"Portraying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this Fairy World which has crept in under the grand Olympian order in response to a true necessity. Its beings are not natural, its events are not probable; thus the poet forces us to look inward if we would see his meaning. Spirit is portraying spirit, and not externality, which is here made absurd; in this manner we are driven out of the real into ideal, or we drop by the way in reading ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... first school, grayness and sobriety of the second. But there are few good pictures at Dort now, and some of the best works of Cuyp are to be found in our National Gallery, [London] executed at his native place and portraying the great brick tower of the church in the golden haze of evening, seen across rich pastures, where the cows are lying deep in the meadow grass. The works of Ary Scheffer are now the most interesting pictures in the Dortrecht Gallery. Of the subject, "Christus Consolator," there are two representations. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... lake Deerslayer had ever seen. Hitherto, his experience had been limited to the courses of rivers and smaller streams, and never before had he seen so much of that wilderness, which he so well loved, spread before his gaze. Accustomed to the forest, however, his mind was capable of portraying all its hidden mysteries, as he looked upon its leafy surface. This was also the first time he had been on a trail where human lives depended on the issue. His ears had often drunk in the traditions of frontier warfare, but he had never yet been confronted ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... he, indeed, that persons who saw him on the stage in that character not infrequently drew the inference and kept the belief that he was personally a monster. His look was iron-visaged; the cast of his manners was relentless and savage. Quin said that his face contained not lines but cordage. In portraying the contrasted passions of joy for Antonio's losses and grief for Jessica's elopement he poured forth all his fire. When he whetted his knife, in the trial scene, he was silent, grisly, ominous, and fatal. No human ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... had been lost, as a man is a round figure by nature, and is so represented by that art, whereas in painting, on the other hand, it is not so easy to find the right shapes and the best manner of portraying them, which are essential to the majesty, beauty, grace, and ornament of a picture. In one circumstance fortune was favourable to Andrea, because, as has been said elsewhere, by means of the numerous victories won by the Pisans at sea, many antiquities ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... portrait-painters to earth to obtain likenesses of their friends; and those spirit-artists who have the power of seeing the lineaments of these friends and portraying them ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... fain linger for a little over the scenes which follow between her and Don Silva; portraying as they do a love so intense in its virgin tenderness, and so spiritually pure and high. It is the same "child of light" that comes before us here; the same tremulous living in the light and joy of her love, but also the same impossibility of living even in its light ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... in one of her gayest moods, and he was reluctantly compelled to think her sketch of the people at the donation a little satirical and unfeeling. But while she was portraying Hemstead as the hero of the occasion, she had the tact to make no reference to Harcourt. But he generously stated the whole case, adding, with a light laugh, that he had learned once for all that coaxing and wheedling were better ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... intellectual and spiritual narrowness, or niggardly thrift, or dour natures: all are there, but with them are souls reaching after God and often flowering into beauty, and we reverence the quenchless aspiration of maligned human nature for an ideal far above its reach. He achieves the rare feat of portraying every pettiness and prejudice, even the meannesses and dishonors of a poor and hidebound country village, yet leaving us with both sincere respect and warm liking for it; a thing possible only to one himself of a fine nature as well as of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... in their victory. So fierce was the attack that the Prince was borne to the ground; and the Battle of Crecy might have been a dark instead of a bright page in England's history, but for the gallantry of a little band of Welshmen headed by Richard de Beaumont, the bearer of the banner portraying the great red dragon of Merlin, which had floated all day over the ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the primary purpose and first effect of the work was to crystallize anti-friar sentiment, the author has risen above a mere personal attack, which would give it only a temporary value, and by portraying in so clear and sympathetic a way the life of his people has produced a piece of real literature, of especial interest now as they are being swept into the newer day. Any fool can point out errors and defects, if they are at all apparent, ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... of lilies. Hafiz describes a girl's cheeks as roses within a net of violets, the net referring to the beard. Jehudah Halevi uses this selfsame image, and Moses ibn Ezra and the rest also employ manly figures of speech in portraying beautiful women. All this goes to show how much, besides rhyme and versification, medieval Hebrew love poetry owed to Arabic models. Here, for instance, is an Arabic poem, whose author, Radhi Billah, died in ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... seem a little slow in coming to the business that has brought me here to-night. First of all, I may say, and you, Hanford, being a photographer will appreciate it, that ever since the days of Daguerre photography has been regarded as the one infallible means of portraying faithfully any object, scene, or action. Indeed a photograph is admitted in court as irrefutable evidence. For when everything else fails, a picture made through the photographic lens almost invariably turns the tide. However, such a picture upon which the fate of an important case ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... rigidity instead of borrowing from us our flexibility. We do not render it more complicated; on the contrary, it simplifies us. Here, as we shall see later on in the concluding section of this study, lies the essential difference between comedy and drama. A drama, even when portraying passions or vices that bear a name, so completely incorporates them in the person that their names are forgotten, their general characteristics effaced, and we no longer think of them at all, but rather of the person ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... of the golden sort. Her dislike of superlatives, when the marked effect had to be produced, and it was not the literary performance she could relish as well as any of us, renders hard the task of portraying a woman whose character calls them forth. To him knowing her, they would not fit; her individuality passes between epithets. The reading of a sentence of panegyric (commonly a thing of extension) deadened her countenance, if it failed to quicken ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... Calame stands among the first in the rank of eminent living landscape painters. They are worthy successors of the father of Rodolphe Toepffer, who was peculiarly happy in rendering the mountain-scenes of Savoy, and in portraying those picturesque and attractive episodes of peasant-life entitled "The Village Wedding," "The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... only time for a rapid glance at the massive oak carving and valuable paintings (chief of which is one portraying the family at afternoon tea, by Zichy) before you find yourself being conducted to the handsome suite of apartments you will occupy during your visit. A cup of tea and some light refreshment, and the dinner-hour ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... every earnest woman in our cause. I will not say one word in defense of our present mode of dress. Not I; but bad as it is, and cumbersome and annoying, I still feel that we can wear it, and yet be lovers of liberty, speaking out our deep feeling, portraying our accumulated wrongs, saving ourselves for a time yet from that antagonism which we must inevitably meet when we don the semi-male attire. We must own ourselves under the law first, own our bodies, our earnings, our genius, and our consciences; ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... were conscious of life. Eddie's establishment was a long, white-plastered room with a pressed-steel ceiling and an unswept floor. On the walls were billiard-table-makers' calendars and a collection of cigarette-premium chromos portraying bathing girls. The girls were of lithographic complexions, almost too perfect of feature, and their lips were more than ruby. Carl ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... expression in a few words, portraying a whole field of action. Tending to go into great detail in public matters, he comes to the heart of an issue with a laconic expression that tells all there is to be told. "I favor going in"—on the League of Nations is one. Assuring his supporters that ...
— The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox • Charles E. Morris
... correctly is nothing—you must know something worth recording. To paint is nothing—you must know what you are portraying. Velasquez had become acquainted with humanity, and gotten on intimate terms with life. He had haunted the waysides and markets to good purpose; he had laid the foundation of those qualities which characterize his best work: mastery of expression, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... an omission to be necessary in his version of Pickwick. He adds, with an exquisite courtesy to our national tongue which is yet not forgetful of the claims of his own nationality, that his difficulties (in the Sam Weller direction and others) had arisen from the "impossibility of portraying faithfully the beauties of the original in the Russian language, which, though the richest in Europe in its expressiveness, is far from being elaborate enough for literature like other civilized languages." He had ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... treat of national life, especially our own, are psychological.(164) But the advantages of the mathematical mode of expression diminish as the facts to which it is applied become more complicated. This is true even in the ordinary psychology of the individual. How much more, therefore, in the portraying of national life! Here the algebraic formulae would soon become so complicated, as to make all further progress in the operation next to impossible.(165) Their employment, especially in a science whose ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... filled more than four columns of the Woman's Journal and an adequate idea of its wise philosophy illuminated with the sparkling wit for which she was renowned cannot be conveyed by quotations. "A few years ago," she said, "a famous poet roused the compassion of the world by portraying the tragedy of hopeless toil by the Man with the Hoe. He might have found nearer home a better illustration of the work that is never done, that has no inspiration to lighten it and looks for no appreciation to glorify it, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... They do not reflect the outward pressure of the heavy shield, which could almost be removed without making it necessary to modify their functions or position. It was reserved for Michael Angelo to achieve the unity of purpose and knowledge needed in portraying the human hand. He was the first among Italian sculptors to render the relation of the hand to the wrist, the wrist to the forearm, and thence to the shoulder and body. In the fifteenth century nobody fully understood ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... her task. Max held still till the square of huckaback portraying the economic existence of Jack Sprat and his wife was well beneath his chin, and the tapes gathered once more ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... very favourable to love, but never to debauchery, and rarely to violent attachment. His soul was fierce and independent: it could never be managed, for it would never bend. This, indeed, rendered him very capable of portraying Roman virtue, but incapable of improving his fortune. Nothing equalled his incapacity for business but his aversion: the slightest troubles of this kind occasioned him alarm and terror. He was never satiated with praise, although he was continually ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... to the back of the stage and lie down on my stomach, still holding the skull before my eyes. After holding this posture for some time, I crawl slowly forward, portraying by the movement of my legs and stomach the whole sad history of Yorick. Finally I turn my back on the audience, still holding the skull, and convey through the spasmodic movements of my back Hamlet's passionate grief at the loss ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... case the sculptured rock consisted of a stretch of sandstone cliff about two hundred and fifty feet in length by about a hundred feet in height, practically vertical, the entire surface of which was covered with panels presenting a series of pictures portraying what appeared to be a genealogical record of certain customs and ceremonies, mostly of a religious character, of some gone and forgotten race of people. The work was executed in fairly high relief, and the drawing of the ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... forward. With shouts and yells, which, of course, had no part in the picture, yet which served to aid them in their acting, the players who were portraying the Confederates came after her, spurring their horses and firing wildly. On and on rushed the steed bearing the ...
— The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays - Or, The Sham Battles at Oak Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... since, from the standpoint of the stage, it is essentially and effectively dramatic, while as literature it is imitative of the Elizabethan style. Boker's poetic imagery is distinctly borrowed, and his choice of words disappointingly colloquial. Yet, over and above the mere story, he has succeeded in portraying a strong character in his Pepe. The historical setting of the play is slight, yet sufficient to localize the piece, and his dramatis personae are faithfully distinct in outline, though at times devoid ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... been portraying an amusing mixture of perplexity and admiration, broke into a smile which encompassed all his features. 'Do all bets cease at the end of the first hour?' ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... his astonishment. It had remained for him- -who had thought to add to the family laurels the literary achievement of portraying philosophically the life of the Marquis Lafayette—to father a son who could be guilty of thinking such thoughts and uttering such words. He looked about the room apprehensively, as if he feared to find assembled there the shades of departed Bonbrights who had been eavesdropping, ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... deficiencies may be supplied, partly by Coleridge Patteson's own habit of writing unreservedly, so that he speaks for himself, and partly by the very full notes and records with which his friends have kindly supplied me, portraying him from their point of view; so that I could really trust that little more was needed than ordinary judgment in connecting and selecting. Nor until the work is less fresh from my hand will it be possible to judge whether I have in any way been allowed to succeed in my earnest hope and ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that the story is skilfully and picturesquely written, portraying sharply individual characters in well-defined ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... argue the question with Young by portraying to him the situation and the utter hopelessness of any attempt to break the slate. He, however, insisted upon it, saying that all pledges and preferences would disappear because of Greeley's services to the party ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... has succeeded in so faithfully portraying the human passions as the talented author who has given to the world 'Heartsease' and the 'Heir of Redclyffe.' Her Juvenile "Writings have a charm of historical interest thrown around them, which cannot fail to render ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... the five novels enumerated, Howells shows decided ability in portraying attractive characters, in making their faults human and as interesting as their virtues, in causing ordinary life to yield variety of incident and amusing scenes, and, finally, in engaging his characters ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... character. Deacon Lee was one of that much-scandalized class, the Congregationalist deacons of New England, who have so often been described with a pen dipped in gall, if we may judge from the bitterness of the sketches. Scribblers delight in portraying them as rum-selling hypocrites, sly topers, lovers of gain, and fomenters of dissension, and so far has this been carried, that no tale of Yankee cunning or petty fraud is complete unless the hero is a deacon. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... point of view. Every will, however blind and careless, seeks a good and finds it, if only in hope and the effort to attain. Through the intimacy of his descriptions and often against our resistance, the artist may compel us to adopt the attitude of the life which he is portraying, constraining us to feel the inner necessity of its choices, the compulsion of its delights. It is difficult to abandon ourselves thus to sympathy with what is wrong in life itself, because we have in mind the consequences and relations which make ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... church-goers, to clasp his hand. They withdrew their allegiance after a time, which naturally in no way phased Carl's scientific interest in them. A paper hostile to Carl's attitude on the I.W.W. and his insistence on the clean-up of camps published an article portraying him as a double-faced individual who feigned an interest in the under-dog really to undo him, as he was at heart and pocket-book a capitalist, being the possessor of an independent income of $150,000 a year. Some I.W.W.'s took this up, and convinced a large meeting that he was really trying to ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... as to whether Hawthorne drew from his family or friends in portraying human nature shows an unfamiliarity with literary art. Portraiture is not art, in literature, though a great artist includes it, if he chooses, in the category of his productions. To any one permeated by the atmosphere of art (though ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... exhausting the resources of a long sustained and common inspiration, that the great masters proved their supremacy and rendered an advance beyond their vantage ground impossible. To those who saw and comprehended this "Pieta" in 1500, it must have been evident that a new power of portraying the very soul had been manifested in sculpture—a power unknown to the Greeks because it lay outside the sphere of their spiritual experience, and unknown to modern artists because it was beyond their faculties of execution and conception. Yet who ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... Gower," says Mrs. Bethune, "do spare us! I'm sure you must be portraying Miss Bolton wrongly. Emotion—to betray ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... I have been successful, in some measure, in portraying the varied emotions which it was my lot to experience that night, and it may well seem that nothing more exquisite could remain for me. Yet it was written otherwise; for as I swept up to my goal, describing the inevitable arc ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... preconceived opinions. By what principle of rational choice can we suppose a critic to have been directed (at least in a Christian country, and himself, we hope, a Christian) who gives the following lines, portraying the fervour of solitary devotion excited by the magnificent display of the Almighty's works, as a proof and example of an author's tendency to downright ravings, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and Wilde at the time the former was portraying the Postlethwaites in Punch, Whistler asked, whimsically, "I say, which of you ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... grotesque, of pagan superstition and Christian devotion. Although there were, in truth, no knights in the time of Charlemagne, and the institution of chivalry did not exist until many years later, yet these legends are of value as portraying life and manners in that period of history which we call the Dark Ages; and their pictures of knightly courage and generosity, faithfulness, and loyalty, appeal to our nobler feelings and stir our ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... touching simplicity in this union of the artist and his labours, made in these instances all the more impressive by its utter want of pretension. There is no affectation—no studied artistic or classical portraying; we have simply the man and his work before us, appealing by their dumb native eloquence to that homage and love, which are their due by ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... least the express man did!—and probably in his mind joined these new packages with those he had so often brought before, very comfortably. The next arrival was a delicate pair of silver salt-cellars and spoons from Mr. Alcott,—then a little framed sketch from the Captain of the Vulcan, portraying the meeting of two steamers at sea, with these words underneath—'The despatch post'. At which Mr. Linden looked with ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... accurate observation, strong sense, and delicate spiritual perception,—in the union of humor and pathos, of shrewdness and sentiment,—and in the power of seizing character in its vital inward sources, and of portraying its outward peculiarities,—"The Pearl of Orr's Island" does not yield to any book which Mrs. Stowe has heretofore contributed to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various |
