"Impersonification" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of her aunt; and to her credit be it said, she always restrained herself, though with great difficulty. She, so wildly brought up, without rule or guidance in feminine matters, could not be brought to comprehend that prim line-and-rule life, of which her aunt was the very impersonation. Nevertheless, she heard what Miss Thornton had to say with respect; and if ever she committed an extreme GAUCHERIE, calculated to set her aunt's teeth on edge, she always discovered what was the matter, and mended it as ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... makes a thoroughly oriental type of Issachar, and it is within an ace of being a grand impersonation. What that ace exactly is, it is somewhat difficult to say, but what is wanting is wanting in his great scene with his daughter. If the dramatist had given him such another final chance as I have already suggested, the character might have been dramatically perfected in Mr. TREE'S hands. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various
... gifts, nouns and verbs derived from that root-word, CHARIS, grace, which plainly signified so much to them? A word, the root-meaning of which was neither more nor less than a certain heathen goddess, or goddesses—the inspirer of beauty in art, the impersonation of all that is pure, charming, winning, bountiful—in one word, of all that is graceful and gracious in the human character. The fact is strange, but the fact is there; and being there, we must face it and explain it. Of course, the Apostles use the word grace in a far deeper and ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... of the sky, with my children upon my knees and their arms about me; I would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust than to have been that imperial impersonation of force and murder, known as Napoleon the Great. It is not necessary to be rich in order to be happy. It is only necessary to be in love. Thousands of men go to college and get a certificate that they have an education, and that certificate ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... representative duties of British royalty were heavier than the private functions of the hardest-worked Englishman. "In these scenes and a hundred like them a Prince's function cannot be discharged satisfactorily unless he be at once an impersonation of Royal state and, what is harder still, his own individual self. He must act his public character as if he enjoyed the festival as much as any of the spectators. He must be able to stamp a national impress upon the solemnity yet mark ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... presence immediately banished all anxiety and care. They seemed so happy when I came—for Charlotte used to teach them to prize my presence by dating their pleasures by my arrival; that I thought it joy enough for one mortal to have looked upon the impersonation of innocence and joy ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... supplies go forth, and to which all returning channels converge; the cosmopolitan centre of a New World. Berlin is the increasingly important capital of the German Empire,—growing rapidly, but still the royal impersonation of Prussia and the Hohenzollerns; seated in something of mediaeval costume and quiet beside the river Spree; as content to cast a satisfied glance backward to Frederick the Great and the Electors of Brandenburg as to look forward to imperial supremacy ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... looked about her, still maintaining that jubilance of look and manner she felt so necessary—for it is to the girls who are "having a good time" that partners are attracted—and, in order to lend greater colour to her impersonation of a lively belle, she began to chatter loudly, bringing into play an accompaniment of frolicsome gesture. She brushed Walter's nose saucily with the bunch of violets in her hand, tapped him on the shoulder, shook her pretty forefinger in his face, flourished ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... it the moving and ever-amusing scenes enacted before his eyes. His neighbor perhaps will be an old gentleman, the very type of the old "pantaloon" whose mask was in the old comedy supposed to be the impersonation of Venice. There are the long, slender and rather delicately-cut features terminating in a long, narrow and somewhat protruding chin; the high cheek-bones, the lank and sombre cheeks, the high nose, the dark bright eye under its bushy brow. He is very thin, very seedy, and evidently ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... watch on his soul, and put his hand to no other works but only to such as had for their end the presentment of some moral greatness that should impress the beholder: and, in doing this, he did not choose for his medium the action and passion of human life, but cold symbolism and abstract impersonation. So the people ceased to throng about his pictures as heretofore; and, when they were carried through town and town to their destination, they were no longer delayed by the crowds eager to gaze and admire: and no prayers or offerings were brought ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... my eyes I could have sworn it was Miss Atkins," laughed Grace. "Even she herself couldn't fail to recognize that impersonation. It's ridiculously funny, Elfreda, but I wish you wouldn't do it." As Grace and Elfreda were standing with their backs directly away from the door neither girl saw the tense little figure that stood rigid, one hand on the door casing, listening with eyebrows drawn fiercely together. An instant ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... verified prophecy, lighted his eye, shading off quickly, however, and giving place to an iron expression of rigidity and sternness, the compressed mouth, coldly-fixed eye, and sedate brow, composed into a grave severity that might have served for an impersonation of stern justice. He looked through the letter a second time, folded it up, put it in his pocket, and went about his usual