"Portly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... never have taken this portly, rubicund, iron-gray, bushy-browed gentleman for a statesman. But a statesman he was for all that, and the Emperor and Germany miss him sorely. I would have taken him for a Boer Dopper or an English yeoman. This suggestion was supported ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... girls, are there—the men and women at a short distance from each other. Immediately above the water are platforms with huge stationary umbrellas over them, and on these men are squatted, whose portly appearance betokens ease and plenty. These are Gungaputrs—sons of the Ganges—a class of Brahmans, whose duty it is to take care of the clothes of the people as they bathe, to put a mark on their forehead to show they have bathed, ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... doorway was darkened by a portly figure in black. A genial face glowing from the frosty air, a voice of peculiar mellowness, which always added a musical charm of its own both to singing and conversation; a chimney-pot hat not of the newest, his black clerical coat uncovered by greatcoat ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... horses coming along the street. A Sambo, black as the ace of spades, was driving with a high sense of his importance; and in fact he handled the reins and whip like a professional. In the back seat reclined a portly gentleman, dressed in faultless style, and by his side his wife of ample proportions, also garbed in ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... the prospect of an afternoon spent in the shady woodland paradise. Mrs. Churton, with a prayer in her heart, watched them going away together—two lovely girls; it made her anxious when her eyes rested on the portly green volume her daughter carried, but it struck her as a good augury when she noticed that the younger girl in her white dress had The Pleasures of Hope ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... cordially with the gentleman of the party, and then the doors were swung to, and they were shut from the sight of the street; but just as the man entered, the light from the hall and the light from the street revealed the flushed face and portly figure ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... after did he tell of the solemn tread that woke him in the small hours, of his door softly opening, though he had bolted and locked it, of a portly Fleming, with curly gray hair, reservoir boots, slouched hat, trunk and doublet, who entered and sat in the arm-chair, watching him until the cock crew. Nor did he tell how on the third night he summoned courage, hugging a Bible and a catechism to his breast ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... across the street with hungry alacrity. The poem-maker was tall and loose-jointed, and the breadth of his shoulders and long muscular limbs decidedly suggested success at the anvil or field furrow. He made a jocular pass at placing his arm around the uncompromising waist-line of his portly wife, and when warded off by an only half-impatient shove he contented himself by winding one of her white apron strings around one of his long fingers as they leaned together over the gate for further parley with the Alloways ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... manufactories,—the sound of the loom and the anvil comes up to us even here; and down by the banks of the river, away westward, as far as the eye can see, up spring clean bright houses of the wealthy manufacturers and traders of Rouen,—rich, sleek, and portly gentlemen with the thinnest boots, who never even pass down the old streets if they can help it, but whom we shall find very pleasant and hospitable; and with whom we may sit down at a cafe under the trees and play at dominoes ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... suitable republican reverence as he passed, which he answered with a gracious smile, and a benignant glance of his royal eye. The Hon. Louis Philippe Orleans, the present sovereign of the French, is a gentleman of portly and commanding appearance, and in his state attire, which he wore on this occasion, looks 'every inch a king.' He rides with grace and dignity, and sets an example of decorum and gravity to his subjects, by the solemnity of his air, that it is to be ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... This portly octavo, with its four hundred and sixty-four wood-cuts, a seemingly exhaustive compend of the subject, may indeed be accepted as the peroratory rain destined to give the soil its last preparation for the rich growth to follow under a clear and sunny sky. What ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... though a Philosophic Doctrine—I studied it at College, and I know that many serious people believe it—which maintains that all men, in spite of appearances and pretensions, all live alike for Pleasure. This theory certainly brings portly, respected persons very near to me. Indeed with a sense of low complicity I have sometimes followed and watched a Bishop. Was he too on the hunt for Pleasure, ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... gaby; and you would have been deceived, like all at the Cafe David, where no one had ever remarked the studious brow, the sardonic mouth, and the cold eyes of this old man, petted by his vices, and as calm as Vitellius, whose imperial and portly stomach reappeared in him ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... seen skimming over the sea, and making for the Two Marys with all speed. "Upon my soul they are coming, and a merry party they are," said the major, settling himself in his strange uniform. The barge pulled alongside, as the portly figure of the commodore, his chapeau raised, stood up in the stern for a moment, and then mounting over the rail was on the deck of the Two Marys in a trice. The major now came forward with an air of pomp and circumstance it would not be easy for the reader ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... confidence," &c., &c.,—I did strive, to the best of my powers, to forget no important incident or word relative to my conduct since I landed in America; only making reservations where confession might implicate others. An artless boy might easily have been gulled by the portly presence, the unctuous voice, and eyes that twinkled merrily through gold-rimmed glasses; but no man of mature age can remember such a gross mistake without a ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... to have seen Eleazer Williams at my father's house in Boston, when a boy. My impression of him is that of a good-looking and somewhat portly man, showing little trace of Indian blood, and whose features, I was told, resembled those of the Bourbons. Probably this likeness, real or imagined, suggested the imposition he was practising at the time. The story of the "Bell of St. Regis" is probably another of his inventions. It is to ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... It was one frequented by young artists, musicians, journalists and the clingers to the rather frayed fringes of the Arts. From time to time heads were turned to look at Romarin's portly and handsome figure, which the Press, the Regent Street photographic establishments, and the Academy Supplements had made well known. The plump young Frenchwoman within the glazed cash office near the door, at whom Marsden had several times glanced in a way ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... never to himself hath said, "This haunch surpasses all the rest;" Whose mouth hath ne'er within him burn'd, Whene'er his footsteps he hath turn'd From home, to Guildhall's civic feast? If such there breathe, go mark him well— For him no portly paunch can swell; Large though his shop, his trade the same, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, Despite his shop, his trade, his cash, The wretch who knows not ven'son hash, Living, shall forfeit civic fame, And dying, shall descend with shame, In double death, to Lethe's pools, Despis'd by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various
... excellent proposals of marriage, nor did her father persecute her with expressed wishes for her acceptance of any of them; until, at length, he introduced to her one Mr. Bruce, a wealthy cloth-merchant from Glasgow. He was a man of about fifty years of age, of a well-favored and portly presence, and accounted a sure and somewhat sour follower of Mr. Comyn's favorite creed. Barbara had frequently heard her father speak highly of his Glasgow friend, but as no warning had prepared her, she was very far from dreaming of ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... in the reception of the royal guests to pay attention to such comparatively mean people. At last—when Sir Gilbert had yawned a dozen times, and strummed upon the table about as many, a door at the back of the room was opened, and a portly, comfortable-looking woman came forward to meet them. Was this the Countess? thought Clarice, with her heart fluttering. It was extremely ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... Pollock and his wife at the Rectory. There we spent two easy days, and I heard no more of Merivale till three weeks ago when he asked me to meet Thompson just before Christmas. . . . Have you seen Merivale's History of Rome, beginning with the Empire? Two portly volumes are out, and are approved of by Scholars, I believe. I have not read them, not having money to buy, nor ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... shouts of the children, he clambered forward to the platform, bobbing to right and left, and tweaking the ears of those he passed. Long, yellow rope hair hung down from under a round, scarlet cap, and a rope beard reached to his portly waist. Cotton snow and another kind that melted promptly in the warm room covered his shoulders and sleeves. In a gruff though merry voice that sounded above all the others, he sang out the names pinned to an armful ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... Doctor, "small enough now. Yet it was once a walled city; thriving, full of furred burgesses and men in armour, humming with affairs;—with tall spires, for aught that I know, and portly towers along the battlements. A thousand chimneys ceased smoking at the curfew-bell. There were gibbets at the gate as thick as scarecrows. In time of war, the assault swarmed against it with ladders, the arrows fell like leaves, the defenders sallied hotly over ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to thee, Thomas!" quoth he to the portly and somnolent landlord who responded to the summons. "Chaise will ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... the Wolverene as time went on, and Father Beaver became quite gay. His coat filled out, and grew more glossy than ever; he would be "a portly old gentleman" before long, Mother Beaver told him; and at this he began to talk of tree-felling, for he did not like the ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... I happened to be passing the same venerable Cathedral, and heard a clang of joyful bells, and beheld a bridal party coming down the steps towards a carriage and four horses, with a portly coachman and two postilions, that waited at the gate. The bridegroom's mien had a sort of careless and kindly English pride; the bride floated along in her white drapery, a creature so nice and delicate that it was a luxury to see her, and a pity that her silk slippers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... castle swung open, revealing Keggs, the butler. He was a man of reverend years, portly and dignified, with a respectfully benevolent face that beamed gravely on the young master and Mr. Byng, as if their coming had filled his cup of pleasure. His light, slightly protruding eyes expressed reverential good will. He gave just that touch of cosy humanity to the scene which the hall ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... He was a portly man, with a place in the country, and a house in town; not rich for his position, but well off; a magistrate, and much respected; well educated in the ideas of the ancients, with whom his own ideas on many subjects stopped short, and hardly to be called intellectual; a ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... nearly ten years since the great days of Father David's black mare; she had passed into legend, and Father David, something heavier than he was but no less keen, now followed hounds in more leisurely fashion on the back of the black mare's son, a portly and careful ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... Widow Kirstine was a portly, somewhat worn perhaps, but otherwise strong-looking, old woman, with a good broad face, and thin grey hair drawn down behind her ears. She was not unused to being disturbed at night, one of her occupations being to nurse sick people; but she always grumbled ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... exclaims Theo, waving a handkerchief to the young Virginian: but Warrington did not see Miss Lambert. The Virginian was walking arm-in-arm with a portly clergyman in a crisp rustling silk gown, and the two went ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sidewalk. This pleasantest half-hour of the day I divided between the little one and my pipe. One morning, as I sat there smoking and as the little one was toddling to and fro on the sidewalk, a portly, nice-looking old gentleman came down the street, and, as luck would have it, the baby got right in his path, and before I could get to her she tangled herself all up with the old gentleman's legs and cane. The old gentleman seemed very much embarrassed, ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... problem, he lost all track of time. A door swung open and high-heeled boots clumped on the floor tiles. Tom looked up and saw the portly, aproned figure ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... black-robed, her delicate face flushing with an exquisite, spring-like color, her eyes soft and misty and spring-like, too, in their starry fulfillment of love that has been tried and found all-sufficing; another sable-clad figure, but clerically frocked and portly; and the last, a keen-faced, kindly-eyed man approaching middle-age—a man with sandy hair and a mustache just slightly tinged with gray. He might, from his appearance and bearing, have been a great teacher, a great philanthropist, a great statesman. But he was none ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... kissin',' said Mr. Thomson, a portly, comfortable-looking man, 'that's neither here nor there, though it micht hae been a duchess or twa; but for the kickin', my word! but Lord Sandy was mair likly to kick oot the prince. Do ye min' hoo he did whan ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... showed Will a silhouette of his father, old Mr Groome of Earl Soham, a portly gentleman, dressed in the old-fashioned style. "Ruffles, who is this?" he asked, knowing that Will had known his father well, and thinking he would recognise it. After looking at it carefully for some time, Will said, "That's yar son, the sailor." My eldest brother ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... drink and by misery, did its work fast. The patient's stomach rejected all nourishment. He dwindled in a few weeks from a portly and even corpulent man to a skeleton. On the eighteenth of April he died, in the forty-first year of his age. He had been Chief Justice of the King's Bench at thirty-five, and Lord Chancellor at thirty-seven. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... with a portly personage at the door looked so uncommonly Unionistic that I ventured to make a few inquiries re the antiquities of the district. The inevitable topic soon turned up, and to my surprise my friend avowed himself a Home Ruler and a Protectionist. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... The portly Councillor glared at the Commander. "The undertaking you propose, sir, will require a massive diversion of our capacities from defense. That means losing ground at an increasing rate to the obscenity ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... half sceptic, half afraid of wrong, Shall walk our streets, and mark the passing throng; The brawny oaf in mould herculean cast, The pigmy statesman trembling in his blast, The cumb'rous citizen of portly paunch, Unwont to soar beyond the smoaking haunch; The meagre bard behind the moving tun, His shadow seeming lengthen'd by the sun; Who forms scarce visible shall thus descry, Like flitting clouds athwart the mental sky; From giant bodies then bare gleams of mind, ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... one and kissed my hand—De Gautet, a tall lean fellow, with hair standing straight up and waxed moustache; Bersonin, the Belgian, a portly man of middle height with a bald head (though he was not far past thirty); and last, the Englishman, Detchard, a narrow-faced fellow, with close-cut fair hair and a bronzed complexion. He was a finely made man, broad ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... and laughed; a Dresden mirror was tripping about, crowned with flowers, and a Japanese bonze was riding along on a griffin; a slim Venetian rapier had come to blows with a stout Ferrara sabre, all about a little pale-faced chit of a damsel in white Nymphenburg china; and a portly Franconian pitcher in gres gris was calling aloud, "Oh, these Italians! always at feud!" But nobody listened to him at all. A great number of little Dresden cups and saucers were all skipping and waltzing; the teapots, with their ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... and costly rugs that backgrounded a marvelous regal dais occupying one long end of the great room, sat the glittering figure of the portly Haroun-al-Raschid, Sultan of Bagdad and husband of many lovely wives, whose multi-colored costumes made a glowing garden on the rugs at the foot of the dais, while on the embroidered cushions at the side of the monarch a lovely Scheherazade in shimmering white satin with strings ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... which they came to protect is not military. For a long period of history they have let other people fight there. When the present writer went to survey with eagle glance the field of Waterloo, we asked the conductor of the diligence, a portly warlike-looking veteran, whether he had been at the battle. "Pas si bete"—such an answer and sentiment as no Frenchman would own to—was his reply. But, on the other hand, the postilion who drove us was a Viscount, a son of some bankrupt Imperial General, who accepted a pennyworth of beer on the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... there? Were you never in the larder, where cheeses lie on the shelves, and hams hang from above; where one dances about on tallow candles; that place where one enters lean, and comes out again fat and portly?" ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... Saint-Martin, and Fougas, with his head at the window, was continuing the composition of his impromptu speech, when an open carriage drawn by a pair of superb chestnuts passed, so to speak, under his very nose. A portly man with a gray moustache turned his head, and ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... youth of twenty-five. She passed away from his despairing sight, fair and fresh as a spring flower, with beautiful golden hair and violet eyes; she came out from that fatal portal a woman of forty-five, stout, spectacled, with faded, thin hair beneath her nun's cowl, to meet a portly gray-haired man of fifty, in whom not even love's eye could detect the faintest vestige of the slender bright-eyed lover of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... fifteenth century religious, theological, and classical works in great abundance, and we know that the respectable and wealthy burghers of Augsburg and Strassburg were proud to fill their shelves with these portly volumes. But then German aldermen had wives, and daughters, and sons, and what were they to read during the long winter evenings? The poetry of the thirteenth century was no longer intelligible, and the fourteenth and ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... he is petitioned by heroes and heroines to undo what he does so easily! That small archway of Doctors' Commons seems the eye of a needle, through which the lean purse has a way, somehow, of slipping more readily than the portly; but once through, all are camels alike, the lean purse an especially big camel. Dispensing tremendous marriage as it does, the Law ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... occupied the space between her father's portly, but martial figure, and her seat at the head of the table; and though, Minerva-like in air and form, she presided there with exquisite grace, she shrunk from this long array, and sought a kind of privacy in devoting her attention, somewhat exclusively, to the senior ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... suitors has described the widow for us. He says she was "lively in disposition," and he also uses the words "buxom" and "portly." I do not like these expressions—they suggest too much, so I will none of them. I would rather refer to her as lissome and willowy, and tell how her sorrow for the dead wrapped her 'round with weeds and becoming sable—but in the interests ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... a goodly figure of a man as he stood there beside his valise. Portly, erect, handsomely dressed, and with something unusually winning in his brown mustache and blue eyes, something scholarly suggested by the pinch-nose glasses, something strong in the repose of the head. He smiled as he saw how unchanged ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... pronounced them to be city Goths and Vandals; and without resting her glass upon them for half a moment, turned it to some more profitable field of speculation. There was no gentleman of this party, but a portly matron, towering above the rest, seemed the principal mover and orderer of the group. The awkward bustle they made, facing and backing, placing and changing of places, and the difficulty they found in seating ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... was a large, portly man, with a ruddy, red face, blue-veined and kindly. He had come up from the grade, and was eminently proud of his ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... and his merry men. With Schumann-Heinck, Melba, and Tetrazzini I once camped in the heart of the Sierras. When I persisted to the uttermost secret corner of the Dolomites, I found myself anticipated by Kreisler and his fiddle. They tell me that the portly Victor Herbert has even penetrated with his daring orchestra through darkest Africa and gone on to arrange a special benefit, in his home town, for the dalai-lama ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... Bencher at head of Table (portly old gentleman, who looks as if he might be described as a "bottle-a-day-of-port-ly" old gentleman) shakes hands, coldly, and that's all. Not even a Queen's Shilling given me, as I am conducted off to another ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... Their landlady, a portly woman with two marriageable daughters, did all in her power to make their stay pleasant. She praised Baltimore for its beauty and health, its picturesqueness and poetry. It was surely destined to be the greatest city in ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... German Kaiser outwardly is a well-groomed Englishman; Franz Josef of Austria—I've not met him since 1903, when our carriage wheels locked and he, a lovable old man, gallantly saluted my companion—he is everything but kingly; the late King Edward when at Marienbad was very much the portly type of middle-aged man you meet in Wall Street at three o'clock in the afternoon; while William II of Wuertemberg is a pleasant gentleman, with "merchant" written over him. It is true he is an excellent man of affairs, harder working than any of his ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... underneath was in places hard and slippery. In spite of my determination to preserve an awesome and unmoved calm while among these dangerous savages, I had to give way and laugh explosively; to see the portly, powerful Pagan suddenly convert himself into a quadruped, while Gray Shirt poised himself on one heel and waved his other leg in the air to advertise to the assembled nations that he was about to sit down, was irresistible. No one made such palaver about taking a seat as Gray ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... that day was many years ago now—I received a long, chatty letter from one of my old chums and fellow-wanderers in Eastern waters. He was still out there, but settled down, and middle-aged; I imagined him—grown portly in figure and domestic in his habits; in short, overtaken by the fate common to all except to those who, being specially beloved by the gods, get knocked on the head early. The letter was of the reminiscent "do you remember" kind—a wistful letter of backward ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... door swung open, and a portly figure entered quickly. For so large a man Prince Kaid was light and subtle in his movements. His face was mobile, his eye ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and take a friendly glass with Tobias; and now and then a circus caravan with speckled ponies, or a menagerie with a soggy elephant, halts under the swinging sign, on which there is a dim mail-coach with four phantomish horses driven by a portly gentleman whose head has been washed off by the rain. Other customers there are none, except that one regular ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... he demolished every false god, broke their images, slew their priests, and burnt their groves with fire. But, when a worldly Christianity came to be in vogue, when emperors adorned their banners with the cross, and the poor fishermen of Galilee, (in their portly representatives,) came to be encrusted with gems, and rustling with seric silk; then was made that fatal compromise; then it was likely to have been made, which has lasted even until now: a compromise which, newly baptizing the damned idols of the heathen, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Immediately afterwards the portly assistant medical-officer, Rademacher, came down into the hollow. "Well, what is ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... visage, red nose, and air of perplexity—sate an old gentleman who was evidently a stranger to every lawyer present. Who was he? Who brought him? Was there any one in the room who knew him? Such were the whispers that floated about, concerning the portly old man, arrayed in blue coat and drab breeches and gaiters, who took his snuff in silence, and watched the proceedings with evident surprise and dissatisfaction. After listening to three speeches this ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... halted for some time at a place called Wow-Wow, where the King, Mohammed, was friendly to them. There lived there a certain widow named Lyuma, or 'Honey,' very rich, and, according to Wow-Wow taste very handsome, though her portly figure, her hair dyed blue, and hands stained red and yellow, and the crimson teeth which gave the finishing touch, might not have been ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... him a very unusual fare. "Who is your fat friend?" I asked, crossing over to shake hands with him. "O, that indomitable youth is an old crony of mine," he replied; and then, quoting Falstaff, "a goodly, portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent, of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage." It was the manner of saying this, then, and there in the London street, the cabman moving slowly off on his sorry vehicle, with one eye (an eye dewy with gin and water, and a tear of gratitude, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... however, endanger his friend. He determined, therefore, to venture boldly forward and, if discovered, to secure his own safety by the rapidity of his flight. On leaving a small thicket in which he had sought refuge, he discovered a tall, portly savage near by, and two others in the direction between ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... rose upon a long green-baize table placed at the back of the stage. Behind it were sitting eleven respectable and portly gentlemen in black coats. One in the centre, venerable for gold eye-glasses and grey side-whiskers, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... Joe," who lived at Bass Cove, where he shot wild ducks, took some to town for sale, and attracted the attention of a portly gentleman fond of shooting. This gentleman went duck shooting with Joe, and their adventures were more amusing to the boy than to the ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... himself to unbend a trifle under the influence of a hospitable tender of home-made cherry-bounce, "strong enough to walk from here to Colbury," according to the sheriff's appreciative phrase. He was a portly man, with a rolling, explanatory cant of his burly head and figure toward his interlocutor as he talked. His hair stood up in two tufts above his forehead, one on each side, and he had large, round, grayish eyes and a solemn, pondering expression. To Meddy, staring horror-stricken, ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... confronting, in the glare of several electric lights, the portly form of Senor Ramo, who seemed ill at ease. The members of the mutinous crew stood about, rather shame-facedly, it must be confessed. Lieutenant Walling wore an air of triumph. He had brought the criminals to the end of ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... imperturbable and portly, announced that dinner was served. The three descended the stairs, chatting lightly about the musical comedy witnessed overnight. It was no new revelation to Theydon that truth should prove stranger than fiction, but the trite phrase was fast assuming a fresh ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... individual point of view, Cape Town, on that New Year morning of nineteen hundred and one, was either a point of departure for the front, or a city of refuge for the sleek and portly Uitlanders who thronged the hotels and made too audible mourning for their imperiled possessions. Viewed in either light, it was hot, crowded and unclean. From his caricature of a hansom, Weldon registered his swift impression that he wished to get off to the front as speedily as possible. ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... dollars but no influence offered her three or four hundred guineas for chaperoning his daughter into English society and marrying her well, Mrs. Rush-Marvelle pocketed the douceur quite gracefully, and did her best for the girl. She was a good-looking woman, tall, portly, and with an air of distinction about her, though her features were by no means striking, and the smallness of her nose was out of all proportion to the majesty of her form—but she had a very charming smile, and a pleasant, taking manner, and she was universally admired in ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... of his astounded charge d'affaires, reached the Commercial Bank before the messenger boys. While waiting in the balm of the spring morning for the doors to open he circumnavigated the block nine times—he counted them. Coming in on the last tack he sighted the portly form of the banker careening with dignified speed around the corner. Another instant he had crossed the mat and disappeared into his financial harbor. Mr. Strumley steered rapidly ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... stage office, he found the two other trustees awaiting him, and the still more tardy stage-coach. One, a large, smooth-faced, portly man, was the Presbyterian minister; the other, of thinner and more serious aspect, was ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Yale College, and more recently a lawyer,—a raw soldier, but a vigorous and brave one; Colonel Moses Titcomb, of Massachusetts, who had fought with credit at Louisbourg; and Ephraim Williams, also colonel of a Massachusetts regiment, a tall and portly man, who had been a captain in the last war, member of the General Court, and deputy-sheriff. He made his will in the camp at Albany, and left a legacy to found the school which has since become Williams College. His relative, Stephen Williams, was chaplain ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... portrait, and he admitted that he was confoundedly short of money. The painter was anxious that Lavengro should sit to him for his Plutarch, which honour that gentleman firmly declined. Years afterwards he saw the portrait of the mayor, a 'mighty portly man, with a bull's head, black hair, a body like a dray horse, and legs and thighs corresponding; a man six foot high at the least. To his bull's head, black hair and body, the painter had done justice; there was one point, ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... turned and glanced toward the gentleman in front of the fireplace. He was an elderly and somewhat portly person, with a kindly, wrinkled countenance, which wore continually a smile of almost childish confidence and good-nature. It was a face which the illustrated prints had made intimately familiar. He held a book from him at arm's-length, as if to adjust his eyesight, ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... State-house in an elated frame of mind. She felt that she had taken a righteous and patriotic stand, and it pleased her to think that she was taking an active part in defending the institutions of the country. She chatted eagerly as she walked through the corridors with Mr. Lyons, who, portly and imposing, acted as escort to her and Mrs. Earle, and invited them to luncheon at a hotel restaurant. Excitement had given her more color than usual, to which her mourning acted as a foil, and she looked her best. Lyons was proud of being in the company ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... tossing on the ocean; There, where your argosies, with portly sail,— Like signiors and rich burghers of the flood, Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,— Do overpeer the petty traffickers That curt'sy to them, do them reverence, As they fly by them with their ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... duties of the chapel he maintains, at a large expense, a pious and portly family chaplain. He is a most learned and decorous personage and a truly well-bred Christian, who always backs the old gentleman in his opinions, winks discreetly at his little peccadilloes, rebukes the children when refractory, and is of great use in exhorting the tenants to read their Bibles, say ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... But a hotel breakfast-room is not without interest. The very way in which people enter the room is a revelation of character. Mr. King, who was put in good humor by falling on his feet, as it were, in such agreeable company, amused himself by studying the guests as they entered. There was the portly, florid man, who "swelled" in, patronizing the entire room, followed by a meek little wife and three timid children. There was the broad, dowager woman, preceded by a meek, shrinking little man, whose whole appearance ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... was ringing like a bridal bell; Gladness and joy leaped up at every swell; And love was deeper, warmer, for the tone That clasped the heart like an enchanted zone. A youth was there more comely than the rest, One who could turn a furrow with the best, Compete for manly strength and portly air, Or wield a scythe with any reaper there. The spirit of her voice had moved above The waters of his soul, and waked ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... had knocked over some bee-hives ranged along the garden fence. The enraged insects dashed after the men, and at once the scene became one of uproar, confusion and lively excitement. The officer in command, a portly, florid Englishman, laughed heartily at the gestures and outcries of the routed soldiers. The attention of the guard was drawn to this single point, while, at a distance in the fields, the wagons were seen slowly ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... a stout, portly-looking man, well dressed, but with a very odd look upon his face, in consequence of an obliquity of vision, which prevented the possibility of knowing which way he ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... rapidity, but with better fortune, I had but just time to spring into the street, at the instant when the old lady, writhing herself out of the window, which was now uppermost, was about to trust her portly person to chance. I caught her as she clung to the carriage with her many-braceleted arms, and was almost strangled by the vigour of her involuntary embrace as she rolled down ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... "The Gables," and was an offshoot of a former ancient school connected with the famous parish church. In my time this "academy" was carried on as a private venture by a certain James Anthony Bown, a portly ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... and I heard four sonorous clangs which summoned the "Ministerial" committee. At once its members, in their sedate and portly attitudes, surged down ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... "Mr. Folsom, you are relieved of the presidency. Captain, take him out and—" He finished with a whimsical shrug. A portly four-striper took Folsom by one arm. Like a drugged man the deposed president let himself be ...
— The Adventurer • Cyril M. Kornbluth
... rude humour ran like a gust through the cloister of Stephen's mind, shaking into gay life limp priestly vestments that hung upon the walls, setting them to sway and caper in a sabbath of misrule. The forms of the community emerged from the gust-blown vestments, the dean of studies, the portly florid bursar with his cap of grey hair, the president, the little priest with feathery hair who wrote devout verses, the squat peasant form of the professor of economics, the tall form of the young professor of mental science discussing on ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... hotel upon its banks. The shade of the broad piazza formed a very pleasant relief from the heat overhead, and we were glad to rest a little while. We had not been there many minutes before some one recognized Mr. Reid, and informed the portly landlord, who immediately hastened upon the scene, and welcomed him ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... returned, and he was not easily to be dashed from any purpose. It would have gone hard with the chest had not the gate sounded, and presently after the door of the house opened and admitted a tall, portly, ruddy, black-eyed man of near fifty, in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of about fifty, tall, portly, and imposing, with a massive, strongly marked face and a commanding figure. He was dressed in a sombre yet rich style, in black frock-coat, shining hat, neat brown gaiters, and well-cut pearl-grey trousers. Yet his actions were ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... evidence would be somewhat dangerous unless he was thrown off his guard and "rattled." The witness in question—an influential man, whose vulnerable point was said to be his self-esteem—was ushered into the box, a portly overdressed person, beaming with self-assurance. Looking him over for a few minutes without saying a word Sir James opened fire: "Mr. Tompkins, I believe?"—"Yes."—"You are a stockbroker, I believe, are you not?"—"I ham." Pausing for a few seconds and making an attentive survey of him, Sir ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... Edgar Goodfellow—side of him found, it is true, an outlet, but a harmless one. He found it in the genial atmosphere of the Widow Meagher's modest eating-house where he and his new crony, Wilmer, passed many a jolly hour. The widow, an elderly, portly dame, with a kind Irish heart and keen Irish wit, had the power of diffusing a wonderful cheerfulness around her. Her shop was clean, if plain, her oysters were savory, if cheap. Like all women, she petted Edgar Poe, and hearing from Wilmer that he was a poet, she at once gave him ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... brought from the great London and Northwestern Railway, locally known as "The Ell-nen-doubleyou." In these remote railway circles the talk is as exclusively of matters of the four-foot way as in Crewe or Derby. There is an inspector of traffic, whose portly presence now graces Carlisle Station, who left the P.P.R. in these sad days of amalgamation, because he could not endure to see so many "Sou'west" waggons passing over the sacred metals of the P.P.R. permanent way. From his youth he had been trained in a creed of two articles: ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... cannot help thinking how well it would suit the block. These cursed executions! One cannot get them out of one's head. When the lads are swimming, and I chance to see a naked back, I think forthwith of the dozens I have seen beaten with rods. If I meet a portly gentleman, I fancy I already see him roasting at the stake. At night, in my dreams, I am tortured in every limb; one cannot have a single hour's enjoyment; all merriment and fun have long been forgotten. These terrible images seem burnt ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... passed the Saw Log. As I turned away, my attention was attracted by the deference being shown the financial man of the cattle firm, as the party wended their way around to the Wright House. The silent member of the firm was a portly fellow, and there was no one in the group but did him honor, even the detective carrying a light grip, while Tolleston lumbered along with ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... he's the fine, portly looking jantleman, and has a vice (voice) as big as twenty; 'twould do your heart good to hear the cry of him on a stag hunt day, making the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 352, January 17, 1829 • Various
... sale of tobacco. Huge, upright columns of dried leaves, firmly packed and of a greenish hue, stood in rows, under the roof of a broad, low building, open on all sides—these were the hogsheads of tobacco, stripped of the staves. The inspector, a portly man, with a Bourbon face, his white hair gathered in a tie behind, went very quietly and expeditiously through his task of determining the quality, after which the vast bulks were disposed of, in ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... rode for the first four miles, as far as Florisdorf, in an omnibus—not the most agreeable mode of travelling. Our omnibuses are so small and narrow, that one would suppose they were built for the exclusive accommodation of consumptive subjects, and not for healthy, and in some cases portly individuals, whose bulk is further increased by a goodly assemblage of ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... a portly man— The deacon loved to joke; But afterwards, as it befell, Was sorry ...
— The Story of the Two Bulls • John R. Bolles
... there. 'Twas his father; the less we say about him the better; he's gone. The Furies make his bed for him! an odious set! Their priests, little ugly men. I saw one when I was a boy at Carthage. So unlike your noble Roman Saliares, or your fine portly priest of Isis, clad in white, breathing odours like spring flowers; men who enjoyed this life, not like that sour hypocrite. He was as black as an Ethiopian, and as withered as a Saracen, and he never looked you in the face. And, after all, the fellow must die ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... its very outset by an incident which developed into an international question. While stationed as a young sub-lieutenant of cavalry at Bonn, he was one day inadvertently jostled in the street by a gray-haired and rather portly stranger, whom he at once addressed in the most insulting manner. Upon the stranger responding in kind, the count drew his sabre and cut the man down, inflicting upon him such a wound that he expired a short time ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... you, but the massacre of St. Cas,(959) not agreeable enough for a letter, I stayed till I had something to send you, and behold a book! I have delivered to portly old Richard, your ancient nurse, the new produce of the Strawberry press. You know that the wife of Bath is gone to maunder at St. Peter, and before he could hobble to the gate, my Lady Burlington, cursing and blaspheming, overtook t'other Countess, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... he cried, "Mr. Morton!" in an odd voice that seemed on the point of cracking into falsetto. Certainly he was very like a portly ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... front, I saw in the distance a portly figure approaching, followed by a thin, dust-coloured wraith of a woman. I slipped behind a tree and waited. Leveson strolled up, bland and imposing. He stood still for a moment, staring intently at ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... was a man as dusky as a Spaniard, Sunburnt with travel, yet a portly figure; Though coloured, as it were, within a tanyard, He was a person both of sense and vigour— A better seaman never yet did man yard; And she, although her manners showed no rigour, Was deemed a woman of the strictest principle, So much as to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... a voice from below; "'tis not a day fit for man or dog to be out a minute longer than necessary. Bring the bairn in, Charley." The invitation came from a kindly and portly dame, the hostess, who had come to the door to welcome such passengers as might be disposed to put up for ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... arrived in El Toyon a gentleman with a scrubbing brush moustache, a pleasant, portly personality, a pair of twinkling black eyes, a seemingly limitless amount of leisure, discriminating taste for liquors and cigars, a fountain pen and a check book. The name he wrote upon the hotel register was Edward Kinsell. He disabused the mind of the proprietor, Charlie Granger, ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... realize the appalling drudgery that stamped it a workshop, when the author, who had dashed into his garden for a moment's recreation, came to the window, and furnished contrast No. 3. For he looked neither like a poet nor a drudge, but a great fat country farmer. He was rather tall, very portly, smallish head, commonplace features mild brown eye not very bright, short beard, and wore a suit of tweed all one color. Such looked the writer of romances founded on fact. He rolled up to the window—for, if he looked like a farmer, he walked like a sailor—and ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... that story, man," cried the portly Irish priest who was to go north in my boat. "I saw a white squaw less than two weeks ago!" He paused for his words to take effect, and I started from my chair as if I ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... tormenters was Sam Morrison, or "Fatty" Morrison, as he was colloquially designated. Sam was one of four sons of "Old King" Morrison, the richest and altogether most important farmer in the district. On this account Samuel was inclined to assume the blustering manners of his portly, pompous, but altogether good-natured father, the "Old King." But while bluster in the old man, who had gained the respect and esteem that success generally brings, was tolerated, in Sammy it became ridiculous and at times offensive. The young man had been entertaining ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... strictness was gradually relaxed, however, as the clergy took up the habit of smoking; and I have seen an old painting, on the panels of an ancient parsonage in Newburyport, representing a jovial circle of portly divines sitting pipe in hand around a table, with the Latin motto, "In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity." Apparently the tobacco was one of the essentials, since there was unity respecting that. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... Mr. Armitage, the portly butcher, made his way into the ring and held up two fat hands, sparkling with rings, ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... unknown regions of the Northwest, lay piled up to the beams—skins of the smooth beaver, the delicate otter, black and silver fox, so rich to the eye and silky to the touch that the proudest beauties longed for their possession; sealskins to trim the gowns of portly burgomasters, and ermine to adorn the robes of nobles and kings. The spoils of the wolf, bear, and buffalo, worked to the softness of cloth by the hands of Indian women, were stored for winter wear ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the early strawberry and the late ruddy peach; figs from the Orient and pines from the Antilles; dates from Tunis and tawny persimmons from Japan; misty sea-green grapes and those from the hothouse—tasteless, it is true, but so lordly in their girth, and royal purple; portly golden oranges and fat plums; pears of mellow blondness and pink-skinned apricots. Here at least is the veritable stuff and essence of spring with all its attending aromas—of more integrity, perhaps, than the same colourings simulated by the confectioner's ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... mirrors of the usual sort Were gifted once with power of thought; And as they hung against the wall They felt that they were prophets all. The first, a plate-glass o'er the fire; The next, a concave, standing higher; A portly convex 'tother side Made up the three; and as he eyed His brother mirrors, brilliant each, Thus gave to thought the rein of speech: "Such power as mine who ever saw? If in my face without a flaw Men chance to gaze, they taller seem Than what they are: delightful scheme! I like ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... short and portly, carries her fifty-five years with buoyancy. She is a good-natured woman, with purple cheeks, a wide mouth, and a small nose; one connects something indefinable in her appearance with church on Sundays, so that one learns without surprise that she is a strict Anglican. She lives in the neighbourhood ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... for his conduct in love, I believe firmly he would out-Herod Herod, and put the whole of his new compeers to the blush. Prudence is a wooden juggernaut, before whom Benjamin Franklin walks with the portly air of a high priest, and after whom dances many a successful merchant in the character of Atys. But it is not a deity to cultivate in youth. If a man lives to any considerable age, it cannot be denied that he laments his imprudences, but I notice he ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was over and the brandy had been set before them, Metenier studied his glass thoughtfully and glanced at the two portly men who had entered the brown dining room and sat some tables away. From the snatches of conversation the three gathered that one was a literary critic and the other a publisher. They were discussing ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... extremely slender girl entered a street car and managed to seat herself in a narrow space between two men. Presently a portly colored mammy entered the car, and the pretty miss, thinking to humiliate the men ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... looked as if they were attired at a very small expense. Only the general—the captain-general (Pooch, they told us, was his name: I know not how 'tis written in Spanish)—was well got up, with a smart hat, a real feather, huge stars glittering on his portly chest, and tights and boots of the first order. Presently, after a good deal of trumpeting, the little men marched off the place, Pooch and his staff coming into the very inn in which we were ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he has not invited me,' replied Diomed, a man of portly frame and of middle age. 'By Pollux, a scurvy trick! for they say his suppers are the best ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... the inn-keeper's daughter arrived at the kitchen and the presence of the red-headed girl in it, instead of the portly ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... times, no well-bred person would have uttered a falsehood; but now such ideas are completely exploded, and such conduct would now be termed a bore. My Lord Portly remarks, 'It is a cold day.' 'Yes, my Lord, it is a very cold day,' replies Major Punt. In two minutes after, meeting Lord Lounge, who observes he thinks the weather very warm—'Yes, very warm, my Lord,' is the reply—thus contradicting ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... and the trio made their entry. Foremost was the mistress of the mansion, Mrs. Judith Justitia Pimble. What a puny, trembling thing appeared the husband, as he stood there like a galvanized mummy in presence of that tall, portly woman, with her broad shoulders and commanding aspect! Her first act was to smother the fire; her second, to throw open the windows; her third, to ensconce herself in her liege lord's easy-chair, and bid her guests lay aside their travelling garbs, and make themselves at home. ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... got them. A barber, whom we found at his block busily weaving a wig, and whose diminutive crib would not contain half our company, apologised because it was not in his power to do much for us, and then diffidently tendered a guinea. A portly dealer in feminine luxuries talked largely of the claims of our indigent brethren, and the sacred obligations of charity, and wound up his sonorous homily with the climax of half-a-crown. We found one burly gentleman, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... received; found a crowded collection of great and little men, of ugly old women and beautiful young ones, and in ten minutes was hand and glove with half the people in the assemblage. Mrs. Madison is a fine, portly, buxom dame, who has a smile and a pleasant word for everybody. Her sisters, Mrs. Cutts and Mrs. Washington, are like two merry wives of Windsor; but as to Jemmy Madison,—oh, poor Jemmy!—he is but a withered ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... little part as possible in the affairs of the Diet; especially avoids reports and committee work; and is frequently absent, making the representative from Darmstadt his proxy. He prefers country life and hunting to participation in assemblies, and gives the impression rather of a jovial and portly squire than of an envoy. He confines himself to announcing his vote, briefly and in the exact language of his instructions; and while the latter are invariably drawn by the Minister, Hassenpflug, in accordance ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... came a portly waiting-maid, carrying a silky-haired spaniel on a cushion under each arm. These petted darlings, King Charles' own special favourites, were all the rage at Court at this time, and accompanied their masters and mistresses everywhere, even to church, where—fortunate beings—they ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... villainy." As he uttered the last words he aimed a tremendous thrust at his visionary opponent and narrowly escaped transfixing the comely person of a young lady who at this very moment entered the room, with signs of haste and alarm. Behind her, in the dimly-lighted passage, appeared the portly figure of an elderly dame, who was proclaimed, by the bunch of keys which hung at her girdle, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... newspaper office, which was a supporter of the rebels. It was a crisis when a single spark might kindle a fire that only could be put out by bloodshed. At that moment a man stepped out upon the balcony of the City Hall,—a tall, portly man, whose mighty voice was heard above the tumult of the crowd of angry men. There was stillness, and then, solemnly and slowly, the voice cried, "Fellow-citizens,—Clouds and darkness are round Him! His pavilion is on ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... Note: Word unclear in original] work, now for the first time complete in one very handsome and portly volume, has just been ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... entered. He was a tall and portly person, with a red face, red whiskers, and a tightly buttoned frock-coat, which more expressed than hid his goodly and prominent proportions. He bowed, and Merton invited him to be seated. It struck Merton as a singular circumstance that his visitor wore on each arm the crimson badge of the ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... was sitting with a little circle round him, in the further drawing-room, and certainly I never saw a nobler specimen of humanity. I felt myself at once before a hero—not of war and bloodshed, but of peace and civilization; his portly and ample figure, fair hair and delicate complexion, and, above all, the benignant calm of his countenance, told of a character gentle and genial—at peace with himself and all the world; while the exquisite proportion of his chiselled ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... the monks and civil guards, because of their want of manners," a portly lady was saying, "but now that I see of what service they are, I could almost marry one of ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... had already climbed one of the hills where I could get a view inland to Kini Balu, over miles of jungle where no white man has ever been. But I wanted to see a little of this country, from the car-window at least. So I entered the station and interviewed the station master, a portly official of great dignity. He told me, in fair English, that the train on the "main line" had left for that day but that I could take a "local" out into the country for about three miles. This was better ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese |
