"Personate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lookout. It would be more perilous to run out to sea than to continue on our course, for we had passed through the off shore line of blockaders, and the sky had become perfectly clear. I determined to personate a transport bound to Beaufort, which was in the possession of the United States forces, and the coaling station of the fleet blockading Wilmington. The risk of detection was not very great, for many of the captured ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... had seen a play during the vacation at home told the others the plot. The whole was divided into scenes, and each character was assigned to some representative who was left to personate it according to his own conception, choosing the words and gestures which he deemed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... victory of the stronger, with the prospect of slavish charms, fawning submission, marrowy spoil. Or perhaps, preferably, a sullen submission, reluctant charms; far more marrowy. Or who can say?—the creature is a rocket of the shot into the fiery garland of stars; she may personate any new marvel, be an unimagined terror, an overwhelming bewitchment: for she carries the unexpected in her bosom. And does it look like such indubitable victory, when the man, the woman's husband, divided from her, toothsome to the sex, acknowledges within himself and lets ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... puzzling situations in life, this was certainly the worst; for however often my lot had been to personate another, yet hitherto I had had the good fortune to be aware of what and whom I was performing. Now I might be any body from Marshal Soult to Monsieur Scribe; one thing only was certain, I must be a "celebrity." The confounded pains and trouble they ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... tolerably certain that a large snake (Python) still lingered in Eastern Europe. Huge tame snakes were kept as sacred by the Macedonian women; and one of them (according to Lucian) Peregrinus Proteus, the Cagliostro of his time, fitted with a linen mask, and made it personate the god AEsculapius. In the "Historia Lausiaca," cap. lii. is an account by an eye-witness of a large snake in the Thebaid, whose track was "as if a beam had been dragged along the sand." It terrifies the Syrian ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... her tall, stately, elegant figure was admirably calculated to personate the tragic heroines of opera. Her face at this time was beautiful, her large eyes flashed with intellect, and her classical features were radiant with expression; her grandeur of conception, her tragic dignity, her glowing warmth and abandon rendered her worthy ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... Achilles withdrew in wrath to his tent, where he consoled himself with music and singing, and refused to take any further part in the war. During his absence the Greeks were hard pressed, and at last he so far relaxed his anger as to allow his friend Patroclus to personate him, lending him his chariot and armour. The slaying of Patroclus by the Trojan hero Hector roused Achilles from his indifference; eager to avenge his beloved comrade, he sallied forth, equipped with new armour fashioned by Hephaestus, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... in which two boys personate a Centaur, a creature of Greek mythology, half man and half horse. One of the players stands erect and the other behind him in a stooping position with his hands upon the first player's hips, as ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... "Lincoln, I remember of reading somewhere in the same book from which you get your Agrippa story, that Paul, whom you seem to desire to personate, admonished all servants (slaves) to be obedient to them that are their masters according to the flesh, in fear ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... to personate the last agony, writhing and rolling his eyes, and clutching at the air with palsied hands. In despair of soothing one in that condition, she changed mood ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... calling. He saw an active little match girl trip across the street, and solicit alms in a very winning and even graceful manner—"that shall be my columbine," said he:—and she was so. A young lad of a sturdy form, and sluggish movement, is converted into a clown: a slim youth is made to personate harlequin—and thus he forms and puts into action the different characters of his entertainment... absolutely and exclusively out of the very lowest orders ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... completely thunderstruck at the revelation. "Why, then," he cried, after a pause, "this may supply the very motive-power that is wanting, for one to personate Fred Massingbird." ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... who eventually married her, got a friend of his, who was called Sygurd, the serpent-killer, to wrestle with her, disguising him in his own armour. Sygurd flung her down, and won her for his friend, though he loved her himself. I shall not use a similar deceit, nor employ Jasper Petulengro to personate me—so get up, Belle, and I will do my best ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... young ladies, the Albany. Wonderful to relate, it is from Miss Thomasina Fringe's nephew, Sir Bryan Beausex. The maiden dame is inconceivably shocked; and to show her detestation of this indelicate proposal, agrees to personate Patty and keep the appointment herself, for the pleasure of inflicting on her nephew a heap of mortification and a moral lecture. Mr. Tack is the next appearance: being an upholsterer, of course he has the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 13, 1841 • Various
... you, often at a large reduction, the return ticket of another, who on arrival has found it unnecessary, and sold it for what he could get. As such tickets are not transferable, you have, after buying such, to personate on the return journey the original possessor, and sign his name. But the Yankees think nothing of this. Thank goodness, all Americans ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... all about my adventures presently—and you have no idea what difficulty I had in cutting it, for the knife was so blunt that I had to cut and pull at it a whole afternoon. But it had to be done, for I meant to personate a boy—having stolen a boy's hunting dress for that purpose. Wasn't it fun to rob the robbers? And then— and then—I found ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... Caller. Blue, white and rosy scarfs for as many dancers as will personate the three Flowers that respond to the call: Violets, Wild-roses and Daisies. A twisted rope of green to link the dancing Flowers together ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... insinuating, and artful, and his character was so supple that he could become as many different men as he had occasion to personate. But he was shortsighted even in his grandest projects; and, unlike his predecessor, whose mind was bold but his temperature timid, Mazarin was bolder in temper than in conception. A pretended moderation veiled his ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... became visible, the white mansion gleaming through the trees. Wright recognizing the place, suggested that Glazier might procure a good supper, and something for the haversack, if he would boldly call and personate a rebel officer, trusting to his face and ready wit to carry him through. He had heard from some negroes that the only occupant was a Mrs. Keyton and some young children, the wife and family of the planter, who was an officer ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... the spirit of mischief with which I am at all times possessed moved me to personate the character for which he took me, and I gruffly bade him stand and deliver toll of the valuables ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... finely, and so did Utah. One of the last things which Brigham Young had done before leaving Iowa, was to appear in the pulpit dressed to personate the worshipped and lamented prophet Smith, and confer the prophetic succession, with all its dignities, emoluments and authorities, upon "President Brigham Young!" The people accepted the pious fraud with the maddest enthusiasm, and Brigham's power was sealed and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... princes, and could find admittance into all society. As a squire, he could only go to the Holy Land in attendance upon some one else, nor could he carry the sword and belt of the dead man whom he was to represent. A knight must personate a knight. ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... Humour, by offering him a Reparation that shall be equally honourable with what he would chuse, tho' less prejudicial to the Society. What the Law promises is a Tribute to the same Passion which he wants to gratify, a Sacrifice to the Idol which he himself adores. Should Any one personate these Laws, and, representing the Sentiments on those who made them, speak to a Man of Honour, who had receiv'd an Affront, an Officer of the Guards, we'll say, who had been call'd Fool by his Equal, ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... wife had been known as Mrs. Manston, and when you found that the lodging-house-keeper had gone away and died, and that nobody else in the street had any definite ideas as to your wife's personal appearance, and came and proposed the arrangement we carried out—that I should personate her. Your taking all this trouble shows that something more serious than love had ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... the species, genera, and entire families belonging to one hemisphere, reflected as it were, in analogous animal and vegetable forms in the opposite hemisphere. There are, so to speak, the 'equivalents' which mutually personate and replace one another in the great series of organisms. These connecting links and stages of transition may be traced, alternately, in a deficiency or an excess of development of certain parts, in the mode of junction of distinct organs, in the differences in the balance of forces, ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... wife; had also accepted him as her former lover? Surely here was a mass of evidence sufficient to cast light on the case. Imagine an impostor arriving for the first time in a place where all the inhabitants are unknown to him, and attempting to personate a man who had dwelt there, who would have connections of all kinds, who would have played his part in a thousand different scenes, who would have confided his secrets, his opinions, to relations, friends, acquaintances, to all sorts ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... music and varied entertainments at the house served also to beguile her time. On one occasion the young people were arranging a series of tableaux, and she was asked to personate Jephtha's daughter. When the curtain rose on her lovely face and large, dark eyes, the Hebrew maiden and her pathetic history grew into vivid reality against the ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... stores and prisoners, and, leaving them under a strong guard, proceed with two of his prows loaded to the gunwale with merchandise, to the port. The merchant-boats which he had previously sunk, and whose crews he had murdered, provided him with "port-clearances," which enabled him to personate the trader and regularly enter and clear the customs at Singapore, so as to cause no suspicion; then, returning to his place of rendezvous with a fresh supply of guns, ammunition, etcetera, he divided his ill-gotten gains and recommenced ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... "I trust you, Griggs, but there are other reasons why I cannot tell you all that. You see the result, at all events, and a result very dearly paid for," he added gravely. "But I have got the thing, and what is more, I have permission to personate the Sultan's ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... patience to hear such a fellow speak nonsense. But he corrected himself by reflecting that he was perhaps as well entertained, and instructed too, by this same modest gauger, as he should have been by such a man as he had thought proper to personate. And surely the fault may more properly be imputed to that rank where the futility is real than where it is feigned: to that rank whose opportunities for nobler accomplishments have only served to rear a fabric of folly which the untutored ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... E'en like—if we its hopes may personate— Fall'n Marius, 'mid the ruins, when he stood And pondered darkly o'er his desperate fate, Alone, in th' o'erthrown City's solitude. Oh! we may build a fairy home for love— But, when 'tis blasted, how can we remove? How from the ruins can the ruined part? Or ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas
... the King's throne? Do you think that the nobles and the people will enjoy being fooled as you've fooled them? Do you think they'll love a King who was too drunk to be crowned, and sent a servant to personate him?" ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... was the more daring of the two whom I the goddess had deputed to protect Sam-Chung, at length cried out with flashing eyes, "I will personate the boy, Chu shall act the girl, and together we will fight the Demon and overthrow and kill him, and so deliver the people ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... and songs, to the great admiration of children and the amusement of older people, but it was very seldom this favor was granted, without earnest and reiterated entreaties. It was the first time she had ever spontaneously offered to personate the Sibyl, whose oracles she uttered, and it was a proof that an unusual fit of inspiration was ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... mistaken view of true Christianity. The author of 'Deism fairly stated,' &c.—a work which excited much attention at its publication in 1746—had said, 'That a perfectly innocent Being, of the highest order among intelligent natures, should personate the offender and suffer in his place and stead, in order to take down the wrath and resentment of the Deity against the criminal, and dispose God to show mercy to him—the Deist conceives to be both unnatural ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... that these material blessings may be given. "It is an almost universal idea of primitive man," says Fewkes, "that prayers should be addressed to personations of the beings worshipped. In the carrying out of this conception men personate the katchinas, wearing masks, and dressing in the costumes characteristic of these beings. These personations represent to the Hopi mind their idea of the appearance of these katchinas or clan ancients. The spirit beings represented in these personations appear at certain times in the pueblo, ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... that the modern actors who personate the ghost, pay a proper attention to the text. It is evident from the above passage, that the ghost in crossing between the speakers and the audience, should give a jump, taking special care to avoid both traps and lamps, otherwise he may "fast in fires," a little too fast. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... divided into two equal parties, one of which personate defenders, and take their places in the barn, with the doors and windows open. The other party are the besiegers, and are stationed outside the barn. The fighting is done by means of weeds specially prepared for the purpose. ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... beside the body to inspect the actors who were to personate the ghosts, in order to make sure that they had learned their parts well and could mimick to the life the figure and gait of the particular dead persons whom they represented. By the time that these preparations were complete, the morning had worn on to noon. The ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... warriors who remained behind was to personate a woman, and, if possible, make the old chief's people think he was Chaf-fa-ly-a. Souk said he knew a pass through the Black Hills that would bring them to his father's country two days sooner than by any other ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... getting whole divisions of the hustings to themselves, where they polled every beggar from the streets. The question is not of title to vote in most cases, but of identity; most families being at this season out of town, a rascal was found to personate every absentee. The suborners of perjury not regularly conferring, very many instances occur of an absentee being represented by four or five, all admitted to vote on ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... here, Cliff, don't yo' personate me! Counting from de little finger back to de thumb—yo' start anythin', I ...
