, into which they all poured, the three horses riding in ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... to impose upon us unreal impressions of height and dignity. The added greatness is real. Height of aim and nobility of expression are true forces. They grow to be an obligation upon us. A lofty sense of personal worth is one of the surest elements of greatness. That the lion should love to masquerade in the ass's skin is not modesty and reserve, but imbecility and degradation. And that England should wrap herself in the robe of small causes and mean reasons is the more deplorable, because there is no nation ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

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

... literally sunk the service of God and His poor into the service of the clergyman and his rich; and changed what was once the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, into the spangling of Pantaloons in an ecclesiastical Masquerade. ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin

... smartest wig. Wherever he went the world did him honour, and many a time my vanity was sorely wounded. I was a pretty girl, mind you, though my travels have not improved my beauty; and I had many admirers before ever I picked up Jack Rann at a masquerade. Why, there was a Templar, with two thousand a year, who gave me a carriage and servants while I still lived at the dressmaker's in Oxford Street, and I was not out of my teens when the old Jew ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... chromo-lithographs. Under the pretext of realism, of information acquired on the spot, of authenticated costumes—all extremely doubtful, since we should be forced to conclude that nothing has changed in Palestine in the course of nineteen centuries—Monsieur Tissot has given us the basest masquerade that anyone has yet dared present as an illustration of the Scriptures. Look at that disreputable trull, a street slut tired of shouting "This way to the boats!" till she falls fainting. This is the Magnificat, the Blessed Virgin. That epileptic boy with ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... as it includes our relations to God as well as to men; it differs in its perspective, inasmuch as it exalts some types of excellence that the world pooh-poohs, and pulls down some that the world hallelujahs and adulates; it strips the fine feathers of approving words off some vices which masquerade as virtues. It casts round the notion of duty, of morality, of virtue, a halo, and it touches it with emotion. Christianity does with the dictates of the natural conscience what we might figure as being the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... maintains a couple of footmen, a coachman, and postilion. He has his town-house, and his country-house, his coach, and his post-chaise. His wife and daughters appear in the richest stuffs, bespangled with diamonds. They frequent the court, the opera, the theatre, and the masquerade. They hold assemblies at their own houses: they make sumptuous entertainments, and treat with the richest wines of Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Champagne. The substantial tradesman, who wont to pass his evenings at the ale-house for fourpence half-penny, now ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... shout from that mess-room as startled the distant sentries on the outer walls. "Bullen, old man, forgive me." "It can't be!" "Incredible!" "Bullen, the Beau Brummel of the service, in leather!" "Why, Diogenes, what are you doing here?" "Is it a masquerade?" "Is it a joke?" "What means this unique headgear?" "And Diogenes, I ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... pebbles from the Gave, and of red bricks crossed like a tapestry design; opposite, fixt to the wall, a row of medallions in stone; upon the sides, doors of every form and age; dormer windows, windows square, pointed, embattled, with stone mullions garlanded with elaborate reliefs. This masquerade of styles troubles the mind, yet not unpleasantly; it is unpretending and artless; each century has built according to its own fancy, without concerning ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... the snowy summits of the Spanish peaks, we were all afoot. A breakfast—similar in materials to our supper of the preceding night was hastily prepared, and still more hastily eaten. After that we proceeded to equip ourselves for the masquerade. Peg-leg acted as principal costumier; and well understood he the role he was called upon to perform. Perfectly acquainted with the Utah costume—both that used for war and the chase— there was no fear about the ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... that thrilling hour in the white strip of sand and all that had happened since, it flashed upon David that St. Pierre was using his wife as the vital moving force in a game of his own—that under the masquerade of his apparent faith and bigness of character he was sacrificing her to achieve a certain mysterious something it the ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

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

... disappeared. Candide and Martin did not doubt that this was a masquerade of the Carnival. Then a fourth domestic said ...
— Candide • Voltaire

... Gibson was given by a full cast the night of the savior's arrival. Though Jane Cody had been merciless, Jack, tempted beyond his powers of resistance by the sounds of revelry upon the hill, was stalking about in melancholy masquerade among its personnel. Bombey Forrest, her delicate head looking like a surprised sunflower upon its masculine stalk, had come in, and Crosby Pemberton, looking as much out of place in his immaculate linen and small Tuxedo ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

