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Delineate   Listen
adjective
Delineate  adj.  Delineated; portrayed. (R.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Delineate" Quotes from Famous Books



... cushioned chair, in an attitude of perfect and unstudied grace she would have delightedly sketched in another. Have ever I described my favorite's appearance? I believe not; and yet there was much in her face and figure to arrest and enchant younger eyes than mine. I could not, if I would, delineate her features, for I only recall their charm of emotion, their attractive variety of sentiment. Her eyes were gray, with dark lashes, and their expression was at once brilliant and melancholy, and the most spiritual I have ever seen. Her hair was long ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various

... which it replaced in beauty, variety, and naturalness, as well as in exuberance. There was an attempt to make {369} all things beautiful, and no attempt to follow the spirit of asceticism in degrading the human body, but rather to try to delineate every feature as noble in itself. The movement, life, and grace of the human form, the beauty of landscape, all were enjoyed and presented by the artists of the renaissance. The beauty of this life is magnified, and the artists represented in joyous ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... how deeply a man may be read in human nature, what an insight he may acquire into the springs of action and feeling, and yet how incapable he may be of making any practical application of the knowledge he has acquired and the result of which he can faithfully delineate. He gives a list of the books he had read at eighteen which appears incredible, particularly as he says that he was always idle, and eight years after Scott says he did not appear well read either in poetry ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... the right nor to the left; there is but one course for you. You must go forward, or the ruin of your child is sealed. You have come to an important crisis in the history of your child, and if you need motive to influence you to act, you may delineate as upon a map his temporal and eternal destiny—these mainly depend upon the issue of the present struggle. If you succeed, your child is saved; if you fail, he is lost. You may think perhaps your child will die before he will yield. We had almost said he might as well die as not ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... receive the visits of a celibate whom he suspects of being her lover, and whom she has promised never again to see. Some minor scenes of the domestic interior we leave for matrimonial imaginations to conjure up; a husband can delineate them much better than we can; he will betake himself in thought back to those days when delightful longings invited sincere confidences and when the workings of his policy put into motion ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac

... under my eyes; thirty-one months have quickly passed away since I became an attentive spectator of the extraordinary transactions, and of the extraordinary characters of the extraordinary Court and Cabinet of St. Cloud. If my talents to delineate equal my zeal to inquire and my industry to examine; if I am as able a painter as I have been an indefatigable observer, you will be satisfied, and with your approbation at once sanction and reward ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... considerable extent, and being in such an elevated situation, those who profess to delineate panoramas may here find ample scope to display their abilities; for there is not only a view of the following churches, but the towns and villages wherein they are situated, are several of them under the eye of the spectator from this lofty eminence, viz. Walsall, Willenhall, Darlaston, ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye

... an attempt is made to delineate, just as they occurred, those scenes which, to my mind at least, were new and interesting, were originally penned for the private perusal of those whom I esteem; and by their persuasion they are now offered to the public eye. Amongst them I must be permitted to indulge in the pride ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... been the more anxious to delineate fully the person and habits of Wouter Van Twiller, from the consideration that he was not only the first but also the best Governor that ever presided over this ancient and respectable province; and so tranquil ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various

... symphony,' he would have given a better starting-point to the imagination of those who are seeking to know what the F minor sonata means. Most obviously it means music, but it means music that is an expression of one of those psychological struggles which Beethoven felt called upon more and more to delineate as he was more and more shut out from the companionship of the external world. Such struggles are in the truest sense of the word tempests. The motive, which, according to the story, Beethoven himself said, indicates, in the symphony, the rappings of Fate at the door of human existence, ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven

... the bough; and sang forth, free and offhand, never knowing the troubles of other men. Not so; with no man is it so. How could a man travel forward from rustic deer-poaching to such tragedy-writing, and not fall-in with sorrows by the way? Or, still better, how could a man delineate a Hamlet, a Coriolanus, a Macbeth, so many suffering heroic hearts, if his own heroic heart had never suffered?—And now, in contrast with all this, observe his mirthfulness, his genuine overflowing love of laughter! You would say, in no point does he exaggerate but only in laughter. Fiery ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... almost knew it by heart. Goethe was greatly influenced by the reading of Goldsmith's 'Vicar of Wakefield,' just at the critical moment of his mental development; and he attributed to it much of his best education. The reading of a prose 'Life of Gotz vou Berlichingen' afterwards stimulated him to delineate his character in a poetic form. "The figure of a rude, well-meaning self-helper," he said, "in a wild anarchic ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... Scarlet Letter," a work of pure imagination, was the climax of his tales, the furthest reach of his romantic allegorizing moral art in creation; but he now undertook to utilize his experience and observation in the attempt to delineate life in its commoner and more realistic aspects of character and scene. He began "The House of the Seven Gables" in September and finished it early in January. He wrote regularly, but the story went on more slowly than he had hoped, requiring ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry

... of feelings; how rude must those feelings be in him who daily holds the axe or the plough, how much more refined on the contrary those of the European, whose mind is improved by education, example, books, and by every acquired advantage! Those feelings, however, I will delineate as well as I can, agreeably to your ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... piece of undignified conduct which would bitterly have scandalised Lady Foljambe, could she have seen it. By the time that Kate returned with the articles prescribed, Agatha had possessed herself of a lighted candle, wherein she burnt the end of the cork, and with it proceeded to delineate, in the middle of the sheet, a very clever sketch of a ferocious Turk, with moustaches of stupendous length. Then elevating the long mop till it reached about a yard above her head, she instructed Kate to arrange the sheet ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... been preserved. From his earliest years he delighted, above all things, in observing the habits of animals; and it was his fondness for this study that gave rise, while he was yet a boy, to his first attempts in drawing. Long before he had received instruction in that art, he used to delineate his favourites of the lower creation with great accuracy and spirit. His introduction to the regular study of his future profession was purely accidental. He was in the habit of exercising his genius by covering the walls ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various

... and still more the streets of her ancient cities, are vanishing like dreams: and it is difficult to imagine the mingled envy and contempt with which future generations will look back to us, who still possessed such things, yet made no effort to preserve, and scarcely any to delineate them: for when used as material of landscape by the modern artist, they are nearly always superficially or flatteringly represented, without zeal enough to penetrate their character, or patience enough to render it in modest harmony. As for places of traditional ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... two nuns belonging to the Order of St. Charles, and I wish I could delineate the hideousness of their costumes, and the unmitigated ugliness of their general appearance. Their dress consisted of a plain black gown with round cape and close fitting hood, on each side of which projected black gauze flaps extended ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... What arguments in regard to a nation of forty-seven millions of people can be bolstered up by instancing the imperfect acquaintance of a Japanese pastry-cook with the English language? The writer does not in so many words delineate the future of Japan as it appears to him, but he suggests it, and his Japan of the future is quite evidently to be nothing more or less than a kind of international dustheap whereon Europe and America have dumped all that is bad and rotten and deplorable in their modern social and political ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery

... "by a call on Merrywell after six weeks residence among the gay blades that inhabit the walls of the King's Bench, have all the benefit of his previous observation. He will be able to delineate the characters, consciences, and conduct of his neighbours. He will describe all the comforts and advantages of a college life, introduce us to the Bloods and the Blacks, and, in short, there are few persons I know, except Sparkle himself, more able to conduct us through the intricacies of the ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... in my brain, which refuses to delineate distinctly succeeding events. Sometimes the irradiation of my friend's gentle smile comes before me; and methinks its light spans and fills eternity—then, again, I feel the ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... was tolling the hour of twelve at night when the lamp was extinguished. The miserable king had ceased to breathe. The ensuing scene no pen can delineate or pencil paint. The courtiers, totally forgetful of French etiquette, rushed down the stairs, crowded into their carriages, and the silence of night was disturbed by the clattering of the horses' hoofs, as they were urged, ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... lack of a natural impulse {499} toward narrative invention in Lowell, that, unlike Longfellow and Holmes, he never tried his hand at a novel. One of the most important parts of a novelist's equipment he certainly possesses; namely, an insight into character, and an ability to delineate it. This gift is seen especially in his sketch of Parson Wilbur, who edited the Biglow Papers with a delightfully pedantic introduction, glossary, and notes; in the prose essay On a Certain Condescension ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... are so universal in their nature, so freely applicable to all times and places, that the artist may be allowed to delineate any people, anywhere, at any time. Nursery rhymes, so often alluded to, lend themselves to an endless variety of imaginary people and places. The old woman might be living still in her shoe and whipping her children soundly, in a twentieth-century wrapper, or clothed in skins she might ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... the pens of geographers delineate it, the whole of the region which we have been speaking of is thus divided. From the north to the Caspian gates it borders on the Cadusii, and on many Scythian tribes, and on the Arimaspi, a fierce one-eyed people. On the west it is bounded by the Armenians, and Mount ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... last principle of the art appeared to be, that both painting and sculpture are wholly unfit for the representation of PASSION, as expressed by motion; and that, to attempt to delineate it, necessarily injures the effect of the composition. Neither, it is clear, can express actual motion: they should not attempt, therefore, to represent those passions of the mind which motion alone is adequate to ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... the pen of a Tacitus to delineate with accuracy the character of such a man, who, to use the words of the lamented Moreau, "had covered the French name with such shame and disgrace, that it would be almost a disgrace to bear it; and who had brought upon that unhappy country the curses ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard

... Spirits? how, without remorse, The ruin of so many glorious once And perfect while they stood? how last unfold The secrets of another world, perhaps Not lawful to reveal? yet for thy good This is dispensed; and what surmounts the reach Of human sense, I shall delineate so, By likening spiritual to corporal forms, As may express them best; though what if Earth Be but a shadow of Heaven, and things therein Each to other like, more than on earth is thought? As yet this world was not, and Chaos wild Reigned where these Heavens now ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... of the man, thus fatally excepted, I have no purpose to delineate. Lampoon itself would disdain to speak ill of him, of whom no man speaks well. It is sufficient, that he is expelled the house of commons, and confined in gaol, as being legally convicted of sedition ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... vacant, it was as nearly a canvas upon which to delineate almost anything in the range of emotion as it was possible for a visage of ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... poet to personally experience the emotions whereof he writes. The divine Hyspiros depicts murderers, cowards, and slaves in his sublime Tragedies,—but thinkest thou it was essential for him to become a murderer, coward, and slave himself in order to delineate these characters? And I ... I write of Love,—love spiritual, love eternal,—love fitted for the angels I have dreamt of—but not for such animals as men,—and what matters it that I know naught of such love, . . unless perchance I knew it years ago in some ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... types of playlet you should remember that words are said to denote definitely the ideas they delineate, and to connote the thoughts and emotions they do not clearly express but arouse in the hearer or reader. For example, what do "farce," "comedy," "tragedy" and "melodrama" connote to you? What emotions do ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... thank Mrs. Hentz too sincerely for the high and ennobling morality and Christian grace, which not only pervade her entire writings, but which shine forth with undimmed beauty in the new novel, Robert Graham. It sustains the character which is very difficult to well delineate in a work of fiction—a religious missionary. All who read the work will bear testimony to the entire success of Mrs. ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... soever they may fall short of the truth, they are, I feel, in the absence of any nearer approach to the truth, capable of rendering excellent service. However faintly and hazily the outlines of Deity be shown in them, the Deity whom they so imperfectly delineate is yet one to whom may justly be ascribed glory in the highest, one worthy of all trust, love, and adoration—of an adoration, too, inclusive not more of praise ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... delineate, in minute terms, the portraiture of the mysterious lady who had inspired Agnes on three occasions with so much terror, and whom Agnes herself had depicted in ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... accepted and those still rejected, attend, or are said to attend, persons of singular physical constitution. It is not for nothing that Iamblichus, describing the constitution of his diviner, or seer, and the phenomena which he displays, should exactly delineate such a man as St. Joseph of Cupertino, with his miracles as recounted in the Acta Sanctorum {9} (1603-1663). Now certain scientific, and (as a layman might suppose), qualified persons, aver that they have seen and ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang

... in cap and gown, but went on his way, as if intending, in that extraordinary guise, to take a country walk. He took the path which they were going themselves, and they tried to keep behind him; but they walked too briskly, and he too leisurely, to allow of that. It is very difficult duly to delineate a bore in a narrative, for the very reason that he is a bore. A tale must aim at condensation, but a bore acts in solution. It is only on the long-run that he is ascertained. Then, indeed, he is felt; he is oppressive; like the sirocco, which ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... ranchers. I now began to study the mountain vedettes from the point of view of the Forest Ranger, a federal officer who represented our newly acquired ideals of Conservation, and whose duty it was to act as custodian of the National Forests. I decided to write a novel which should, in some degree, delineate the heroic side of this warden's solitary life as I had seen it and shared it in a half-dozen forests in ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... idea is that in Hamlet the great dramatist intended to delineate an irresolute mind depressed by the weight of a mission which it is unable to accomplish. This is the opinion of Goethe following, if I have noted rightly, an English writer in the Mirror of 1780. A careful examination ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... man, and greatly regretted by Mr Banks; who hoped, by his means, to have gratified his friends in England with representations of this country and its inhabitants, which no other person on board could delineate with the same accuracy and elegance. He had always been subject to epileptic fits, one of which seized him on the mountains of Terra del Fuego, and this disorder being aggravated by a bilious complaint which he contracted on board the ship, at length put an end to his ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... occurred between the time of being "hatcheled" and that of being "woven," that it exceeds my powers to delineate. All around me seemed to be in a state of inextricable confusion, out of which order finally appeared in the shape of a piece of cambric, of a quality that brought the workmen far and near to visit it. ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper

... well-expanded bust, and closely girt about at the waist by a neatly-knotted Indian belt, while the flowing folds below streamed gracefully aside in the wind, he displayed one of those compact, shapely figures, which the old Grecian sculptors so delighted to delineate. And in addition to these advantages of figure, he possessed an extremely fine set of features, which were shown off effectively by the profusion of short, jetty locks, that curled naturally around his white temples and ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... could be formed; and that the correction of its vices would render it an impracticable government. And this you may be assured was the real line of difference between the political principles of these two gentlemen. Another incident took place on the same occasion, which will further delineate Hamilton's political principles. The room being hung around with a collection of the portraits of remarkable men, among them were those of Bacon, Newton, and Locke. Hamilton asked me who they were. I told him they were my trinity of the three greatest men the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... CASES. We can only partially delineate the terrible effects resulting from the abuse of the sexual organs. The symptoms are multitudinous, but, as we have before stated, no two persons are similarly influenced by this disease. The symptoms will vary according to the severity ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... luxuriant hair is set high upon her head, held by a square tortoise-shell comb, and carelessly thrown off her forehead with a parting on one side. Be sure some sad story underlies her career. She is of just that gypsy cast that painters love to delineate. They sit down at a side table and order ices, cake, and champagne. These are consumed amid jests and laughter, the spurious champagne, at a fabulous cost, is drunk merrily, the hours creep on, and the couple retire to give place to others, after having furnished ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... said I, "this artist also painted dogs, cats, and beasts of prey with similar truth; nay, with this great gift of assuming a mental state foreign to himself, has he not been able to delineate human ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... the State of New York: THE three last numbers of this paper have been dedicated to an enumeration of the dangers to which we should be exposed, in a state of disunion, from the arms and arts of foreign nations. I shall now proceed to delineate dangers of a different and, perhaps, still more alarming kind—those which will in all probability flow from dissensions between the States themselves, and from domestic factions and convulsions. These have been already in some ...
— The Federalist Papers

... of hawking has been so frequently and so fully explained, that it would be superfluous, if not arrogant, to trace its progress, or delineate its history, in this place. In the earliest periods it appears to have been exclusively practised by the nobility; and, indeed, the great expense at which the amusement was supported, seems to have been a sufficient reason for deterring persons of more moderate income, and of inferior rank, ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... vivid and vigorous descriptive powers than Mr. Reade possessed to adequately delineate the scene of destruction and death now presented in Johnstown and the adjacent villages. The Sheffield calamity, disastrous as it proved to be, was a small affair when compared with this latest reservoir accident. The Mill River reservoir disaster of May, 1874, ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... advantages possessed by many emancipists, the splendour of their equipage, and the luxurious profligacy of their lives, were exhibited as the larger prizes of a fruitful lottery. Among these works, the most popular, that of Cunningham, professed to delineate the sentiments of the prisoners, from which it might be inferred that few conditions of human life offered so many chances of ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... very age and body of the time its form and pressure.] i.e., to delineate exactly the manners of the age, and the particular humours of the day—pressure signifying resemblance, ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare

... reported themselves to us hauntingly, during a considerable period, as enjoying every conceivable agrement at Tours and at the then undeveloped Trouville, even the winter Trouville, on the lowest possible terms. Fain would I, as for the "mere pleasure" of it, under the temptation to delineate, gather into my loose net the singularly sharp and rounded image of our cousin Charlotte of the former name, who figured for us, on the field of Europe, wherever we looked, and all the rest of time, as a character of characters and a marvel of placid consistency; through my vague remembrance ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... more transport her hearers the more they possessed within themselves true intellectual sensibility. "Corinne," said he, "is indubitably the most celebrated woman of our country, and nevertheless it is only her friends who can properly delineate her; for we must always have recourse, in some degree, to conjecture, in order to discover the genuine qualities of the soul. They may be concealed from our knowledge by celebrity as well as obscurity, ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael

... 699), was introduced partly to pacify the Countess Guiccioli, who had quarrelled with him for maintaining that "love was not the loftiest theme for true tragedy," and, in part, to prove that he was not a slave to his own ideals, and could imagine and delineate a woman who was both passionate and high-minded. Diodorus (Bibl. Hist., lib. iii. p. 130) records the exploits of Myrina, Queen of the Amazons, but it is probable that Byron named his Ionian slave after Mirra, who gives her name to Alfieri's tragedy, which ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... warring Spirits; how without remorse The ruin of so many glorious once And perfet while they stood; how last unfould The secrets of another world, perhaps Not lawful to reveal? yet for thy good 570 This is dispenc't, and what surmounts the reach Of human sense, I shall delineate so, By lik'ning spiritual to corporal forms, As may express them best, though what if Earth Be but the shaddow of Heav'n, and things therein Each to other like, more then on earth is thought? As yet this world was not, and Chaos wilde Reignd where these Heav'ns now rowl, where ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... with the milk of the Amalthaean goat. By the virtue of Acheron, he justled, bulled, and lastauriated in one day the third part of the world, beasts and people, floods and mountains; that was Europa. For this grand subagitatory achievement the Ammonians caused draw, delineate, and paint him in the figure and shape of a ram ramming, and horned ram. But I know well enough how to shield and preserve myself from that horned champion. He will not, trust me, have to deal in my person with a ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... assistance of a common carpenter and plasterer, a large globe of lath and plaster may be made for the instruction and entertainment of a numerous family of children. Upon this they should leisurely delineate from time to time, by their given latitudes and longitudes, such places as they become acquainted with in reading or conversation. The capital city, for instance, of the different countries of Europe, the rivers, and the neighbouring towns, ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... not until the spring of 1883 that Will was able to put into execution his long-cherished plan—to present to the public an exhibition which should delineate in throbbing and realistic color, not only the wild life of America, but the actual history of the West, as it was lived for, fought for, died for, by ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... publisher that at all events his share of the offering is appreciated, whatever hers may be! We are also favoured with some valuable suggestions from Mr. Clarke, the Royal librarian, respecting a very remarkable clergyman. He is anxious that Miss Austen should delineate one who 'should pass his time between the metropolis and the country, something like Beattie's minstrel, entirely engaged in literature, and no man's enemy but his own.' Failing to impress this character upon ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)

... in their most general aspect, we see that the labourer, who, on hearing certain notes in the adjacent hedge, can describe the particular form and colours of the bird making them; and the astronomer, who, having calculated a transit of Venus, can delineate the black spot entering on the sun's disc, as it will appear through the telescope, at a specified hour; do essentially the same thing. Each knows that on fulfilling the requisite conditions, he shall have a preconceived ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... Attempts to delineate local character are always liable to misconstruction; for, the more truthful the sketch, the greater is the number of persons, to whom resemblance may be discovered; and thus, while in fact only describing the characteristics of a class, ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... apprentice to a silversmith, where he learnt to draw, and also to engrave spoons and forks with crests and ciphers. From silver- chasing, he went on to teach himself engraving on copper, principally griffins and monsters of heraldry, in the course of which practice he became ambitious to delineate the varieties of human character. The singular excellence which he reached in this art, was mainly the result of careful observation and study. He had the gift, which he sedulously cultivated, of committing to memory the precise features of any remarkable face, and afterwards reproducing ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... permitted me to see before. In place of ordinary kings and queens and knaves, these figures were represented in attitudes and costumes the most indecent—such as the prolific genius of Parisian bawdry alone could conceive and delineate. It seems to be a general opinion among rogues that knavery is never wholly triumphant unless the mind is thoroughly degraded; and for this reason it is, perhaps, that establishments devoted to purposes like the present, have, in most countries, ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... thy hospitable roof Ulysses graced, confirm by faithful proof; Delineate to my view my warlike lord, His form, his ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... the darkness grew deeper and colder at that magical modulation to C major. What a sympathetic shudder comes over one at the cry: ''Tis he! 'tis he!' No, no. It must be confessed, there is no other aria as beautiful as this. No master, whether German, Italian, or French, was ever able to delineate, as is done here in a single scene, holy prayer, melancholy, disquiet, pensiveness, the slumber of nature, the mysterious harmony of the starry skies, the torture of expectation, hope, uncertainty, joy, frenzy, delight, ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... Hell, Heaven and Judgment. Orcagna, in the Strozzi Chapel of S. Maria Novella, set forth these scenes with a wonderful blending of beauty and grotesque invention. In the treatment of the Inferno he strove to delineate the whole geography of Dante's first cantica, tracing the successive circles and introducing the various episodes commemorated by the poet. Interesting as this work may be for the illustration of the "Divine Comedy" as understood by Dante's immediate successors, we turn from it with ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... philanthropic interest, she wrote, during another winter in this city, her novel, "Ramona," a book composed with the greatest rapidity, and printed first in the Christian Union, afterward appearing in a volume in 1884. Its sole object was further to delineate the wrongs of the aborigines. Besides these two books, she wrote, during this later period, some children's stories, "Nelly's Silver Mine, a Story of Colorado Life" (1878), and three little volumes of tales about cats. But her life-work, as she viewed it at the end, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various

... afterward wrote me by several letters (the most recent of which were dated on the last of April, 604) that Sebastian Vizcaino spent eleven months in that voyage; and that he began, from the same port, to delineate and sound the coast, ports, bays, and indentations up to the thirty-seventh degree, with all the precision and exactness needful and required; and that from the thirty-seventh degree to the forty-second he accomplished nothing beyond sighting the land. He had ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various

... the artist to choose beautiful scenery, and delineate it with accuracy. He must not be a mere copyist. Something higher and more subtle is required. He must create, or at any rate interpret, as ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock

... describing the operations of the Underground Rail Road. I never kept any record of those persons passing through my hands, nor did I ever anticipate that the history of that perilous period would ever be written. I can only refer to the part I took in it from memory, and if I could delineate the actual facts as they occurred they would savor so much of egotism that I should feel ashamed to make them public. I willingly refer to a few incidents which you may select and use as you ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... published in 1798, under the title, A Series of Plays, in which it is attempted to delineate the stronger Passions of the Mind, each Passion being the subject of a Tragedy and a Comedy. A second volume was published in 1802, and a third in 1812. During the interval, she gave the world a volume of miscellaneous dramas, including the Family Legend, a tragedy founded upon a story ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... now to speak of Herschel's pioneering work in the skies. To explore with line and plummet the shining zone of the Milky Way, to delineate its form, measure its dimensions, and search out the intricacies of its construction, was the primary task of his life, which he never lost sight of, and to which all his other investigations were subordinate. He was absolutely ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... are the scenes herein described, gives you but a faint idea of the awful reality. The anguish, the agony of mind, resulting from a thousand little circumstances impossible to delineate on paper, can be known by those only who have been in similar situations. Pray for us, my dear brother and sister, that these heavy afflictions may not be in vain, but may be blessed to our spiritual good, and the advancement of ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart

... give us the true, living image of a waterfall on canvas—the movement is wanting; how can one describe it in words, delineate this majestic grandeur, brilliancy of colour, and arrowy flight? One cannot do it; one may however attempt it; get together, by little and little, with words, an outline of that mirrored image which ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen

... right in the main, in the general tenor of his opinion; for this country, in its ordinary aspects, probably presents as barren a field to the writer of fiction, and to the dramatist, as any other on earth; we are not certain that we might not say the most barren. We believe that no attempt to delineate ordinary American life, either on the stage, or in the pages of a novel, has been rewarded with success. Even those works in which the desire to illustrate a principle has been the aim, when the picture has been brought within this homely frame, have had to contend with disadvantages that have ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... occupied in arranging for my wedded life, too much absorbed in the feeling of bliss, to analyze it. I believed in her love,—that was sufficient for me. In after years I resolved the impression into its prismatic elements, and thus it is I am able to delineate them. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... local or temporary disturbing causes have to be taken into the account as modifying the general movement, criticism has more to say. But this will only become important when the attempt is made to write the history or delineate the character of some given society on ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill

... represented, on the floor of Siena Cathedral, as offering to a Jew and a Gentile—nine represents the sun and all beautiful bright things that draw their influence from it, as the gleam of beaten gold, the rustle of silken stuffs, the smell of the flower heliotrope, and all such men as delineate human beings with colours, or make their effigy in stone or metal; moreover, Phoebus Apollo, whom the poets describe as the most beautiful of the gods, as indeed he is represented in ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... sublime than the denunciation of these great enemies by Ezekiel; and the well-known statement in the Apocalypse fastened the Hebrew feeling regarding them with a new meaning into the mind of the early Church: hence it was that the medieval map-makers took great pains to delineate these monsters and their habitations on the maps. For centuries no map was considered orthodox ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... poetry in his writings. There is neither sentiment nor declamation—painting nor reflection. He is neither descriptive nor didactic. With great powers for portraying nature, as the exquisite choice of his epithets, and the occasional force of his similes prove, he never makes any laboured attempt to delineate her features. He had the eye of a great painter; but his pictorial talents are employed, almost unconsciously, in the fervour of narrating events, or the animation of giving utterance to thoughts. He painted by an epithet ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... me to delineate the occurrences incident to my hunting days. The story told in full would fill a volume, but if it were not in connection with my father's family and how we got along, when I was at home with him, I should not mention it ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin

... emotions will not permit me to attempt a description which language, indeed, has not power to delineate. It is sufficient to say that it was affecting beyond measure; and that the last words uttered by Mrs. Donner in tears and sobs to Mr. Eddy were, "Oh, save, ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... see in him delineate His mother's visage; those his eyes are hers, Who, looking wistly {262a} on me, made me blush; For faults against themselves give evidence: Lust is a fire; and men, like lanterns, show Light lust within themselves even through themselves. Away, loose silks of wavering vanity! ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... the highest class; enjoined simplicity in costumes for the no dance, in children's toys, in women's pipes, or tobacco-pouches, and in ladies' hairpins or hairdress; forbade gold lacquer in any form except to delineate family crests; limited the size of dolls; vetoed banquets, musical entertainments, and all idle pleasures except such as were justified by social status, and actually went to the length of ordering women to dress their own hair, dispensing entirely with professional Hairdressers, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... proportion of body to their surface. So is it also with Animal substances; the dead body of an Ant, or such little creature, does almost instantly shrivel and dry, and your object shall be quite another thing, before you can half delineate it, which proceeds not from the extraordinary exhalation, but from the small proportion of body and juices, to the usual drying of bodies in the Air, especially if warm. For which inconvenience, where I could not otherwise remove it, I ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... youths, our common functions of vicars-general, the delightful company of your uncle, and the frequent need I had of drawing from that source of light, carried me almost every day to the English college. I could delineate to you, sir, his ordinary course of life in the inward administration of that house; I could tell you of his assiduousness at all the exercises; of his constant watchfulness; of the public and private exhortations he made to his pupils, with that persuasive ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... book is to tell the story of Burton's life, to delineate as vividly as possible his remarkable character—his magnetic personality, and to defend him alike from enemy and friend. In writing it my difficulties have been two. First, Burton himself was woefully inaccurate as an autobiographer, and we must also add regretfully that we have occasionally found ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... parallels of north latitude. Four hundred points have been hypsometrically determined by barometrical measurements, and for the most part astronomically; so that it has been rendered possible to delineate the profile above the sea's level of a tract of land measuring 3,600 miles, with all its inflections, extending from the north of Kansas to Fort Vancouver and to the coasts of the South Sea (almost 720 miles more than the distance from Madrid to Tobolsk). As I believe I was the ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell

... intended, or ought to be, a new Iliad or Odyssey; in other words, a poetic representation of a course of events consistent with the highest laws of moral government, whether it delineate the general history of a people, or narrate the fortunes of a chosen hero. If we pass in review the romances of the last three centuries, we shall find that those only have arrested the attention of more than ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... He died after a short illness some day last week. It would require a nice discrimination of character and intimate knowledge of the man to delineate his, a great deal more of both than I possess, therefore I shall not attempt it. During the period of his embassy in England I lived a good deal with him, his house being always open to me, and I dined there en famille whenever I pleased. Nothing could be more hospitable, nothing ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... the reach Of human sense I shall delineate so By likening spiritual to corporeal forms, As may express them best; though what if Earth Be but the shadow of Heaven, and things therein. Each to the other like, more than ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... subject of history is man. History has for its object to record his doings and experiences. It may then be concisely defined as a narrative of past events in which men have been concerned. To describe the earth, the abode of man, to delineate the different kingdoms of nature, and to inquire into the origin of them, or to explain the physical or mental constitution of human beings, is no part of the office of history. All this belongs to the departments of natural and ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... Machiavelli's critique of Lionardo d'Arezzo and Messer Poggio, in the Proemio to his Florentine History. His own conception of history, as the attempt to delineate the very spirit of ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... visits to it, and careful inquiry of the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its purpose. such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint of much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the entry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... things asserted are not inventions of imagination. No person could thus delineate scenes which he had not beheld; and therefore Maria Monk witnessed them; consequently, she was a member of that family community; for the circumstances which she narrates nowhere else occurred. At all events, it seems ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... proceed to delineate an escape wheel for a detached lever. We place a piece of good drawing-paper on our drawing-board and provide ourselves with a very hard (HHH) drawing-pencil and a bottle of liquid India ink. After placing our paper on the board, we draw, with the aid of our T-square, a line through the center ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous

... in my ears. Every accent that was uttered by Carwin was fresh in my remembrance. His unwelcome approach, the recognition of his person, his hasty departure, produced a complex impression on my mind which no words can delineate. I strove to give a slower motion to my thoughts, and to regulate a confusion which became painful; but my efforts were nugatory. I covered my eyes with my hand, and sat, I know not how long, without power to ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown

... intimacy, this woman's love now combined every shade of affection which our powers of analysis can discern, and which modern society has created; one of the most remarkable men of our age, whose death is a recent loss to the world of letters, Beyle (Stendhal), was the first to delineate them to perfection. ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... side of the Cross, the appearance of a half moon, with a face; on the other side, the sun; on the top of the Cross, the letters I.H.S.; on the left arm, a man and woman dancing, with an effort to delineate the female's dress; under which, initials.' Another seaman 'had, on the lower part of the right arm, the device of a sailor and a female; the man holding the Union Jack with a streamer, the folds of which waved over her head, and the end of it was held ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... portrayed it poetically, not only in Paul and Virginia, but in Chaumiere Indienne and Etudes de la Nature. The science which these two writers lacked, Buffon possessed in a high degree; but he had not the power to delineate Nature and feeling in combination: he lacked insight into the hidden analogies between the movements of the mind and the phenomena of the outer world. Chateaubriand, on the contrary, had this faculty to its full modern extent. It is true that his ego was constantly to the fore, ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... chart, ground plan, projection, elevation (plan) 626. ichnography[obs3], cartography; atlas; outline, scheme; view &c. (painting) 556; radiograph, scotograph[obs3], sciagraph[obs3]; spectrogram, heliogram[obs3]. V. represent, delineate; depict, depicture[obs3]; portray; take a likeness, catch a likeness &c. n.; hit off, photograph, daguerreotype; snapshot; figure, shadow forth, shadow out; adumbrate; body forth; describe &c. 594; trace, copy; mold. dress ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... position upon the earth. He, too, has his place assigned him, by the order of nature, and moves in the highest sphere of earthly being. By the useful and interesting study of physiology, we are enabled to define the construction of his system, to delineate the muscles, nerves, veins and fibres, and the complicated mass that forms the man, with all their separate dependencies upon each other. But the mind, the great moving spring of action that gives motion to the whole, who can analyze or ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna

... Women (which it followed after an interval of nine years) is a collection of dramatic monologues, in each of which it is attempted to delineate a single character or a single mood by setting the "imaginary person" in some revealing situation. Of the two possible methods, speech and soliloquy, Browning for the most part prefers the former. In Dramatis Personae, however, he recurs, rather ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... great and good as he was, must not be supposed to be entirely perfect. To be as he was, is indeed subject of panegyrick enough to any man in this state of being; but in every picture there should be shade as well as light, and when I delineate him without reserve, I do what he himself recommended, both by his precept and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... as we wished: and againe, vnderstanding of the great charges and notable enterprise of that worthie Gentleman maister Thomas Sackford, in procuring the Charts of the seuerall prouinces of this realme to be set foorth, we are in hope that in time he will delineate this whole land so perfectlie, as shall be comparable or beyond anie delineation heretofore made of anie other region; and therefore leaue that to his well deserued praise. If any well willer will imitate him in so praiseworthie ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (1 of 12) - William the Conqueror • Raphael Holinshed

... first place, by the fact that the dramatist is devising his story for the use of actors, he is definitely limited both in respect to the kind of characters he may create and in respect to the means he may employ in order to delineate them. In actual life we meet characters of two different classes, which (borrowing a pair of adjectives from the terminology of physics) we may denominate dynamic characters and static characters. But when an actor appears upon the stage, he wants to act; and the dramatist is therefore ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton

... stars delineate its outline; two are of the first magnitude, five of the second, and one of the third (Fig. 12). The most brilliant are Betelgeuse ([alpha]) and Rigel ([beta]): the former marking the right shoulder of the Colossus as it faces us; the second ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion

... internal one, dealing as little as possible with outward events, and taking hold of these only where it cannot be helped, in order by means of them to delineate the history of a mind bewildered in certain errors. We would not willingly, if we could, give a lively and picturesque surrounding to this delineation, but it is necessary that we should advert to the circumstances of the time in which this inward history was passing. ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... little paragraphs to describe his visit to Fort-George and his entertainment there by Sir Eyre Coote. I have always admired the Doctor's sly way of avoiding a description of the Fort: "I cannot," he says, "delineate it scientifically, and a loose and popular description is of use only when the ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... The creature had an ink-bag, with which it could muddle the water around it, to protect itself from more powerful animals, and, strange to say, this has been found so well preserved that an artist has used it in one instance as a paint, wherewith to delineate the belemnite itself. ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers

... particular line described on paper contains in itself parts innumerable. There is no such thing as the ten—thousandth part of an inch; but there is of a mile or diameter of the earth, which may be signified by that inch. When therefore I delineate a triangle on paper, and take one side not above an inch, for example, in length to be the radius, this I consider as divided into 10,000 or 100,000 parts or more; for, though the ten-thousandth part of that line considered in itself is nothing at all, and consequently may be neglected ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley

... endeavour to delineate my feelings as I contemplated the ruins of the house where dwelt the lady whom the amorous Petrarch immortalised in his verse—verse made to move ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... strong and accurate delineation of the characters themselves. Not only is this to be noted in the passages where the poet has taken pains openly to portray their various characteristics, but there are many passages, or single lines perhaps, which serve more subtly to delineate them. What proud reserve, what sorrow painfully restrained, the following line, for example, contains: "Two evenings after ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson

... natural impulse toward narrative invention in Lowell that, unlike Longfellow and Holmes, he never tried his hand at a novel. One of the most important parts of a novelist's equipment he certainly possesses, namely, an insight into character and an ability to delineate it. This gift is seen especially in his sketch of Parson Wilbur, who edited the Biglow Papers with a delightfully pedantic introduction, glossary, and notes; in the prose essay On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners, and in the uncompleted poem, Fitz Adam's Story. See also the sketch of Captain ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers

... eminent men stands Edward Everett in the annals of American history. We do not give his history to show how he struggled through privations, overcoming all obstacles, until victory at last crowned his efforts, as so many of our great men have been obliged to do, but we do delineate his achievements to illustrate what hard work will do, provided a man has ability to develop. Yes, to show what hard work will do. But some will say, 'Well, that does sound well, but I guess if Edward Everett had ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... men—viz. Anastasius; or, the Memoirs of a Modern Greek: published in the year 1819. There are, indeed, few books in the English language which contain passages of greater power, feeling, and eloquence than this work, which delineate frailty and vice with more energy and acuteness, or describe historical scenes with such bold imagery and such glowing language. We remember the opinion of a writer in the Edinburgh Review, soon after the publication of Anastasius. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various

... not know any single lesson you could instil into a youthful mind which would be so mischievous as the lesson that the muscular blackguard should be regarded with any other feeling than that of pure loathing and disgust. But let us have done with him. I cannot think of the books which delineate him and ask you to admire him without indignation more bitter than I wish to feel in writing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... identical with its present population (except that it did not enjoy the light of the true religion), yet very superior to it in point of material well-being. Not a race of cannibals, as the credulous Diodorus Siculus, on the strength of some vague tradition, was pleased to delineate; but a people acquainted with the use of the precious metals, with the manufacture of fine tissues, fond of music and of song, enjoying its literature and its books; often disturbed, it is true, by feuds and contentions, but, on the whole, living happily under ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... the expedition in the "Endeavour," which was fitted out at his own expense. He made the most careful preparations, in order to be able to profit by every opportunity, and induced Dr Daniel Solander, a distinguished pupil of Linnaeus, to accompany him. He even engaged draughtsmen and painters to delineate such objects of interest as did not admit of being transported or preserved. The voyage occupied three years and many hardships had to be undergone; but the rich harvest of discovery was more than adequate compensation. Banks was equally anxious to join Cook's second expedition ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... look at the pictures we are about to sketch, with less surprise than he might otherwise feel; and a few additional explanations may carry him back in imagination to the precise condition of society that we desire to delineate. It is matter of history that the settlements on the eastern shores of the Hudson, such as Claverack, Kinderhook, and even Poughkeepsie, were not regarded as safe from Indian incursions a century since; and there is still standing on the banks of the same river, and within musket-shot ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... I profess only to delineate in this work the rise and fall of the Athenians, so I shall not deem it at present necessary to do more than glance at the condition of the continent of Greece previous to the time of Solon. Sparta alone will demand a more ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... hundred and ninety-nine leash of languages. What! gentlemen, do you stare? Well, I allow there are not so many languages spoken in this vile world; but then, have I not been in the moon? and trust me, whenever I write a treatise upon education, I shall delineate methods of inculcating whole dozens of languages at once, French, Spanish, Greek, Hebrew, Cherokee, &c., in such a style as will shame all ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... describe in the last few pages of this volume! The task is far beyond my strength. In the future, some writer may delineate that hideous dream—to do so to-day, in this year 1868, ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... twenty or thirty miles from us, to be tinged with a red colour, which, contrasted with the snow on their summits and the deep azure sky above, against which their huge forms appeared to lean, produced a scene as difficult to delineate as it ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... nor to make books by simply transcribing those of others, as is done by many writers of our day. At last, however, he allowed himself to be persuaded by some members of the Order of the Visitation, founded by the holy Bishop, to write the life, or, more properly speaking, to delineate the spirit of his ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... removed. I should only have to present to the reader a man, whose conversation was nothing but alternate jest and quotation—a due union of Yorick and Partridge. This would, however, be rendering great injustice to the character I wish to delineate. There were times when Vincent was earnestly engrossed in discussion in which a jest rarely escaped him, and quotation was introduced only as a serious illustration, not as a humorous peculiarity. He possessed great miscellaneous erudition, ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... magnificent Madonna in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence.... The picture is completed by the dark background and the solicitous attitude of the girls as they cluster around the sufferer.... With a little imagination one can delineate the jeweled crown which the two girlish angels are holding above her head.... Pathos, resignation and a sort of recreating FAITH are painted against that threatening wall and overhanging dirt.... If that should fall WE ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe

... epithet [Greek: peptokos] could not properly be given to a serpent: but to a building decayed, and in ruins nothing is more applicable. A serpent creeps upon its belly, and is even with the ground, which he goes over, and cannot fall lower. The moderns indeed delineate dragons with legs: but I do not know that this was ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant

... vehicle in the English tongue, speak for themselves and are winning their own way to renown. The only criticism I venture to make is that some of them are too much inclined to look backward instead of forward, to idealize the far past rather than to illuminate the future, and to delineate the deformities of national character produced by ages of repression, rather than to aid in conjuring into ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... pretensions; and it may be once for all observed that this kind of literature seldom proves of much service to us in an investigation of the state of the poor, until we come to the fifteenth or even sixteenth century, when the artists of Germany and the Low Countries began to delineate those scenes in industrial and servile life, which time and change ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt

... any other of the numerous gradations into which the social scale has been divided. He who reads our present legend with the eyes that we could wish, will find in its moral the illustration of this truth; for, if it is our intention to delineate some of the wrongs that spring from the abuses of the privileged and powerful, we hope equally to show how completely they fall short of their object, by failing to confer that exclusive happiness which is the goal that all ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... as from an eminence, to view the scenes of life, and the literary labours in which Dr. Johnson was engaged, we may be able to delineate the features of the man, and to form ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... perfectly silent. Domini was now wide awake. The feeling of calm serenity had left her. She was nervously troubled by this presence near her, and swiftly recalled the few trifling incidents of the day which had begun to delineate a character for her. They were, she found, all unpleasant, all, at least, faintly disagreeable. Yet, in sum, what was their meaning? The sketch they traced was so slight, so confused, that it told little. The last incident was the strangest. And again she saw the long and luminous pathway ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... surely I need not tell you, gentlemen, how wide is the difference between sticks or stones, and double-triggered, loaded rifles cocked at your breast!' The effect of this terrific image, exhibited in this great orator's peerless manner, cannot be described. I dare not attempt to delineate the paroxysm of emotion which it excited in every heart. The result of the whole was, that the prisoner was acquitted; with the perfect approbation, I believe, of the numerous assembly who attended the trial. What was it that gave such transcendent force to the eloquence of Henry? His reasoning ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler

... delineate a growing mind, and a mind at work under the influence of new and rare experiences, is shown in the case of Daniel Deronda. His quiet love of ease as a boy is described as he sits one day watching the falling rain, and meditates on the possibility which has been suggested to him, that his ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... interesting as determining the range and habitat of the birds, and the zones of vegetation and trees; but it is to be regretted that there was no one in the party having sufficient knowledge of drawing to figure such objects, or to delineate some of the more striking scenes and incidents of the journey. As these can now only be supplied from the graphic descriptions given by the actors in them, the Editor, without drawing too much on his imagination, has, in the compilation of the ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine

... and privilege—they shall perceive who the most affluent man is. The most affluent man is he that confronts all the shows he sees by equivalents out of the stronger wealth of himself. The American bard shall delineate no class of persons, nor one or two out of the strata of interests, nor love most nor truth most, nor the soul most, nor the body most—and not be for the Eastern States more than the Western, or the Northern States more than ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... following pages? The series of shipwrecks extends from 1793 to 1847, a period of fifty-four years; and tragic scenes are described, many of them far exceeding the imaginary terrors of fiction, and all of them equal in horror to anything that the Drama, Romance, or Poetry has attempted to delineate. ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly

... to describe what I have seen and experienced, I have been governed by no partial motives whatever. On the contrary, I have laboured to represent every object faithfully as it has affected my senses. I am, however, conscious at the same time, that it requires an abler pen than mine to delineate adequately the sublime and majestic works of nature in the regions I have been describing, and to portray them to the imagination in all their simplicity, beauty, and grandeur. Siberia does not possess the climate of Italy, nor the luxurious productions of India; but she possesses a fertile ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... thence the airy forms Afar, nor suffer them to approach the blood, Till with Tiresias thou have first conferr'd. Then, glorious Chief! the Prophet shall himself Appear, who will instruct thee, and thy course Delineate, measuring from place to place Thy whole return athwart the fishy flood. While thus she spake, the golden dawn arose, When, putting on me my attire, the nymph 660 Next, cloath'd herself, and girding to her waist With an embroider'd zone her snowy robe ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... in founding an observatory in regions where the planets can be studied under the most favorable conditions, they cannot lose sight of the fact that the ablest and most experienced observers are liable to error when they attempt to delineate the features of a body 50,000,000 or 100,000,000 miles away through such a disturbing medium as our atmosphere. Even on such a subject as the canals of Mars doubts may still be felt. That certain markings to which Schiaparelli gave the name of canals exist, ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb

... has not gained a place on the French stage, it nevertheless possesses some fine passages. Molire wished to create a counterpart of Sganarelle, the type of ridiculous jealousy, and to delineate passionate jealousy, its doubts, fears, perplexities and anxieties, and in this he has succeeded admirably. However noble-minded Don Garcia may be, there rages within his soul a mean passion which tortures and degrades him incessantly. When ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere

... generically speaking, a humbug, and that the old English sailing craft and the old English stage-coach are, after all, the only modes of conveyance worthy the patronage of Britons. Against exaggerated hoop-skirts he has all along set his face, and seldom, if ever, condescends to delineate a lady in crinoline. His beau-ideal of female beauty is comprised in an hour-glass waist, a skirt that fits close to the form, a sandalled shoe, and very long ringlets; whereas tight lacing, narrow skirts, sandalled shoes, and ringlets have been banished from the English modes any time ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various



Words linked to "Delineate" :   lipstick, specify, describe, determine, redefine, delineative, outline, diagrammatical, define, delimitate, draw, trace, line, delineated, delimit, depict, circumscribe, depicted, construct, inscribe, undelineated, mark



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