— Three Plays - Lawing and Jawing; Forty Yards; Woofing • Zora Neale Hurston
... often sought indeed yet sought in vain not only by dramatists who have very [Footnote 1 Deflexit jam aliquantul im] seldom attained it but by authors of a very great diversity of type and culture. One who undertakes to personate a character belonging to an age not his own hardly ever fails of manifest anachronisms. The author finds it utterly impossible to fit the antique mask so closely as not now and then to show through its chinks his own more modern features, while this form of internal evidence ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... conveyed on board as merchandise. Nothing was to be said of the lady's decease; and, as it was well understood that Mr. Wyatt had engaged passage for his wife, it became necessary that some person should personate her during the voyage. This the deceased lady's-maid was easily prevailed on to do. The extra state-room, originally engaged for this girl during her mistress' life, was now merely retained. In this state-room the pseudo-wife, slept, of course, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... professions, very far from being desirous of the empire, he had accepted it with the most sincere reluctance. "But it is no longer in my power," says Probus, in a private letter, "to lay down a title so full of envy and of danger. I must continue to personate the character which the soldiers have imposed upon me." [25] His dutiful address to the senate displayed the sentiments, or at least the language, of a Roman patriot: "When you elected one of your order, conscript fathers! to succeed the emperor Aurelian, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... stooped to pick it. The horse lashed out with its heels, and struck him in the back of the neck and killed him.... Then the idea came to David to exchange clothes with the dead man, and to take his papers, and personate him. Thus, he could escape from the individuality which was his curse, and find his true self, as it were, in another person. He said, too, that his greatest hope had been to win my love and make me his wife; but he found that he could not bring himself to attempt that, unless ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... was on the outside of the building), about some runaway cattle, and the old trapper thought all the while that he was talking to his chum, Dick Lewis. Now Archie had a new subject to practice upon. He laid himself out to personate Arthur Vane; and he not only successfully imitated that young gentleman's pompous style of talking, and his dignified manner of riding and walking, but even the tone of his voice. He criticised Frank and ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... abolishment of the Christian religion will be the readiest course we can take to introduce popery. And I am the more inclined to this opinion, because we know it has been the constant practice of the Jesuits to send over emissaries, with instructions to personate themselves members of the several prevailing sects among us. So it is recorded, that they have at sundry times appeared in the guise of Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Independents and Quakers, according as any of these were most in credit; so, since the fashion hath been taken up of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... character of French bonne, and afterwards of governess, came to the rescue. She told her story, which was rather a strange one, to the Colonel, and they made an arrangement with her to come and take care of the child. It was planned between them that Percy (her name is Amy Percival) should personate the only child of a deceased brother of the Colonel, and be adopted by him as his own daughter. Thenceforward the poor pale Madame Guyot took up her abode with them, like Amram's wife at the Egyptian ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... take permanent possession of an organism, yet always craving to do so, it might get its head into the air, parasitically, so to speak, by profiting by weak spots in the armor of human minds, and slipping in and stirring up there the sleeping tendency to personate. It would induce habits in the subconscious region of the mind it used thus, and would seek above all things to prolong its social opportunities by making itself agreeable and plausible. It would drag stray scraps of truth with it from the wider environment, but would betray its mental ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... those men from whose lips nothing ever sounds as if it were meant seriously. His statement that he regarded a serving girl from the temple of Serapis as fit to personate Hebe, was spoken as naturally and simply as if he were telling a tale for children; but his words produced an effect on his hearers like the sound of waters ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... for question. Dr. Legge says that it had its Chang and Liu, and "many more gods, supreme gods, celestial gods, great gods, and divine rulers." [171] And Dr. Edkins writes: "The Taouist mythology resembles, in several points, that of many heathen nations. Some of its divinities personate those beings that are supposed to reside in the various departments of nature. Many of the stars are worshipped as gods." [172] Buddhism not only supplies further evidence, it also furnishes a noteworthy instance of mythic transformation. Sakchi or Sasi, the moon, ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... and he has the misfortune of some scholar, too much wit makes him a fool. He is like our painting gentlewomen, seldom in his own face, seldomer in his cloaths; and he pleases, the better he counterfeits, except only when he is disguised with straw for gold lace. He does not only personate on the stage, but sometimes in the street, for he is masked still in the habit of a gentleman. His parts find him oaths and good words, which he keeps for his use and discourse, and makes shew with them of a fashionable companion. He is tragical on the stage, ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... connected with enormous dangers that imparts to our consternation or our pity a tincture of the pleasing. This, at least, may be experienced by those who are beyond the verge of peril. My own person was exposed to no hazard. I had leisure to conjure up terrific images, and to personate the witnesses and sufferers of this calamity. This employment was not enjoined upon me by necessity, but was ardently pursued, and must therefore have been recommended by ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... and I declare the sprite drove her about like a slave—"Grandmamma, fetch me this," "grandmamma, you must do that," till at last she brought my poor mother down on her knees, stooping under the table to personate an old cow ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and soul, ransacking boxes and barrels and worm-eaten chests, scouring the country far and near and even sending as far as Davenport and Rock Island for the necessary costumes. Andy himself had been asked by Harry Clifford to lend his Sunday suit, that young scamp intending to personate some raw New England Yankee; and that was how Mrs. Markham, senior, first came to hear of the proceedings which, to one of her rigid views, savored strongly of the pit, especially after she heard one of the parties described by an eye-witness, who mentioned ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... now with his affections, and no longer able to personate an angry man, commanded all that were present to depart, that he might make himself known to his brethren when they were alone; and when the rest were gone out, he made himself known to his brethren; and said, "I commend you for your virtue, and your kindness to ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... to conceive of anything more diabolically bad than what she did to me. She made me her sport—yours, too, perhaps, or she would at least have wished it. On that holy ground where my people lie in peace she made me deny my faith, she made me, in your eyes and her own, personate a renegade of my race, she made me confess in the Christian creed, she made me seem to die for a belief I abhor. Can you conceive of anything more devilish? A moment later she smiles upon me and presses my hand, and is anxious to know of my good health. And but ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... parlours are made with French windows; they are open, and invite the bailiff-hunted Brown into the house. What so natural as that he should find out the state of family affairs from a loquacious Abigail, and should personate the expected nephew? Mr. Tidmarsh (the property old gentleman of the farce-writers) is in ecstacics. Mrs. T. sees in the supposed Selbourne a son-in-law for her daughter, whose vision is directed to the same prospects. Happy, domestic circle! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... just learned that a certain William Beresford was Bishop of Ossory once on a time, and I intend to personate this dignitary, clad in Dr. La Touche's cap and gown. We spend this sunny morning by the river-bank; Francesca hemming the last of the yellow window curtains, and I making souvenir programmes for the great occasion. Salemina had ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... continent, and Rhimeson was dozing over a newspaper in the Turk's Head in that town, when a policeman entered, and, mistaking him for Elliot, took him into custody. How their route had been discovered, Rhimeson knew not; but he was possessed of sufficient presence of mind to personate his friend, and offer to accompany the police officer instantly back to Edinburgh, leaving a letter and a considerable sum of money for Elliot. In a few minutes, the generous fellow leaped into the post-chaise, with a heart as light as many a bridegroom when flying on the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... then look thoroughly into the affair. Of course there is only one feasible explanation. You have been brought there to personate someone, and the real person is imprisoned in this chamber. That is obvious. As to who this prisoner is, I have no doubt that it is the daughter, Miss Alice Rucastle, if I remember right, who was said to have gone to America. You were chosen, doubtless, as resembling her in ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... old hunks, who hates to hear any voice but his own. His nephew, Sir Dauphine, wants to wring out of him a third of his property, and proceeds thus: He gets a lad to personate "a silent woman," and the phenomenon so delights the old man, that he consents to a marriage. No sooner is the ceremony over, than the boy-wife assumes the character of a virago of loud and ceaseless tongue. Morose, driven half-mad, promises to give his nephew a third ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Richard Savage was an impostor, being in reality the son of the shoemaker, under whose wife's care[501] Lady Macclesfield's child was placed; that after the death of the real Richard Savage, he attempted to personate him; and that the fraud being known to Lady Macclesfield, he was therefore repulsed by ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... The host or hostess should not have any conspicuous part assigned them, unless it is urged by all the other performers. Those who are to participate, should not only learn their parts, but endeavor to imbue themselves with the spirit of the character they personate, so as to afford pleasure to all who are invited to witness its performance. When persons have consented to participate in any such entertainment, only sickness or some very grave cause should prevent them from undertaking their part. Supper or refreshments ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... a strong resemblance to the tale of Ariodante and Ginevra in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. The Princess Ginevra, the heroine of the tale, rejects the love-suit of Duke Polinesso, and pledges her hand to Ariodante. Thereupon Polinesso engages her attendant Dalinda to personate the Princess on a balcony by moonlight, while he ascends to her chamber by a ladder of ropes; Ariodante being by previous arrangement stationed near the spot, so as to witness the supposed infidelity of his betrothed. This brings on a false charge against Ginevra, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... for canvassers which was printed on the little card said that you must not persuade any one to personate a voter. I have no idea what it means. To dress up as an average voter seems a little vague. There is no well-recognised uniform, as far as I know, with civic waistcoat and patriotic whiskers. The enterprise resolves itself into ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... a miracle, we are not Already sacrific' d incarnate. For while we wrangle here, and jar, 1525 W' are grilly'd all at TEMPLE-BAR: Some on the sign-post of an ale-house, Hang in effigy, on the gallows; Made up of rags, to personate Respective Officers of State; 1530 That henceforth they may stand reputed, Proscrib'd in law, and executed; And while the Work is carrying on Be ready listed under DON, That worthy patriot, once the bellows, 1535 And tinder-box, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... 544; celluloid. imitator, echo, cuckoo|, parrot, ape, monkey, mocking bird, mime; copyist, copycat; plagiarist, pirate. V. imitate, copy, mirror, reflect, reproduce, repeat; do like, echo, reecho, catch; transcribe; match, parallel. mock, take off, mimic, ape, simulate, impersonate, personate; act &c. (drama) 599; represent &c. 554; counterfeit, parody, travesty, caricature, lampoon, burlesque. follow in the steps of, tread in the steps, follow in the footsteps of, follow in the wake of; take pattern by; follow ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... and therefore it requires a less profound organic twist to become sexually attracted to them. Anyone who has watched private theatricals in boys' schools will have observed how easy it is for boys to personate women successfully, and it is well known that until the middle of the seventeenth century women's parts on the stage were always taken by boys, whether or not with injury to their own or other people's morals.[204] It ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... table. De Foe's extraordinary love for supernatural stories of the gossiping variety found vent in 'A History of Apparitions,' and his 'System of Magic.' The position which he takes up is a kind of modified rationalism. He believes that there are genuine apparitions which personate our dead friends, and give us excellent pieces of advice on occasion; but he refuses to believe that the spirits can appear themselves, on account 'of the many strange inconveniences and ill consequences ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... twenty miles. Meanwhile Argyle shall come aboard here. The schooner shall take him up to Egmont; he'll get there this afternoon. He must come aboard disguised though. At Zaandam, we three will separate, Jermyn will personate me, remaining in Zaandam. The boy shall carry letters in a hurry to Hoorn; dummy letters, of course. While I shall creep off to meet Argyle—somewhere else. If we start in a hurry they won't have time to organize a pursuit. There are probably only a few secret agents ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... of Louis XVI.? but that unhappy child is indisputably no more. Then my neighbour must be one of those unlucky adventurers who have undertaken to bring him to life again. Not a few had already taken upon themselves to personate this Louis XVII., and were proved to be impostors; how is my new acquaintance entitled to ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... conduct, though a very common way of management, is as ridiculous as the officer's would be, who had but few men under his command, and should take the charge of an extent of country rather than of a small pass. To pay for, personate, and keep in a man's hands, a greater estate than he really has, is of all others the most unpardonable vanity, and must in the end reduce the man who is guilty of it to dishonour. Yet if we look round us in any county of Great Britain, we shall see many in this fatal error; ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... nature, and whether she had liked it or not at first, she had learned to do it with perfect ease and indifference, neither letting her voice drag languidly and hesitatingly when she was tired, nor falling into that nerve-rending fault of readers who vainly endeavour to personate the characters in dialogue, and to give impressiveness in the descriptive portions. She never made a remark, or asked her hearer's opinion. If the Countess was in the humour to sleep, the reading was soporific; if she desired to listen, ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... the hope of publicly displaying their anti- radical sentiments before all Shellport, looked about for consolation indoors that evening, and found it in a demonstration against the unlucky Bosher, who, against his will, had been forced to personate the Radical at the recent meeting, and now found it impossible to retrieve his reputation. He was hissed all round the playground, and finally had to barricade himself in his study to escape further persecution. But even there he was not safe. The youthful Whigs forced their way into his ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... the Bradys to the means the abductors employed to personate the undertaker and carry ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... he buried himself in the indulgence of the thought of the possibility of some sort of communication with his wife. Singularly and fortunately he did not have recourse to the fruitless idiocy of spiritualism, nor engage in that humiliating intercourse with illiterate humbugs who personate the minds of men and women almost too sacred to be even for an instant associated in thought ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... Opinion must be strangely obliging that makes You think I can personate the brave Antonio, Whom I can but ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... altogether, because in the hands of the Realists they fade away into ineffective and colourless forms. The Sir Peter Teazles and Sir Anthony Absolutes of the old comedy require indispensably the resources of the old art, and no thin, water-gruel realism, so-called, can personate them. In avoiding the declamatory Kembletonianism of the old school, our actors are right enough; but they cannot safely disregard the skill which sharpens and chisels, as it were, the sentences; nor forego the care, study, ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Love in '76 - An Incident of the Revolution • Oliver Bell Bunce
... of course, in conscious art, which, though it be derived from play, is itself an abstract, impersonal thing, and depends largely upon philosophical interests beyond the scope of childhood. It is when we make castles in the air and personate the leading character in our own romances, that we return to the spirit of our first years. Only, there are several reasons why the spirit is no longer so agreeable to indulge. Nowadays, when we admit ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... after stating that "the formal customary way of singing hath no foundation in Scripture, nor any ground in true Christianity," he adds, "all manner of wicked, profane persons take upon them to personate the experiences and conditions of blessed David; which are not only false as to them, but also to some of more sobriety, who utter them forth." "Such singing doth more please the carnal ears of men, than the pure ears of the Lord, ...
— On Singing and Music • Society of Friends
... were very important and very private, and after discussion it was decided what ceremonies and mysteries were to be presented. The duke desired that I should personate the character of Holy Church of which he wished to make use ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... highest degree of the society requires a greater number of feasts than before, and the candidate, who continues to personate the Bear Spirit, again uses his sacred drum, as he is shown sitting before it in No. 78, and chants more prayers to Dzhe Manid[-o] for his favor. This degree is guarded by the greatest number and the most powerful of malevolent spirits, ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... anger she felt was likely to enhance her interest. The meal, however, was a trial to him, for he had during eight long years lived for the most part apart from all his kind, a lonely toiler, and now was constrained to personate a man known to be almost dangerously skillful with his tongue. At first sight the task appeared almost insuperably difficult, but Winston was a clever man, and felt all the thrill of one playing a risky game just then. Perhaps it ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... another large gilded car, on the top of which was a golden dragon, with coloured reins round its neck, which were held by an old man, dressed as an ancient Briton, and supposed to personate St. George. Then came a number of mounted ladies, dressed in brilliant velvet habits, one green, one red, one yellow, one violet; each of them holding long orange reins, which were fastened to spirited piebald horses, ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... play is a fantastic illusion, produced by magic spells: on the stage it is an ass's head, and nothing more; certainly a very strange costume for a gentleman to appear in. Fancy cannot be embodied any more than a simile can be painted; and it is as idle to attempt it as to personate Wall or Moonshine. Fairies are not incredible, but fairies six feet high are so. Monsters are not shocking, if they are seen at a proper distance. When ghosts appear at mid-day, when apparitions stalk along Cheapside, then may the MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM be represented ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... after you; and you come down first. Leave her behind, la Lazzeruola; and here, 'Luigi displayed a black veil, the common head-dress of the Milanese women, and twisted his fingers round and round on his forehead to personate the horns of the veil; 'take it, signorina; you know how to wear it. Luigi and the saints watch over you.' Vittoria found herself left in possession of the veil and a packet ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... no doubt, the necessary proofs of identification. He's met by one person only—his agent. He dies next day. The agent buries him, under a false name, takes his effects and papers, gets some accomplice to personate him, introduces that accomplice to everybody as the real man—and there you are! Oh, Chatfield knew what he was doing! Who on earth, wandering in this cemetery, would ever connect Mark Grey with ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... relations with the prisoner, a dishonored and unscrupulous outcast of society. The prisoner had been intimately acquainted with the circumstances of Johnson's early life, with his history and his home. His plan, therefore, was to kill him, and then personate him. A celebrated case, which would be present to the minds of the jury, proved that a most plausible attempt at the personation of a long-missing man might be made by an uneducated impostor, who possessed none of the minute local and personal knowledge of the prisoner. Now, to ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... celebrated author is very much in vogue now, and is helpful in many ways. For instance, an evening with Dickens is observed in the following way: A number will personate the leading characters in any of Dickens' works, talking only in language and tone suited to the character, the invited guests ascertaining from his acquaintance with Dickens just where they belong. This can be done with or without costumes. Light refreshments ...
