"Portrayal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... least by the same school; one, sketched in bold strokes, of a dinner party in a stately neo-classic dining-room, the table laden with flowers and silver, the bare-throated women with jewels. A more critical eye than Lise's, gazing upon this portrayal of the Valhalla of success, might have detected in the young men, immaculate in evening dress, a certain effort to feel at home, to converse naturally, which their square jaws and square shoulders belied. This was no doubt ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... all the rest, that the really important aspects are quite overshadowed in my memory, and notwithstanding the surprising nature of Alfred Fluette's deportment, I am obliged to pause and group them in my own mind in order to produce a reasonably correct portrayal of what actually transpired. But one's memory is apt to play strange and unaccountable tricks, and mine is no exception. The best mental image I can recall is distorted, all out of drawing, as the artists say; I ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... effective by-play, extremely slight, and the sensational climax has little relation to human nature as exhibited in Norway, or out of it, at that or any other time. But the sting lay in the unflattering veracity of the piece as a whole; in the merciless portrayal of the trivialities of persons, or classes, high in their own esteem; in the unexampled effrontery of bringing a clergyman upon the stage. All these have long since passed in Scandinavia, into the category of the things which people ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... concepts, to connect vocal sounds with any large number of objects, but it is readily conceivable that the characteristics of their forms and movements should have been suggested to the eye—fully exercised before the tongue—so soon as the arms and fingers became free for the requisite simulation or portrayal. There is little distinction between pantomime and a developed sign language, in which thought is transmitted rapidly and certainly from hand to eye as it is in oral speech from lips to ear; the ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... history, I resolved immediately to note down some details of the state of affairs in Paris at the end of this day, the second of the coup d'etat. I wrote this page, which I reproduce here, because it is a life-like portrayal—a sort ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... sleep may be a beautiful portrayal of mother love, but we all pity the child who has to be rocked to sleep as much as we do the mother who sits and rocks, wanting, Oh, so much! to do some work or go for a walk—but she must wait till baby goes ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... his head was full of that curious performance, Der Weisse Konig, which occupied many of the leisure moments of his life, being dictated to his former writing-master, Marcus Sauerwein. He had already designed the portrayal of his father as the old white king, and himself as the young white king, in a series of woodcuts illustrating the narrative which culminated in the one romance of his life, his brief happy marriage with Mary of Burgundy; and he continued eagerly to talk to Master Gottfried ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... detect the germ of the pulpits of San Lorenzo, where the rough sketch in clay could transmit all its fire and energy to the finished bronze. In this case Donatello not only felt the limitations of the marble, but he was not yet inclined to take the portrayal of tragedy beyond a certain point. The moderation of this relief entitles it to higher praise than we can give to some of his later work. The other panel in stiacciato made about this time belonged to the Salviati family.[132] Technically the carving is inferior to that in St. ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... his trunk, and kept it locked in his chiffonier. During these days, more frequently than before, he would take out the portrait and in the security of his locked room would gaze long at that keen-visioned portrayal of her many characters. No doubt of it: there was a possible splendid woman there! And no doubt of it: he loved that ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... to furnish ample evidence of the absolute correctness of each and every portrayal to be found in "The ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... a portrayal of the noblest of Indians—Hiawatha. It follows established facts, and bares to the reader the heart of his race. ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... kept on hugging and kissing her like this—" Billy went into an ecstasy of portrayal. Suddenly, however, he reeled into sanity, for Jude had struck him across the cheek with the back of a ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... to elaborate this idyllic portrayal, I may merely note, briefly and sympathetically, how this rural joy was troubled by the passing away of a dear woman friend who resided with them, and then by the death of his esteemed and careful consort. He laid these dear remains in his own property, and although he resolved to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... sudden and momentous resolve turned was so subtle and delicately evanescent as scarcely to be susceptible of clearer portrayal. To be consistent, the weight of his revengeful sentiments should have been directed upon Sophie, for she it was who had played the most effective part in changing his nature, and swerving him from his cold but sublime ambitions. By teaching Bressant love, she had, by implication, done him deadly ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... says he, " darin beistimmen, dass ... der erste Act eine so gelungene Exposition darbietet, wie sie die dramatische Poesie nur aufweisen kann." Such a statement must fall, by weight of exaggeration. In appreciation of the portrayal of the name-part he continues: "Mit welch' ueberwaeltigender Herrschaft tritt hier gleich die meisterhaft geschilderte Hauptperson hervor! Welche packende Kraft, welche hinreissende verve liegt in dem reichen Dialoge, der wie beseelt von der feurigen ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... at second hand to Warton, the Eyrbyggja Saga, translated by Walter Scott, and the Laxdaela Saga. It is the Laxdaela Saga that gives the story told by Morris in "The Lovers of Gudrun." Among sagas it is famous for its fine portrayal of character. ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... portrayal of the experience of an Eastern author, among the cowboys of the West, in search of "local color" for a new novel. "Bud" Thurston learns many a lesson while following "the lure of the dim trails" but the hardest, and probably the most welcome, ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... in its portrayal of characters that are never commonplace though genuinely human, and in its development of a singular social situation, the book is ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... author of impressive tales and remarkable dramas, is well known both in America and in England. Since the beginning of the Great War he has devoted himself to the artistic portrayal of the war's effect on his country, and also to purely publicistic tasks. ...
— The Shield • Various
... world an example of biography that is often wearisome in the extreme, although he wrote about a man who occupied in his time a commanding position. Because Johnson was Johnson the world accepts Boswell, and loves to talk of the minuteness of Boswell's portrayal, yet how many read him, or if they do read him, have the patience to ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... rich in pungent humor and extremely clever in their portrayal of quaint and amusing character, deserve a place among the choice specimens of American humorous literature—which means the best humorous literature in the world.—New ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... and if he failed her, she was sure that she would never go again, and she sobbed out incoherently that she "couldn't live at all without it." Apparently the blankness and grayness of life itself had been broken for her only by the portrayal of a different world. ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... particular, the social life of to-day. It is not nice; neither is the social life of to-day nice. One lays the book down sick at heart—sick for life with all its "lyings and its lusts." But it is a healthy book. So fearful is its portrayal of social disease, so ruthless its stripping of the painted charms from vice, that its tendency cannot but be strongly for good. It is a goad, to prick sleeping human consciences awake and drive them into the battle ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... Prince's philosophic demoralization is described at tedious length and the story drops out of sight for a long time. Then it is taken up again and the Prince falls in love with a beautiful Greek religieuse. The portrayal of this woman aroused another flicker of interest on Schiller's part, though she too was finally to be unmasked as one of the conspirators. Then he seems to have tired of 'The Ghostseer' altogether; at any rate he choked ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... is no more faithful portrayal of New England life than that which Mrs. Stowe gives in "The Pearl of ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... her life,—the expected return of her husband. Some of these songs also have been written by poetesses, such as Lady Nairn's exquisite "Land of the Leal;" and really there is such delicacy, such minute accuracy in the portrayal of a woman's feelings in "Are ye sure the news is true?" that one cannot help thinking it must have been written by Jean Adams, or some ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... it is true, had grown dearer to her than ever; of late she had thrown herself into her task with an ardor and earnestness lifting each portrayal to a higher plane. Is it that only with sorrow comes the fulness of art; that its golden gates are never swung entirely open to the ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... inadequacy of mine. If you have never had the good fortune to live with them, it is impossible to make you see them as they are. When you once have thoroughly known them, language will fail you to do them justice, and you will prefer to be silent rather than slander them by inadequate portrayal. They are at first sight not attractive-looking. If you stand outside and look at them from a distance their lives will appear to you very humdrum and prosaic. But remember that for almost thirty years our Lord lived just such a life in Nazareth, making ploughs and yokes; and then, when the younger ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... other, but all contributive to the body's welfare. Hence, while the effort has been made to present each in his full individuality, with copious recourse to anecdote and illustrative incident as far as available, both as a matter of general interest and for accurate portrayal, special care has been added to bring out occurrences and actions which convey the impression of that natural character which led the man to take the place he did in the naval body, to develop the professional function with which he is more particularly ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... at the face of the Man on the cross. Did he, in his overwrought state, imagine there an expression he had never before remarked, or had the unknown artist of the seventies actually risen above the mediocrity of the figure in his portrayal of the features of the Christ? The rector started, and stared again. There was no weakness in the face, no meekness, no suggestion of the conception of the sacrificed Lamb, no hint of a beatific vision of opening heavens—and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... sedulously concealed. To penetrate the mask of the face and interpret the character of his sitter was an office he seldom took upon himself to perform. Yet he was capable of profound character study, especially in the portrayal of men. Even in so early a work as the so-called portrait of Richardot and his son, he revealed decided talent in this direction, while the portrait of Cardinal Bentivoglio, of the Italian period, and the portrait of Wentworth, in the English period, are masterly studies ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... the narrative and the idea, which are always mutually illustrative to a degree not often attained in any species of modern art. . . . His language, though extraordinarily accurate, is always light and free. . . . We know of nothing equal to it, in its way [the portrayal of Dimmesdale], in the whole circle of English literature;' and much more in the ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... has done for the wheat fields what Mr. Westcott has done for rural New York and Mr. Bacheller for the North country. It is in no way imitative of David Harum or Eben Holden; and, unlike each of these books, it is not in the portrayal of a single quaint character that its power consists. Mr. Harris has taken for his story a typical Iowa farmer's family and their neighbours; and, although every one of the characters is realistically portrayed, ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... sponging-houses or at Vauxhall masquerades. Every class of society is represented, from the vagabond to the noble lord. Richardson, in describing the shifts and subterfuges of Mr. B—and the elaborate intrigue of Lovelace, moves within a narrow circle, devoting himself, not to the portrayal of character, but to the minute analysis of a woman's heart. The sentiment of Richardson descends to Mrs. Radcliffe. Her heroines are fashioned in the likeness of Clarissa Harlowe; her heroes inherit many of the traits of the immaculate Grandison. She adds zest to her plots by wafting ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... the pages of Virgil's bucolic poetry. It made itself heard, howsoever faintly, in the artificiality and sham of the pastoral plays from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. And it was but logical that this sentiment should seek its most adequate and definitive expression in a portrayal of all phases of the life and fate of those who, as the tillers of the soil, had ever remained nearer to Mother Earth ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... the Negritos and the Igorrotes; the semicivilized in the Bagobos and the Moros, and the civilized and cultured in the Visavans, as well as in the constabulary and scout organizations. In all other respects the exhibit was a faithful portrayal. ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... Characterisation, that enemy of literary form, is such an essential part of the method of the modern writer of fiction, that Nature has almost become to the novelist what light and shade are to the painter—the one permanent element of style; and if the power of A Village Tragedy be due to its portrayal of human life, no small portion of its charm ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... the two Gentlemen conducted themselves so, as to overcome an ordinary Share of Virtue" (p. 24). Nevertheless the discussion in the Critical Remarks is thrown out of balance by exaggerated talk about the portrayal of licentious scenes. ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous
... him, the mirror reflected, in due subordination, the history of England. There is nothing of that on Mr. Sargent's canvas. Obtruded instead is the astounding slickness of Mr. Sargent's technique: not the sitter, but the painter, is master here. Nay, though I hate to say it, there is in the portrayal of the Duke's attitude and expression a hint of something like mockery—unintentional, I am sure, but to a sensitive eye discernible. And—but it is clumsy of me to be reminding you of the very picture I would have ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... was a Professor of Moral Philosophy, who lived to be ninety years old. There was, therefore, a combination of Lux et Veritas in the blood of young Louis Stevenson, which in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde took the form of a luminous portrayal of ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... being. I said in an earlier page that part of the failure of Ireland must be laid to the poets who had dropped out of the divine procession and sang a solitary song; to the writers who had turned from contemplating the great to the portrayal of the little in human nature. I know how difficult it is to constrain the spirit, and how futile it is to ask artists or poets to create what they are not inspired to create. But we can ask all men—artists, poets, litterateurs, and scientists—to ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... is not a mere mechanical photographic reproduction of the people it describes, but a glowing, vivid portrayal of them, with all the pulsating sympathy of one who understands them, their thoughts and feelings, with all the picturesque fidelity of the artist who appreciates the spiritual significance of that which he seeks to ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... The portrayal in the story of city life from the back windows of the hotel, is derived from notes made just before we went to Lenox; there are the enigmatic drawing-room windows, the kitchen, the stable, the spectral cat, and the emblematic dove; the rain-storm; the glimpse ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... given at King Manuel's Court. When he began to write the classical drama was unknown and it is absurd to judge his work by the Aristotelean theory of the unities of time and place. His idea of drama was not dramatic action nor the development of character but realistic portrayal of types and the contrast between them. His first piece, Auto da Visita[c,]am, has not even dialogue—its alternative title is O Monologo do Vaqueiro—and for comic element it relies on the contrast between Court and country as shown by the herdsman's gaping wonder. The Auto Pastoril ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... the marvellous ingenuity of plot, the power and subtlety of the portrayal of character, the charm of the romantic environment,—the entire atmosphere, indeed,—rank this novel at once among the ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... forsake. In other words, they are human. The refinement of the four principles, as age steals upon them, adds an element that is somehow lacking from the former books. They now hail from different spheres, which lends richness to their portrayal. Aramis is the man of God, with a scheme always in the works. Athos is the dignified, retired nobleman, whose only concerns are debts left unpaid and the launching of his son into the world. Porthos is a great ...
— Dumas Commentary • John Bursey
... of Hinduism corresponds, as we have seen, to the teaching of that faith in reference to God, man, and earthly life and conditions. And the Christian preacher's or teacher's vivid portrayal of the Christian's heaven too often denotes to the Hindu only one of the many purgatorial heavens of his religion, and rarely suggests to him the supreme test of the value of our faith as contrasted ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... now offered to the English reader under the title of "Liza," is a writer of whom Russia may well be proud.[A] And that, not only because he is a consummate artist,—entitled as he is to take high rank among those of European fame, so accurate is he in his portrayal of character, and so quick to seize and to fix even its most fleeting expression; so vividly does he depict by a few rapid touches the appearance of the figures whom he introduces upon his canvas, the nature of the scenes among which they move,—he has other and even higher claims ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... too, and he did it as well as Claude, but no better. He never got beyond the stage of microscopic portrayal; if he painted a dewdrop he painted it, and his blades of grass, swaying lily-stems, and spider-webs are ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... wonder that this maiden of the sixties could have created and left to posterity such an adequate, convincing and psychologically perfect portrayal of a woman of the South in the era that closed with the surrender at Appomattox.... Not a page of the story could be spared. No one can wonder at the intense courage and bravery of the Southern soldiers ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... and vivid general view at the close of the portrayal. First and final impressions remain the longest. The mind may be trained to take in the characteristic points of a subject, so as to view in a single scene, action, experience, or character, a unified impression of the whole. To describe a thing as a whole you ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... portrayal of characters in an old New England town. Dr. Lavendar's fine, kindly wisdom is brought to bear upon the lives of all, permeating the whole volume like the pungent odor of pine, healthful and life giving. "Old Chester Tales" will surely be among ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... Elizabethans by embodying in story and incident his portrayal of character. Because of admiration for the revelation of character in his greatest plays, modern readers forget their moving incidents,—for instance, the almost blood-curdling appearances of a ghost, the actions of a crazed ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... character is the force with which he builds up their environment. Here his realism is intense. Indeed, occasionally one is tempted to credit Balzac with a greater love of things than of men, yet not the things of nature as much as things made by men. His portrayal of landscape may be fine prose, but contains no pure feeling of poetry in it, while, in the town, in the house, in the street, wherever the human mind and hand have left their imprints, his language grows warm, his fancy ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... thus seen that Part I of The Road to Damascus is at the same time a free creation of fantasy and a drama of portrayal. The elements of realism are starkly manifest, but they are moulded and hammered into a work of art by a force of combinative imagination rising far above the task of mere descriptive realism. The ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... formed, like so many others, by the French genius, and well, if rather impudently, copied by Colonna; Boccaccio's vivid Italian Cressida; Chaucer's inimitable Pandarus, the first pleasing example of the English talent for humorous portrayal in fiction; the wonderful passage, culminating in a more wonderful single line,[69] of that Dunfermline schoolmaster whom some inconceivable person has declared to be only a poet to "Scotch patriotism"; the great ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... subsequent books, it was not so much Disraeli's notable skill as a novelist but rather his portrayal of the social and political life of the day that made him one of the most popular writers of his generation, and earned for him a lasting fame as a man of letters. In "Vivian Grey" is narrated the career of ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... said these words I watched the face of the Marquise. She listened to this portrayal with attention, but without appearing moved by it, such is her power of suppressing her natural feeling. The King only ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... account of those terrible days in Ireland is a fascinating if often gruesome study, and may be recommended as a vivid, if not perhaps calmly impartial, portrayal by an eye-witness of ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... Trail of '98'. For power and blunt realism there was nothing like it, but the character of the hero was torn in the shreds of debate. There was general agreement on two points: that the portrayal of the desolate Alaskan wild had a touch of "home," and that the heroine was ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... painter's smock intent upon a palette, vividly, whimsically, delightfully Kenny. There was tenderness and sympathy in Sid's portrayal. ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... water's edge but far inland; sharks don't flip over before attacking; giant squid sport ten tentacles not eight; sperm whales don't prey on their whalebone cousins. This notwithstanding, Verne furnishes the most evocative portrayal of the ocean depths before the arrival of Jacques Cousteau ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... matched the newly awakened taste for realism and fact. The drama which in the hands of Ben Jonson had attacked folly and wickedness proper to no place or time, descended to the drawing-rooms of the day, and Congreve occupied himself with the portrayal of the social frauds and foolishnesses perpetrated by actual living men and women of fashion in contemporary London. Satire ceased to be a mere expression of a vague discontent, and became a weapon against opposing men ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... is true, also interest Andreyev. "The Red Laugh" is an attack on war through a portrayal of the ghastly horrors of the Russo-Japanese War; "Savva," one of the plays of this volume, is taken bodily (with a poet's license, of course) from the actual revolutionary life of Russia; "King ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... descent as forced and not voluntary, has been modified by the introduction of a new factor,—the search for her dead consort, Tammuz. The character of Ishtar as the goddess of war[1167] may also have influenced this portrayal of her rage. In her violence, she threatens a conflict between the dead and the living. The former will destroy[1168] the latter, as a victorious army butchers the hostile host. The watchman endeavors to pacify the ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... They have faith in their own country; they write of it as they see it, and of their work and their joys and fears, in simple, direct language. It may be that none of it is poetry in the grand manner, and that some of it is lacking in technical finish; but it is a vivid and faithful portrayal of Australia, and its ruggedness is in character. It is hoped that this selection from the verse that has been written up to the present time will be found a not unworthy contribution to the great literature ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... the chief importance lay in the determination to portray local scenes, characters and historical episodes with accuracy instead of merely imaginative romanticism, and to interest readers by fidelity and sympathy in the portrayal of things well known to the authors. Other writings by Cable have dealt with various problems of race and politics in the southern states during and after the "reconstruction period" following the Civil War; while in The Creoles of Louisiana (1884) he presented a history ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... art" no longer raises a doubt. It is at last recognized that America has something of its own to offer the world,—a style developed within the last, two decades. The prime movement of the times presenting boldness, brilliance and a laxity of detail in portrayal, the art of America, as shown in this exhibition, embodies these characteristics without emphasizing them. Keeping in mind the fact that the Palace contains little American art earlier than 1905, American artists are showing marked individualities, ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... whose sheer height is grandly dignified; the arches rest on roughly carved capitals, and the outer rectangle of the piers is displaced for half a column. The rehearsal of these most simple details seems but the writing of "the letter which killeth," and not the portrayal of the spirit that seems to live within these walls. Details which seem so poorly few when read, are nobly so when seen. This small old church has a true religious stateliness, and it seemed as if a priest should bring the Sanctuary-light ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... correct, their ingenuous haste to escape from grief into joy. You can see these children almost as clearly and as tenderly as Lamb saw them. For days afterwards you will not be able to look upon a child without recalling Lamb's portrayal of the grace of childhood. He will have shared with you his perception of beauty. If you possess children, he will have renewed for you the charm which custom does very decidedly stale. It is further to be ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... found, but the five years which followed were to carry Browning, not without crises of perplexity and hesitation, far on his way towards it. Paracelsus was no sooner completed than he entered upon his kindred but more esoteric portrayal of the soul-history of Sordello,—a study in which, with the dramatic form, almost all the dramatic excellences of its predecessors are put aside. But the poet was outgrowing the method; the work hung fire; and we find him, before he had gone far with the perplexed record of ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... seemingly unchangeable, irreconcilable in conception or in fact; a truthful portrayal of them tends to render the writer a most inconsistent being in the eyes of ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... their martial enthusiasm and fatalistic courage were all aglow, when the recital of their fathers' deeds had stirred their blood and the portrayal of their own victories filled them again with the fierce joy of conflict, when the mountain of stone that arched the Columbia had risen before them in assurance of dominion as eternal as itself,—now, when in every eye gleamed desire of battle and every heart was ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... have soon learnt how vile such service may be in the studios of any of the canaglia poor Rosina knew, but Camille, that sheep in wolf's clothing, was safe enough. What there was in him of perversity, of brute force, he expended in the portrayal of his subtly beautiful furies. His art was feverishly decadent, and those who judge a man by his work might suppose him to be a monster of iniquity. He was, in fact, an extremely clever and rather worldly-wise ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... careful study of words, you will vacillate from one method to the other and strike crude discords of phrasing. Of course if you switch methods intelligently and of purpose, that is quite another matter. An abstract discussion may be enlivened by a concrete illustration. A concrete narrative or portrayal may be given weight and rationalized by generalization. Moreover many things lie on the borderland between the two domains and may properly be attached to either. Thus the abstraction is legitimate when you say or write: "A ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... enough regard the personality of Punch with a good deal more than ordinary loyal sentiment and esprit de corps. It is interesting to observe the different views the artists have severally taken of it, for most of them in turn have attempted his portrayal. Brine regarded him as a mere buffoon, devoid of either dignity or breeding; Crowquill, as a grinning, drum-beating Showman; Doyle, Thackeray, and others adhered to the idea of the Merry, but certainly not uproarious, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... itself the conclusions I drew from it were as follows: the real faults in the work, which I have already mentioned incidentally, lay in the sketchy and clumsy portrayal of the part of Venus, and consequently of the whole of the introductory scene of the first act. In consequence of this defect the drama never even rose to the level of genuine warmth, still less did it attain to