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

... pompous life's dull masquerade, From Pride's pursuits, and Passion's war, Far, my Cordelia, very far, To thee and me may Heaven assign The silent pleasures of the shade, The joys of peace, unenvied, ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... intended seclusion from the world, Mrs. Howard was to give the largest party of the season—a sort of carnival, from which the revelers were expected to retire the moment the silvery-voiced clock on her mantel struck the hour of twelve and ushered in the dawn of Lent. It was to be a masquerade, for the Camdenites had almost gone mad on that fashion which Ethelyn had the credit of introducing into their midst; that is, she was the first to propose a masquerade early in the season, telling what she had seen and giving the benefit of her ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes

... he learned it all abroad—what a fool was I, to think a young man could learn modesty by travelling. He might as soon learn wit at a masquerade. ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith

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

... think These discords, as in the musicians' art, Are subtle servitors to harmony? That all this war's for peace? This wrangling but A masquerade where love his roguish face Conceals beneath ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles

... not sit so easily upon her; her heart does not beat freely under it. As in the old ballad, where "Sweet William" is detected weeping in secret over her "man's array,"[36] so in Viola, a sweet consciousness of her feminine nature is for ever breaking through her masquerade:— ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... year each of the four High School classes gave some sort of entertainment. Readers of "GRACE HARLOWE'S PLEBE YEAR" will remember the masquerade ball given by the sophomores, now juniors, and the active part taken by Grace and her chums ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower

... crossed the Tiber by the Ponte Molle two or three miles before. It had looked as yellow as it ought to look, and hurrying on between its worn-away and miry banks, had a promising aspect of desolation and ruin. The masquerade dresses on the fringe of the Carnival, did great violence to this promise. There were no great ruins, no solemn tokens of antiquity, to be seen;—they all lie on the other side of the city. There seemed to be long streets of commonplace shops and houses, such ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... world but a big masquerade? where you meet knights, priests, soldiers, men of learning, barristers, clergymen, philosophers, and I don't know what all! But they are not what they pretend to be; they are only masks, and, as a rule, behind the masks ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... at night, all the streets were hung with candles, as the young king and his brother, with Semidono, Nabesone, and many others, went in masquerade to dance at the house of the old king. The young king and his brother were on horseback, having canopies carried over them, all the rest being a-foot, and they were accompanied by drums and kettles, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... wife, her face lighting up, "look at the way they exposed that masquerade of the ghost out on the Garwood ranch this summer. And think how cleverly they got on the trail of the tramps ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport

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

... their vein, go on working it. They do not wander off in search of new veins, as a general rule. It would be unkind to draw attention to personal proofs of this truism. He who has done well with babies in fancy dresses will go on doing well with infants in masquerade. There are moments when the arrival of Cronus to swallow the whole family of painted babes, as he did his own, would be not unwelcome; when an artistic Herod would be applauded for a general massacre of the Burlington House innocents. ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... down to supper that night, Raven was reading his paper by the fire. He glanced up as if she came in so every night, Nan thought. She liked that. But she was a little awkward, conscious of her masquerade and so really adding to the illusion of girlhood, ill used to its own charm. Raven threw down his paper ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... poverty as the extremest that came to my knowledge in London; but I do not insist that it was genuine, and if any more scientific student of civilization wishes to insinuate that my tragedy was a masquerade got up by that pair to victimize the sentimental American stranger, and do him out of one of his ill-got shillings, I will not gainsay him. I merely maintain, as I have always done, that the conditions ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... neither Cardinal nor courtier who can expect any favor from him unless he conform in fact or in appearance to his mode of life. Consequently one observes that they have altogether withdrawn, in public at any rate, from every sort of pleasures. One sees no longer Cardinals in masquerade or on horseback, nor driving with women about Rome for pastime, as the custom was of late; but the utmost they do is to go alone in close coaches. Banquets, diversions, hunting parties, splendid liveries ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

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

... laughing countenance, and said: 'Heyday, my good friend, what a drowned puppy of a face! Is this the way to look in carnival time? I and our dear young officer are come to fetch you away. There is a grand ball to-night at the masquerade rooms; and as I know you have forsworn ever going out in any other suit than that which you always wear, of the devil's own colour, come with us as black as you are, for it ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... hate inconstancy—I loathe, detest, Abhor, condemn, abjure the mortal made Of such quicksilver clay that in his breast No permanent foundation can be laid; Love, constant love, has been my constant guest, And yet last night, being at a masquerade, I saw the prettiest creature, fresh from Milan, Which gave me ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... did not sleep all night with reflecting on what had passed, and could not resolve with myself whether these humorous gentlemen in masquerade were to be ranked under the denomination of knight-errants, or plain robbers. This I must tell you, by the by, that with respect both to honesty and hardship, their life resembles much that of the hussars, since drinking is all their delight, ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... calumniating not only himself but the blood which was flowing in his veins, who can divine? But, for some reason or other, it seemed to be his determined purpose to keep himself unknown to the great body of his fellow-creatures; to present himself to their view in moral masquerade.' ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