— Why and how: a hand-book for the use of the W.C.T. unions in Canada • Addie Chisholm
... Mr. Charles Kemble in the character of Adelbert, the count unconsciously turned pale. He perceived by the dress of the actor that he was to personate a Pole; and alarmed at the probability of seeing something to recall recollections which he had striven to banish, his agitation did not allow him to hear anything that was ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... immense number of propositions, and an equal number of repetitions, Dr. Hoadley's bustling drama was fixed upon. Vivian was to act Ranger, Augustus Etherege was to personate Clarinda, because he was a fair boy and always blushing; and the rest of the characters found able representatives. Every half-holiday was devoted to rehearsals, and nothing could exceed the amusement and thorough fun which all the preparations elicited. All went well; Vivian wrote a pathetic ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... of Beaufort having been selected by the Duchess of Cambridge to personate Louis XII., in the French Quadrille, of which Her Royal Highness was the leader, His Grace appeared in one of the most splendid dresses handed down by Monfaucon, in his Monarchie Francaise. The dress consisted of rich blue velvet, sumptuously embroidered ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... it burst on me like a flash of lightning. In an instant I saw it as plainly as I see it now. It is horrible, it is unheard of, it outdares all daring; but, if I can only nerve myself to face one terrible necessity, it is to be done. I may personate the richly provided widow of Allan Armadale of Thorpe Ambrose, if I can count on Allan Armadale's ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... would have been deeply interesting to the lieutenant at any time, but especially at the present, when he was sadly in want of the information which would enable him to personate the difficult part he had chosen to perform. Seating himself on the ground again, he was soon absorbed in the contents of the note-book. The owner's name was Owen Raynes; and from the diary Somers learned that he had been a clerk in Richmond when ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... died without making a will, whereupon his nephew suborned Gianni Schicchi to personate the dead man in bed, and to dictate a will in his favor. This Gianni did, but with a clause leaving to himself a favorite mare of Buoso's, the best ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... thou couldst account to them for every man that had been intrusted to thy rule. Not an individual has been lost from the number, either by secret practices, or by open violence. This could scarcely have been, if thy good dispositions had not been natural, but assumed. No one can long personate a character. A pretended goodness will speedily give place to the real temper; while a sincere mind, and acts prompted by the heart, will not fail to go on from one stage of excellence ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... the great drama of deception, Satan himself will personate Christ. The church has long professed to look to the Saviour's advent as the consummation of her hopes. Now the great deceiver will make it appear that Christ has come. In different parts of the earth, Satan will manifest himself among ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... to appreciate Othello" answered Rossi, "he never could have brought himself to personate Orosmane." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... nature monstrous; she is often seen in the same scene with him, but neither on stilts nor crutches; and for his voice, 'tis not lower than the prompter, nor louder than the foil or target. By his action he fortifies moral precepts with examples, for what we see him personate we think truly done before us: a man of a deep thought might apprehend the ghost of our ancient heroes walked again, and take him at several times for many of them. He is much affected to painting, and 'tis a question whether that make him an excellent player, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... stuck in a cut potato, and placed at intervals round the circle; and within this not very brilliant illumination, the cadets dance with each other to the excellent music of the band. Those who personate ladies, take hold of their little bob-tailed jackets, and prink and mince, and take fine airs upon themselves, and look so precisely like fine ladies, that the real fine ladies looking at them, want to give them ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... do this or else fear to let themselves down by doing so. Warren had no timidities about assuming a lesser part, nor did he deem it condescension. Artists of questionable greatness may deem it a degradation to personate any save a leading part. Warren felt that he did not let himself down, he raised the character to his own elevation. From this it follows that no great actor within my recollection had undertaken such a variety of characters. He was found in every possible ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... mind the dilemma of the chiefs and lords between the requirements of the English Court on the one hand and of the native clans on the other. Expected to obey and to administer conflicting laws, to personate two characters, to speak two languages, to uphold the old, yet to patronize the new order of things; distrusted at Court if they inclined to the people, detested by the people if they leaned towards the Court—a more difficult situation can hardly be ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... communicate to him some messages of which he was to be the bearer to this Spaniard. A thought flashed upon me—Montreuil's letter mentioned, accidentally, that the Spaniard had never hitherto seen Barnard: could I not personate the latter, deliver the messages myself, and thus win that introduction to the daughter which I so burningly desired, and which, from the close reserve of the father's habits, I might not otherwise effect? The plan was open to two objections: one, that I was known personally in the town in the ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... well-concocted way, which we may readily conceive, but it were weary to detail, John Dillaway managed to forge a will of Jane Mackenzie aforesaid; and inducing some dressed-up "ladies" of his acquaintance to personate the weeping nieces of deceased (doubtless with no lack of Irish witnesses beside, competent to swear to any thing), he contrived to pass probate at Doctors' Commons, and get twelve thousand two hundred ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... first tell you, friend Hamad," he began, for Haroun and Giafer were known to him only by their assumed names of Hamad and Yussuf—"I must first tell you how it came about that I was induced to personate our sovereign lord, Haroun Alraschid, whom may Allah preserve, and from whose ears may the story of my presumption ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... among themselves, and at length agreed to make the attempt. I then returned to my comrades, and explained to them more fully my design. It was nothing less than to personate the French captain, and to lead my party across country just as he had been doing. The three deserters would exchange their peasant rags for the uniforms of three of the French soldiers, and three of my comrades would wear the ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... either of them, as existing separately. In truth, mad persons are frequently more anxious to impress upon others a faith in their visions, than they are themselves confirmed in their reality; as, on the other hand, it is difficult for the most cool-headed impostor long to personate an enthusiast, without in some degree believing what he is so eager to have believed. It was a natural attribute of such a character as the supposed hermit, that he should credit the numerous superstitions with which the minds of ordinary ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... by which he had discovered the plot for the rising. He was interrupted several times when he attempted to abbreviate the story, or to omit some of the details, and there were exclamations of surprise at his proposal to personate a Turkish prisoner, and to share the lot of the slaves in their prison, and on the benches of ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... ever having discovered any traces of this Alberto, or of his son Horatio. This is the substance of the story, which I have repeated so that you may better remember the groundwork of the plot. Now, you are to personate an Armenian merchant, who has seen them both safe and sound in Turkey. If I have invented this scheme, in preference to any other, of bringing them to life again according to his dream, it is because it is very common in adventures for people to be taken at sea by ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... point of personal feeling, have been infinitely superior to all those unworthy littlenesses which were conspicuous in the multitude around him; and as he was acting for the moment, to answer an important purpose, in an assumed character, we cannot be surprised that he should personate a Jew elated with self-conscious superiority, by saying, "it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs." We are reminded of Joseph, an eminent antitype of Christ, who, though he knew his brethren, and was overflowing with fraternal tenderness, "made ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... Braham was to appear as Henry Bertram. A Meg Merrilies had to be improvised. The obscure "utility" actress was called upon to take Mrs. Chippendale's place. She might read the part if she could not commit it to memory but personate Meg Merrilies after some sort she must. She had never especially noticed the part; but as she stood at the side scene, book in hand, awaiting her moment of entrance, her ear caught the dialogue going on upon the stage between two of the gypsies, "conveying the impression ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... flesh, which have been prepared as the pidaneys or offerings to be made at sunset, at midnight, and the morning; and in the intervals the dancers perform their incantations, habited in masks and disguises to represent the demon which they personate, as the immediate author of the patient's suffering. In the frenzy of these orgies, the Kattadia having feigned the access of inspiration from the spirit he invokes, is consulted by the friends of the afflicted, and declares the nature of his disease, and the probability of its favourable ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... An absurd rumor had existed that Barbara Blomberg had only been employed to personate Don John's mother. She died at an estate called Arronjo de Molinos, four leagues from Madrid, some years after the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... where labour is abundant. They alone of the peoples of western Europe have preserved specimens of almost every class of dance known to primitive races. These are (1) animal (or possibly totem) dances, in which men personate animals, the bear, the fox, the horse, &c.; (2) dances to represent agriculture and the vintage performed with wine-skins; (3) the simple arts, such as weaving, where the dancers, each holding a long coloured ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... I here intend to personate the bashful Author, and out of a point of Honour undervalue my Comedy. I should very unseasonably disoblige all the People of Paris, should I accuse them of having applauded a foolish Thing: as the Public ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... seized him. Was he running his head into a noose, blindfold? Who was the Billington he was thus made to personate, and who must really be staying at the very same time in the Duke of Devonshire? Was this just another of Nevitt's wily tricks? Had he induced his victim to accept without question the name and character of some still more ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... the rhyme again. Then the boys go inside and the girls run round them and sing it. And then hands are taken once more and all go round in the original circle singing it a fourth time. If no boys are playing, the girls should arrange, before the game begins, which shall personate them. ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... effect on him. He summed it up coolly so far. "She compared me disadvantageously with Nugent; and she allowed Nugent to personate me in speaking to you, without interfering to stop it. In both these cases, her temper excuses and accounts for her conduct. Very good. We may, or may not, differ so far. Before we go farther, let us—if we can—agree on one unanswerable fact. Which of us two brothers was her favorite, ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... Their appearance produced rather an uncomfortable sensation in him; so much so, that when the jailer asked him his name, he thought it more prudent, in consequence of a touch of conscience he had, to personate Art for the present, inasmuch as he felt it impossible to assume any name more safe than that of ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... following deception: I whitened my face, that they might not know me, and this had its desired effect. He did not go out of his house that night, and next morning I contrived a well plotted stratagem notwithstanding he had a gentleman in his house to personate him. My direction to the tipstaff, who got admittance into the house, was to conduct him to a judge, according to the writ. When he came there, his plea was, that he had not the body in custody, on which he was admitted to bail. I proceeded ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... after the murder the plan was formed by which this woman was to personate the other. The striking similarity in the hair, which was the most conspicuous beauty of ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter
... was brought away on the 10th by a noble-hearted Wallachian woman, Princess Cantacuzene, who undertook to conduct him to the frontier, and who kept her word. It was a troublesome task. Quinet had a foreign passport in the name of Grubesko, he was to personate a Wallachian, and it was arranged that he should not know how to speak French, he who writes it as a master. The journey was perilous. They ask for passports along all the line, beginning at the terminus. At Amiens they were particularly suspicious. But at Lille the danger was great. ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... manner of the Creole Spanish ladies,—wholly in black. A small black bonnet on her head, covered by a veil thick with embroidery, concealed her face. It had been agreed that, in their escape, she was to personate the character of a Creole lady, and Emmeline ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... appointments with tinkers," replied Melissa; "if you personate that young man, you must be content to wait for days or months to catch a glimpse of the hem of my garment; to bay the moon and bless the stars, and I do not know what else. It is, in short, catch me when you can; and now farewell, ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... way can I come before him at all? I would be better pleased you to personate me and to stand up to him in ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... hopping movement of a small bird, the same air of having nothing to do with time, and the clear, sure, piercing note, a miracle of exact vocalisation. She chaffed her companions, she chaffed the room; she might have been a very clever little girl trying to personate a more innocent big one. She scattered her amiability about—showing Miriam how the children of Moliere took their ease—and it quickly placed her in the friendliest communication with Peter Sherringham, who already enjoyed her acquaintance and who now extended it to his ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... Shakespeare cannot be acted. The contemptible machinery by which they mimic the storm which he goes out in, is not more inadequate to represent the horrors of the real elements, than any actor can be to represent Lear: they might more easily propose to personate the Satan of Milton upon a stage, or one of Michael Angelo's terrible figures. The greatness of Lear is not in corporal dimension but in intellectual: the explosions of his passions are terrible as a volcano; they are storms turning up and disclosing to the bottom that sea, his ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... Opinion, that the Hints I have here made use of, out of Cicero, are somewhat too refined for the Players on our Theatre: In answer to which, I venture to lay it down as a Maxim, that without Good Sense no one can be a good Player, and that he is very unfit to personate the Dignity of a Roman Hero, who cannot enter into the Rules for Pronunciation and Gesture ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... appointed to act a part in the new tragedy called 'The Distressed Mother.' It is the celebrated grief of Orestes which I am to personate; but I shall not act it as I ought, for I shall feel it too intimately to be able to utter it. I was last night repeating a paragraph to myself, which I took to be an expression of rage, and in the middle of the sentence there was a ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... accent, which we should find difficult, and might very likely do it wrong. He is acquainted with all the places and people that Angus is; we are not. And remember, it is not only the getting Angus out of the place that is of consequence: whoever takes his place must personate Angus for some hours, till he can get safely away. [Note 3.] Only Keith can do this with any chance of success. As to sacrifice, why, soldiers sacrifice themselves every day, and he is a soldier. I can assure you, it seems to him a ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... great benefactor of the West, St. Benedict, was laying the foundations of the coenobitic life. In the first instance, Totila tried to deceive the Saint. He dressed up a high officer as king, and sent him, with three of his chief counts in attendance, to personate himself. When Benedict saw the Gothic train approaching he was seated, and as soon as they were within earshot, he cried out to the warrior pretending to be king: "Son, lay aside that dress which is not thine". The Goth fell to the ground in dismay, and returned ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... discern a false note or wrong intonation in his dialogue or his soliloquies, and his strong dramatic power, his realistic power as an actor, is as effective as ever. A great critic at the beginning of this century said that Hamlet is the most difficult part to personate on the stage, that it is like the attempt to 'embody a shadow.' I cannot say that I agree with this idea. Hamlet seems to me essentially a good acting part, and in Mr. Irving's performance of it there is that combination of poetic grace with absolute reality which is ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... however, is a very different thing, and a very difficult thing as well. The actor's aim is, or should be, to convert his own accidental personality into the real and essential personality of the character he is called upon to personate, whatever that character may be; or perhaps I should say that there are two schools of action—the school of those who attain their effect by exaggeration of personality, and the school of those who attain it by suppression. ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... echo, cuckoo^, parrot, ape, monkey, mocking bird, mime; copyist, copycat; plagiarist, pirate. V. imitate, copy, mirror, reflect, reproduce, repeat; do like, echo, reecho, catch; transcribe; match, parallel. mock, take off, mimic, ape, simulate, impersonate, personate; act &c (drama) 599; represent &c 554; counterfeit, parody, travesty, caricature, lampoon, burlesque. follow in the steps of, tread in the steps, follow in the footsteps of, follow in the wake of; take pattern by; follow suit, follow the example of; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... found arranged to music the labors of the peasant, and cooper, and sawyer, the wind-mill, the watermill, the weather-vane, the clock, the pigeon-house, the hares, the bees, and the cuckoo. Children delight to personate animals, and a fine genius could not better employ itself than in inventing a great many more plays, setting them to rhythmical words, describing what is to be done. Every variety of bodily exercise might be made and kept within ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... the portrait of my father, and is a slim man,' said Edward. 'He will readily go with me. I will personate my mother. I am confident the papers are not destroyed, for I have often seen him when he little dreamed an eye was upon him, examining some papers he keeps in a small casket on his toilet, and one in particular, a document of some length, which ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... Character to her, both as to her Beauty and Parts; but that he found they came far short of what she merited; & added, that he thought himself very happy in Meeting with her Mother, because by that means he had the Honour of being introduc'd into her good Company.—The Jilt knew whom She was to personate, and carry'd herself is demurely as cou'd be; but both the Bawd and She ply'd him with good store of Wine, which made the Steward very merry and frollicksome, and according as Mrs. Betty found him, She put her self forward. But it beginning to grow ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... play" give the performers only effective parts, to be presented as skilfully as might be, Ibsen has proffered to them genuine characters to get inside of as best they could,—characters not easy to personate, indeed, often obscure and dangerous. Because of this danger and this doubt, they are all the more tempting to the true artist, who is ever on the alert for a tussle with technical difficulty. The men and women who people Ibsen's plays are never what the slang of the stage terms ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... man, who is great only in stature, quitted the rank of serjeant in the Gardes Francaises to become a bad player. In the character of kings, he scarcely now appears but to personate tyrants. He is very cold, and speaks through his nose like a Capuchin friar, which has gained him the appellation of the Reverend ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... which conceals from the eyes of the world my sex and family. You know that I was brought into this house, where I have passed my infancy, in order to preserve an inheritance which, on the death of young Ascanio (whom I personate), should have fallen to others; that is why I dare to unbosom myself to you with perfect confidence. But before we begin this conversation, Frosine, clear up a doubt which continually besets me. Can it be possible that Albert ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... look of contempt on the Moor, who, thoroughly prepared for his part, most efficaciously assumed the appearance of the mercenary he was then undertaking to personate. ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... of Error, the knight and Lady Una encounter a venerable hermit, and are led into his hermitage. This is Archimago, a vile magician thus disguised, and in his retreat foul spirits personate both knight and lady, and present these false doubles to each. Each sees what seems to be the other's fall from virtue, and, horrified by the sight, the real persons leave the hermitage by separate ways, and wander, in inextricable mazes lost, until fortune and faery bring them ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... comprising the grave, the comic, and the beautiful. A manuscript should be used in which to write the names of the tableaux, directions for forming each, the names of the performers, the parts which they personate, the styles of the costumes, and the quantity and kind of scenery and furniture ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... permissions of sovereignty, though not for that sin forenamed, yet for our many transgressions. For we do at present suppose, that it may be a method within the severer but just transactions of the infinite majesty of God, that he sometimes may permit Sathan to personate, dissemble, and thereby abuse innocents and such as do, in the fear of God, defy the Devil and all his works. The great rage he is permitted to attempt holy Job with; the abuse he does the famous Samuel in disquieting ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... to his master, the pie-maker, told him that they had taken away his pudding-pies. Whereupon his master gave him such a sound lash with an eel-skin, that his own would have been worth nothing to make bag-pipe-bags of. I saw Master John Le Maire there personate the Pope in such fashion that he made all the poor kings and popes of this world kiss his feet, and, taking great state upon him, gave them his benediction, saying, Get the pardons, rogues, get the pardons; they are good cheap. I absolve you of bread and ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... of this orgy see Theocritus, Idyll xxvi; also for explanations of it, Lang's Myth, Ritual and Religion, vol. ii, pp, 241-260, on Dionysus. The Encyclop[ae]dia Brit., article "Orpheus," says:—"Orpheus, in the manner of his death, was considered to personate the god Dionysus, and was thus representative of the god torn to pieces every year—a ceremony enacted by the Bacchae in the earliest times with a human victim, and afterwards with a bull, to represent the bull-formed god. A distinct feature ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... transaction between the squatter on the one hand and some wretched fellow on the other, often a labourer in the employment of the squatter, in which the former for a consideration induced the latter to personate the character of a free selector, to acquire from the State, for the purpose of transferring to himself, the land he most coveted out of that thrown open for selection ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... Atlee saw that he was to personate the character of a most unsuspecting, confiding young gentleman, who possessed a certain natural aptitude for affairs of importance, and that amount of discretion such as suited him to be employed confidentially; and to perform this ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... end of that second season several of Dickens's dramatized novels were played, and Christie earned fresh laurels. She loved those books, and seemed by instinct to understand and personate the humor and pathos of many of those grotesque creations. Believing she had little beauty to sacrifice, she dressed such parts to the life, and played them with a spirit and ease that surprised those who had considered her a dignified and ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... ironicler as my fear died away, leavin' in its void a great madness and tiredness, "if you'd brung your scythe along you might personate Old Father Time." ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... put not on that strange face. I am privy to the whole design, and know that Waitwell, to whom thou wert this morning married, is to personate Mirabell's uncle, and, as such winning my lady, to involve her in those difficulties from which Mirabell only must release her, by his making his conditions to have my cousin and her fortune left to her ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... or enchantment lies in the word: you saw, I durst not venture upon any device in our presentment, but was content to be no other then a simple page. Your arrows' properties, (to keep decorum,) Cupid, are suited, it should seem, to the nature of him you personate. ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... unifolium), for the most part tubulated, or reminding one of a paper hood (cucullum papyraceum); and, secondly, that its pistil ripens into a fruit consisting of four seeds, which ripen in the calyx itself, as if in their own seed-vessel, by which a labiate flower is distinguished from a personate one, whose pistil becomes a capsule far divided from the calyx (a calyce longo divisam). And a labiate flower differs from rotate, or bell-shaped flowers, which have four seeds, in that the lips of a labiate flower have ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin |
