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Updated: May 10, 2025
However, there were even early examples of an extravagance of an opposite description. In the Mariamne of Mairet, an older poet than Corneille, the player who acted Herod, roared himself to death. This may, indeed, be called "out-heroding Herod!" When Voltaire was instructing an actress in some tragic part, she said to him, "Were I to play in this manner, sir, they would say the devil was in me."
He had the best education of the time, coming, as he did, from a line of scholars, and out-Heroding them in the variety and curiousness of his accomplishments, and in the number of his published "works" three hundred and eighty-three. Nothing that he produced has any original value; but his erudition was enormous.
He has an idea that I am out-Heroding Herod, he having been Herod; but there is nothing bitter in it to him. Those fine young gentlemen, my brothers, who are the dearest little chicks in the world, five and six and seven years old, will be able to laugh pleasantly at their elder brother when they grow up, as they will do, among the other idle young swells of the nation.
What have the votaries of pure physical science, who hold the barren word- contests of theology and the proud pretensions of philosophy in such contempt, to do out-Heroding Herod in that fashion, and venturing on metaphysical assertions of such a sort? Let them keep to their own line, and tell us all that crucibles and scalpels can reveal, and we will listen as becomes us.
Herod, for example, in his magnificent robes used to ride on horseback among the people, boast of his prowess, and overdo everything. Shakespeare, who was evidently familiar with the character, speaks of out-Heroding Herod. The Devil also frequently jumped from the stage and availed himself of his license to play pranks among the audience. Much of the acting was undoubtedly excellent.
When I am by myself I can curse and swear, play Termagant and rehearse an extravaganza out-Heroding all the Herods that ever Heroded. But before others no. I believe my great-grandfather, before he qualified for his baronetcy, was a gentleman. "But on these occasions," said I, "you will avoid a sequestered and meditative self." Her laugh got choked by a sob. "Do you remember that?
Others, again, out-Heroding Herod, suggested that the frigates and transports at Alexandria should be taken to pieces and conveyed on camels' backs to Suez, there to be used for the invasion of India. The versatility of Bonaparte's genius was never more marked than at this time of discouragement.
The Père Duchesne, copies of which are at this day among the greatest of bibliographical curiosities, was written for the people and in a jargon out-Heroding their own, a compound of oaths and obscenities.
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