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

... may say, who fancy that they may do as they please out of their own country, and I certainly did not wish to figure in her train; I therefore replied, "I know my own country well, Lady R—, and there cannot be a less eligible one for a masquerade. We should meet with too many desagremens, if unprotected by male society, and our journey would be anything but sentimental. But if you do go to France, ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... something in him of what the old world called the solemnity of revels—when they spoke of 'solemnizing' a mere masquerade or wedding banquet. Nevertheless he was not a mere pagan any more than he was a mere practical joker. His eccentricities sprang from a static fact of faith, in itself mystical, and even childlike ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... Hours Social Club was to give a prize masquerade ball at the Palace Garden on New Year's Night, and Hefty had decided to go. Every gentleman dancer was to get a white silk badge with a gold tassel, and every committeeman received a blue badge with "Committee" ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis

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

... of a quiet home which had once seemed a dullness to be fled from, now came back to her as a restful escape, a station where she found the breath of morning and the unreproaching voice of birds after following a lure through a long Satanic masquerade, which she had entered on with an intoxicated belief in its disguises, and had seen the end of in shrieking fear lest she herself had become one of the evil spirits who were dropping their human mummery and hissing around ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... slipped on her dressing-gown and sat down by the window to consider. She knew now that she should have spoken immediately upon seeing Mrs. Middleton, thus avoiding more unpleasantness than the caresses. Having delayed her explanation of the masquerade, she had made it the more difficult. Even now she dreaded shocking or ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray

... wine has arrived, and a dozen of it has been transferred to me; it is much better than Follete's stuff. We had a masquerade last night at the Villa Marina; Nellie in a little red satin cap, in a red satin suit of boy's clothes, with a funny little black tail that stuck out behind her, and wagged as she danced about the room, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

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

... Hochelaga, an important village of which the Indians had told him. But Donnacona soon repented of the information he had given, and left nothing undone to turn Cartier from his purpose. As a last resource the magicians of Stadacone devised a plan to frighten the obstinate Frenchman, but the crude masquerade arranged for that purpose provoked nothing but amusement. A large canoe came floating slowly down the river, and when it drew near the ships the Frenchmen beheld three black devils, garbed in dogskins, and wearing monstrous horns upon their heads. Chanting ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... was of the nature of the Tussaud Museum or a masquerade, positively frightened Amedee. He had recently been to his first communion, and was still burning with the mystical fever, but so much ugliness offended his already fastidious taste and threw him into his ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... judicious critic, thus sums up his character as an artist: "The works of Jan Steen imply a free and cheerful view of common life, and he treats it with a careless humor, such as seems to deal with all its daily occurrences, high and low, as a laughable masquerade and a mere scene of perverse absurdity. His treatment of the subjects differed essentially from that adopted by other artists. Frequently, indeed, they are the same jolly drinking parties, or the meetings of boors; but in other masters the object is, for the most part, to depict a certain ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... call it fiction? Well, certainly the objection is not to the presence of fiction in the Bible. It is there, openly, confessedly, unashamed. Fiction can be used with great profit in teaching religious truth. But fiction may not masquerade in the guise of history, if men are to be led by it or mastered by it. If the way to be rid of difficulties in a narrative is to turn it into pious fiction, there are other instances where it might be used for relief ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee

... soft-eyed Amaryllis? Ask not, guess not: you will only know it to be hate when the poison is in your cup, or the poniard in your breast. In the Gothic age, grim Humour painted "the Dance of Death;" in our polished century, some sardonic wit should give us "the Masquerade of Hate." ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... luck for one soup-bunch," quoth Waldo, yet adding a dubious shake of the head as he gazed upon their bronzed companion. "And if it wasn't for this gentleman in masquerade costume—" ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

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

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

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

... PARTIE DE MASQUE, 'For a masquerade.' It was a common practice in the circles of the Court, and of the richer bourgeoisie to get up masquerade parties and dances. There are frequent references to this in the Memoirs of Dangeau, Saint-Simon, ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux

... however, in vain; for in about a quarter of an hour Alaric was close to him, shoulder to shoulder. He also wore a white jacket, &c., with a nightcap of mud and candle on his head; but somehow he looked as though he had worn them all his life. The fast gallop, and the excitement of the masquerade, which for him had charms the sterner Neverbend could not feel, had dissipated his sickness; and he was ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... was dressed in pontifical robes at a sort of National fete, and a few days later at a public masquerade, the President replying to praises of the New Era explained himself as follows: "In one single instant you make vanish into nothingness the errors of eighteen centuries"; by which he meant to honor the paganism of the ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... livelong day not an Indian nor a Frenchman was to be seen, and night closed over the frightful but silent masquerade, with the steady and unalterable progress with which the earth obeys her laws, indifferent to the petty actors and petty scenes that are in daily bustle and daily occurrence on her bosom. The night was far more quiet than that which had preceded it, and Mabel slept with an increasing ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... which these purse-proud Venetian administrators, suspecting no incongruity or absurdity, are placed, by Titian and Tintoretto, on terms of perfect intimacy with the hierarchy of heaven. Sometimes they merely fraternize; sometimes they masquerade as the Three Kings or Wise Men from the East; but always it is into the New Testament that, with the aid of the brush of genius, ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... Nat's homily upon the caprices of the eternal feminine—that this high-spirited motherless girl and her father were very close to each other and, paradoxically, that he knew nothing of her present masquerade as a stenographer in Ferguson's office. For masquerade it evidently was, and Kendrick's mind raced along new channels of speculation ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... of their city; Babylon only consented to accept an alien master provided he bowed himself respectfully before its superiority, and was willing to forget that he was a stranger within its gates, and was ready to comply with its laws and masquerade as a Babylonian. Tiglath-pileser III. never dreamt, therefore, of treating the Babylonians as slaves, or of subordinating them to their Assyrian descendants, but left their liberties and territory alike unimpaired. He did not attempt to fuse into a single empire the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... in the night, "with Tarquin's ravishing strides," and disguising his face as if he were thoroughly ashamed of it. The darkness of the scene did not, however, show his real character so much as the masquerade, when he came forward with hideous grin, and made what he considered his bow,—which consisted in thrusting his head forward and bobbing it up and down several times, his body remaining perfectly upright and stiff, like a toy mandarin ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow

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

... grammar that it was impossible to parse it. I should like to know who was responsible in the first place for the expression which has been imposed upon me. It seems to me there is strong presumptive evidence that it was by man himself that man was dubbed mere man. If the lords of creation choose to masquerade sometimes as mere man by ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... the top would be a ragged forager, rigged out in a fur hat of a fashion worn by dandies of a century ago, or a dress-coat which had done service at stylish balls of a former generation. The jibes and jeers, the fun and the practical jokes, ran down the whole line as the cortege came in, and no masquerade in carnival could compare with it for original humor and rollicking enjoyment. ... The camps in the open pine-woods, the bonfires along the railways, the occasional sham battles at night with blazing ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... San Pasqual. She called after him. He turned, waved his hand and continued on—a great fat bow-legged commonplace figure of a man, mopping his high bald forehead—a plain, lowly citizen of uncertain morals; a sordid money-snatcher coming forth from his den of iniquity to masquerade for an hour as the Angel of ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

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

... good example. In it tyranny is veiled so correctly, that there are really great numbers of people who are deceived by this masquerade, and who maintain that what they perceive is a true ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various

... Roman Carnaval. A great deal of wit and repartee takes place among the masks and they are in general extremely well supported, and indeed they ought to be, for there is a great sameness of character assumed at every masquerade, and very little novelty is struck out, except perhaps by some foreigner, who chuses to introduce a national character of his own, which is probably but little, or not at all, understood by the natives, and very often not at all well supported by the foreigner ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... streets are filled with masked persons in groups or alone, who dance, make impudent remarks or otherwise indulge in nonsense, to the special delight of the ubiquitous small boy. The better class celebrate with masquerade balls, where the merry spirit of the Dominican is ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich

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

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

... completeness, almost to illusion. Whatever gloom the Middle Age with its sins and sorrows might have left there, was under gallant disguise to-day. In the train of the young married people, jeunes premiers in an engagement which was to turn out almost as transitory as a stage-play, a long month of masquerade meandered night and day through the public places. His carnality and hers, so startling in their later developments, showed now in fact but as the engaging force of youth, since youth, however unpromising its antecedents, can never have sinned irretrievably. Yet to curious retrospective minds ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater

... routine of life of the community; his letters to his wife (then Sophia Peabody) are somewhat fuller; one can trace several of these passages, artistically metamorphosed, in the romance. The episode of the masquerade picnic is based on fact, and the scene of the recovery of Zenobia's body from the river is a tolerably close reproduction of an event in Concord, in which, several years before, Hawthorne had been ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... hero of the greatest and most typical of English novels, "was among his principles of honor, and he held it as much incumbent on him to accept a challenge to love as if it had been a challenge to fight;" he heroically goes home for the night with a lady of title he meets at a masquerade, though at the time very much in love with the girl whom he eventually marries.[303] The woman whose power lies only in her charms, and who is free to allow the burden of responsibility to fall on a man's shoulder,[304] could lightly play the seducing part, and thereby ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... displayed in their dress; they are attired with costly simplicity; or, if a fond mamma indulges in any little extravagance of childish costume, you see that it is the extravagance of taste; there is no tawdriness, no over-dressing, no little ones in masquerade, they dress appropriately, and, at the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... it? Is it a masquerade, to last for a night, or a reality to be dealt with, with the world's rough passionate handling? It is sad and bad enough; but let us not over-tax our anxieties about it as yet. It is not the sanguinary regime ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... into chat with him. The domino, after a little discourse, in which Emily doubtless distinguished her good nature and easiness more than her wit, began to make violent love to her, and drawing her insensibly to some benches at the lower end of the masquerade room, got her to sit by him, where he squeezed her hands, pinched her cheeks, praised and played with her fine hair, admired her complexion, and all in a style of courtship dashed with a certain oddity, that not comprehending the mystery of, poor Emily attributed to his ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... just in her line. She was like all Yankee women—just a better class of housemaids. This one was very accomplished. She had played the piano exquisitely and had acted the lady to perfection in last night's masquerade. But Hesden must be crazy to call her remarkable. She chuckled lightly as she determined to rally him upon it, when she saw him next. When that time came, the good lady had quite ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... suit with time and place, A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house, A talk of college and of ladies' rights, A feudal knight in silken masquerade, And, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... d'Orleans, himself told the Duc de Penthievre that D'ORLEANS had monopolised all the corn. This communication, and the activity of the Count Fersen, saved France, and Paris in particular, from perishing for the want of bread. Even at the moment of the abominable masquerade, in which Her Majesty's agents were made to appear the enemies who were starving the French people, out of revenge for the checks imposed by them on the royal authority, it was well known to all the Court that both Her Majesty and the King were grieved to the soul at their ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... blasphemies against all faith and love by priest—haters. He saw the circles of wealth, and the circles of poverty, and the abysses underlying both. The "restraining influence" of religion he did not see. That world had no faith. It was a world of mockery and masquerade and pleasure-seeking selfishness, ruled not by religion, but by police; a world into which it were not good that a man ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn

... all day without knowing fatigue. If her flesh still held its girlish curves and softness, the muscles underneath were firm and compact. Often for her own amusement and that of her father she had donned her brother's chaps, his spurs, sombrero, and other paraphernalia, to masquerade about the house in them. She had learned to imitate the long roll of the vaquero's stride, the mannerisms common to his class, and even the heavy voice of a man. More than once she had passed muster as a young man in the shapeless garments she was now wearing. ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... gaieties and music-parties; not so fertile of adventures as that memorable masquerade whence Harriet Byron was carried away; but still I hope that the narrative of what passed there will gratify "the venerable circle." Yesterday I dressed, called a cab, and was whisked away to Hill Street. I found old Marshall's house a very fine one. He ought indeed to have a fine ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... gardens," said the Hon. Tom Dashall, "which you may perhaps have some recollection of upon a masquerade occasion, having lately fallen into new hands, have assumed, under their direction and management, a new appearance of additional splendour and magnificence perhaps scarcely ever surpassed, and the present proprietors appear to have studied the comfort and gratification of their visitors as ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... edge of the wilderness; it was common enough. This struck me as the most reasonable course to pursue—to work our way quietly up the Illinois by night, keeping close in shore to avoid any passing steamer, until we arrived close to Beardstown. There, if necessary, we might begin our masquerade, but it need not be a long one. Undoubtedly there were blacks in the town, both slaves and free negroes, with whom Sam could easily establish an acquaintance. By this means we would soon be able to identify that particular preacher into whose care I hoped to confide ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... indoors with him to waste precious time in breaking bread and eating salt. Suddenly there lurched out of an adjoining doorway an ungainly figure in turban and sandals and the full flower of that grotesque regalia which passes muster at cheap theatres and masquerade balls for the costume of a Cingalese. The fellow had bent forward out of the deeper darkness of the house-passage into the murk and gloom of the ill-lit street, and was straining his eyes as if in search for some ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... on the stage itself—it has an historical signification. Here, by the third side-scene from the stage-lights, to the right, as we look down towards the audience, Gustavus the Third was assassinated at a masquerade; and he was borne into that little chamber there, close by the scene, whilst all the outlets were closed, and the motley group of harlequins, polichinellos, wild men, gods and goddesses with unmasked faces, pale ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen



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



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