"Mummery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that you will hear truth, child? Well, have your way. Will you join us, Nell—the business is a pleasing one, for these knaves have the tricks of their trade. But harkee, friends, give no real heed to the mummery." ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... you turn to your lexicon for the meaning of a word. Of the various definitions given, you disregard all save the one which enables the word to make sense in its present context, or which fits your preconception of what the word should stand for. Having engaged in this solemn mummery, you mentally record the fact that you have been squandering your time, and enter into a compact with yourself that no more will you so do. At best you have tided over a transitory need, or have verified a surmise. You have not truly learned the word, brought it into a vassal's ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... romance; sciamachy[obs3]. sell, pun, verbal quibble, macaronic[obs3]. jargon, fustian, twaddle, gibberish &c (no meaning) 517; exaggeration &c 549; moonshine, stuff; mare's nest, quibble, self-delusion. vagary, tomfoolery, poppycock, mummery, monkey trick, boutade[Fr], escapade. V. play the fool &c. 499; talk nonsense, parler a tort et a travess[Fr]; battre la campagne[Fr][obs3]; <gr/ hanemolia bazein/gr>; be - absurd &c. adj. Adj. absurd, nonsensical, preposterous, egregious, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... The mummery now ceased, and Bunce having been carried elsewhere, the maskers resumed their native apparel, having thrown aside that which had been put on for a distinct purpose. The pedler, in another and more secure department of the robbers' hiding-place, was solaced ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... practices (Sunnat) of the Shafi'i school which, with minor modifications, applies to the other three orthodox. Europe has by this time clean forgotten some tricks of her former bigotry, such as "Mawmet" (an idol!) and "Mahommerie" (mummery[FN315]), a place of Moslem worship: educated men no longer speak with Ockley of the "great impostor Mahomet," nor believe with the learned and violent Dr. Prideaux that he was foolish and wicked enough to dispossess "certain poor orphans, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... mock dignity lasted till Innocents' day; and, during the intermediate time, the boy performed various episcopal functions. If it happened that he died before the allotted period of this extraordinary mummery had expired, he was buried with all the ceremonials which were used at the funerals of prelates. In the voluminous collections relating to antiquities, bequeathed by Mr. Cole, who was himself of Eton and King's colleges, to the British Museum, is a ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... ever wish to adulterate manly piety (the parent of all that is good in the world) with mummery and parade. But we are strange, very strange creatures, and it is better perhaps not to place too much confidence in our reason alone. If anything, there is, perhaps, too little pomp and ceremony in our worship, instead of too much. We quarrelled ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... nonsense. It is pure mummery. Yet it is worth while to know exactly what the means were which in ancient times were relied on for such purposes, and it is not useless to put this matter on record; for just such formulas are believed ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... rotten," he repeated, looking up at her. "All this—the whole thing—the stupidity of it—the society that's driven to these kind of capers, dreading the only thing it ever dreads—ennui! Look at us all! For God's sake, survey us damn fools, herded here in our pinchbeck mummery—forcing the sanctuary of these decent green woods, polluting them with smoke and noise and dirty little intrigues! I'm sick ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... was dragged here to be present at this mummery, to have for my share a hundred pounds to buy mourning, and I vow I'll spend it in Chinese mourning, and wear yellow instead of black. Why don't those men come up instead of sitting smoking in that dining-room and leaving us alone ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... sake of apparent corroboration. Faugh! I have heard Gottlieb make a better address to the jury a thousand times, and yet this man was supposed to be one of the best! Somehow throughout the trial he had seemed to me to be ill at ease and sick of his job, a mere puppet in the mummery going on about us; yet we had no choice but to let him continue his ill-concealed plea for mercy and his wretched rhetoric, until the judge stopped him and said that ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... while I stared back as unwinkingly. His face was a mask, but I thought—as I have thought before and since when at the council fire—that there was amusement in the very blankness of his gaze, and that my effort to outdo him at his own mummery somewhat taxed his gravity. When he spoke at last ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... who was killed by an avalanche in attempting the ascent of Nanga Parbat in the Himalayas, was probably the greatest climber of his day. He was the first, for example, to ascend that most formidable of the Chamonix Aiguilles, the Grepon, where the "Mummery Chimney" still commemorates his achievement. The present volume is one of the great classics of mountaineering, and can be read with delight by those who have never seen anything higher than ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... shepherd's cottage at the corner of the grange. Bless me—here's a modern antique, masquerading in the country!—why a village belle of queen Bess' days, looking as new and as fresh as the young 'squire's lodge, fresh out of the hands of his fancy architect. More mummery! why this gentleman looks as fine and as foolish in his affectation of rugged points and quaint angles, as a staring, white-washed, Gothic villa with the paint not yet dry. Oh! there is certainly no ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... time beginning to feel very tired, as well as distinctly dissatisfied with himself for taking part in all this mummery, noticed vaguely that something out of the common was evidently toward, but he was too thoroughly distrait to even seek an explanation from Motahuana, and he watched, as in a dream, the long procession of priests file out of the building to the accompaniment of an ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... is no paying patient. A poor girl of noble birth who had entered religion and taken her vows, when a gallant appears, meets her secretly in the convent garden, promises to marry her if she will fly with him, indeed does go through some mummery of marriage with her—so she says—and the rest of it. Now he has deserted her and she is in trouble, and what is more, should the priests catch her, likely to learn what it feels like to die by inches in a convent wall. She ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... child as well. And to go through all this mummery that we believe not in, that we have come to this new country to escape! It ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the nation has been corrupted before it; when it labours under the evils of a bad taste, it may safely be concluded that that of the public has been previously vitiated. The truth is evident in the wretched state of dramatic taste in England at this moment, where, corrupted by the spectacles and mummery of the Italian opera, by the rage for preternatural agency acquired from the reading of ghost novels and romances, and by the introduction of German plays or translations, the people can relish nothing but melo-drame, show, extravagant incident, stage effect ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... feeling, knew not how to form itself into utterance at all, and preferred formless silence to any utterance there possible,—what should we say of a man coming forward to represent or utter it for you in the way of upholsterer-mummery? Such a man,—let him depart swiftly, if he love himself! You have lost your only son; are mute, struck down, without even tears: an importunate man importunately offers to celebrate Funeral Games for him in the manner of the Greeks! Such mummery is not only not to be accepted,—it ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... going to hang me after all," he said to himself; "then what, in Our Lady's name, means this strange mummery, and how comes that ill-favoured maiden to look at me as if her ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... of Christ, as the highest standard and example, means something or it means nothing. If something, let us try to follow it; but if nothing, then for God's sake let us put it away as a cruel, delusive, and damnable mummery!" ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... of course I've known I'd no business hanging on the skirt of Mason and Dixon's line this way. I might almost as well be in my office at home—tackling the pile of work that's been rolling up while I go on with this invalid's mummery.... Well, Heber's found me out, as of course the clever beggar would. He's been thinking, you see, that I was in Pineburst, at the least. I had a red-headed telegram from him this afternoon ordering me to move on to Palm Beach instanter, or he would ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Being among the Indians is called Manitou; but He can scarcely be said to be worshipped by them, and the few ideas they have of His attributes are imperfect and erroneous. Indeed, no religious rites exist among them, unless the unmeaning mummery of the medicine tent can be looked upon as such. Of late years, however, missionaries, both of the Church of England and the Wesleyans, have exerted themselves to spread the Christian religion among these ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... replied, with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders, 'he has always said he was madly in love with me, and I quite believe it. Poor young man, if this mummery were to console him for the rest of his life, why should I not indulge ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... their breath, and gazed steadfastly at the speaker. To hear of sin and the cross was not new to them, for they had been at churches sometimes at holy days; but it was all a mummery and spectacle, with which the priests alone seemed to have to do. The truths now uttered were assuredly gaining some entrance into ...
— The Woodcutter of Gutech • W.H.G. Kingston
... Harlequin in these pantomimical scenes, we may be delighted by the numerous human characters, which are so vividly presented to us. The origin of this extraordinary invention is supposed to be a favourite pageant, or religious mummery, invented by the clergy, who in these ages of barbarous Christianity always found it necessary to amuse, as well as to frighten the populace; a circumstance well known to have occurred in so many ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... so far back as the reign of Richard II; when the mayor, as folks told one another with pride, had plucked a mass-priest by the vestment on the way to the altar in All Saints' Church, and had made him give over his mummery till the preacher had ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... will rise up to oppose the new views, which, I confess, to be sustained in their main features by my own views and researches here on the ground and in the midst of the Indians, and men will rise to sustain the old views—the original literary mummery and philological hocus-pocus based on the papers and letters and blunders of Heckewelder. There was a great predisposition to admire and overrate everything relative to Indian history and language, as detailed by this good and sincere missionary in his retirement ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... particular men; one would not find them in such a noisome hole. This Carew must be some rough renegade. Perhaps he was not even white; perhaps he was a half-caste. That would explain his choice of lodgings. One would think from all the secret mummery with which he surrounded himself that he was the Mikado, himself. He certainly was not very ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... believe it; but in her heart she felt that it must be true. As for Thorbeorn, who had heard it all through the wall, whatever he may have thought, he was very indignant, and angry with her too. "Put such mummery out of your head. We are not Christians for nothing, I should hope. A scandalous hag with her bell-wether voice and airs of a great lady! What has she to do with good women, well brought up? A woman's duty is to leave match-making to her parents, and the future to God and His ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... away our shrines of pride— Think'st thou with all their wondrous spells even they Would triumph thus, had not the constant play Of Wit's resistless archery cleared their way?— That mocking spirit, worst of all the foes, Our solemn fraud, our mystic mummery knows, Whose wounding flash thus ever 'mong the signs Of a fast-falling creed, prelusive shines, Threatening such change as do the awful freaks Of summer ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... nation. It is this same taste, which, in that solemn commemoration of the death of their king, the service solennel for Louis XVI. contrived to introduce a species of affected parade,—a detailed and theatrical sort of grief,—a kind of meretricious mummery of sorrow, which banished all the feelings, and almost completely destroyed the impression which such a scene in any other country would inevitably have produced. Any thing, it may be easily imagined, which gratifies this general taste for public ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... employed in the public houses to comment on newspapers, written for the purpose to blacken the King and exalt the patriotism of the party who have dethroned him. Much use has likewise been made of the advances of the Prussians towards Champagne, and the usual mummery of ceremony has not been wanting. Robespierre, in a burst of extemporary energy, previously studied, has declared the country in danger. The declaration has been echoed by all the departments, and proclaimed to the people with much solemnity. We were not behind ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... owed to the sublime magnanimity of their victim—well knowing his own continual danger, but refusing to evade it by any arts of tyranny or distrust—when they had gone through their little scenic mummery of swaggering with their daggers—cutting '5,' '6' and 'St. George,' and 'giving point'—they had come to the end of the play. Exeunt omnes: vos plaudite. Not a step further had they projected. And, staring wildly upon each other, they began to mutter, 'Well, what are you up to next?' We believe ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... he sat there in the twilight made by the shaded electric lamps, the struggle rose in his heart against the admission of anything into his scheme of life but material things, and the conflict raged unchecked. What a silliness, he said, to think that the mummery of a woman over a rose could affect a life. Life is what the succession of the days brings. The thing is or is not, he said to himself, and the gibber about prayer and the moral force that moves the universe is for the weak-minded. So he ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... hearts beat more quickly. Look at the sunshine! It's brighter when we're so close together. What of life? It's soon gone—and then? What of convention that says 'no'? It's but a farce that gives the same thing we ask—at the price of a few words of mummery. Our strongest instincts of nature call for each other. Why shouldn't we obey them when we wish?" She hesitated, and her voice became tender. "We would be very ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... you imagine that citizen Schneider has not thrown off the absurd mummery of priesthood? If you were a little older you would go to prison for calling him Father Schneider—many a man has died for less;" and he pointed to a picture of a guillotine, which was hanging in ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... done with this masquerading folly. Speak out plainly. That mummery is at an end. Why are we in ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... that old woman, Barbara Trond, whom we met out on the heath on the day of the storm some time back. I saw her only a week ago in Antwerp. Soon after the Duke Alva arrived, she returned to Antwerp; but, instead of selling wax tapers and other Popish mummery, finding her calling of sorceress and witch answer so well in the country, she now pursues it in the city. Nothing takes place with which she is not acquainted. The credulity of the Romanists is unbounded, and she finds it pay her ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the hangman blunted with mangling the ears of harmless men. Then our very minds were fettered, and the iron entered into our souls. Then we were compelled to hide our hatred, our sorrow, and our scorn, to laugh with hidden faces at the mummery of Laud, to curse under our breath the tyranny of Wentworth. Of old time it was well and nobly said, by one of our kings, that an Englishman ought to be as free as his thoughts. Our prince reversed the maxim; he strove to make our thoughts as much ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... perturbed and fear-wrinkled face. Then she said quickly: "I don't know that I owe Grant Adams anything but—you children do—" She did not complete her sentence, but burst out: "I don't care for Tom Van Dorn's court, his grand folderol and mummery of the law. He's going to send a man to death to-night because his masters demand it. And we must stop it—you ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... of a skeleton, blackened by age; a necklace of teeth from some animal's jaw; worthless trifles for the mummery of the priests. Then, beneath them, he saw two great fangs, a foot in length. They were curved, sharply pointed and yellow ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... people, the folk, has supplied us, in its unconscious way, with the stuff of all our poetry, law, ritual: and genius has selected from the mass, has turned customs into codes, nursery tales into romance, myth into science, ballad into epic, magic mummery into gorgeous ritual. The world has been educated, but not as man would have trained and taught it. "He led us by a way we knew not," led, and is leading us, we know not whither; we follow ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... his journey to Salern, And the lovesick girl, whose heated brain Is sowing the cloud to reap the rain; But it's a long road that has no turn! Let them quietly hold their way, I have also a part in the play. But first I must act to my heart's content This mummery and this merriment, And drive this motley flock of sheep Into the fold, where drink and sleep The jolly old friars of Benevent. Of a truth, it often provokes me to laugh To see these beggars hobble along, Lamed and maimed, and fed upon chaff, ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... room together, in a hundred several postures and figures, to no purpose, and with no design; and therefore dancing was invented first, and only practised anciently, in the ceremonies of the heathen religion, which consisted all in mummery and madness; the latter being the chief glory of the worship, and accounted divine inspiration. This, I say, a severe man would think, though I dare not determine so far against so customary a part now of good breeding. And yet, who is there among our gentry that does not entertain a dancing ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... country's fond applauses swell'd, Thrust himself forward into power, and held The reins on principles which he alone, Grown drunk and wanton with success, could own; 200 Betray'd her interest and abused her trust; Then, deaf to prayers, forsook her in disgust; With tragic mummery, and most vile grimace, Rode through the city with a woful face, As in distress, a patriot out of place! Insults his generous prince, and in the day Of trouble skulks, because he cannot sway! In foreign climes embroils him with allies, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... capital, and notable among other things for its magnificent ancient stained-glass windows, and the handsome modern tomb of the popular Remois saint. It was here in the middle ages that that piece of priestly mummery, the procession of the herrings, used to take place at dusk on the Wednesday before Easter. Preceded by a cross the canons of the church marched in double file up the aisles, each trailing a cord after him, with a herring attached. ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... stage, and before my dazzled eyes could accustom themselves to the footlights, I found myself enmeshed in intolerable drama. I was unprepared. I knew my part imperfectly. I missed my cues. I had the blighting self-consciousness of the amateur. And yet the idiot mummery was intensely real. Amid the laughter of the silent shadowy gods I thought to flee from the stage. I came to Verona and find I am still acting my part. I have always been acting. I have been acting since I was born. The reason of our being is to amuse ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... it nothing that a man had been compelled to make all those ridiculous declarations? Children to be brought up Catholics! Wife not to be influenced! Even to keep an open mind himself to all the muss and mummery of ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... least with hopeful proof Of some sincerity on the giver's part; Or be dishonoured in the exterior form And mode of its conveyance, by such tricks As move derision, or by foppish airs And histrionic mummery, that let down The pulpit to the level of the stage; Drops from the lips a disregarded thing. The weak perhaps are moved, but are not taught, While prejudice in men of stronger minds Takes deeper root, confirmed ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... Before God at that moment he was his father's son. If the world, or the world's law, said otherwise, then they were of the devil, and deserving to be damned. What rite, what jabbering ceremony, what priestly ordinance, what legal mummery, stood between him and his claim ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... penitential robe, heading the procession through the mire and over the stones of Paris, from shrine to shrine, was the dainty King whom I had beheld in sumptuous raiment in the gallery of the Louvre. The Duke of Anjou, who wore ordinary attire, seemed to take to this mummery like a bear, ready to growl at any moment. His demeanor was all that the King's gentlemen could have needed as a subject for their ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... antiquarian, and amuses himself with things of this sort. In old times there really was a hermit here, and this is his effigy. Come down these narrow stairs, if you please, and see the rest of the mummery." ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... morbid sensibilities pandered to; firmness in the cause of truth or virtue is called obstinacy; and strength of soul, a refractory blindness. The bases of morality are sapped in the name of liberty; the discipline of the Church, when not branded as sheer "mummery," is held up as hostile to personal freedom; and her dogmas, with one or two exceptions, are treated as opinions which may be received or rejected with ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... must be terrible. Should he never have his reason again, I shall never forgive myself. That Whirlwind would adhere to so ridiculous a farce is not to be wondered at; but that we, born and bred among a civilized nation, educated, and with claims to intelligence and refinement, should consent to such mummery, is ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... wi' oaths for all I ken; but ye'll no come into my hoose! An' you, Sir, a blind leader o' the blind, a disciple o' Beelzebub, wi' y'r Babylonish idolatries, wi' y'r incense that fair stinks in the nostrils o' decent folk, wi' y'r images and mummery and crossin' o' y'rsel', wi' y'r pagan, popish practises, wi' y'r skirts and petticoats, I'll no hae ye on my premises, no, not an' ye leave y'r religion outside! An' you, Meester Hamilton, a respectable Protestant, I'm fair surprised to see ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... prevails in the religious sentiments of the people. They have lost all respect for the clergy, calling them bottégaie, shopkeepers, as mindful only of the gains of their trade; and the churches bottége, shops. There is no vitality in the religion of the people, the services are a mere mummery, and the system is held together principally by the attractions of the popular festas, such as those described in a former chapter as scenes of bacchanalian revelry tricked out in the paraphernalia of religion. ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... the North. If that be your object, the son of the Red Axe is with you—with you to the death, if need be. But for God's sake let us take off these masks and set ourselves down to the tankard and the good brown bread with less mummery—a sham of which others ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... dresses. As soon as she perceived things growing very serious, she hastily stripped off the upper garments we wore to represent our different characters. I think I should have died with shame, if the child had led me into the drawing-room in the mummery I had worn to represent a nurse. This good lady was of another essential service to me; for perceiving an irresolution in every one how they should behave to us, which distressed me very much, she contrived to place miss Lesley above me at table, and called her miss Lesley, ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... work, of course—I have done it for five years. I could have looked after the estate and the people. But the money, the paraphernalia, the hordes of servants, the mummery of the life! Why, Julie, should we be forced into it? What happiness—I ask you—what happiness can it ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... may consider this as a piece of mummery. At the time I did not. As a good Catholic, which I was at that time, and a pretty Frenchwoman, I thought that nothing could be more correct than the decoration des belles. I believe that it has always been the custom to name bells—to consecrate ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... town, and find your letter, with the notification of Lord Cowper's marriage; I recollect that I ought to be sorry for it, as you will probably lose an old friend. The approaching death of the Pope will be an event of no consequence. That old mummery is near its conclusion, at least as a political object. The history of the latter Popes will be no more read than that of the last Constantinopolitan Emperors. Wilkes is a more conspicuous personage in modern story than the Pontifex ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... visible. All the statues, the carved and painted tombs, all the curious little model boats and workshops, all the painted mummies, all the amulets, the scarabs, the little funerary statuettes,—all this mummery which seems to be so characteristic and so essential, is only the means to an end, and an ever changing means to secure a successful comfortable existence of the spirit in the life after death,—in the ghostly duplicate ...