the heights of passion which, according to the poetic conception ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... been produced out of an earnest desire to abolish the more recent types of this white slavery, which has, in one form or another, threatened the masses since the days of old John Ball of early England. Perhaps the strongest portrayal, yet, of many phases of the question, especially those relating to the city, maybe found in Mr. Howells' story, "A Hazard of New Fortunes." For the country, if one really wants to see what is behind ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... Make them understand that you will not interfere with or harm them, and they will go about their own affairs unafraid in your presence. Then you may silently watch their manner of living, their often amusing habits, and their frank portrayal of character. As a guest in the wild, conducting yourself as a courteous guest should, you will be well treated by your wild hosts, some of whom, in time, may even permit you to feed and stroke them. They do not dislike ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... this scene, which, as the French officer from whom the extract is taken says, "appears now almost grotesque, but which is only an exact portrayal of the sea manners of the day, the whole squadron was lost on a group of rocks known as the Aves Islands. Such were the officers." The flag-captain, in another part of his report, says: "The shipwreck resulted from the ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... at popularization was the special feature article, with its story-like form, its touches of description, its "human interest," its dramatic situations, its character portrayal—all effectively used to furnish information and entertainment for that rapid reader, ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... then, consists in his portrayal of the social ideal of the French aristocracy in the twelfth century. So far as we know he was the first to create in the vulgar tongues a vast court, where men and women lived in conformity with the rules of courtesy, where the truth was told, where ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... The portrayal of the situation which caused our early forefathers to rob birds' nests and kill young animals will no doubt shock the sentimentalist who orders eggs or veal as a matter of course. There might be good ground for his feeling were there ...
— The Tree-Dwellers • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... creatures, before whom heavenly illusions float, surrender themselves to each other, taste all the raptures of confidential conversation, lift veil after veil till every secret is bare, and, hand in hand, with glowing feet, tread the paths of paradise Perhaps a more impassioned portrayal of this kind of union is not to be found in literature than the picture in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream," which Shakespeare makes Helena hold before Hermia, when the death of their love was threatened by the ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... home in Sussex, the attempt made by highwaymen to rob her, and her adventures at the paved ford and in the house made silent by smallpox, where she took refuge. This section of the story is almost as breathless as Smollett.... In the general firmness of touch, and sureness of historic portrayal, the book ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... the evidence of truthful portrayal of the Spanish American home, and the story is told so pleasingly and ingeniously as to make ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... breeze. And then, with a fleeting glance and smile at Farnsworth, Patty plucked apple blossoms from overhanging boughs, and tossed them to the audience. There were no trees, and there were no blossoms, but so exquisite was her portrayal of blossom time, and so lovely her swaying arms and tossing hair that many were ready to declare they could even detect the fragrance of the flowers. But when Patty essayed to stop, the riotous applause that followed and the cries of "Encore! ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... the plea of 1914. In a vivid sketch of Sherman's March, Prof. HENRY E. SHEPHERD, whose North Carolina home, Fayetteville, lay in the track of the invaders (Battles and Leaders, 4, 678) winds up by saying that the portrayal of it "baffles all the resources of literary art and the affluence even of our English speech," and those who know Professor SHEPHERD'S resources and affluence will recognize the desperate nature of the task. As for the Valley, ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... the Last Judgment, seized upon what after all endures as the most salient aspect of this puzzling work, at once so fascinating and so repellent. "It is obvious," he says, "that the peerless painter did not aim at anything but the portrayal of the human body in perfect proportions and most varied attitudes, together with the passions and affections of the soul. That was enough for him, and here he has no equal. He wanted to exhibit the grand style: consummate draughtsmanship in the nude, mastery ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... the portrayal of sensuous emotion into the realms of poetry. The wild spirit of the Gypsy, captivating, fresh and invigorating and compelling as the winds of the mighty Sierras and plains of the land she inhabited, enveloped and animated her. The rushing, whirling ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... ordinary man will say, "If such ugliness as that exists, I don't want to see it. Why paint such subjects?" And at least the first part of this criticism seems to me to be quite incontrovertible. I can imagine no valid reason for the portrayal of so much ugliness; and, what is more important, I can find among the unquestioned masters no slightest precedent for the blank realism of this picture. The ordinary man's aversion to such ugliness seems to me to be entirely right, and I only join issue with him ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... psychologist that Racine has achieved his most remarkable triumphs; and the fact that so subtle and penetrating a critic as M. Lemaitre has chosen to devote the greater part of a volume to the discussion of his characters shows clearly enough that Racine's portrayal of human nature has lost nothing of its freshness and vitality with the passage of time. On the contrary, his admirers are now tending more and more to lay stress upon the brilliance of his portraits, the combined vigour and intimacy of his ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... and stimulating even to a child? Could we but discover a state in which all man's needs appear in such a way as to appeal to the child's mind, a state in which the ways of providing for these needs are as easily developed, the simple and stirring portrayal of this state should form the earliest training of the ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... are very justly appreciative, for the book stamps Thackeray as a fine impressionist, as an artist who skilfully mixes the colours of reality and imagination into a composition of striking scenes and the effective portrayal of character. With extraordinary ability and consistency to the type he works out the gradual evolution of a wild Irish boy, hot-headed in love and fighting, full of daring impetuosity and ignorant vanity, into the ruffianly ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... that the surpassing interest which fiction, whether in poetry or prose, possesses for most minds arises mainly from the biographic element which it contains. Homer's "Iliad "owes its marvelous popularity to the genius which its author displayed in the portrayal of heroic character. Yet he does not so much describe his personages in detail as make them develop themselves by their actions. "There are in Homer," said Dr. Johnson, "such characters of heroes and combination of qualities of heroes, that the united powers of mankind ever since have not ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... The Marrow of Tradition, has given a faithful portrayal of these disgraceful events, the Wellington of the story being Wilmington. Perhaps the best commentary on those who thus sought power was afforded by their apologist, a Presbyterian minister and editor, A.J. McKelway, ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... not been in some degree inspired and informed by Charles Dickens. He had for that writer a very sincere admiration, though he was inclined to think that his true excellence lay not so much in faithful portrayal of the life of his times, or in gift of sustained narration, or in those scenes of pathos which have moved so many hearts in so many quiet homes, as in the power of inventing highly fantastic figures, such as Mr. Micawber or ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... outlines to be filled in with freedom, as the canvas to be embroidered with a tapestry of vivid groups. Nothing is more manifest than the superiority of the English genius over the Italian in all dramatic qualities of intense passion, profound analysis, and living portrayal of character in action. The mere rough detail of Shakspere's 'Othello' is to be found in Cinthio's Collection of Novelle; but let an unprejudiced reader peruse the original, and he will be no more deeply ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... include all portraiture, by which I mean faithful portrayal or transcript whether of animate or inanimate nature; while the second would include all imaginative conceptions, decorative ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane
... Fires in France, which at once took rank as one of the most notable pieces of literature inspired by the war. It is in the form of short stories, but only the form is fiction: it is a perfectly truthful portrayal of the French women and of some Americans who, far back of the trenches, kept up the life of a nation when all its people were gone. It reveals the soul of the French people. The Day of Glory, her latest book, is a series of further ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... Hawthorne attained a connection of parts and a masterly gradation of tones which did not belong, in the same fulness, to "The Scarlet Letter." There is, besides, a larger range of character, in this second work, and a much more nicely detailed and reticulated portrayal of the individuals. Hepzibah is a painting on ivory, yet with all the warmth of a real being. Very noticeable is the delicate veneration and tenderness for her with which the author seems to inspire us, notwithstanding the fact ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... tradesmen bribed representative bodies to give them railroad charters and bountiful largess. He will seek to know how, as specifically as the records allow, they got together that money. Their nominal methods are of no weight; it is the portrayal of their real, basic methods which alone will satisfy the delver for ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... which, though not dramatically flawless, has movement and energy and stir. The sweetness and modesty of his disposition lends itself to his portrayal of the more gracious aspects of human life, especially as seen in the humours and oddities of very simple and ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... Afloat in New York Mr. Alger is always at his best in the portrayal of life in New York City, and this story is among the best he has given ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... story, as no doubt it did, it was too faithful to the actualities of Japanese life to awaken a throb of emotion in the Occidental heart. Without such a throb a drama is naught—a sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. The charm of Loti's book lies in its marvellously beautiful portrayal of a country, a people, and a characteristic incident in the social life of that people. Its interest as a story, outside of the charm of its telling, is like that excited by inspection of an exotic curio. In his dedication of the book the author begged ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... portrayal of the career of a man who comes under the influence of a beautiful but evil woman; how she lures him on and on, how he struggles, falls and rises, only to fall again into her net, make a story of ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... entertainment was one whose strong element of human interest had early carried it into favor with the New York audience that nightly crowded the theatre in which it was being presented. The star, a young woman of exceptional talent, almost a great artist, had by her remarkable portrayal of the leading role sprung from obscurity to fame in a ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... of Shakespeare's work carries him from the youthful efforts at dramatic construction to such mastery of dramatic technique and of original portrayal of life as raise him, when aided by his supreme poetic art, above all other living dramatists. It was chiefly a period in which the young poet, full of ambition, curious of his own talents, and eager for success, was feeling his way among ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... The portrayal of noble character is always inspiring. It appeals to the better side of our nature, and strengthens our confidence in humanity. No literary art can confer immortality on what is ignoble. The fiction that is devoted to obscene ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... food-readier. She ate. Calhoun gave a very good portrayal of a man who will respond politely when spoken to, but who was busy ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... of a class of books for children, of a vigorous, manly tone, combined with a plain and concise mode of narration. The writings of Charles Dickens have been selected as the basis of the scheme, on account of the well-known excellence of his portrayal of children, and the interests connected with children—qualities which have given his volumes their strongest hold on the hearts of parents. These delineations having thus received the approval of readers of mature age, it seemed a worthy effort to make the ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... evocations of facts poignantly vital to her personally, were devastatingly more troubling to her facial calm than any most sickening picture in d'Annunzio's portrayal of small-town humanity in which she was trying to take the proper, shocked interest. Despite all her effort to remain tranquil she would guess by the stir of her pulses that probably she had lost control of herself again, and going to the mirror ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... to draw Mr. Brumley as he was, I have perhaps a little neglected to show him as Lady Harman saw him. We have employed the inconsiderate verisimilitude of a novelist repudiating romance in his portrayal; towards her he kept a better face. He was at least a very honest lover and there was little disingenuousness in the flow of fine mental attitudes that met her; the thought and presence of her made him fine; as soon could he have turned his shady side ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... portrayal of the youthful Goethe materials are even superabundant; of no other genius of the same order, indeed, have we a record comparable in fulness of detail for the same period of life. And it is this abundance of information and the ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... photograph—something faded—of Mrs. Langtry! A small table and a couple of deck chairs graced the floor, while upon the walls a heterogeneous collection of pictures, including a coloured lithograph of a cottage and a brook, a fearful and wonderful portrayal of an otter, and a very fancy stag of unlimited points dazzled the eye. The ceiling was decorated with an elaborate and most effective design in wood—a fashion very common in Srinagar, consisting of a sort of patchwork panelling of small pieces of ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... to make a literal or merely artistic picture, but to show the actual wrongs and legalized possibilities of wrong which called for redress. It did not lessen the justice of her plea, that the mass of negroes were more degraded than she knew, or that their average treatment was kinder than her portrayal showed. ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... Vivid in its portrayal of fascinating college life, the fine young men and women do more than win victories in athletics and in the class-room—they win out in the battle for character. Vigorous in its practical idealism, this is a ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... the days of Jules Verne no theme has proved so popular in fiction as fighting in the air. It was a subject which lent itself to vivid imagination and spirited picturesque portrayal. Discussion might be provoked, but it inevitably proved abortive, inasmuch as there was a complete absence of data based upon actual experience. The novelist was without any theory: he avowedly depended upon the brilliance ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... which he feigns; and he never, when alone or in company with Horatio alone, exhibits the signs of that madness. Nor is the dramatic use of this melancholy, again, open to the objections which would justly be made to the portrayal of an insanity which brought the hero to a tragic end. The man who suffers as Hamlet suffers—and thousands go about their business suffering thus in greater or less degree—is considered irresponsible neither by other people nor by himself: he is only too keenly conscious ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... lines retrace one of the thousands of daily dramas which compose modern Russian history. The work of Andreyev brings to us a sad vibrant echo of the sobs which ring out in Russian dungeons. And this faithful portrayal of events, events so frequent that they no longer move us from our indifference, when we find the echo of them in the press, will raise in the conscience of Andreyev's readers a cry ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... the problem proposed at the beginning of this article, as to how far Mother Juliana supplied from her own mind the canvas and the colours for this portrayal of Divine love, and as to how far therefore it may be regarded as a product of and a key to her inner self, we are inclined to say that, a comparison of her own style of thought and sentiment and expression as exhibited ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... grouping the glowing words of Renan, with their fine spiritual interpretations and descriptive eloquence, the judgments of an eminent contemporary Jewish scholar, and Newman's learned yet simple portrayal of the Church as it took form in its early environment, and as it was seen through the media of contemporary governments, customs, and criticisms, it is believed that readers will derive satisfaction, and will be aided ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... are to see nothing till you see a triumph in the portrayal of feeling and lifelike earnestness that even your ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... better understanding of those days that the author has labored to draw from his ancestor's notes a new and striking portrayal of the frontier; one which shall paint the fever of freedom, that powerful impulse which lured so many to unmarked graves; one which shall show his work, his love, the effect of the causes which rendered his life so hard, and surely ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey |
