fee-fa-fum

Updated: May 6, 2025

I was a cinder, body and soul, in my dream. These, and other scenes equally wild and abominable, luckily counteract themselves; they present such a Fee-fa-fum for grown up people, such a burlesque upon tragic horrors, that a sense of the ludicrous irresistibly predominates over the terrific; and, to avoid disgust, our feelings gladly take refuge in contemptuous laughter.

- Famous Reviews

He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent, positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound, the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children.

John Henry Newman - Callista : a Tale of the Third Century