Burlesque

Front Cover
Richard Henry Stoddard
W. F. Gill, 1875 - 224 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 133 - The young folks would crowd around the hearth, listening with breathless attention to some old crone of a negro, who was the oracle of the family, and who, perched like a raven in a corner of the chimney, would croak forth for a long winter afternoon a string of incredible stories about New England witches, grisly ghosts, horses without heads, and hairbreadth escapes and bloody encounters among the Indians.
Page 136 - No flirting nor coquetting — no gambling of old ladies nor hoyden chattering and romping of young ones — no self-satisfied struttings of wealthy gentlemen, with their brains in their pockets — nor amusing conceits, and monkey divertisements, of smart young gentlemen, with no brains at all. On the contrary, the young ladies seated themselves demurely in their rush-bottomed chairs, and knit their own woollen stockings ; nor ever opened their lips excepting to say yah Mynheer, or yah ya Vrouw,...
Page 131 - ... worn out by the very precautions taken for its preservation. The whole house was constantly in a state of inundation, under the discipline of mops and brooms and...
Page 134 - These fashionable parties were generally confined to the higher classes, or noblesse, that is to say, such as kept their own cows, and drove their own wagons. The company commonly assembled at three o'clock, and went away about six, unless it was in winter-time, when the fashionable hours were a little earlier, that the ladies might get home before dark.
Page 47 - ... literary turn, who had been with difficulty persuaded to take a hand ; and who, in his excess of candour declared that he thought there was no harm in unbending the mind now and then, after serious studies, in recreations of that kind ! She could not bear to have her noble occupation, to which she wound up her faculties, considered in that light. It was her business, her duty, the thing she came...
Page 135 - ... macaronies of these degenerate days sweat merely to look at it. To sweeten the beverage, a lump of sugar was laid beside each cup — and the company alternately nibbled and sipped with great decorum, until an improvement was introduced by a shrewd and economic old lady, which was to suspend a large lump directly over the...
Page 134 - Sometimes the table was graced with immense apple pies or saucers full of preserved peaches and pears ; but it was always sure to boast an enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat, and called doughnuts, or olykoeks — a delicious kind of cake at present scarce known in this city, except in genuine Dutch families.
Page 46 - These insufferable triflers are the curse of a table. One of these flies will spoil a whole pot. Of such it may be said that they do not play at cards, but only play at playing at them.
Page 137 - The parties broke up without noise and without confusion. They were carried home by their own carriages, that is to say, by the vehicles nature had provided them, excepting such of the wealthy as could afford to keep a wagon.

Bibliographic information