— The Egyptian Conception of Immortality • George Andrew Reisner
... there must be an end to that mummery. Ye shall pray in spirit and in truth, and not in words ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... could have induced Scott to write novels tending to make people Papists and Jacobites, and in love with arbitrary power? Did he think that Christianity was a gaudy mummery? He did not, he could not, for he had read the Bible; yet was he fond of gaudy mummeries, fond of talking about them. Did he believe that the Stuarts were a good family, and fit to govern a country like Britain? He knew that they were ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Sunday, he attended the services at the Sistine Chapel, which he found rather tedious, with much mummery. Going from there to the cancellerie he ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... it had been placed),[179] did not immediately become a member of the family in the religious sense, and was liable to be vexed by evil or mischievous spirits from the wild woodland, or, as they phrased it in later days, by Silvanus. I have already alluded to the curious bit of mummery which was meant to keep them off. Three men at night came to the threshold and struck it with an axe, a pestle, and a besom, so that "by these signs of agriculture Silvanus might be prevented from entering." The hostile spirits were thus denied entrance to a ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... garbs, that they looked like the fantastic figures that roam the streets in carnival time. Even the stately dames who gazed from the balconies, which they had hung with antique tapestry, looked more like effigies dressed up for a quaint mummery, than like ladies in their fashionable attire. Every thing, in short, bore the stamp of former ages, as if the world had suddenly rolled back a few centuries. Nor was this to be wondered at. Had not the Island of the Seven Cities been for ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... the various ceremonies of Holy Week at Rome, a philosophic mind will take a general review of them: and this question will very naturally suggest itself: What judgment ought I to form concerning them? am I to consider them as mummery, or superstition, or idolatry, as many most confidently pronounce, who are unacquainted with their nature, their origin, and their meaning; and at the same time are little accustomed from early infancy to any language ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... complete knowledge of the occult learning of the adepts of India, that nebulous and mysterious philosophy which irreducible to the laws of nature as recognized by Occidentals, is by them pronounced either magic and feared as such, or ridiculed and despised as pretentious mummery and deluding prestidigitation. There was a legend among the students of his department that he was wont to project himself into the fourth dimension and thus traveling downtown, effect a substantial saving of street-car fare. This is clearly impossible, for the yogis do not thus move about in ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... fairer day had traced that radiant month of June and no more splendid pageantry had adorned the illustrious reign of the new Grand Constable. Mimic battles, fountains running wine, free doles of food, fantastic pageants, grotesque dances, all the gorgeous mummery that the fifteenth century delighted in was offered in profusion to please the fancy and win the hearts of the people of Paris. But the crowning triumph was the great festival which the Grand Constable ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... most impressive; the bereaved kittens were loud in their grief; when, suddenly, the village-bell tolled for the death of an old gentleman whom everybody loved, and the comedy became a tragedy. The older children were conscience-stricken at the mummery, and they ran, demoralized and shocked, into the house, leaving The Boy and the kittens behind them. Jane Purdy tripped over her veil, and one of the kittens was stepped on in the crush. But The Boy proceeded with ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... healed. It had given trouble—the Caribs poisoned their darts—but now it was well. But they are simpler minded than we, this folk, and I read Guacanagari that he must impress the returning gods with his fidelity. He had proved it, and while Juan Lepe was by he did not need this mummery, but he had thought that he might need. So, a big man evidently healthful, he sighed and winced and half closed his eyes as though half dying still in that old contest when he had stood by the people from the sky. I interpreted ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... who understood pretty well how to handle their instruments; then came halberdiers, and some armed with cross-bows. The principal person in the procession was a priest. Astonished at what he saw, the Councillor asked what was the meaning of all this mummery, and who that ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... of such love but never hoped for it, and now all the pretty tricks she had thought of had become as the mummery of fools. She sat in silence for a little space, her eyes upon her girdle, and a new and serious look ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... rational man," it may be said, "would ever think of dressing up a figure to represent the devil, for the purpose of frightening young girls into obedience? And those absurd threats! Surely no sane man, and certainly no Christian teacher, would ever stoop to such senseless mummery!" ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... a space in the alcoholic fog. He saw the expression on the girl's face and understood what it signified, that it was the reflected pattern of his own. He shut his eyes and groped for the wall to steady himself, wondering if this bit of mummery would get over. ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... to say much about the smashed crockery of the lawyers. I intended to touch upon the exploded claim that clients are their slaves, witnesses theirs for vivisection, courts their playthings, and juries their dupes. More mummery has thrived in law than in even medicine or theology. The disenchanting and discriminating tendency of a realistic age has, however, somewhat reformed the bar. Fluency, without force, is discounted in our courts. The merely smart practitioner finds his measure ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... felt. She kept her eye on a certain female who had a remote dusky corner to pray in, and the moment she retired from it, this young creature went up and there knelt down. But what a contrast to the calm, unconscious, and insipid mummery which went on at the moment through the whole room! Her prayer was short, and she had neither book nor beads; but the heavings of her bosom, and her suppressed sobs, sufficiently proclaimed her sincerity. Her petition, indeed, seemed to go to heaven from a broken heart. When ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... thinking it true, I look upon it as one of the greatest follies which exist among men; and to consider things from a philosophical point of view, I don't know of a more absurd piece of mummery, of anything more ridiculous, than a man who takes upon himself to cure ...
— The Imaginary Invalid - Le Malade Imaginaire • Moliere
... love had grown for these kindly, simple folk. And now, what would he not have given could he have stretched forth his hands, as did the Master, to heal them of their ills and lift them out of the shadows of ignorance! Ah, if he could have thrown aside the mummery and pagan ceremonialism which he was there to conduct, and have sat down among them, as Jesus was wont to do on those still mornings in Galilee! Instead, he stood before them an apostate vassal of Rome, hypocritically using the Church ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... "Lincoln"; (3) drop the hand open at the side and say "Loyal"; (4) catch the thumb in the vest or in the waistband and pronounce "League." This ceremony of initiation proved a most effective means of impressing and controlling the Negro through his love and fear of secret, mysterious, and midnight mummery. An oath taken in daylight might be forgotten before the next day; not so an oath taken in the dead of night under such impressive circumstances. After passing through the ordeal, the Negro ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... poor old Scotland; her own jurisprudence, as I have heard, was much milder. But I suppose one day or other—when there are no longer any wild Highlanders to benefit by its tender mercies—they will blot it from their records as levelling them with a nation of cannibals. The mummery, too, of exposing the senseless head—they have not the wit to grace mine with a paper coronet; there would be some satire in that, Edward. I hope they will set it on the Scotch gate though, that I may look, even after death, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... before. Once more He saw the pitiful slaughter of the innocent lambs, and witnessed the flow of the sacrificed blood over the altars and the stones of the floor of the courts. Once more He saw the senseless mummery of the priestly ceremonies, which seemed more pitiful than ever to His developed mind. He knew that His vision had shown that He was to be slaughtered even as the sacrificial lambs, and there arose in His mind ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... those whom he addressed, adhering thereby to the manners of the Saxons, from whom he drew his descent, and which was likely to be at least unpleasing to the Franks as well as Normans, who had already received and become very tenacious of the privileges of the feudal system, the mummery of heraldry, and the warlike claims assumed by knights, as belonging ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... such mummery!' cried Sergius, suddenly arousing from his spiritual stupor and bursting into a shrill laugh. 'Do we care to listen to your miserable dactyls? Is it not a standing jest through Rome that, for the past month, you have daily read your verses to one person after another, with the same ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Midst of all this mummery, intelligence was brought in that the Egyptian army was within two hours' march of them. The disorder that ensued was dreadful. The hungry soldiers dragged themselves in masses to meet the Arabs. The latter waited for them, with their front masked by light troops, presenting twenty-seven ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... grew dark with an infinite pain. His thoughts always fled back to his Dream of Al-Kyris, with a tendency to draw comparisons between the Past and the Present. The religion of that long-buried city had been mere mummery and splendid outward show, —what was the religion of London? He ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... of Comte was insufficient, the folly of Comte was wisdom. In an age of dusty modernity, when beauty was thought of as something barbaric and ugliness as something sensible, he alone saw that men must always have the sacredness of mummery. He saw that while the brutes have all the useful things, the things that are truly human are the useless ones. He saw the falsehood of that almost universal notion of to-day, the notion that rites and forms are something artificial, additional, ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Chaldean priests, which he modified in his own poetical brain, and preserved a remnant of polytheism. The disciples of Plato, such as Proclus, Ammonius, Jamblicus. Plotinus, Longinus, Porphyrus, and others, dressed it up still more fantastically, added a great deal of superstitious mummery, blended it with magic, and other unintelligible doctrines. The first doctors of Christianity were Platonists, who combined the reformed Judaism with the philosophy taught in Academia. Mahomet, in combating the polytheism of his country, seems to have been desirous of restoring ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... half were thus employed, with some intermixture of prayers and reading of Scriptures; and, being almost congealed with cold, I thought it would never come to an end. The spirit of my Puritan ancestors was mighty within me, and I did not wonder at their being out of patience with all this mummery, which seemed to me worse than papistry because it was a corruption of it. At last a canon gave out the text, and preached a sermon about twenty minutes long,—the coldest, driest, most superficial rubbish; for this gorgeous setting of the magnificent cathedral, ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... lain in the Compter about a week, on the 4th of February, Bonner came to degrade him, bringing with him such ornaments as appertained to the massing mummery; but the Doctor refused these trappings till they were ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... busy censer boys in white gowns; the flaring candles casting long shadows athwart the high altar; the files of soldiers kneeling and rising at the tap of the drum; the atmosphere clouded with the fumes of burning incense,—all combined to make up a singularly dramatic picture. The gross mummery witnessed at the temple of Buddha in Ceylon differed only in form, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... The wind fell and all nature lay hushed and expectant, waiting for the rain. The cattle would not feed; the bearded ravens sat voiceless against the cliffs; the gaunt trees and shrubs seemed to hold up their arms—for the rain that did not come. For after all its pomp and mummery, its black mantle that covered all the sky and the bravery of its trailing skirts, the Storm, that rode in upon the wind like a king, slunk away at last like a beaten craven. Its black front melted suddenly, and its draggled banners, ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... me of the superstitions of the high Barbary shore rushed into my mind, and I thought they were acting them over here; above all, the idea that the sweet young ladies, to say nothing of my poor old governor, were, after the conclusion of all this mummery, going to deliver themselves up body and soul into the power of that horrid-looking old man, maddened me, and, rushing forward into the open space, I confronted the horrible-looking old figure with the sugar-loaf hat, the sulphur-coloured garments, and shepherd's crook, and shaking ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... "Die Geburt Christi," performed in Hamburg in 1681. The birth of Christ and His childhood (there was an operatic representation of His presentation in the Temple) were subjects which appealed more to the writers of the rude plays which catered to the popular love for dramatic mummery than did His crucifixion. I am speaking now more specifically of lyric dramas, but it is worthy of note that in the Coventry mysteries, as Hone points out in the preface to his book, "Ancient Mysteries Described," [Footnote: "Ancient Mysteries Described, especially ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... citizens for disport of the young prince, Richard, son of the Black Prince, in the feast of Christmas, in this manner: On the Sunday before Candlemas, in the night, one hundred and thirty citizens, disguised, and well horsed, in a mummery, with sound of trumpets, sack-butts, cornets, shalmes, and other minstrels, and innumerable torchlights of wax, rode from Newgate, through Cheap, over the bridge, through Southwark, and so to Kennington beside Lambhith, ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... My cousin, said he, must i' faith be in some sort his cousin, since Kate, who was his cousin, also spoke of me as one. I told him nay, but that thou wert cousin only on my mother's side; but he laughed, and would not listen, and bid me fetch thee, that he might place thee well to see the mummery. So come with me, fair cousin, for we must ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... and indeed exhibited, some disgust at this mummery; but, the Templar reminding him that he was too far advanced to draw back, he repeated the words, or rather assented as they were repeated by Duke Hildebrod, who concluded the ceremony by allowing him the privilege of sanctuary, in the following ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... nor shall I take the trouble of trying. To set to guessing about it, were as bad as seeing the whole mummery over again." ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... failure of these experiments, I wished to see what sort of mummery my magician would practise if I called upon him to show me some performances of a higher order than those which had been attempted. I therefore entered into a treaty with him, in virtue of which ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... Why, man, it's diabolical! To warp and imprison a girl like that! To think of that bewitching creature as a common trickster—appalls me. And to think that good people, millions of them, believe in such mummery! It is incredible!" ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... Such religious mummery as this is painful to witness, and to see the saint borne round in procession, with men carrying candles, and white-clad girls with large birds' wings fastened to their shoulders, dispels the idea of ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... to your help, but I knew you were amply able to take care of yourself. I was sure you would worst the duke in some way. It was better than a mummery, and I was glad to see it. I do not ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... thoughts, or greatest secret. [A Romish missionary must, with a very bad grace, blame the Jugglers, for what himself makes such a point of religion in his auricular confession. Even the appellation of Juggler is not amiss applicable to those of their craft, considering all their tricks and mummery not a whit superior to those of these poor savages, in the eyes of common-sense. Who does not know, that the low-burlesque word of Hocus-pocus, is an humorous corruption of their Hoc est corpus ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... form itself into utterance at all, and preferred formless silence to any utterance there possible—what should we say of a man coming forward to represent or utter it for you in the way of upholsterer-mummery? Such a man—let him depart swiftly, if he love himself! You have lost your only son; are mute, struck down, without even tears: an importunate man importunately offers to celebrate Funeral Games for him in the manner of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... of the old priest and the people were in some measure incomprehensible to Captain Cook; but it is certain that, in bearing a prominent part in the mummery just narrated, he must have been aware that he was encouraging heathen idolatry and hero-worship in its grossest forms. It is not to be supposed that he was acquainted with the legend of Rono; but the conduct of the people must have shown him their utter debasement, and he can scarcely ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... her a myth, the crucifix a vague superstition, prayer a mere unmeaning mummery. But the kisses were tangible and ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... thy face should ever rest before mine eye. 'Twas a mask that memory might fill, serving to fashion out thy presence from the past, and give it strength to wander in the habitations of my thought, clad in a mummery of life that stayed my appetite with visions of ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... he now do? Archbishop thereupon gives absolution of his sins; Archbishop does,—a baddish, unlikely kind of man, as August well knows. August "laid his hand on his eyes," during such sad absolution-mummery; and in that posture had breathed his last, before it was well over. ["Sunday, 1st February, 1733, quarter past 4 A.M." (Fassmann, Leben Frederici Augusti Konigs in Pohlen, pp. 994-997).] Unhappy soul; who shall judge him?—transcendent King of edacious Flunkies; not without fine qualities, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... City, and that any wearing the furbelows of Rome should ever enter thereat could only come of God's exceeding mercy; for himself, it must always be a duty to cry aloud to such to strip themselves clean of their mummery, and do works ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... swam round Morris. 'What—what's that?' he cried, grasping the table. He was miserably conscious the next moment of his shrill tongue and ashen face. 'What do you mean—it will not be presented? Why am I to take care? What is all this mummery?' ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... and of "reducing" it, seems at first glance bothersome and complicated, it is only a childishly easy performance in the way of making a square of seven rows of seven cards, and then of making the rows only three cards deep, at most! Crazy superstition and the aim at mummery have added the details of process that seem tedious. And, really, they are not ineffective in ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... pickpockets to count their gains during the last heat. The attention so recently strained on one object of interest, was now divided among a hundred; and look where you would, there was a motley assemblage of feasting, laughing, talking, begging, gambling, and mummery. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... which animals represent men, "full of broad rustic mirth, inexhaustible in comic devices, a world Saturnalia, where wolves tonsured into monks and nigh starved by short commons, foxes pilgrimaging to Rome for absolution, cocks pleading at the judgment-bar, make strange mummery." The principal characters are Isengrim the wolf and Reynard the fox, the former representing strength incarnated in the baron and the latter representing cunning incarnated in the Church, and the strife for ascendency between the two one in which, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... crowds of figures assembled round the chapel moving about in the obscurity of the aisles and columns, produced the most striking effect I ever beheld. It was curious, interesting, and inspiring—little of mummery and much of solemnity. The night here brings out fresh beauties, but of the most majestic character. There is a colour in an Italian twilight that I have never seen in England, so soft, and beautiful, and grey, and the moon ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... cannot keep the tears in her eye. Such ones do love the marvellous too well Not to believe it. We will wind her up 35 With a strange music, that she knows not of, With fumes of frankincense, and mummery— Then leave, as one sure token of his death, That portrait, which from off the dead man's neck I bade thee take, the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... now wear a silk hat. I shall have to fetch beer and spirits for the journeymen, and they will call me 'thou,' which will be an insult. I shall endure it, however, for I shall look upon it all as a mere representation, a masquerade, a mummery, which to-morrow, that is, when I myself as a journeyman, shall have served my time, will vanish, and I shall go my way, and all that has passed will be nothing to me. Then I shall enter the academy, and get instructed in drawing, and ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... With more barbaric mummery, flummery and vulgar waste of wealth than characterized even the late Marlborough- Vanderbilt wedding, Nicholas Two-Eyes was crowned Emperor of the rag-tag and bob-tail of creation, officially known as "all the Russias." Nick has a nice easy job at a salary considerably in excess ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Mere mummery, a laugh to raise! Pray don't be so fastidious! She But as a leech, her hocus-pocus plays, That well with you her potion may agree. (He compels FAUST ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... charmed circle of New Orleans society—that lively, sparkling epitome and relic of the old regime. He has good letters and a fair name, and mingles in the Mystick Krewe, that curious club, possible nowhere else, that has raised mummery into the sphere of aesthetics. Perhaps he has worn the gray, perhaps the blue. It is only in the very arcana of exclusive passion it makes much difference. But gray or blue, or North or South in birth, he is in every essential a Southerner, as many, like S.S. Prentiss, curiously independent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... arras? If so, we will ascend to the drawing-rooms and gallery. But stay a moment and permit this lady and oddly-dressed gentleman to pass us on their exit from the gallery, where they have been rehearsing some charming entertainment for the evening, or getting up some piece of fanciful mummery to amuse the idle guests who have congregated around the garden fountain. [Picture: Couple exiting from gallery] The light is not favourable for seeing all the pictures that deserve inspection on the staircase—you had better ascend; ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... play! Must men stand here like whipped curs until a slave commands us enter? Come! Who'll follow me past that door? I'll know what lies behind this mummery if I choke it from old Jabez's ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... been the craft of Courtiers, for the purpose of keeping up an expensive and enormous Civil List, and a mummery of useless and antiquated places and offices at the public expence, to be continually hanging England upon some individual or other, called King, though the man might not have capacity to be a parish constable. The folly and absurdity of this, is appearing ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... The mummery of it vexed Margaret. There was no excuse for his looking at her in that way. It irritated her. She was almost as angry with him for doing it as she would have been for not ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... affected to despise the mummery, he felt a curious freedom and naturalness in his movements as the blue and gold garment fell about him; and when he found that he had to wear a sword, it stirred a boyish dream. As he passed out of the room he flung the folds ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... claim it for himself. To right himself, Steele wrote a light-hearted comedy, 'The Funeral', or 'Grief a la Mode'; but at the core even of that lay the great earnestness of his censure against the mockery and mummery of grief that should be sacred; and he blended with this, in the character of Lawyer Puzzle, a protest against mockery of truth and justice by the intricacies of the law. The liveliness of this comedy made Steele popular with the wits; ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... in a stirrup and, still holding the bridle, he was dragged some distance before he got it loose. He struggled to his feet and tried to keep the mule from running away, when a violent kick released his hold and knocked him out. We immediately set up our little "Mummery" tent on the hot, sandy floor of the desert and rendered first-aid to the unlucky astronomer. We found that the sharp point of one of the vicious mule's new shoes had opened a large vein in Mr. Hinckley's leg. The cut was not dangerous, but too deep for successful mountain climbing. ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... Richard. "That's funny." He broke into a storm of laughter which ended as abruptly as it began, ended from a sudden realisation that all this folly and mummery was a real and solid effort to compass his escape. "Wait a bit," he said, rubbing his brow fiercely. "It's coming back. I see the idea. Bless you, for trying. We'll ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... cause specific diseases. This fact has rendered more intimate the relations between dentistry and the general practice of medicine, and has given a powerful impetus to scientific studies in dentistry. Through the researches of Sir J. Tomes, Mummery, Hopewell Smith, Williams and others in England, O. Hertwig, Weil and Rse in Germany, Andrews, Sudduth and Black in America, the minute anatomy and embryology of the dental tissues have been worked out with great fulness and precision. In particular, it has been ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... disappointing,-though the mummery has some general characteristics that are not unpicturesquel—for example, the predominance of crimson and canary-yellow in choice of color, and a marked predilection for pointed hoods and high- peaked head-dresses, Mock religious costumes also form a striking element in the general ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... a sect formed in 1844 by secession from the Catholic Church of Germany, under the leadership of Johann Ronge, on account of the mummery under papal patronage connected with the exhibition of the Holy Coat of Treves and the superstitious influence ascribed ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... river. His back was no sooner turned, than Ferret, who had been peeping from behind the pantry-door, ventured to rejoin the company; pronouncing with a smile, or rather grin, of contempt, "Hey-day! what precious mummery is this? What, are we to have the farce of Hamlet's ghost?" "Adzooks," cried the captain, "My kinsman Tom has dropped astern—hope in God a-has not bulged to, and gone to bottom." "Pish," exclaimed the misanthrope, "there's no danger; the ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... distributed with all the ancient forms of celebrating the sacrifice of the altar, which he says, "are so noble, so just, sublime, and perfectly harmonious, that the change has been made to an unspeakable disadvantage." It was restoring the decorations and the mummery of the mass! He assumed even a higher tone, and dispersed medals, like those of Louis XIV., with the device of a sun near the meridian, and a motto, Ad summa, with an inscription expressive of the genius of this new adventurer, Inveniam viam ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... move was as deliberate as he could make it, although he was careful to avoid the least suggestion of mummery (for then the crowd would have suspected disloyalty to Islam, and the "Hills" are very, very pious, and very suspicious ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... with treating the prince with marked disrespect; and the latter likewise taxed him with the design of converting the monarchy into a republic, with a regent, annually elected, nominally at its head. Against the regency bill he burst into a paroxysm of rage. He exclaimed, "It is a mere mummery, a piece of masquerade buffoonery, formed to burlesque every species of government. A hideous spectre, to which, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... levelled pikes, but at a motion from the Seigneur his men fell back before them, and, making a lane, disclosed Michel de la Foret at the end of it. Michel had not approved of Lempriere's mummery of defence, but he understood from what good spirit it sprung, and how it flattered the Seigneur's vanity ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the acts which he contributed to 'The Tragedie of Tancred and Gismunda, compiled by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple, and by them presented before her majestie;' and he was one of the chief actors in that ponderous and extravagant mummery with which the Inner Temple kept Christmas in the fourth ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... There are no hilarious songs in this prelude such as were heard from the crests of the Blue Ridge when Spotswood's horsemen came up from the other side. It has to me the atmosphere and movement of some Greek tragedy, though one writer likens it to mediaval mummery. Perhaps it is only a knowledge of its import and the end that makes it sombre and grave despite the beautiful setting to this prelude which one may read to- day in the French archives. So full of portent and color it is that I ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... thought how much better the churchmen always managed their conjurings and the art of spectacle. There was a great car drawn by milk-white oxen; in the front were ranged sheaves of golden grain, while at the back shepherds and shepherdesses posed with scenic graces. The whole mummery was pagan. It was a bringing back of Cerealia and Thesmophoria to earth. It stands as the most disgusting and contemptible anachronism ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... by his mummery, but felt no great delight in his guardianship, and, after a short time, arose, with intention to walk to another place; but the black gentleman, adroitly moving round her, held out his wand to obstruct her passage, and therefore, preferring captivity to resistance, she was again obliged ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... commanders are found to have played upon as the most effectual chord in the great system which they modulated; some few, by a rare endowment of nature; others, as Napoleon Bonaparte, by elaborate mimicries of pantomimic art. [Footnote: In the true spirit of Parisian mummery, Bonaparte caused letters to be written from the War-office, in his own name, to particular soldiers of high military reputation in every brigade, (whose private history he had previously caused to be investigated,) alluding circumstantially to the leading facts in ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... Mr. Worden, with a little impatience, at what he fancied mummery, "I am dying to hear what has happened, that I may put the more faith in what is to happen. Tell me something of the crop of wheat, I put into the ground, last autumn; how many bushels I sowed, and on how many acres; whether on new land, or ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... be clerk, and say amen, when I turn chaplain,' growled out the party addressed, in tones which might have become the condition of a dying bear; 'if the gentleman is a whig, he may please himself with his own mummery. My faith is neither in word nor writ, but in ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... with your mummery and medicine, when you know the cause of my malady well enough already? Go, sir! ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... can theirs be which makes them seek the life of an inoffensive man? I come here, having no one thing to do with either Suni or Shiah, Sufi or Mohamedan: on the contrary, out of compliment to them, I go through all the mummery of five washings and five prayings per day, and still that will not satisfy them; however, I will be even with them. I will go; I will leave their vile hypocritical town; and neither will I wash nor pray until necessity obliges me to pass through ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... the lady, "lay yourself on the table again. I hear someone coming; and it is not fit that my people should think me your accomplice in this farce and mummery." ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... we are now, Murray," said the lieutenant. "Our guide has brought us here to see the mummery of their barbarous religion, and there is no doubt that the people have met to be stirred up to some rising against the planters ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... a husband with a newly furnished house and an ample income. My wife is ready to admit that purely from the point of view of common sense she would have preferred to have the child do almost anything peculiar rather than engage in her present mummery, because some people will consider her crazy; but, on the other hand, she maintains that the chances of losing her altogether are much less serious than if she had become a Toynbee Haller, for instance. "Mind you," said ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... whom you mean, sir; but I thought he was a writer of stage plays, and such things as on all sides I hear called foolish, and mummery.' ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... well-fed priest moved but a few steps from the church door; his voice could scarcely be heard at the grave; and never did I hear the funeral service, that sublime and touching ceremony, turned into such a frigid mummery of words. ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... nominis umbra had been received, and to assure them that the Author of Waverley would, when informed of the circumstance, feel highly delighted—"the proudest hour of his life," etc., etc. The cool, demure fun of Scott's features during all this mummery was perfect; and Erskine's attempt at a gay nonchalance was still more ludicrously meritorious. Aldiborontiphoscophornio, {p.258} however, bursting as he was, knew too well to allow the new novel to be made the subject ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... in that precarious situation which SARY F. NORTON calls "mummery," and the Onida Community says Amen! to, but which good honest folks, like you and I, calls married, then I would say that he mite go further and fare a site wusser, than to come over here and examine my stock of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 27, October 1, 1870 • Various
... examples of which the Scriptures are full, ought to warn us not to repose our trust in men. In the papacy appearance counts for everything. Indeed, the whole papacy amounts to nothing more than a mere kowtowing of persons and outward mummery. But God alone is to be ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... "Hunting of the Earl of Rone" which takes place at Combe Martin on Ascension Day is probably the most interesting of all ancient survivals in North Devon. It is a curious ceremony, partaking something of the nature of a Guy Fawkes mummery, something, I consider, of a much older ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... arranged that on the sixth of December all the auditors should be present together in the palace, and that the archbishop should come to meet them, as if by chance, and talk with them, and thus have a sort of absolution conferred—a mummery [mogiganga] by which they could attend that day the feast of St. Javier, which was celebrated at the church of the Society ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... and mummery Winnie went through affected her exactly as it had affected her sister. It was all a hideous nightmare, and at any moment she expected to wake up in ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... "Mummery?" repeated Dr. Vaughn, bending his penetrating eyes on Kennedy, as if he would force him to betray ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... packed her trunks at Versailles, scraped together an adequate tip for Mrs. Match, and bade good-bye to Violet (grown suddenly fond and demonstrative as she saw her visitor safely headed for the station)—as Susy went through the old familiar mummery of the enforced leave-taking, there rose in her so deep a disgust for the life of makeshifts and accommodations, that if at that moment Nick had reappeared and held out his arms to her, she was not sure she would have had the courage to ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton |
