"Mimic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... intended to force into a marriage with himself on account of her fortune! how prettily she passed notes to and fro, the Lieutenant never suspecting that she was the Bandit's child, and at last got the king's soldier on her side, as the event proved! And oh, how gayly, and with what mimic art, she stole into the Baron's castle, disguised as a witch, startled his conscience with revelations and predictions, frightened all the vassals with blue lights and chemical illusions, and venturing ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... night, has nothing in it but what is painful and disgusting. We want to take him into shelter and relieve him. That is all the feeling which the acting of Lear ever produced in me. But the Lear of 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 ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... to and fro, at last hit upon the business he was fitted for, and obtained the post of Head Inspector in one of the Government Educational Institutes. His lot thoroughly satisfies him, and his pupils "adore" him, though at the same time they mimic him. Panshine has advanced high in the service, and already aims at becoming the head of a department. He stoops a little as he walks; it must be the weight of the Vladimir Cross which hangs from his neck, that bends him forward. In him the official decidedly preponderates over the artist ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... saw him suck in a bee, laden with his morning's load of honey, who touched the water unwarily close to his nose. With trembling hand, Tom took off his tail fly, and, on his knee, substituted a governor; then shortening his line, after wetting his mimic bee in the pool behind him, tossed it gently into the monster's very jaws. For a moment the fish seemed scared, but the next, conscious in his strength, lifted his nose slowly to the surface and sucked ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... like white cannon-balls, into the lake, sending a mass of spray into the air and shivering the smooth black surface of the water into a thousand ripples that circled away and lapped against the banks in mimic waves. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... The mimic battle begins by the two riders circling slowly round each other, waiting for an opportunity to dash in and ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 36, July 15, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... kings and pseudo-queens, her dukes and DuBarrys, princes and Pompadours, have strutted their brief hour upon the mimic stage, disappearing at daybreak like foul night-birds or an unclean dream—have come and gone like the rank eructation of some crapulous Sodom, a malodor from the cloacae of ancient capitals, a breath blown from the festering ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... mimic fire's aglow, And in the hearthlight old mahogany, Ripe with stored sunshine that in Mexico Poured like gold wine into the living tree Summer on summer through a century, Burns like a crater in the heart of night: And ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... congregate, And, though there are who deem that same a low street Yet, I'm assured, for frolicsome debate And genuine humor it's surpassed by no street, When the "Chief Baron" enters, and assumes To "rule" o'er mimic ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... slowly raising Your dozed eyelids, sought again, Half in doubt, they say, and gazing Sadly back, the seats of men;— Snatch'd a turbid inspiration From some transient earthly sun, And proclaim'd your vain ovation For those mimic raptures you ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... multitude of obsequious bows, announced his having completed the commands of the gentleman, who immediately lounged round into his box. Lord Camelford having finished his paragraph, called out in a mimic tone to that of Mr.——-, "Waiter! bring me a pair of snuffers." These were quickly brought, when his Lordship laid down his paper, walked round to the box in which Mr.——-was, snuffed out both the candles, and leisurely returned to his seat. Boiling with rage and fury, the ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... coloured glass, I presented them with a part of our stag, making them understand at the same time that we came with the most friendly intentions. From that moment there was established between us a very curious sort of mimic conversation, during which I was able to examine at my ease the new race of beings I saw around me. I perceived that the costume of the Igorrots was pretty nearly the same as that of the Tinguians, the ornaments excepted, but their features and physiognomy were quite different. ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... triumphed over the efforts of an effeminate and unwarlike people. As I passed through the camp, I was astonished at the order and regularity which prevailed among these barbarians. Some were exercising their horses in the mimic representation of a battle; part fled with incredible speed, while the rest pursued, and darted blunted javelins at their antagonists. Yet even those who fled would frequently turn upon their pursuers and ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... all trace, Of that late mimic world of beauteous grace, Swallowing in a fleet, wrathful breath of rage, All the vain baubles of ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... soon as he could walk; in running it is said that he could easily out-distance his companions; while his skill with the bow excited their admiration and envy. His greatest delight, however, was to muster his playmates into rival bands for mimic warfare. ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... from Art's reflected hues Shalt thou a mimic charm receive? Believe, my fair! the faithful muse, They spoil the blush they ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... with a ferocity unknown in the human occupation of the islands. Still, the sparrows have by no means conquered, and in the wilder places the catbird makes common cause with the bluebird and the redbird, and holds its own against them. The little ground-doves mimic in miniature the form and markings and the gait and mild behavior of our turtle-doves, but perhaps not their melancholy cooing. Nature has nowhere anything prettier than these exquisite creatures, unless it be the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Laertes a calm, kind father of the nineteenth century. Then, as now, the children loved to sport upon the shore, and watch the inrolling waves;—then, as now, the boy-architect would pile the moist sand into mimic town or castle, and when the work was finished, sweep it away again in wanton humour with foot and hand;—then, as now, the little tired maiden would cling to her mother's skirt, and, trotting painfully ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... whose letters will long survive her, as giving a burning literary note to the vagueness of suffering and pain of soul. One of Diderot's favourite companions in older days, Galiani, the antiquary, the scholar, the politician, the incomparable mimic, the shrewdest, wittiest, and gayest of men after Voltaire, was feeling the dull grasp of approaching death under his native sky at Naples. Galiani's Dialogues on the Trade in Grain (1769-70) contained, under that most unpromising title, a piece ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... sleep, And, like the sky-bird, hail the bright-cheek'd morn With gleeful song, then o'er the bladed mead To chase the blue-wing'd butterfly, or play With curly streams; or, led by watchful Love, To hear the chorus of the trooping waves, When the young breezes laugh them into life! Or listen to the mimic ocean roar Within the womb of spiry sea-shell wove,— From sight and sound to catch intense delight, And infant gladness from each happy face,— These are the guileless duties of the day: And when at length reposeful Evening comes, Joy-worn he nestles in the welcome couch, With kisses ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... he said a year afterwards, "that sort of thing does not interest the public. What they want,"—here he began to mimic some funny old East Side person, and both hands gesticulating—"is a back yard and a cabbage patch and a cook stove and babies' clothes drying beside it, you see, Mattie," he said. "They don't want to know anything about the ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... flashing with desperation, perhaps insanity—launches out in a firm and steady voice the words Sic Semper Tyrannis—and then walks with neither slow nor very rapid pace diagonally across to the back of the stage, and disappears. (Had not all this terrible scene—making the mimic ones preposterous—had it not all been rehearsed, in blank, by ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... in producing various kinds of marble and stone. A beautiful table that I saw made out of artificial ivory, had a painting upon the top of it. A deep border, composed of delicate, convoluted shells, extended round the top of the table and formed the shores of a mimic ocean, with coral reefs and tiny islands, and tangled sea-weeds and shining fishes sporting about in the pellucid water. The surface was of highly polished smoothness, and I was informed that the picture was not a painting but was formed of colored particles of ivory that ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... seemed so much like a myth to the general public, was a man of great learning and keen intelligence, unimaginative as he says himself, but richly endowed with "a certain broad humor and drollery." His son tells us that he was "an inimitable mimic and story-teller. No small proportion of Mrs. Stowe's success as a literary woman is to be attributed to him." The Sam Lawson stories are said to be a little more his than hers, being "told as they came from Mr. Stowe's lips with little ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... and then to pray in the most conspicuous spot I could find. The intonations of my Allah ho akbar were to be heard in each corner of the tomb, and I hoped they came to the ear of every inhabitant of it. No face wore a more mortified appearance than mine: even the dervish, who was the best mimic possible, could not beat me in the downcast eye, the hypocritical ejaculation, the affected taciturnity of the sour, proud, and ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... country. But in our country, where we must needs economise not the shade but the sun, its grandiosity weighs a little on one's spirits. Well! the rough plaster we used to cover as well as might be with morsels of old figured arras-work, is replaced by dainty panelling of wood, with mimic columns, and a quite aerial scrollwork around sunken spaces of a pale-rose stuff and certain oval openings—two over the doors, opening on each side of the great couch which faces the windows, one over the chimney-piece, and one above the buffet ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... morn. Along the Southern wall the dark vines shed Their splendid clusters, blue-black and pale green, With liquid sunshine through their thin films seen. In yonder mead the haymakers at work With lusty sounds the clear tense air fulfill, Rearing the shapely hayrick's mimic hill, The dried ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... informal me that the children, whose warlike demeanour I was disposed to smile at an hour ago, have rendered (not the state, but the popular cause) some service. The troops, more amused than surprised at the appearance of these mimic soldiers, suffered them to approach closer than prudence warranted, and the urchins, rushing among the horses, wounded several of the poor animals severely, and effected their retreat before the soldiers were ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... nursing it in school-hours. How the father and daughter laughed as they trudged home together after the evening party, and how Miss Pinkerton would have raged had she seen the caricature of herself which the little mimic, Rebecca, managed to make out of the doll. Becky used to go through dialogues with it; it formed the delight of the circle of young painters who frequented the studio, who used regularly to ask Rebecca if Miss Pinkerton was at home. Once ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... their future occupations or pursuits. Boys who are very young, have small reed spears made for them by their parents, the ends of which are padded with grass, to prevent them from hurting each other. They then stand at a little distance, and engage in a mimic fight; and by this means acquire early that skill in the use of this weapon, for which, in after life, they are so much celebrated. At other times round pieces of bark are rolled along the ground, to represent an animal in the act of running, at which the spears are thrown ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... Clark reached home his expectation was more than realized. From the way in which he noiselessly opened the front door and then stole along the little passage to the back room, from which the sound of many voices was coming as though it were a mimic Babel, you might have thought he ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page
... mysterious, secret-keeping, created a feeling of awe and wonder. They gazed and gazed again, up the great waterway, across to its farther shore, along its rolling course below, and still each man forgot his paddle, and still the little ship of New France drifted on, just rocking gently in the mimic waves which ruffled the face of the mighty ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... can be felt no less when they are pictured in the films. More than that, the absence of the words brings the movements which we see to still greater prominence in our mind. Our whole attention can now be focused on the play of the face and of the hands. Every gesture and every mimic excitement stirs us now much more than if it were only the accompaniment of speech. Moreover, the technical conditions of the kinematograph show favor the importance of the movement. First the play on the screen is acted more rapidly than that on the stage. By the absence of speech everything ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... the "transition period" only one was shrewd enough to read coming events in their true light. It is said of Spotted Tail that he was rather a slow-moving boy, preferring in their various games and mimic battles to play the role of councilor, to plan and assign to the others their parts in the fray. This he did so cleverly that he soon became a leader among his youthful contemporaries; and withal he was apt at mimicry and impersonation, so that the other boys were ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... empire long— A blighting curse, a cruel reign; By mimic scenes, and mirth and song ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... I marvelled as I saw a mimic stage Alive with little actors of a very tender age; And some so very tiny that they tottered as they walked, And lisped and purled and gurgled like the brooklets, when ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... father, was a coachman. Didn't you know?" she asked, turning round, and immediately she began to mimic the way the ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... neighborhood of the lakes. Before his retirement, in the annual maneuvers, he had often rehearsed his defense against Russian invaders. Indeed report, perhaps unfounded, described his retirement to the displeasure of the Emperor William at being badly worsted in one of these mimic combats. He had prevented the country from being cleared and the swamps from being drained, arguing that they were worth more to Germany than a dozen fortresses. A man of rugged strength, his face suggesting power and tenacity, he was to become the ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... glad to see you! And how are they all at home?" and she ran over the list, name for name. "We mustn't forget your father. But he's a hard 'un and no mistake," said the aunt, putting on a mimic ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... represent, She forms Imaginations, Aerie shapes, Which Reason joyning or disjoyning, frames All what we affirm or what deny, and call Our knowledge or opinion; then retires Into her private Cell when Nature rests. Oft in her absence mimic Fansie wakes 110 To imitate her; but misjoyning shapes, Wilde work produces oft, and most in dreams, Ill matching words and deeds long past or late. Som such resemblances methinks I find Of our last Eevnings talk, in this thy dream, But with addition strange; yet ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... Courtenay, born 1327, was often 'employed by the King in his wars in France and Scotland,' and fought at the battle of Crecy. The next year, among other 'brave Martialists,' he diverted himself by mimic battles at Eltham, and it is recorded that at this tournament the King gave him 'an Hood of White Cloth, embroidered with men in the posture of Dancers, buttoned with large Pearls.' Authorities are divided as to whether he or his father, the Earl ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... she felt that she had made a mistake and lost more than she had gained in those three years. Others might lead that life of alternate excitement and hard work unharmed, but she could not. The very ardor and insight which gave power to the actress made that mimic life unsatisfactory to the woman, for hers was an earnest nature that took fast hold of whatever task she gave herself to do, and lived in it heartily while duty made it right, or novelty lent it charms. But when she saw the error of a step, the emptiness of ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... or ally, and the scandal of her retinue of lovers, had gained for her an ill-repute, that combined with the watch set upon her movements by the British to render men chary of dealings with the little court at Feragpore, where she held mimic state. ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... the farmer's lane from wall to wall, 20 Mauger the farmer's sighs; and at the gate A tapering turret overtops the work; And when his hours are numbered and the world Is all his own, retiring as he were not, Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art 5 To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone, Built in an age, the mad wind's night work— The ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... environment, before the flower uncloses. And he merely relates what he has seen, what he has taken part in. The narrations would be naught if he were not the narrator. His effects are helped by the fact that he is an excellent mimic and by his utter realistic mercilessness. But like all first-class realists he is also a romantic, and in his mercilessness there is a mysterious touch of fundamental benevolence—as befits the attitude of one who does not worry because human nature is not ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... the victims of her husband's triumph, nor any betrothed fair listen to the murderous deeds of him her imagination had painted as a hero, with less indifference to human suffering, than that with which the wife of the Sachem of the Narragansetts looked on the mimic representation of those exploits which had purchased for her husband a renown so highly prized. It was but too apparent that the representation, rude and savage as it was, conveyed to her mind nothing but pictures in which the chosen companion of a warrior should rejoice. The varying features ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... would usually begin doing something to amuse and comfort his precious boy; he would tell him stories, funny anecdotes, or would mimic comic people he had happened to meet, even imitate the howls and cries of animals. But Ilusha could not bear to see his father fooling and playing the buffoon. Though the boy tried not to show how he disliked it, he saw with an aching heart that his father was an object of contempt, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... a person hitherto calm and collected will suddenly commence to shout, sing, and dance at the most inopportune moment, and from that time the mind of the patient becomes permanently deranged. A curious phase of this disease is the irresistible impulse to mimic the voice and actions of others. Thus I witnessed a painful scene one night in the home of an exile who had assembled some comrades to meet me, and, in the street one day, a peasant woman, born and bred here, seized my arm and repeated, with weird accuracy, a sentence in ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... that he sat on that stone; for that alone he had been beaten! What he said was but the babbling of priests. All priests are alike. They have a common jargon—a common disrespect for what they dare not openly defy. These temple rats of fakirs mimic them. That is all, sahib. A ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... place, give a very narrow range of observation; and, still more important, as was remarked by the late General Sherman, the moral elements of danger and uncertainty, which count for so much in real warfare, cannot be adequately reproduced in mimic. The field of military history, on the other hand, has no limit short of the military experience of the race; it records the effect of moral influences of every kind, as well as of the most diverse material conditions; ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... girl," she would say before a tableful of girls, in the pityingly sweet tone of an experienced woman of the world to a vulgar nobody, "how can you speak like that!" (This when Adelle had emitted the vernacular grunt in answer to some question.) "You are not a little ape, my dear." Then she would mimic in her dainty drawl Adelle's habit of speech, which, of course, set all the girls at the table tittering. Adelle naturally did not love "Rosy," but she was helpless before her darts. The other teachers generally ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... The mimic warfare commenced. We threw out an outlying picket with supports and reserve, and the whole camp was placed in a state of defence against a supposed enemy ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle
... them says, 'Krishna's arms were about my neck, and now he has gone.' They begin to comb the forest, anxiously asking the trees, birds and animals, for news. As they go, they recall Krishna's many winning ways, his sweetnesses of character, his heart-provoking charms and begin to mimic his acts—the slaying of Putana, the quelling of Kaliya, the lifting of the hill Govardhana. One girl imitates Krishna dancing and another Krishna playing. In all these ways they strive to evoke his passionately-desired presence. At length they discover Krishna's footprints and a little farther ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... beaten out From spirits tempered in heaven. Look in the crystal! See how he hastens on To the place where his path comes up to the path Of a child of Plutarch and Shakespeare. O Lincoln, actor indeed, playing well your part, And Booth, who strode in a mimic play within the play, Often and often I saw you, As the cawing crows winged their way to the wood Over my house-top at solemn sunsets, There by my ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... student of philosophy,—can such a one leave those higher pursuits, leave communing with the sages of old, to sit still and listen to the sound of a flute, and watch the antics of an effeminate creature got up in soft raiment to sing lascivious songs and mimic the passions of prehistoric strumpets, of Rhodopes and Phaedras and Parthenopes, to the accompaniment of twanging string and shrilling pipe and clattering heel? It is too absurd: these are not amusements for a gentleman; not amusements ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... triumphantly raised again over that historic fort; when, the War being at an end, everything in the future looked hopeful; at the very time when his merciful and kindly mind was doubtless far away from the mimic scenes upon which he looked, revolving beneficent plans for reconstructing and rebuilding the waste and desolate places in the South which War had made; at this time, of all times, when his clear and just perceptions and firm patriotism ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... from thy face, And spread o'er all thy form a holier grace; When from the daughter's breast the father drew The life he gave, and mix'd the big tear's dew. Nor was it thine th' heroic strain to roll, With mimic feelings, foreign from the soul; Bright in thy parent's eye we mark'd the tear; Methought he said, "Thou art no actress here! A semblance of thyself, the Grecian dame, And Brunton and Euphrasia still the same!" O! soon to seek the city's busier ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... chap-books which were hawked about the country then. It must also be remembered that these were the days of puppet shows. The English drama, as we have already mentioned in connection with Faust, was by no means confined to the boards of actual theatres where living actors played the parts. Little mimic stages travelled about the country in all directions reproducing the plays, very much after the fashion of Punch and Judy; and even the solemnest of Shakespeare's tragedies were exhibited in this way. There is no possibility of doubt that Bunyan must have often stood agape at these exhibitions, ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... From the Sirdar and the Khalifa downwards—for he was an ex-dervish and had played pranks in Omdurman—none escaped a parodying portrayal of their mannerisms. He imitated the tones of their voice and twisted and contorted his face and body to resemble the originals. Nothing was sacred from that mimic any more than from a sapper. He showed us Osman Digna's little ways, and gave ghastly imitations of trials, mutilations and executions by hanging in the Mahdist camps. And these things were for relaxation, though maybe they served ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... not what Lady Byron called "the mimic woe" of the poet, but it was rather the grand defiance of the Indian warrior at the stake, whose proud soul can hold in hand ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... but the cause of wit in others. His stories were irresistibly comic; but they almost always contained expressions of profanity or coarseness which renders it impossible for us to transmit them to these pages. He was an inimitable mimic, and had perfect command of a Dutchman's brogue. One of the least objectionable of his humorous stories we ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... as himself. He taught both by precept and example, that towards masters neither honour was to be recognised, nor respect to be considered due. To cheat them, to lie to them, to annoy them in every possible way—to misrepresent their motives, mimic their defects, and calumniate their actions—was the conduct which he inaugurated towards them; and for the time that he continued at Roslyn the whole lower-school was a Pandemonium of evil passions ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... the explanation of Levana. And hence it has arisen that some people have understood by Levana the tutelary power that controls the education of the nursery. She, that would not suffer at his birth even a prefigurative or mimic degradation for her awful ward, far less could be supposed to suffer the real degradation attaching to the non-development of his powers. She therefore watches over human education. Now, the word educo, with the penultimate short, was derived ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... house" is FIRE. By which I do not mean merely artificial fire, but fire in all its extent and branches,—the heavenly fire which God sends us daily on the bright wings of sunbeams, as well as the mimic fires by which we warm our dwellings, cook our food, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... is a most beautiful creature, said to be a variety of the Bird of Paradise. It runs very quickly, and springs very high, and calls very loudly. It lays but one egg a year and, consequently, only has one baby per annum. It is a great mimic. Mr. Metcalfe in his "Australian Zoology", describing it, says: "It is a consummate mimic and ventriloquist. It imitates to perfection the notes of all other birds, the united voices of a flock of parrakeets, the barking of dogs, the sawing of timber and the clink of the woodman's ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... several letters of the alphabet are represented on the hand, the two together really constituting the language.[546] The order of signs itself forms to an extent a universal language. It consists of gestures, bodily movements, mimic actions, pantomime, postures—and to carry a close shade of meaning, even the shrugging of shoulders, the raising of eyebrows and the expression of the face—all appealing graphically to the accustomed ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... Kitty; only not to mimic. You're an actress, but the Big Dramatist writes your business for you. Now, I've got some fairly good ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... prophetic ecstasy on the felicitous execution of particular parts, that already start into existence by the magic touch of a heated imagination. Let it depict the tender feelings of solitude, the breathings of midnight silence, the scenes of mimic life, of imaged trial, that often occupy the musing mind; let it be such a work, so drawn, so coloured, and who shall pronounce it inferior? Who rather will not confess that it presents a picture of human nature, where every heart may find ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... Charteris, who, elsewhere in Mr. Cabell's books generally the chorus, here enters the plot and exhibits a sorry gallantry in action. Poictesme, these novels indicate, is not the only country Mr. Cabell knows; he knows also how to feel at home, when he cares to, in the mimic universe of Lichfield and Fairhaven, where gay ribbons perpetually flutter, and where eyes and hands perpetually invite, and where love runs a deft, dainty, ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... bitterly inveighing against the theatre, as a place of amusement, and pouring forth the most awful denunciations against the frequenters thereof. Alfred Bunn, the manager, was not slow to retort. He put "The Hypocrite" on the boards, Shuter, the clever comedian and mimic, personating Mr. James in the part of Mawworm so cleverly that the piece had an immense run. The battle ended in a victory for both sides, chapel and theatre alike being crammed. If it pleased the godly it was a god-send for ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... was not enough of a fine lady to be dismayed or humiliated by its straits and shifts of poverty, by its isolation and ostracism; while there was something in its alternations of want and profusion, in its piquant contrasts of real and mimic life, in its excitement, action, and change, which had a peculiar charm for her wild and restless spirit. But from many of the associations of the stage, from nearly all actors and actresses, and from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... night. 'She likes clergymen and she likes great ladies, and she likes to make people like her. Of course, she is always designing; but she never stops to think, so that she doesn't know she is designing. She is an amazing mimic. Something in this room to-night made me think of Dorset House directly I came in, and I remembered that, of course, she was at the party there last night. She must have put the sofa and the palms in the middle of the room ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... a narrow line of houses,—some palatial, such as you would be glad to see in London,—and above all towers the old dwelling of Queen Cornaro, who was forced to exchange her Kingdom of Cyprus for this pretty but petty dominion where she kept state in a mimic Court, with Bembo, afterwards Cardinal, for her secretary—who has commemorated the fact in his 'Asolani' or dialogues inspired by the place: and I do assure you that, after some experience of beautiful sights in Italy and elsewhere I know nothing comparable ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... new stylistic overtones in contexts now humorously precise, now philosophically metaphorical, employing them now for purposes of irony and satire, and again for striking directly home to the roots of morality and religion. In a playful mood, he is never more characteristic than when he is his own mimic, propounding with mock seriousness some preposterous theory like that of the intellectual advantages of living in ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... I was ready, and Amroth led the way like a boy out for a holiday. He was brimming over with talk, and told me some stories about my friends in the land of delight, interspersing them with imitation of their manner and gesture, which made me giggle—Amroth was an admirable mimic. "I had hopes of Charmides," he said; "your stay there aroused his curiosity. But he has gone back to his absurd tones and half-tones, and is nearly insupportable. Cynthia is much more sensible, but Lucius is a nuisance, and Charmides, by the way, has become absurdly jealous of him. ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... many ways: by winds, by rats, by boughs of trees, by water pipes, by birds. The writer has known a very satisfactory series of footsteps in an historical Scotch house, to be dispelled by a modification of the water pipes. Again he has heard a person of distinction mimic the noises made by his family ghosts (which he preserved from tests as carefully as Don Quixote did his helmet) and the performance was an admirable imitation of the wind in a spout. There are noises, however, which cannot be thus cheaply disposed of, and among ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... oddities, his manners were engaging and polished: his conversation was original, energetic, and lively; he would often indulge in sallies of pleasantry to amuse the Empress, and as he was an excellent mimic, he would take off the uncouth manners and accents of some of the soldiers to the life. He had a dislike to writing, always asserting that a pen was an unfit implement for a soldier. His dispatches were laconic, but not the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... have been made to render this Peat available as a basis of Manufacture and Commerce, but hitherto with little success. The magnificent chemical discoveries heralded some two years ago, whereby each bog was to be transformed into a mimic California, have not endured the rough test of practical experience. There is no doubt that Peat contains all the valuable elements therein set forth—Carbon, Ammonia, Stearine, Tar, &c., but unfortunately it has hitherto cost more ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... of man's hands, and Antony, hating to destroy beauty, still forbore to strike—just as he would have shrunk from breaking in pieces a shapely vase. Then, too, the resemblance to Beatrice took him again. Crudely to smash features so like hers seemed a sort of mimic murder. So he still hesitated. Was there no other way? Then the thought came to him: "Bury her." It pleased him. Yes, he ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne
... Brigitte is the only one who comes to us, with whom she might change clothes. And Madame is not at all of Brigitte's figure—nor could she mimic Brigitte's walk as I can. She could not act a part in the slightest degree. And I know that Madame would never consent to go and leave me behind to bear the Count's wrath. We must all three go together. Besides ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... were quietly looking on. To appreciate its interest you must have been present, and heard the shouts rising at the same time from an opposite quarter, where the boys of the town were assembled in belligerent array, and making a mimic (or rather real) war, by throwing stones at each other, to see which would gain the victory. The little company before me, when I first came to the place, scarcely two months ago, were as fully carried ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... easel and umbrella on his arm, climbed the hill slowly and with frequent pauses to turn and admire the landscape. It was the freshest of spring mornings: the short turf was beaded with dew, the furze-bushes on either hand festooned with gossamer and strung with mimic diamonds. As he looked harbourwards, the radiance of sky mingling with the glitter of water dazzled and bewildered his sight: below, and at the foot of the steep woods opposite, the river lay cool ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... respectably dressed, only he had neither shoes or stockings, and though of small stature, had a voice like thunder; he was of course, considered a first-rate patterer (caller). Another, a merchant's clerk and active young man, and an excellent mimic, but a Careless himself. The third, a Welshman; one who might have caused a painter to halt—a model of strength; in size and form like one of his own mountain bulls, with a voice as hoarse as the winter's blast on Snowdon. He was ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... float the walnut- shell boats, with their burning candles fixed in each. As the girls took their pairs of shells, one with a pink, the other with a blue candle placed in the middle like a mast, it was curious to see the difference in their ways of launching them on this mimic ocean of life. Jean and Jessie dropped theirs in thoughtlessly, only intent on the fun of the moment. Florence put hers in daintily and with care not to wet her fingers, and Molly and Katharine launched theirs out boldly, ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... school, 'twas ours to wage, How keenly! bloodless war— Tossing the balls in mimic rage, That left a gorgeous scar; While doublets dark were powder'd o'er, Till darkness none could find; And valorous chiefs had wounds before, And ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... true that Taug was no longer the frolicsome ape of yesterday. When his snarling-muscles bared his giant fangs no one could longer imagine that Taug was in as playful a mood as when he and Tarzan had rolled upon the turf in mimic battle. The Taug of today was a huge, sullen bull ape, somber and forbidding. Yet he and ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the prince, with the young Inca nobles who had shared his studies, underwent a kind of public examination, their proficiency as warriors being tested by various athletic exercises and by mimic combats which, though fought with blunted weapons, generally resulted in wounds, and sometimes in death. During this trial, which lasted thirty days, the young prince fared no better than his comrades, ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... disposition of their kind, the cubs also were more particularly lively by night than by day. Directly the cold dew-mist wreathed the grass at the entrance of the burrow, they commenced to sport and play, tumbling over each other, grunting and fighting in mimic anger, or pretending to startle their mother directly she entered the pipe on ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... to and from the mainland. The insignia of royalty were ostentatiously displayed, and the captains and leaders within the fortress fulfilled the duties of this mimic and motley court in honour ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... those winter forests. Every tree, laden with the purest snow, resembles a Gothic fountain of bronze, covered with frozen spray, through which only suggestive glimpses of its delicate tracery can be obtained. From every rise we looked over thousands of such mimic fountains, shooting, low or high, from their pavements of ivory and alabaster. It was an enchanted wilderness—white, silent, gleaming, and filled with inexhaustible forms of beauty. To what shall I liken those glimpses under the boughs, into the depths of the forest, where the snow ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... expects, and even exacts, are tedious and fatiguing. Her various movements and attitudes are all adjusted and exhibited by rule. By a happy fluency of the most eloquent language, she has the art of imparting a momentary dignity and grace to the merest trifles. Studious only to mimic such peculiarities as are most admired in others, she affects a loquacity peculiarly flippant and teazing because scandal, routs, finery, fans, china, lovers, lap-dogs, or squirrels, are her constant themes. Her amusements, like those of a magpie, are only hopping over the ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... and the tradesman's display of goods. Nothing has been taught them, but they have a rude notion of everything. They have seen pineapples at Chevet's, a palm-tree in the Jardin des Plantes, sugar-canes selling on the Pont-Neuf. The Redskins, exhibited in the Valentine Hall, have taught them to mimic the dance of the bison, and to smoke the calumet of peace; they have seen Carter's lions fed; they know the principal national costumes contained in Babin's collection; Goupil's display of prints has placed the tiger-hunts of Africa and the sittings of the English Parliament ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... school desks served for dummy dancers, and were arranged to give her a notion of the ordering of the figures. The aged recluse, in his musty coat, seemed transformed into a very courtly gentleman, but Wilhelmine always fancied that his eyes were more melancholy than usual after these mimic courts. One day she asked him if it saddened him to revoke the past. 'Ah! mon enfant!' he replied, 'que voulez-vous? un coeur profondement blesse ne guerit jamais; and the melodies of these dances remind me of my wound, which ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... the circle, and cast his eyes up to the sun, which was just gaining the point, when the truce with Magua was to end. The fact was soon announced by a significant gesture, accompanied by a corresponding cry; and the whole of the excited multitude abandoned their mimic warfare, with shrill yells of pleasure, to prepare for the more hazardous experiment of ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... beautiful, Jinnie took the position he directed. She had come to play for him, to mimic the natural world for ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... low with love's emotion! Levying with look and tone All love's rosy arts to mimic Cytherea's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the river; mimic fleetnesses Of little wavelets, fretted by the shells And shingle of the beach, circle and eddy round, And smooth themselves perpetually: there dwells A spirit of peace in their low murmuring noise Subsiding into quiet, as ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... minor sketches from pencils less known at that time—among them that of William L. Sheppard, now famous as graphic delineator of southern scenes—illustrate both the details of the unique war, and the taste and heart of those who made it. Amid battles, sieges and sorrows, the mimic world behind the Chinese wall revolved on axis of its own. War was the business of life to every man; but, in the short pauses of its active strife, were shown both the taste and talent for the prettiest pursuits of ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... that of a pet red-winged blackbird, which, instead of whistling the labored "Grook-o-lee" of his species, learned to mimic all kinds of sounds in and out of the house, among them the crowing of the cocks of the barnyard. These two instances would indicate that some birds must at least be associated with their kin in order to learn the songs ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... as all variety is obtained by disposing the holes in such a way as to produce the pattern required by means of their outlines on the plain surface. Thus waved lines are produced as in Fig. 31, and little niches like mimic architecture as in Fig. 34, by the addition of the triangular-shaped holes at the top, and the splayed sills at the bottom. (It is obvious that an arrangement like the latter should never be turned upside down.) If this attention to the surface pattern is neglected the holes are apt to ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... their tents covered the mountain sides and plains below. The braves of the hill men hunted and sported with their brethren of the valley. Their children fished, hunted, played, fought, and gamboled in mimic warfare as brothers along the sparkling streamlets that rise in the mountain ridges, their sparkling waters leaping and jumping through the gorges and glens and flowing away to the "great river." All was peace ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... part of the tents; nor is this to be wondered at. Nothing can be more singular in appearance or gorgeous in colouring. Their fragrance, too, is so delightful. Description can convey but a faint idea of their great beauty and diversity of character. They seem to mimic the insect world in the shapes of their blossoms; nor are the resemblances distant. Every one has heard of the butterfly-plant: there is one on the stage now before us, and as the breeze gently waves its slender stalks, each tipped with a vegetable butterfly, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... that doll who gazes at us with such a fashionable stare. This is the little girl's true plaything. Though made of wood, a doll is a visionary and ethereal personage endowed by childish fancy with a peculiar life; the mimic lady is a heroine of romance, an actor and a sufferer in a thousand shadowy scenes, the chief inhabitant of that wild world with which children ape the real one. Little Annie does not understand what ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I again encountered him on The Mall. He was resting lazily on the green rails, watching two little sloops in distress, which two ragged ship-owners had consigned to the mimic perils of the Pond. The vessels lay becalmed in the middle of the ocean, displaying a tantalizing lack of sympathy with the frantic helplessness of the owners on shore. As the gentleman observed their dilemma, a light came into his faded eyes, ...
— A Struggle For Life • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... and study, in all my close analysis of the masterpieces of Shakespeare, in my earnest determination to make those plays appear real on the mimic stage, I have never, and nowhere, met tragedy so real, so sublime, so magnificent as the legend of Hiram. It is substance without shadow—the manifest destiny of life which requires no picture and scarcely a word to make a lasting impression ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... was nearly train-time, and three or four horsemen could be seen at various distances, while, far out towards the fort, long skirmish-lines and fluttering guidons were sweeping over the slopes in mimic war-array. ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... set face checked him; made him remember. This was no mimic thing. It was real; too real to need play-acting. And with that thought came recollection. All in a flash it dawned on him that this was no man-created situation; it must have something greater ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... poodle, beside a young lion," thought she to herself, as she noted the bustling step of the one and the independent and elastic gait of the other. She felt irresistibly tempted to mimic the older man, but this audacious impulse was soon quelled for scarcely had the guide explained to the Roman that it was here that those pious recluses had their cells who served the god in voluntary captivity, as being ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... positions and concentrated artillery in preparation for the siege. The generalship of a woman is never so keen, so instinct with strategy, as when she gives battle against another of her sex. Her campaign against men, when once she takes up arms, is mimic warfare—a sham fight—compared to this. Against a man, she needs but a company of fascinations, and in one attack his squares—the stern veterans of determination—are driven to flight. But with a woman, whole regiments of cunning, whole battalions of craft, with all the well-trained scouts of intuition ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... thy dewy drops forget to fall,— Why canst thou not thy soothing charms impart, And shed thy quiet o'er this beating heart? Tell me, thou richly-painted river! tell, That on thy mirror'd plane dost mimic well Each pendent tree and every distant hill, Tipp'd with red ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... of the seas of blood shed by Catholicism." Emile replied, quite unimpressed. "It has drained our hearts and veins dry to make a mimic deluge. No matter! Every man who thinks must range himself beneath the banner of Christ, for He alone has consummated the triumph of spirit over matter; He alone has revealed to us, like a poet, an intermediate world that separates ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... increase the noise; snatched an instrument from one of the musicians, and broke it over the head of him who represented Ulysses; and, running to the consular bench, mistook a couple of senators for the sheep which were to be slain. The audience applauded him to the skies: but so conscious was the mimic of his own extravagance when he recovered the use of his reason, that he actually fell sick with mortification; and being afterwards desired to re-act the piece, flatly refused to appear in any such character, saying that the shortest follies were the best, and that it was sufficient for ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... peculiar charms; and she was personally my notion of that "much blamed, much worshipped" modern Helen. She had remarkable decision of character and force of will, with the gentlest and most feminine appearance and manner; she was humorous and witty, and an incomparable mimic. She was a woman of admirably high principle and rectitude, and in every way as attractive as she was estimable. Her eldest son was proprietor of a charming place, Carolside, just over the Scottish border, and had hardly come of age and inherited ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... brightness, shining upon the ancient walls of Greifenstein as coldly and clearly through the keen winter air as he had shone yesterday and as he would shine to-morrow. From eave and stringcourse and dripstone of the old castle the melting patches of dazzling snow sent down mimic showers of diamond drops, and the moisture thawed from them made dark stains upon the grey masonry. A redbreast skipped about the furrows made in the white carpet by the carriage wheels, paused, turned his tiny impertinent head, and glanced ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... customs of white men in the most extraordinary and grotesque manner, and so do the natives of New Zealand. The Kamschatkans have a great power of imitating other men and animals, and this is also the case with the inhabitants of Vancouver. Herndon was astonished by the mimic arts of the Brazilian Indians, and Wilkes made the same observation on the Patagonians. This faculty is still more apparent in the lower races. Many travellers have spoken of the extraordinary tendency to imitation among the Fuegians; and, according to Monat, the Andaman ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... standing face to face with the assailant. In imitating him, especially in his unreasoning state of mind, he would lift the arm opposite to the one whose action he mimics, which, in this case, would be the assailant's right. Try, for the moment, to mimic my actions. See! I lift this hand, and instinctively (nay, I detected the movement, sir, quickly as you remembered yourself), you raise the one directly opposite to it. It is like seeing yourself in a mirror. You turn your head to the right, but your image turns ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... on. There were mimic battles often on the islands. A hidden couple found out and dragged back. A lone man attacked and pelted with flowers by a band of marauding girls. A diving platform at one end of an oval lagoon. Girls mounting it to dive into the red-shimmering water, where waiting youths were swimming, ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... day comes the bridegroom proceeds with a large party of his friends, male and female, to the bride's house. Most of the males have warlike weapons, real or sham, and as they approach the village of the bride's family the young men from thence emerge, also armed, as if to repel the invasion, and a mimic fight ensues, which like a dissolving view blends pleasantly into a dance. In this the bride and bridegroom join, each riding on the hips of one of their friends. After this they have a feast till late in the night. Next morning bread cooked by the bride's mother is taken to the dari ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... prosperity had turned Garrick's head. Continued adversity had soured Johnson's temper. Johnson saw with more envy than became so great a man the villa, the plate, the china, the Brussels carpet, which the little mimic had got by repeating, with grimaces and gesticulations, what wiser men had written; and the exquisitely sensitive vanity of Garrick was galled by the thought that, while all the rest of the world was applauding him, he could obtain from one morose cynic, whose opinion it ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... persons in such circumstances, with great presumption, some talents, but no principles, the Revolution could not, with all its anarchy, confusion, and crime, but be a real blessing, as Chaptal called it in his first speech at the Jacobin Club. Wishing to mimic, at Montpellier, the taking of the Bastille at Paris, he, in May, 1790, seduced the lower classes and the suburbs to an insurrection, and to an attack on the citadel, which the governor, to avoid all effusion of blood, surrendered without ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith |
