Farce

“ Beggars began life with schemes as wonderful and ideas as large, that their stories are as true, that the line between Tragedy and Farce was never so fine drawn as when, stepping across it, they plunged into the profession of having come down in the world. ”

“ The myriad-minded man, our, and all men's Shakespeare, has in this piece presented us with a legitimate farce in exactest consonance with the philosophical principles and character of farce, as distinguished from comedy and from entertainments. A proper farce is mainly distinguished from comedy by the licence allowed, and even required, in the fable, in order to produce strange and laughable situations. The story need not be probable, it is enough that it is possible. ”

“ Hence farce may often border on tragedy; indeed, farce is nearer tragedy in its essence than comedy is. ”

“ THE CLEFT STICK. A Comedy in 3 Acts. 5 male, 3 female char.
66. A SOLDIER, A SAILOR, A TINKER, AND A TAILOR. A Farce in 1 Act. 4 male, 2 female char.
67. GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME. A Farce. 2 male, 2 female char. ”

“ For farce, after all, is farcical, and the mood for its appreciation is not one which is sympathetic to any great or moving thing. And in the hands of interpreters less than intelligently fine, the play may still descend into the lower class ”

“ Hit Him, He has No Friends. A Farce in One Act. By E. Yates and N.H. Harrington. 7 Male, 3 Female characters.
32. The Christening. A Farce in One Act. By J.B. Buckstone. 5 Male, 6 Female characters.
33. A Race for a Widow. A Farce in One Act. By Thomas J. Williams. 5 Male, 4 Female characters.
34. Your Life’s in Danger. A Farce in One Act. ”

“ Play appears on the Stage, where one Man Hisses out of Resentment to the Author; a Second out of Dislike to the House; a Third out of Dislike to the Actor; a Fourth out of Dislike to the Play; a Fifth for the Joke sake; a Sixth to keep all the rest in Company. Enemies abuse him, Friends give him up, the Play is damn’d, and the Author goes to the Devil, so ends the Farce.”
To which Sneerwell replies, with much promptitude: “The Tragedy rather, I think, Mr. Fustian.” But whatever may have been its preliminary difficulties, Fielding’s first play was not exposed to so untoward a fate. ”

“ As an actor Byron attempted little. A quiet unconsciousness in the delivery of jokes was his chief recommendation to the public. Byron had, before his retirement, an enviable social reputation. Many spoken witticisms, more indeed than he is entitled to claim, are associated with his name.
A complete list of Byron's plays can scarcely be attempted. The following list, in which e stands, perhaps too comprehensively, for extravaganza, burlesque, or pantomime, f for farce, c for comedy, and d for drama, omits little of importance: ‘Bride of Abydos,’ e, no date ”

“ Are you a would-be thief or murderer? You foul betrayer and coward! So--you climb walls in the dark in pursuance of your villainous schemes! Answer me--do you come here by appointment, and are you devil enough to strive to make me believe that a pure and misguided girl would be weak enough to throw herself into your arms? ”

“ Ay, ay, 't is the night o' the fairies—when spirits pervade the air. Then will I tell you other truths; but now—They call me. She is fair, and passing fair, and by her beauty, suffering shall come upon thee; but 'tis by suffering that men are made, and because of pride, shame shall come on her ”

“ If— as has been suggested—we could compare a novel written at thirty with a play of the same date, or a play written at forty with Tom Jones, the comparison might be instructive, although even then considerable allowances would have to be made for the essential difference between plays and novels. But, as we cannot make such a comparison, further inquiry is simply waste of time. All we can safely affirm is, that the plays of Fielding’s youth did not equal the fictions of his maturity; and that, of those plays, the comedies were less successful than the farces and burlesques. ”

“ The other threw himself upon pleasure's tide, and, blind to earnest duty, drank the sunshine of life's springtime in draughts so intemperate that he became intoxicated with poisonous fire, and, falling into the arms of the knaves who thrive on human weakness and depravity, his moral sense, like theirs, grew warped, and he ripened into a knave himself. ”

“ A little spray of blossom, so tiny as to be scarcely perceived, is easily spoiled, but thereby the fruitfulness of a whole branch may be for ever destroyed. And how numerous the little foxes are! Little compromises with the world; disobedience to the still small voice in little things; little indulgences of the flesh to the neglect of duty; little strokes of policy; doing evil in little things that good may come; and the beauty and the fruitfulness of the vine are sacrificed!
We have a sad illustration of the deceitfulness of sin in the response of the bride. ”

“ It is a High Degree of Inhumanity not to have a Fellow-feeling of the Misfortune of my Brother; but to take Pleasure in my Neighbours Misery, and to make Merry with it, is not only a Brutal, but a Diabolical Barbarity and Folly. ”

“ Dim tales of horrors long since forgotten recurred to him with a devilish persistency, so that, lying there wide-eyed, he could almost fancy that evil face leaning out of the picture above to smile down at him with all its old malignity. ”

“ Fate seems to have dragged the sufferer into a vault of gloom, to whisper foreboding and inspire dread. These traditions of mischief wrought by malignant men inheriting the wicked craft and vindictive spite of the sorcerers, are uttered at the fireside, or if not so uttered, are brooded upon by a disturbed fancy. ”

“ But that any knowing the plague of their own hearts, should deliberately endeavour to lead others into sin, coolly and deliberately, without even the blinding mist of passion to hide the path which they are treading,—this, if I had not known that it was so, I could not have conceived. ”

“ I'll write the tragedy of Dido, and you shall act the part; but you do nothing at all, unless you fret yourself into a fit; for here the poor lady is stifled with vapours, drops into the arms of her maids, and the cruel, barbarous, deceitful, wanderer, is, in the very next line, called pious Æneas.—There's authority for ye. ”

“ Even as ye, I am prepared to adventure me, life and limb, that Lust and Murder may cease to be and Innocence and Truth may walk again all unashamed. So shall I lead ye into battles and affrays desperate and bloody, where foes shall be a-many and we, few. ”

“ The old blood remains fresh on the ground, crying for other blood to blot it out. The deed of wrong begets children in its own likeness. The first sin produces an 'Arâ,' a Curse-Spirit, which broods over the scene of the wrong, or over the heart and perhaps the race of the sinner. ”

“ I have searched my soul for some sin that, unbeknown to myself, I might have committed. Did I find any? No, indeed to goodness, now, I didn’t. Yet the Big Man’s hand is hard on the innocent. My clean heart is bowed with shame. ”

“ If you should wed, may a father's curse
⁠Be your swift and sure undoing.
“My curse shall feed on your fields of corn,
⁠On your roof-tree make its nesting,
Your wife shall wish your child unborn
⁠As he pines on her sore heart resting.”
Now when this cruel oath he said
⁠The youth did chide him, crying,
“Since I have neither field nor bed
⁠Your curse shall fall to dying. ”

“ Grotesque, distorted by the gas flare's light —
Into one sacred rhythm for the Devil's spite.
A woman's thin, raucous voice
Carries the tune, bids men rejoice,
Bathe in God's mercy,
Draw near and learn salvation, see
With their own eyes the mystery. ”

“ No gleam of goodness throughout the whole for the heart to cling to,—no thought of remorseful penitence,—no spark of noble feeling; nothing but vice,—low, grovelling, brutal vice,—from the moment the curtain rises to display the obscene spectacle, to that which sees it fall between the fictitious infamy on one side, and the real impurity left on the other! ”

“ He spoke as men do in fevers. I could see that there were some about us who set him down as mad. There were those who jeered, as fools will at the sight of a man's anguish, when, in the abandonment of his shame, he trails his soul in the dust. ”

“ Tell your child friends that faeries do nothing without having some good end in view, and if they want to please us, they must try and be noble and good, for there is nothing so hateful in the world as wickedness. And now, mortal, I will permit you to see a faery dance, and then you must leave us for ever. ”

“ I offer my gage to heaven and hell, and will maintain the combat with him that shall call it true. Thou hast been spellbound by an evil eye, my darling, and the fainting which you call cowardice is the work of magic. ”

“ And you make nothing," he went on, "of one's having at last so beautifully started you? Your complaint," he developed, "was that you couldn't get in. Then suddenly, with a splendid jump, you are in. Only, however, to look round you and say with disgust ' Oh, here?' Where the devil do you want to be?" ”

“ As for your ruin, you have brought it on yourself. This is your signature, not mine. It is your honesty that is at stake, not mine. The villainous old usurer, the devil that is not so black as he is painted, wants only his rights--nothing more. ”

“ There, unspeakable kindness, tenderness and forbearance, meet them at every turn. So wisely and tenderly are they governed, that their hereditary evils remain dormant— are not excited, or aroused into activity. Here, they are often forced to be spectators of shocking scenes—scenes in which the very malignities of hell pour themselves forth in obscenity, vulgarity, profanity, cruel calumnies, stinging taunts, and acts of violence, hatred and cruelty: There, they witness no exhibitions of turbulent passions or evil feelings in those around them; they hear no vulgar, profane or angry words ”

“ All these things shall manifestly appear in them unto all people, and they, day by day, shall wax more wicked and hard-hearted; and when their wickedness and deceits shall be found out, then shall their gifts cease, and then shall they go about their houses hungry, and as mad dogs looking down upon the earth, and drawing in their necks as doves, that they might be satisfied with bread. Then shall the people cry out upon them, "Woe be unto you, ye miserable children of sorrow. The world hath seduced you, the devil hath bridled your mouths; your flesh is frail, and your hearts without savour ”

“ But there are two sorts of madness, the one that which the revengeful Furies send privily from hell, as often as they let loose their snakes and put into men's breasts either the desire of war, or an insatiate thirst after gold, or some dishonest love, or parricide, or incest, or sacrilege, or the like plagues, or when they terrify some guilty soul with the conscience of his crimes ”

“ Into what wretched folly fall, then, those faithless or feeble-faithed folk, who, to avoid the pain that is so far the less and so short, fall instead into pain a thousand thousand times more horrible, and terrible torment of which they are sure they shall never have an end! ”

“ Hence proceed vile and provoking Words, bitter and cutting Reproaches, undue and indecent Reflections, horrid Wishes, Imprecations, Railing and Cursing; till, in short, they push one another on to the Gates of Hell, and need no Devil but their own ungoverned Rage, to thrust them in. ”

“ The painful but necessary duty was accordingly laid on some poor devil, some social outcast, some wretch with whom the world had gone hard, who readily agreed to throw away his life at the end of a few days if only he might have his fling in the meantime. ”

“ How often shall the lamp of the wicked be put out, and a deluge come upon them, and He shall distribute the sorrows of His wrath? They shall be as chaff before the face of the wind, and as ashes which the whirlwind scattereth. ”

“ It's all the very vanity of vanities—as it's said somewhere in the Bible—and no mistake! Fag, fag, fag, all one's days, and—what for? Thirty-five pounds a-year, and 'no advance!' (Here occurred a pause and revery, from which he was roused by the clangor of the church-bells.) ”

“ The devil who’s waiting to seize upon thee.”
“You saw him then truly?” “Too truly, alas!”
“And under what shape?” “Under that of an ass.”
“Well, well!” cried the sinner, “I am not afraid,
You’ve only been terrified by your own shade.” ”

“ Possess no other aim nor end
But foul abuse of foe and friend.
His heart, polluted with the dung
Of demons damn'd, from hell out flung,
Is rotten to the core with lies,
From which foul slanders thickly rise. ”

“ All the petty annoyances of life—a sudden fall, an unlucky [pg 103] word, a headache, a paltry quarrel—were set down to the agency of fiends; and all the fierce emotions that rend the mind—love, hate, jealousy, and madness—were equally the work of these invisible tormentors. Men and women stood in constant danger of them. ”

“ The youth, who seem'd to watch a time for sin,
Approach'd the careless guide, and thrust him in;
Plunging he falls, and rising lifts his head,
Then flashing turns, and sinks amongst the dead.
⁠Wild, sparkling rage inflames the father's eyes,
He bursts the bands of fear, and madly cries,
Detested wretch—but scarce his speech began,
When the strange partner seem'd no longer man. ”

“ In one place you would have seen a poor sinner leaning with his head against a tree, with tears running from his eyes like drops of rain upon the ground, while some went to him, and pointed to him the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world. ”