affairs; but the expression did not leave his face all day; and the next morning he ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was a man who maybe considered the very impersonation of a combined conscientious and contentious spirit. Born in the land of Sir Hugh Evans and Captain Fluellen, educated at the University of Oxford, at the very period when the monarchical Episcopal Church of England was purging herself, as by fire, from the corruptions ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... to-night was in the character of a coster-girl, a part well suited to her audacity and impertinent prettiness. Poppy was the tiniest dancer that ever whirled across a stage, a circumstance that somewhat diminished the vulgarity of her impersonation, while it gave it a very engaging character of its own. Her small Cockney face, with its impudent laughing nose, its curling mouth (none too small), its big, twinkling blue eyes, was framed in a golden fringe and side curls. She wore a ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... to New York and joined the staff of Vanity Fair, a comic weekly of much brightness, which ran a short career and perished for want of capital. When Browne began to appear as a public lecturer people who had formed an idea of him from his impersonation of the shrewd and vulgar old showman were surprised to find him a gentlemanly-looking young man, who came upon the platform in correct evening dress, and "spoke his piece" in a quiet and somewhat mournful manner, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... reaction, the intellect does supply the due theoretic equivalent to an inevitable course of conduct. But it was Montaigne certainly who turned that emancipating ethic into current coin. To Pascal, looking back upon the sixteenth century as a whole, Montaigne was to figure as the impersonation of its intellectual licence; while Shakespeare, who represents the free spirit of the Renaissance moulding the drama, hints, by his well-known preoccupation with Montaigne's writings, that just there was the philosophic counterpart to the fulness and impartiality of his own ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... daughter of some ecclesiastic or peer to a Nubian Almeh with her handkerchief, undulating to the beats of the tom-tom; but all these embodiments had been endowed with a certain smartness, either of the flesh or spirit: some with wit, a few with talent, and even genius. But the new impersonation had apparently nothing beyond sex and prettiness. She knew not how to sport a fan or handkerchief, hardly how to ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... are inclined to be magnanimous," she replied, laughing. "Women usually take advantage of that trait in men—when they manifest it. We'll draw a line through the evening of the 20th of December, and, as Jefferson says, in his superb impersonation of poor old Rip, 'It don't count.' By the way, have you seen him?" she asked, determined that the conversation should take a ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... advances on you with a light and noiseless step, over a carpet which all the looms of Paris or of Persia could not imitate, scattering bouquets of colours the most happily contrasted, and impregnating the air with the most grateful fragrance, we at once acknowledge her beautiful impersonation in that "monument of Grecian art," the Farnese Flora, of which we have brought the fresh recollection ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... had been placed in the centre of the barn, just beneath the hoop of lights. There he sat, ruddy and smiling, the very impersonation of a ripe harvest, with an iron fire-shovel fastened in some mysterious manner across his seat, a large splint basket between his knees, working away with an energy that brought the perspiration like ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... in Assyria is the Man-bull, the impersonation of strength and power. [PLATE XIX., Fig. 6.] He guards the palaces of the Assyrian kings, who reckon him their tutelary god, and give his name to their capital city. We may conjecture that in Babylonia his emblem was the sacred fish, which is often seen under ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... real name, and not fictitious) arose. Dr. Scott was a Scotchman of about 65 years of age. He had been a classmate of the remarkable Scottish poet, Robert Pollock. The Doctor was pastor of a church at Newark, N.J. He was the impersonation of kindness, and generosity, and helpfulness. The Gospel shone from every feature. I never saw him under any circumstances without a smile on his face. He had been on the Mount of Transfiguration, and the glory ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... Whig, and was seated in Parliament mainly by the interest of that great Whig autocrat the Duke of Omnium, whose residence was more dangerous even than that of Mr. Sowerby, and whom Lady Lufton regarded as an impersonation of Lucifer upon earth. Mr. Sowerby, too, was unmarried—as indeed, also, was Lord Lufton, much to his mother's grief. Mr. Sowerby, it is true, was fifty, whereas the young lord was as yet only twenty-six, but, nevertheless, her ladyship was becoming ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... from a delightful visit to the Grange, love of admiration gratified by Mr Vanburgh's courtesy and Gervase's elaborate compliments, her hands full of trophies in the shape of flowers and fruit, she looked the impersonation of happiness and prosperity, and singularly out of sympathy with her companions. She was half-way across the room before she recognised Ned, and the sudden change which then passed over her face was far ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... personation, impersonation, simulation, feigning, stage-playing, histrionicism, histrionism, affectation mimicry, pantomime (acting ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... Mr. Paulson. "Mister, the 'Bazoo' in your left hand. Thrust your right hand in under the front of your blouse and strike the attitude popularly ascribed to Daniel Webster. No comedy, either, mister; give us a serious impersonation, sir!" ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... playful activity of the mental faculties of children. The curious fantasies, imaginings, and make-believes—the pleasure of listening to marvellous and impossible tales, and of hearing odd and unpronounceable words or combination of words —the love of acting, and of disguises—of the impersonation of inanimate objects—of seeing things as they are not, and of creating and giving reality to what has no existence except in their own minds—are all the gambollings and frolics, so to speak, of the embryo ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... in this impersonation, became sufficiently soft and tremulous to give Mrs. Baxter a fair idea of the tender yearning of the original. "'OH, MY BABY-TALK LADY!'" cooed ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... Indra of the Hindus, the Jupiter of the Romans,—was in his Grecian presentment a rebellious son, a faithless husband, and sometimes an unkind father. His character was a combination of weakness and strength,—anything but a pattern to be imitated, or even to be reverenced. He was the impersonation of power and dignity, represented by the poets as having such immense strength that if he had hold of one end of a chain, and all the gods held the other, with the earth fastened to it, he would be able to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... part and the great actor. See him as Mephistopheles in "Faust." The Lyceum performance was a superb pantomime, with one overpowering figure drifting through it and in some sort directing it, the red-plumed devil Mephistopheles, who, in Sir Henry Irving's impersonation of him, becomes a kind of weary spirit, a melancholy image of unhappy pride, holding himself up to the laughter of inferior beings, with the old acknowledgment that "the devil is an ass." A head like the head ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... was absolute. "So far as the cravings of Stoicism found historical and political fulfilment, they did so in the sixty years of Hadrian and the Antonines, and so far again as an individual can embody the spirit of an age, its highest and most representative impersonation is unquestionably to be found in the person of Marcus Antoninus.... Stoicism faced the whole problem of existence, and devoted as searching an investigation to processes of being and of thought, to physics and to dialectic, as to the moral problems presented ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... are they to live upon?" said Lady Arabella, appealing, as it were, to some impersonation of reason. "That's what I want him to tell me. What ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... Susan's letter there was some allusion to a bust of Innocence which the young artist had begun, but of which he had said nothing in his answer to her. He had roughed out a block of marble for that impersonation; sculpture was a delight to him, though secondary to his main pursuit. After his memorable adventure, the image of the girl he had rescued so haunted him that the pale ideal which was to work itself out in the bust faded ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the diamond studs, a heavy gold chain. Brutality, vulgarity, self-assurance and an over-bearing will, all expressed themselves in his broad face, bold eyes and heavy chin. Mr. Cavendish, with his uneasy scalp, white hands, his scornful lips and his thin, twitching nostrils, looked the very impersonation of impatience and contempt. If the whole court-room had been thronged with vermin instead of human beings, among which he was obliged to sit, he could not have appeared more disgusted. Quite retired among the audience, and deeply veiled, sat ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... Lachamu, like the second pair of the ancient group of Egyptian deities, probably symbolized darkness as a reproducing and sustaining power. Anshar was apparently an impersonation of the night sky, as his son Anu was of the day sky. It may have been believed that the soul of Anshar was in the moon as Nannar (Sin), or in a star, or that the moon and the stars were manifestations of him, and that the soul of Anu ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... pretended to accept this man as the real Jimmy Crocker for a purpose. At present there is nothing that you can do. Mere impersonation is not a crime. If I had exposed him when we met, you would have gained nothing beyond driving him from the house. Whereas, if we wait, if we pretend to suspect nothing, we shall undoubtedly catch him red-handed in an attempt ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... "Heraine was the impersonation of composure. The neutral tint of dress corresponded with the smooth tresses of her brown hair. Her touch was magnetic, and petulancy vanished at her smile as at a charm. Her intelligence was, doubtless, the secret of her power. She divined my moods without inquiry, ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... swayed; then, as the music quickened, her steps grew more animated, her smile more bright, the lights were stronger, and the dance ended in a whirl of graceful pirouette and tossing, fluttering draperies. With no pause or intermission, Patty was changed to an impersonation of summer. It was done by the lights. Her robe was really of white chiffon, and as pink lights had made it appear in rosy tints, so now a deep yellow light gave the effect ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... to myself (as if contrast were not in this world of ours much more frequent than congruity) a mild, pensive, interesting, fair-haired beauty, tall, pale, and slender;—I found a Hebe, an Euphrosyne,—a round, rosy, joyous creature, the very impersonation of youth, health, sweetness, and gaiety, laughter flashing from her hazel eyes, smiles dimpling round her coral lips, and the rich curls of her chestnut hair,—for having been fourteen months a widow, she had, of course, laid aside the peculiar dress,—the glossy ringlets ...
— Country Lodgings • Mary Russell Mitford
... her eyes and standing, the impersonation of conscious guilt. She felt disgraced. She felt the silence. She felt she could not meet the eyes of the other little girls. And she felt sick. Her throat was sore. In the Third Reader one's face burned from the red-hot stove so near by, while one shivered from the draught when ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... reads the sacred inscriptions. How alive he makes Monadnoc! Dinocrates undertook to "hew Mount Athos to the shape of man" in the likeness of Alexander the Great. Without the help of tools or workmen, Emerson makes "Cheshire's haughty hill" stand before us an impersonation of kingly humanity, and talk with us as a god from ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... name of Hugh Miller will ever stand forth as synonymous with all that is honest and manly; as the impersonation of moral courage and indomitable energy; as the true ideal of a self-educated man. From the humblest sphere of life, and from the toils of a stone-mason's apprentice, without means, without friends, without other than the most rudimentary education, he rose, by his own unaided and ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... eldest daughter of Oliver, was, at that time, a bride of twenty-six years of age; having married, in 1647, the saintly Henry Ireton, Lord Deputy of Ireland. Bridget was the pattern heroine of the 'unco guid,' the quintessence of all propriety; the impersonation of sanctity; an ultra republican, who scarcely accorded to her father the modest title of Protector. She was esteemed by her party a 'personage of sublime growth:' 'humbled, not exalted,' according to Mrs. Hutchinson, by her elevation: 'nevertheless,' says that excellent lady, 'as my ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... achieved itself perfectly, like a ritual There arrived the time when the Prince set down his tiny coffee-cup and leaned back detachedly, while the waiter with the bill went through his celebrated impersonation of a man receiving a favor. Together they passed out between the great ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... to a rehearsal for the celestial choir, and the whole assembly was most deeply moved. Dr. Palmer was short in stature, but his erect form and habit of brushing his hair high over his forehead gave him a commanding look. He was the impersonation of genuine enthusiasm. Some of his letters I shall always prize. They were the outpourings of his own warm heart on paper. He fell asleep just before he reached a round four score, and of our many hymn-writers no one has ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... turning down of Mr. Francis was a good thing. Mr. Francis represented the dodging Democracy. He stood for the evasion of a great issue; for intellectual and moral cowardice, for nauseous neutralism. Mr. Francis was the impersonation of political insincerity. He thought of the party—of keeping the party together, with himself on top—and his stand for what the opponents of silver call "sound money" was a very perfunctory performance. He never declared himself against ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... by virtue of those useful arts, writing and engraving; and do now, with the same wonted alacrity, cast this my arithmetical mite into the public treasury." The book itself is not comparable in merit to at least half-a-dozen others. How then comes Cocker to be the impersonation of Arithmetic? Unless some one can show proof, which we have never found, that he was so before 1756, the matter is ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... respecting the characters who figure in this representation, and we may add that although Simplicity, who here performs even a more prominent and important part than in "The three Ladies of London," must be reckoned the impersonation of a quality, and the representative of a class, so much individuality is given to him, particularly in his capacity of a ballad-singer, that it is impossible not to take a strong interest in all that he says, and in the ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... magician Klingsor at the Parsifal Festival, in 1882, was one of these exceptions. He reflected the spirit of the gruesome text assigned to him so admirably that Wagner was delighted; but afterward he complained that Hill's fine impersonation was not so widely appreciated as it deserved to be; and why? Apparently, because Klingsor's melodic intervals were not ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... pawed the basket feebly again and, upon another outburst from on high, prostrated himself flat. Again threatened, he gave a superb impersonation of a worm. ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... reading of both prose and verse is always faultless. I mean Mr. Otis Skinner, who secured his early training playing minor parts with actors of the "old school." It has become possible, under present conditions, for young actresses ignorant of elocution and unskilled in the first principles of impersonation to be exploited as stars merely because of their personal charm. A beautiful young woman, whether she can act or not, may easily appear "natural" in a society play, especially written around her; and the public, lured by a pair of ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... Hungarian stage, Rosa Laborfalvy. The portrait of her that hangs in her husband's famous library shows a beautiful woman of intense sensitiveness, into whose face some of the sadness of her roles seems to have crept. It was to her powers of impersonation and disguise that Jokai owed his life many years later, when, imprisoned and suffering in a dungeon, he was enabled to escape in her clothes to join Kossuth in the desperate fight against the allied armies of Austria and Russia. Since her death ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... Concert and Opera A Flash in the Pan at the Academy of Music The Transformed American Opera Company Production of Rubinstein's "Nero" An Imperial Operatic Figure First American Performance of "Tristan und Isolde" Albert Niemann and His Characteristics His Impersonation of Siegmund Anecdotes A Triumph ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... "please wait and do not speak until I am out of hearing," he growled. "You have got into the skin of the actual assassin and have spoken most convincingly. One might almost think that the man who killed Remington Kara was actually standing before us. For that piece of impersonation we are all very grateful;" he glared round over his spectacles at his understanding colleagues and they ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... peculiarly comes under the denomination of allegorical imagery; and in this species of allegory, we include the impersonation of passions, affections, virtues, and vices, &c. on account of which, principally, the following odes were properly termed, by their ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... youth seemed to vibrate. Splashed with water, her arms almost chilled by the stream, she seemed to send forth from herself the purity and clearness of these living springs which rushed from the mossy woods. She was an impersonation of health, joy, and freshness, in the full sunlight. One could easily fancy that she might be a careful housekeeper and a queen withal as she was there, in her working dress, with her slender waist, her regal neck, her oval ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... the elder of the raiders, in a husky voice affecting an untutored accent. He had some special ability as a mimic, and, being familiar with the dialect and manners of the people, this gift greatly facilitated the rustic impersonation he had essayed. "Ye're haulin' late," he added, for the ...
— His Unquiet Ghost - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... shrines pure and clean, and the sacred vessels and utensils arranged, as in a well-ordered household. In a word, they were to be, in purity, in industry, in neatness, in order, and in patience and vigilance, the perfect impersonation of maidenly virtue as exhibited in its own proper ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... peculiarly fitted to shine as a gallant "in hall or bower," but had he been the climax of knightly qualities, the very impersonation of beauty, grace, and accomplishment, he could not have been better adapted than, in his own estimation, he already was, to please the fancy of a lady. He was blissfully unconscious of every imperfection; and displayed himself before what he thought the admiring ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... were gradually growing up into Gnosticism. (See Matter. Hist. du Gnosticisme, vol. i. p. 154.) St. John's sense of the Logos seems as far removed from the simple allegory ascribed to the Palestinian Jews as from the Oriental impersonation of the Alexandrian. The simple truth may be that St. John took the familiar term, and, as it were infused into it the peculiar and Christian sense in which it is used ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... towered high above his head; and the impression of immovable solidity which its cold, grey, stately column conveyed to his mind, contrasted powerfully with the howling wind and the raging sea around. It seemed to him, as he sat there within three yards of its granite base, like the impersonation of repose in the midst of turmoil; of peace surrounded by war; of calm and solid self-possession in the midst ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... side of the latter, strong professional jealousy existed. Bowen, a low comedian of "some talent and more conceit," taunted Quin with being tame in a certain role, and Quin retorted in kind, declaring that Bowen's impersonation of a character in "The Libertine" was much inferior to that of another actor. Bowen seems to have had an ill-balanced mind; he was so affected by Jeremy Collier's "Short View" that he left the stage and opened a cane shop in Holborn, thinking "a shopkeeper's life was the readiest way to heaven." ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... of a man madly bent on catching his train though he were to perish of the attempt. And this despite a suspicion that he played to a limited audience of one, and that one unappreciative of the finer phases of everyday histrionic impersonation: an audience answering to the name of Milly, whose lowly station of life was that of housemaid-in-lodgings and whose imagination was as ill-nourished and sluggish as might be expected of one whose wages ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... city above all other cities farthest from woods and meads. Here, nevertheless, there came back to me this old thought born in the midst of flowers and wind-rustled leaves, and I saw that with it the statue before me was in concord. The living original of this work was the human impersonation of the secret influence which had beckoned me on in the forest and by running streams. She expressed in loveliness of form the colour and light of sunny days; she expressed the deep aspiring desire of the soul for the perfection ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... poet has preserved the popular belief with regard to Merlin, who is generally supposed to have been a contemporary of Vortigern. Opinion is divided as to whether he were a real personage, or a mere impersonation, formed by the poetic fancy of a credulous people. It seems most probable that such a man did exist, and that, possessing knowledge as much above the comprehension of his age, as that possessed by ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... to hear Dave Dyer's hen-catching impersonation seven times, "An Old Sweetheart of Mine" nine times, the Jewish story and the funeral oration twice; but now she was ardent and, because she did so want to be happy and simple-hearted, she was as disappointed as the others when ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... with the German impersonation of Satan as a wise old magician, only with claws instead of feet, commissioning his three captains (hauptleutern), Furwitz, Umfallo, and Neidelhard, to beset and ruin Theurdank. They are interpreted as the dangers of youth, middle life, ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Godfrey, "and put 'em back in your bag. We'll leave 'em over at the Tenderloin station, where we'll lodge this gentleman for the night. No use to disturb Mrs. Magnus till morning," he added, with a glance at the gloomy house. "Then we'll have Jemmy give us a special performance of his impersonation of the ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... on me, the works that I do shall he do also." In the light of the general principle laid down, that God is the actual fulness of truth and love and light and blessedness; that Christ, the Logos, is the manifested impersonation of them; and that all men who receive him partake of their Divine substance and enjoy their prerogative, the texts just cited, and numerous other similar ones, are transparent. It is difficult to see how on any other hypothesis they can be made to ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Mr. Wilcox was the impersonation of smiling indifference. "The truth is, my dear sir, I do not care to sell at all. The property is rising in value, and I may remove to that part of the city myself next year. I should lose on it were I to take less than the price I ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... particular characteristic in which the lower animals put us to shame—it can easily be imagined how I was touched to find that this beautiful and grand Canadian girl remained down to the very last moment of her life the impersonation of that most precious of all virtues. I have seen much of my fellow men and women, and I never knew but two other people who displayed gratitude as a passion—indulged in it, I might say, as a luxury—and they were both poets. I can ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... need not, as you say yourself, be inevitable. The person who holds the key of his life, the impersonation of his mistake—" ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... come with me, and thereby afford proof that you are alive, my impersonation of you may cause me trouble. They may opine that I have been an abettor of treason, that I have attempted to circumvent the ends of justice, and that I may have impersonated you in order to render possible your escape. For that, you may rest assured, they ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... somnolent influence upon them, judging from our progress. Occasionally the gentlemen would get out and run up the hills, and once the Englishman fell full length, and jumped in again, his blue coat and peaked hood well frosted with snow, looking, were it not for his youthful face, the very impersonation of Santa Claus. He had a powerful physique, and was full of vitality. These runs in the snow seemed to refresh him greatly, while they exhausted the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... rather in the inspired vitality, the hearty, genuine outpouring of the whole—the real and yet truly ideal humanity of all her singing. That is what has won the world to Jenny Lind; it is that her whole soul and being goes out in her song, and that her voice becomes the impersonation of that song's soul if it have any, that is, if it BE a song. There is plainly no vanity in her, no mere aim to effect; it is all frank and real and ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... the joy that he took in this double impersonation and how easy it was, with the help of his wife, to fool you to the top of your bent. He had already derived the exquisite entertainment of seeing you jealous of his attentions to Jenny and suspicious that she was yielding to them; while she—well, it is instructive to consider again her ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... dollars a week, are compelled out of this slender sum to supply their own. They must change it also at every caprice of fashion or of the manager, sometimes at very short notice, and are expected, no matter how heavy the heart or how light the purse, to come before the public the impersonation of taste and elegance and happiness. A single dress will at times consume the whole salary of a month; and to obtain it even at that cost, the ballet-girl must work on it with her own hands day and night. She must submit to these impositions, or give up her occupation, when perhaps ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... Scott has celebrated (in the novel of "Waverley") the striking effect produced by her resemblance to her brother, William Murray, in the last scene of "Twelfth Night;" and in many pieces founded upon the fate and fortune of Mary Stuart she gave an unrivaled impersonation of the "enchanting queen" ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... to save that other, the loving and beloved wife, who has delivered him from his solitude and isolation. Wife and child are mortal, and to outlive them and his love for them is impossible. But Mejnour, who is the impersonation of thought,—pure intellect without ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... He caught a fleeting glance from the bartender's eye, and stood still, trying to look like a business man who had just dined at the Menger and was waiting for a friend who had promised to pick him up in his motor car. Curly's histrionic powers were equal to the impersonation; but his ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... attacked the censorship in three pamphlets, and the commotion aroused by the controversy raised keen interest in the piece. When it was at last produced on the 4th of November 1789, it achieved an immense success, due in part to its political suggestion, and in part to Talma's magnificent impersonation of Charles IX. Camille Desmoulins said that the piece had done more for the Revolution than the days of October, and a contemporary memoir-writer, the marquis de Ferriere, says that the audience came ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... loss of his favourite jewel, which had been carried off—so rumour said—by the so-called French Ambassador. This, joined to the second escape, must have turned the royal brain; otherwise he would never have displayed such sudden favour to one who had played so daring a prank as the impersonation ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... they are admitted by the area door, and that, once in, not one of them leaves the house again before I put in an appearance. I'll look them over when I arrive to be sure that there's no wolf in sheep's clothing amongst them. With a fellow like that—a diabolical rascal with a diabolical gift for impersonation—one can't be too careful. Meantime, it is just as well not to have confided this news to your daughters, who, naturally, would be nervous and upset; but I assume that you have taken some one of the servants into your confidence in order that ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... his widow; but time appeared to have done nothing in mitigating her sorrow. The younger lady, on the other hand, who was Lady Errol's sister,— Heavens! what a spirit of joy and festal pleasure radiated from her eyes, her step, her voice, her manner! She was Irish, and the very impersonation of innocent gayety, such as we find oftener, perhaps, amongst Irish women than those of any other country. Mourning, I have said, she wore; from sisterly consideration, the deepest mourning; that sole expression there was about her of ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... cousin having been married en secondes noces to the Sieur de Bulkeley, from whom, as every one knows, the Dukes of Cheshire are lineally descended. Accordingly, he made arrangements for appearing to Virginia's little lover in his celebrated impersonation of "The Vampire Monk, or the Bloodless Benedictine," a performance so horrible that when old Lady Startup saw it, which she did on one fatal New Year's Eve, in the year 1764, she went off into the most piercing shrieks, which culminated in violent ...
— The Canterville Ghost • Oscar Wilde
... Institution) addressed to bird or flame or beast the Indians adopted a poetic license no more significant of polytheism than the flights of fancy of many Christian poets in odes to the moon, to Fate, "to the red planet Mars," to the "wild west wind." Mere impersonation and invocation in apostrophe and paeans are not necessarily worship. Doubtless these spells and charms often arose from a superstitious half-belief, an imaginative freak, such as possesses the civilized visionary who shows a coin to the new moon to propitiate its fancied waxing influence in behalf ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... been much attracted by a very sweet and charming actress. She appeared to me as the impersonation of all that was lovely. Her complexion was fair, and her hair golden—a head that Murillo would have loved to paint. She was rather petite, but, oh dear me, what a figure! What ankles! What sweetly moulded neck and arms! What delicately coloured flesh! Are you surprised that she ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... is one of the desirable experiences of contemporary literature, as to hear him speak is one of the desirable experiences of modern politics. Protest, daring, chivalry, the passion for the colour of life and the colour of words—he is the impersonation of these things in a world that is muddling its way half-heartedly ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... field. When at rest or listening, his legs and arms seemed to hang almost lifeless, and his face was care-worn and haggard; but the moment he began to talk his face lightened up, his tall form, as it were, unfolded, and he was the very impersonation of good-humor and fellowship. The last words I recall as addressed to me were that he would feel better when I was back at Goldsboro'. We parted at the gang-way of the River Queen about noon of ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... no doubt. Nothing dispirited, we sat down to a leg of mutton, which Brown had so far departed from his household economy as to order for us at six, and enjoyed our evening as thoroughly as if we had been a triple impersonation of Colonel Hawker in point of successful sportmanship. Nor was it until after the second bottle of port that we began to accuse each other ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... however, was altered. Petronella had drawn Armine aside one way, and now that he was come back again, he did not find the same perfectly sympathetic sister as before. Bobus had not been without effect upon her, as the impersonation of common sense and antagonism to Miss Parsons. It had not shown at the time, for his domineering tone and his sneers always impelled her to stand up for her darling; but when he was "poor Bobus" gone into exile and bereft of his love, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... few paces distant the dead and wounded were piled in ghastly heaps. Still on they came up to the very muzzles of the guns; they were blown away from the cannon's mouth but yet they did not waver. Pickett had taken the key to the position and the glad shout of victory was heard, as, the very impersonation of a soldier, he still forced his troops to the crest of Cemetery Ridge. Kemper and Armistead broke through Hancock's line, scaled the hill and planted their flags on its crest. Just before Armistead was shot, he placed his flag upon a captured ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... "The very impersonation of honesty, integrity and honor, he will stand to posterity as the beau-ideal of the soldier and gentleman. Though he leaves no child to bear his name, the old Army of the Cumberland, numbered by tens of thousands, called him father, and will ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... even these in pure untroubled rest, but agitated by phantasmata of portentous augury; as, for example, upon one occasion, among other spectral visions, he fancied that he saw the sea, under some definite impersonation, conversing with himself. Hence it was, and from this incapacity of sleeping, and from weariness of lying awake, that he had fallen into habits of ranging all night long through the palace, sometimes throwing himself ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... throb of its movement. In her midnight musings the man seemed somehow to cease to be odious because he ceased to be individual, to be no longer incomprehensible because he was no longer apart, because he became to her less himself and more the expression and impersonation of an instinct that in her own blood ran riot ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... nestled down in the soft mounds (to the detriment of our black dresses, by the way, for upon emerging we were covered with burrs and straws), and being far from reproving ears we sung both sacred and secular music, and laughed at a droll impersonation, of ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... not at all hard to swallow,—but ideal sailors, why in the world must we bear them, when we can get the originals so cheaply? When the American "Beggar's Opera" was put upon the stage, "Mose" stepped forward, the very impersonation of the Bowery. If it was low, it was at least true, a social fact. But the stage sailor is not as near probability as even the stage ship or the theatrical ocean. He is a relic of the past,—a monstrous compound out of the imperfect gleanings of the Wapping ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... he could develop a secondary self that would impose on the beholders as a discarnate spirit. On one occasion he thus acted in a semi-conscious way the part of a dead woman, the mother of a friend present, and the impersonation was accepted as a genuine case of spirit control. On another, having given several successful impersonations, he suddenly felt weak and ill, and almost fell to ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... tragic passion, 'That's no bad!' We have read of her dismay at this ludicrous parsimony of praise, but her self-respect must have been restored when the Edinburgh ladies fainted by dozens during her impersonation of Isabella ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... his fear and suffering until a muzzle is buckled on his jaws to stifle every sound. The scalpel penetrates his quivering flesh. One effort only is now natural until his powers are exhausted—a vain, instinctive resistance to the cruel form that stands over him, the impersonation of Magendie and his class. 'I recall to mind,' says Dr. Latour, 'a poor dog, the roots of whose vertebral nerves Magendie desired to lay bare to demonstrate Bell's theory, which he claimed for his own. The dog, already mutilated ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... gazing at her thus, in her beautiful stillness and calm,—two men, the younger of us full-grown and conscious of many experiences, the other an old man,—before this impersonation of tender youth. At length he said, with a slight tremulousness in his voice, "Does nothing suggest to ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... be assured of the same successful result. Again I say it, therefore—walk, and be merry; walk, and be healthy; walk, and be your own master!—walk, to enjoy, to observe, to improve, as no riders can!—walk, and you are the best peripatetic impersonation of holiday enjoyment that is to be met with on the surface of this ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... stone dead on the spot. I was thus able to predict the manner and place of the baronet's death—if he be dead. Beside him, I said, would probably be found a white stone. For Ul-Jabal, his ghastly impersonation ended, would hurry to the pocket, snatch out the stone, and finding it not the stone he sought, would in all likelihood dash it down, fly away from the corpse as if from plague, and, I hope, straightway go ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... missed on the Chinese stage. The make-up of the actor is so perfect, and his imitation of the feminine voice and manner, down to the smallest detail, even to the small feet, is so exact in every point, that he would be a clever observer who could positively detect impersonation by ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... maid Athene we have perhaps the highest conception of deity to which the Greek mind had attained in the early times. In the Veda, Athene is nothing but the dawn; but in the Greek mythology, while the merely sensuous glories of daybreak are assigned to Eos, Athene becomes the impersonation of the illuminating and knowledge-giving light of the sky. As the dawn, she is daughter of Zeus, the sky, and in mythic language springs from his forehead; but, according to the Greek conception, this imagery signifies that she shares, more ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... encouragement of a revolt by the secret agents, the impersonation of Miliukov, the concealment of food in the factory districts, the desire of a separate peace with Germany—make out a fairly good case to show that the Government was behind the disturbance. Aside from the reason already given for the desire of a separate peace, the ...
— The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement • Alexander Petrunkevitch, Samuel Northrup Harper,
... overpowered as he at first feared. Evidently another ship, or perhaps more, had joined the Archer and accompanied her boats up the river. He could not help also turning round to see what the old Spaniard was doing. There he stood on his perch surveying his motley crew—the impersonation of an evil spirit—so Jack thought. Yet he looked quite calm and quiet, with a smile—it was not a pleasant one, however—playing on his countenance. In a moment afterwards his whole manner changed; he sprang off the ground and clapped his hands, crying out loudly, "Tira! tira, amijos." ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... image I knew so well, having seen his portrait (the one in Colonel Olcott's possession) times out of number. I knew not what to say: joy and reverence tied my tongue. The majesty of his countenance, which seemed to me to be the impersonation of power and thought, held me rapt in awe. I was at last face to face with "the Mahatma of the Himavat," and he was no myth, no "creation of the imagination of a medium," as some sceptics had suggested. It was no dream ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... could be in the sign Gemini, because his greatest elongation, or apparent distance from the sun, does not exceed 29 degrees; so that the Sun having but just entered Taurus, Mercury could not be in Gemini. Neither could Venus see Valens (the other impersonation of Mercury), because of his concealment in the cave; but when she entered the cave, then she was welcomed ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 75, April 5, 1851 • Various
... hundreds of letters daily from your readers, to be able to fully appreciate how intensely interested they are in the story. It does not seem to satisfy them to feel assured of Ruth's marriage, but they want to be there and see it. Juliet, too, is not with them, as with you, a mere impersonation, but a living reality, and they will never rest till they hear from her. If I was a betting man I would bet five to one that what your husband struck out, is just exactly what is wanted. What do we men know ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... habits, she was a living impersonation of order, method, and exactness. In punctuality, she was as inevitable as a clock, and as inexorable as a railroad engine; and she held in most decided contempt and abomination anything ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... after a pause—"yes, she was a woman, a whole-hearted,' noble woman. She was the golden star of my childhood, the saintly ideal of the youth, as she is now in heaven the guardian angel of the man; there is no woman like her, Conrad. She was the impersonation of love, of self-sacrifice, of ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... passages of domestic interest concerning her papa, she infused into the narrative such Arctic suggestions of her having been an unappreciated blessing to mankind, since her papa's days, and also of that gentleman's having been a frosty impersonation of a frosty race, as struck cold to the very soles of the feet of the hearers. The Inexhaustible being produced, staring, and evidently intending a weak and washy smile shortly, no sooner beheld her, than it was stricken spasmodic ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... only artist who could have illustrated this drama. He might have shadowed forth the choirs of spirits, the trailing voices and their thrilling songs, phantasmal Demorgorgon, and the charioted Hour. Prometheus, too, with his "flowing limbs," has just Blake's fault of impersonation—the touch of ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... it was reported had become a great actor. Alfred had never heard the word actor save in connection with a circus performer. He had never witnessed or even heard of a dramatic actor. He had gotten his idea for his impersonation from a rider, who, standing on a broad pad on a horse's back in the circus ring, impersonated noted characters such as Richard III, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett and ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... account it no reason why we should desist, when conscience, an awakened sense of duty, and aroused heart-sympathies, would lead us to show ourselves something different than an impersonation of the vague ideal which has been named, Woman, and with which woman has long striven to identify herself. A creature all softness and sensibility, who must necessarily enjoy and suffer in the extreme, while sharing with man the pleasures and the ills of life; bearing happiness ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... up to make his speech, erect in the middle of that little square, he looked like an ecclesiastical statue placed there, as a fitting impersonation of the church militant here on earth; his shovel hat, large, new, and well-pronounced, a churchman's hat in every inch, declared the profession as plainly as does the Quaker's broad brim; his heavy eyebrows, large open eyes, and full mouth ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... killed in action—Gerald Gill[16] and Eric Clarke.[17] Gill took his colours in cricket, gym, and football. His impersonation of M. Perrichon in the French play on Founder's Day, 1913, was very clever and entertaining. I am also much grieved at Clarke's death. He was shaping for a brilliant career. It's just awful this sacrifice of the ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... followed her here, and during the meal that followed, she was the maddest of all the mad crowd. After dinner they had Josephine's violin, and coaxed Betsey to recite, but more appreciated than either was Miss Brown's rendition of selections from German and Italian opera, and her impersonation of an inexperienced servant from Erin's green isle. Mrs. Carroll laughed until the tears ran down her cheeks, as ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris |
