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Portal   Listen
noun
Portal  n.  
1.
A door or gate; hence, a way of entrance or exit, especially one that is grand and imposing. "Thick with sparkling orient gems The portal shone." "From out the fiery portal of the east."
2.
(Arch.)
(a)
The lesser gate, where there are two of different dimensions.
(b)
Formerly, a small square corner in a room separated from the rest of the apartment by wainscoting, forming a short passage to another apartment.
(c)
By analogy with the French portail, used by recent writers for the whole architectural composition which surrounds and includes the doorways and porches of a church.
3.
(Bridge Building) The space, at one end, between opposite trusses when these are terminated by inclined braces.
4.
A prayer book or breviary; a portass. (Obs.)
Portal bracing (Bridge Building), a combination of struts and ties which lie in the plane of the inclined braces at a portal, serving to transfer wind pressure from the upper parts of the trusses to an abutment or pier of the bridge.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Portal" Quotes from Famous Books



... aerial chariot floated down to a fairy palace by the shore of an enchanted sea. I alighted; and a radiant, flower-like maiden, who was standing by the portal, unfolded her rainbow wings and shadowed me with them, and murmured, "Do you wish to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... darkness of these tall woods awakened terrific images in her mind, and she almost expected to see banditti start up from under the trees. At length, the carriages emerged upon a heathy rock, and, soon after, reached the castle gates, where the deep tone of the portal bell, which was struck upon to give notice of their arrival, increased the fearful emotions, that had assailed Emily. While they waited till the servant within should come to open the gates, she anxiously surveyed the edifice: but the gloom, that overspread it, allowed her to distinguish little ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... of the skeleton was particularly complete and accurate. He describes very fully the bones of the head, including the perforated plate of the ethmoid bone, the sutures, the teeth, and the skeletal bones generally. Portal states that Celsus knew of the semicircular canals. He understood the structure of the joints, and points out that cartilage ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... about the rocky stair Moved, but the growing tide from verge to verge, Heaving salt fragrance on the midnight air, Climbed with a murmurous and fitful surge. A hoary mist rose up and slowly sheathed The dripping walls and portal granite-stepped, And sank into the inner court, and crept From column unto ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman

... overcome with the repeated shouts and plaudits of her new subjects, that she was obliged to retire. The fine Gothic cathedral, in which the ceremony was performed, is indeed a church worthy of such a solemnity; the portal is the finest I ever beheld; the windows are painted in the very best manner; nor is there any thing within the church but what should be there. I need not tell you that this is the province which produces the most delicious wine in the world; but I will assure you, that I should ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... man turned, in mind to flee, but every entrance to the hall was closed, and at each portal stood a grinning Saracen. He bowed his shaven head, and his shame fell slowly ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... and 5. iii., p. 23. Columbus, who invariably paid the most remarkable attention to all natural objects, was the first to observe the difference between 'Podocarpus' and 'Pinus'. "I find," said he, "en la tierra aspera del Cibao pinos que no Ilevan pinas (fir cones), pero portal orden compuestos por naturaleza, que (los frutos) parecen azeytunas del Axarafe de Sevilla." The great botanist, Richard, when he published his excellent Memoir on Cycadeae and Coniferae, little imagined that before ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... that had maltreated Tom obeyed promptly; and as the prince burst through the portal, half-smothered with royal wrath, the soldier fetched him a sounding box on the ear that sent him whirling ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... under the twelve apostles, that decorate the grand portal, and entered the cathedral. The interior is as fine as the exterior. The columns are massive, the ceiling groined; the style is the decorated or geometric architecture, that prevailed in Europe in the thirteenth century. The ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... the hall there was a grim portal marked "lift." I pressed an electric button and heard an answering tinkle in the heavens. There was an upholstered settle near at hand, and I discovered the reason. A deer-stalking peace drooped upon everything, and in it a man could invoke the passing of ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... or animal is killed, even if the large arteries at the throat are cut, a large quantity of blood remains in and around the intestines, owing to the fact that only through the capillaries of the liver can the blood in the portal system find its way into the large vessels which convey it to the heart, and which at death are cut off from the general circulation at both ends by a capillary system. This leaves the blood-vessels belonging to the portal circulation distended with venous ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... again, save that someone, crawls over the floor and, in leaving the hut, jars the latch of the crazy, single-hinged portal. ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... existence of the charming church of Saint-Paterne, recently pulled down by the heir of the individual who bought it of the nation. This church, one of the finest specimens of the Romanesque that France possessed, actually perished without a single drawing being made of the portal, which was in perfect preservation. The only voice raised to save this monument of a past art found no echo, either in the town itself or in the department. Though the castle of Issoudun has the appearance ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... intermediate portal of the vagina, as the canal which conducts to the womb was in anatomy first termed (according to Hyrtl) by De Graaf.[95] It is a secreting, erectile, more or less sensitive canal lined by what is usually considered mucous membrane, though some have regarded it as integument ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... although the portal was difficult in a manner, and opened only on conditions of its own—conditions, it may be said, which, to the uninitiated, to the excluded, ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... while she ran up-stairs. Mrs. Sumter answered her knock at the door of Miss Kate's room, into which the damsels were now doubled. To the disappointment of that somewhat volatile domestic, Mrs. Sumter closed the portal before proceeding to open the missive, but her announcement, "From Mr. Lanier," caused Miriam Arnold to ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King

... not slow to avail himself of the means of escape thus provided, and a few minutes later stood once more within the portal of the great cavern. His first care was to haul up the tackle and dispose it as he imagined it to have been left, with the attached cord hanging down ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe

... clouded still more. What love! What self-sacrifice! A Paradise opened before him. But at the portal of that Paradise stood an angel with a flaming sword, saying: "Back, your ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai

... Gates put on his own glasses and told them he was ready to show them to the Palace. Taking a big golden key from a peg on the wall, he opened another gate, and they all followed him through the portal into the streets of ...
— The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... started in a painted barge, accompanied by Sir Geoffrey Carleon, who wore his velvet robe of office, and grumbled at its weight and warmth. A row of some fifteen minutes along the great canal brought them to a splendid portal upon the mole, with marble steps. Hence they were conducted by guards across a courtyard, where stood many gaily dressed people who watched them curiously, especially Grey Dick, whose pale, sinister face caused them to make a certain sign with ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... they speak in high, shrill voices. The courtly person leaves the talking mostly to his servants; occasionally he answers with much dignity; directly, seeing the Cypriote, he stops and buys some figs. And when the whole party has passed the portal, close after the Pharisee, if we betake ourselves to the dealer in fruits, he will tell, with a wonderful salaam, that the stranger is a Jew, one of the princes of the city, who has travelled, and learned the difference between the common grapes of Syria and those of Cyprus, so ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... cellars—which, burrowed out in all directions, are of the aggregate length of nearly seven miles, and have usually between 11,000,000 and 12,000,000 bottles and 25,000 casks of wine stored therein—is through a wide and imposing portal, and down a long and broad flight of steps. It is, however, by the ancient and less imposing entrance, through which more than one crowned head has condescended to pass, that we set forth on our lengthened tour through these intricate underground galleries—this subterranean ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly

... 1900, and though the immediate vicinity of the floating hangar was barred to the public by the military authorities, the shores and surface of the lake were black with people eager to witness the test. Boats pulled out of the wide portal the huge cigar-shaped structure, floating on small rafts, its polished surface of pegamoid glittering in the sun. As large as a fair-sized ocean steamship, it looked, on that little lake dotted with pleasure craft, like a leviathan. Men were busy in the cars, fore and aft. The ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... doom of the wicked, hell being painted as an enormous mouth; also in the west front of Lincoln Cathedral an ancient bas relief representing hell as a monstrous mouth vomiting flame and serpents, with two human beings walking into it. The minster at Freyburg has a grotesque bas relief over its main portal, representing the Judgment. St. Nicholas stands in the centre, and the Savior is seated above him. On the left, an angel weighs mankind in a huge pair of scales, and a couple of malicious imps try to make the human scale kick the beam. Underneath, St. Peter ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... wearing the same uniform as that of the soldiers who formed our guard; and this further indication of the importance of the building gave us the impression that it was the dwelling of some great dignitary. Close by the portal we were halted, while the commander of our guard spoke through the grating to some one inside. A moment later the grating was slowly raised, and we were marched through the narrow entrance, and so along ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... excavation of about 5.4 acres, between the west house line of Ninth Avenue and the east house line of Tenth Avenue, to an average depth of about 50 ft., the construction of a stone masonry portal at Tenth Avenue leading to the River Tunnels, and the construction around the site of the ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • B.F. Cresson, Jr

... I a French bride I should bargain for a wedding of the first class at any sacrifice. To have the big doors of the front portal flung open at the thrice-repeated knock of the beadle's staff; to hear Mendelssohn's 'Wedding March' pealed from the great organ; to march in solemn procession up the aisle, preceded by that wonderful figure in cocked hat, red sash, pink silk stockings, ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... when so much had been forgotten,—when even the features and architectural characteristics of the mansion in which it was merely a piece of furniture had been forgotten. And, as he gazed at it, he half thought himself an actor in a fairy portal [tale?]; and would not have been surprised—at least, he would have taken it with the composure of a dream—if the mimic portal had unclosed, and a form of pigmy majesty had appeared within, beckoning him to enter and find the revelation of what had so long perplexed him. The ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... gathers the prayers as he stands, And they change into flowers in his hands, Into garlands of purple and red; And beneath the great arch of the portal, Through the streets of the City Immortal Is wafted ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... my eyes by my drooping lashes. Faithful, heart and soul, to one noble being, I refused to look into the admiring eyes of another. His insidious praises of my genius made no impression. The image of a man six feet two, with a sky-blue scarf across his princely bosom, stood at the portal of my heart, and the young gentleman with curled hair and that light-colored mustache ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... a double tongue. On leaving the inner chamber he quickly traversed certain obscure passages of his house until he reached an inferior portal. Even if the demon had suspected his purpose it would not have occurred to a creature of its narrow outlook that anyone of Wong Ts'in's importance would make use of so menial an outway. The merchant therefore reached his garden unperceived and thenceforward maintained an undeviating face ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... inspection, however, failed to disclose any signs of the great portal, or its heavy padlock having been tampered with. Nor were there any marks tending to show where an effort had been made to force boards off the frame in which the ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker

... its portal grand, Our hearts were glad, our spirits light, And we rejoiced, and eager scanned The scenes that came before our sight. Near Alcatraz, an island bold, We paused to hear ...
— Within the Golden Gate - A Souvenir of San Fransisco Bay • Laura Young Pinney

... the vow meant, had reiterated his vow to be the Lord's. Thus on the spot made sacred by so many ancient memories, the people ended their wandering and homeless life, and passed into the possession of the inheritance, through the portal of this fresh acceptance of the covenant, proclaiming thereby that they held the land on condition of serving God, and writing their own sentence in case of unfaithfulness. It was the last act of the assembled people, and the crown ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... brass knob in the dusky door before them, and shoved against it with all her might, but Ned had to help her with his shoulder, or the massive mahogany portal would not have yielded an inch. It did go slowly in, upon its ancient-looking bronze hinges, and then they were in a room which was worth looking at. It was not so very large, only about fifteen feet by twenty, but it was unusually high, and it had but one ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard

... qualities, apparent to the critical, and hypnotic to the general, reader. There is nothing in it that need even stop at "heaven's gate." It permits the deserving reader by happy instinct to go through that portal—without waiting outside to parade his sect mark. But the force of the poem and catholicity of its sanctions are either utterly destroyed or ridiculously enfeebled, by capping it with a sectarian ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... faith. The first beams of the rising sun blazed on its golden roof and fretted pinnacles of diamond, and ruby, sapphire, topaz, and emerald; but the lower part was still in shadow. Nevertheless, we could distinguish a grand portal in the southern front, which faced the sun, and a broad flight of marble steps descending from it into the water; but the massive doors were shut, and not a soul was to be seen ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro

... mastered all philosophy, And the science of theosophy, Grown as learned as Mezzofanti, As poetical as Dante, As wise as Magliabecchi, As profound as Mr. Lecky— Has absorbed more kinds of knowledge Than are found in any college; He may take his full degree Of Ph. or LL. D. And prepare to pass the portal That leads ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... eaten, that the freshest, fairest blush of the flower has been snatched and has passed away, when the ceremony at the altar has been performed, and legal possession has been given? There is an aroma of love, an undefinable delicacy of flavour, which escapes and is gone before the church portal is left, vanishing with the maiden name, and incompatible with the solid comfort appertaining to the rank of wife. To love one's own spouse, and to be loved by her, is the ordinary lot of man, and is a duty exacted under penalties. But to be allowed to love ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... are the only one who has guessed my secret. You saw me last night when I—when I accompanied her home. But I never passed her palace gates,—she wouldn't let me. She bade me 'good-night' outside; a servant admitted her, and she vanished through the portal like a witch or a ghost. Sometimes I fancy she IS a ghost. She is so white, so light, so noiseless ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... deep; Soft may the worms about her creep! Far in the forest, dim and old, For her may some tall vault unfold— Some vault that oft hath flung its black And winged panels fluttering back, Triumphant, o'er the crested palls, Of her grand family funerals— Some sepulchre, remote, alone, Against whose portal she hath thrown, In childhood many an idle stone— Some tomb from out whose sounding door She ne'er shall force an echo more, Thrilling to think, poor child of sin! It was the ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe

... procession, to the sound of the hidden drums, the cry of the hidden priest, and all the whispering melodies of these strange and unknown lives, tears started into her eyes. The entrance into this land of flame and colour, through its narrow and terrific portal, stirred her almost beyond her present strength. The glory of this world mounted to her heart, oppressing it. The embrace of Nature was so violent that it crushed her. She felt like a little fly ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... West, gayly floated, advanceth, With a word from the wise and a help from the brave. But earth—solid earth—is the home of the mortal That toileth to live, and that liveth to toil; And the green olive-tree twines the wreath of his portal Who peacefully wins his sure bread from the soil," Thus Jove: and to heaven the council celestial Rose, and the sea-god rolled back to the sea; But Athena gave Athens her name, and terrestrial Joy from the oil of the ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... once to attempt the adventure; so he advanced, and blew the horn which hung at the castle portal. The door was opened in a minute or two by a frightful giantess, with one great eye in the middle ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various

... moonshiners had worked their still. As he reached the ledge he could see behind the falling water and into the great concave space which it screened beneath the beetling cliff. It was as he had expected—an arched portal of jagged brown rocks, all dripping with moisture and oozing moss, behind the semi-translucent green-and-white drapery of ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... with stripes chastised before my face, 725 Willing, but impotent to give thee aid.[37] Who can resist the Thunderer? Me, when once I flew to save thee, by the foot he seized And hurl'd me through the portal of the skies. "From morn to eve I fell, a summer's day," 730 And dropped, at last, in Lemnos. There half-dead The Sintians found me, and with succor prompt And hospitable, entertained me fallen. So He; then Juno smiled, Goddess white-arm'd, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... sick'ning streams, As on the pallid brow Death's icy dews Gather, the presage of corruption's seams; Pale horror every sound and motion glues, So corpse-like all around the dungeon seems; But on—and a low portal met her hand, By iron staunchions in ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... the forbidding figure in the doorway, and when Savine answered, "British Columbia," called "Margery!" A little weazened woman, with cheeks still ruddy from much lashing of the wind, appeared in the portal. ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... and saw, with a feeling akin to dismay, the tall figure of his uncle standing on the threshold of the left portal, clad in a morning gown, with his eyes fixed inquiringly upon Bolton ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger

... given has bound Your lips the truth to screen, The nameless something gathers fast As mist the hills between; You wrap you in your cloak of pride, The words are never spoken That might have thrown the portal wide, ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris

... best may greet My lord, the majesty of Argos, home. What day beams fairer on a woman's eyes Than this, whereon she flings the portal wide, To hail her lord, heaven-shielded, home from war? This to my husband, that he tarry not, But turn the city's longing into joy! Yea let him come, and coming may he find A wife no other than he left her, true And faithful as a watch-dog to his home, His foemen's foe, in ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus

... will persist in reading the volume, she ought to be prevented by delicacy from despising the author, from the very moment that he, forfeiting the praise which most artists welcome, has in a certain way engraved on the title page of his book the prudent inscription written on the portal of certain establishments: ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... took place in the shadows lying around the open door of the old house, that he was near the fatal threshold and would in another moment be across it and within those mouldy halls. That I was right, another instant proved, for suddenly through the great hollow of the open portal a mild gleam broke and I saw he had lighted a lantern and was moving ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... opened wide that day, All through the unveiled heaven there seemed to play Out of the Holiest of Holy, light; And the elect beheld, crowd immortal, A young soul, led up by young angels bright, Stand in the starry portal. ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... nervous step soon brought him to the gilded portal that formed the entrance to the splendid gardens beyond, and through the sentinel who guarded the spot he summoned an officer of the household, to whom he showed the purse, telling him that he had received it from the owner as a token of friendship, ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray

... desired such persons to remember that he had from the first announced the objects of his search to be not the splendid and the surprising, but the useful and the true, not the deluding dreams which go forth through the shining portal of ivory, but the humbler realities of the gate of horn. [De ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... a Goat of grass to take her fill, And browse the herbage of a distant hill, She latch'd her door, and bid, With matron care, her Kid; "My daughter, as you live, This portal don't undo To any creature who This watchword does not give: 'Deuce take the Wolf and all his race'!" The Wolf was passing near the place By chance, and heard the words with pleasure, And laid them up as useful ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various

... stood at the fore-court of the castle. Here I saw a sentinel pacing back and forwards, and I hastened to the soldier to inquire who was in the castle. "The Countess and her attendants are here," was the brief reply, and in an instant I stood at the main portal and had even pulled the bell. Then, for the first time, my action occurred to me. No one knew me. I neither could nor dare say who I was. I had wandered for weeks about the mountains, and looked like a beggar. What should I say? For whom ...
— Memories • Max Muller

... dwells, and God guard you if ever you pass under yonder portal, for no prisoner has ever come forth alive! Since these wars began he hath been a king to himself, and the plunder of eleven years lies in yonder cellars. How can justice come to him, when no man ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... marble stone The court with steel is floored, The portal is of ruddy gold, Twelve bears ...
— Young Swaigder, or The Force of Runes - and Other Ballads • Anonymous

... no further. The gorilla-faced pursuer catapulted himself sideways through the portal, being too wide to go through in the regular way. He emitted a raucous shout ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl

... leading up to the imposing doorway of Sunrise, with the great letter S carved in stone relief above it; and, after pausing a moment to take in the matchless wonder of the landscape over which old Sunrise keeps watch, the college portal had swung open, and the two had entered at ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter

... me, before even the flying year can hurry to the end of its almanack! To form plans and projects in such a precarious life as this, resembles the enchanted castles"of fairy legends, in which every gate Was guarded by giants, dragons, etc. Death or diseases bar every portal through which we mean to pass; and, though we may escape them and reach the last chamber, what a wild adventurer is he that centres his hopes at the end of such an avenue! I am contented with the beggars ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... Altogether then, had it not been for the unexpected success of The Coming of Love, a story of Gypsy life, it is doubtful whether I should not have delayed the publication of Aylwin until the great warder of the gates of day we call Death should close his portal behind me and shut me off from these dreams. However, I am very glad now that I did publish it; for it has brought around me a number of new friends—brought them at a time when new friends were what I yearned for—a time when, looking ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... Italy, in the province of Bari, 28 m. S.S.W. of the town of that name, and 56 m. by rail via Gioia del Colle. Pop. (1901) 22,729. It possesses a fine Romanesque cathedral begun in 1232 and restored in 1330 and 1531, the portal being especially remarkable. It is one of the four Palatine churches of Apulia. The surrounding territory is fertile. The medieval walls, erected by the emperor Frederick II., rest upon the walls of an ancient city of unknown name. These early walls are of rough blocks of stone without mortar. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... his own fin, and led the old fellow, moaning piteously, across the street. He stopped when he came to the ancient gate, ornamented with the armorial bearings of the venerable Shepherd. "Here 'tis," said he, drawing up at the portal, and he made a successful pull at the gatebell, which presently brought out old Mr. Bolton, the porter, scowling fiercely, and grumbling as he was used to do every morning when it became his turn to let in ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the piper's invitation the last sound in his ears. He rode past Kilmalieu of the tombs, with his bonnet off for all the dead that are so numerous there, so patient, waiting for the final trump. He rode past Boshang Gate, portal to my native glen of chanting birds and melodious waters and merry people. He rode past Gearron hamlet, where the folk waved farewells; then over the river before him was the bend that is ever the beginning of home-sickness for all that ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... stirring, and though mountains looked smaller than they used to look, the things done among them seemed larger. And wandering forth from the camp to think, when the evening meal was over, lo! there I stood in that selfsame breach or portal of the desert in which I stood once by my father's side, with scared and weary eyes, vainly seeking safety's shattered landmark. The time of year was different, being the ripe end of October now; but though the view was changed in tint, it was ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... suddenly lost confidence in Law, and, on the 29th of May, discharged bin from his employ as comptroller-general, and stationed a Swiss guard of sixteen men in his house. He even refused to see him, when, on the following day, he applied at the portal of the Palais Royal for admission; but having played off this farce before the public, he admitted him secretly the same night, by a private door, and continued as before to co-operate with him in his ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... of Arles passed before me. I saw it as the great imperial Roman city dominating the valley. I saw it during the Christian times in the building of the portal of St. Trophime, and saw it during the Gothic times leading in the history of the Church, and then again in the Renaissance presenting the world with the most beautiful example of the work of Mansard, ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.

... me very well," said the other, and in half an hour he returned to Brendon, found him chatting with Jenny in the dark portal of the silkworm house, ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... being finished when the vessels left, after the portal was built—although with opposition and a suit, as your Majesty will see by the accompanying papers—I had your Majesty's arms placed upon it. Truly, that was sufficiently contrary to the will of these priests here, who—just as if your Majesty were some foreigner, and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair

... and sacred sense of the permanence of man's unity with his Maker can illumine our present being with a continual presence and power of good, opening wide the portal from death into Life; and when this Life shall appear "we shall be like Him," and we shall go to the Father, not through death, but through Life; not ...
— Unity of Good • Mary Baker Eddy

... force of this explanation, and stooping to pass through the low aperture, found herself close to a pretentiously carved portal. The electric bell revealed itself to groping fingers, and to her surprise a few seconds after she had touched it, without hearing a ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... wise we must first learn to be happy, that we may attach ever smaller importance to what happiness may be in itself. We should be as happy as possible, and our happiness should last as long as is possible; for those who can finally issue forth from self by the portal of happiness, know infinitely wider freedom than those who pass through the gate of sadness. The joy of the sage illumines his heart and his soul alike, whereas sadness most often throws light on the heart alone. One might almost compare the man who ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck

... transmitted for three generations, a cleft-iris for four generations, being limited in this latter case to the males of the family. Opacity of the cornea and congenital smallness of the eyes have been inherited. Portal records a curious case, in which a father and two sons were rendered blind, whenever the head was bent downwards, apparently owing to the crystalline lens, with its capsule, slipping through an unusually large pupil into the anterior chamber of the ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... Australia visit of Elliot, John [uncle of Lady Russell] member of Parliament for Hawick Elliot, Lady Fanny, quotation from "Reminiscences of an Idler" description of, (see Russell, Lady John) Elliot, Lady Charlotte (see also Portal) mentioned in the letters Sir Henry Taylor and Elliot, Lady Harriet Elliot, Miss, daughter of the Dean of Bristol, a reference to Lord Russell Emerson, R.W. Endsleigh English society, Lady Russell on Etchegoyen, Comte ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... the palace builded for Aladdin, Yonder St. Mark uplifts its sculptured splendor— Intricate fretwork, Byzantine mosaic, Color on color, column upon column, Barbaric, wonderful, a thing to kneel to! Over the portal stand the four gilt horses, Gilt hoof in air, and wide distended nostril, Fiery, untamed, as in the days of Nero. Skyward, a cloud of domes and spires and crosses; Earthward, black shadows flung from jutting stonework. High over all the slender ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... trace the turns and lines of the road along which the stage has come. But that which adds the softer, more beautiful element to a picture otherwise almost overpowering in its grandeur, and withal stern and unyielding, is seen through a break or portal off ...
— My Native Land • James Cox

... with," answered Henley, hoping to induce a smile, or a more cheery tone amid a gloom which was growing oppressive. But Miss Guir simply led the way to the great hall door, which was built of heavy timber, and studded with nail-heads without. As the cumbersome old portal swung open, Paul could not help observing that it was at least two inches thick, braced diagonally, and that the locks and hinges were unusually crude and massive. He followed Miss Guir into the hall, with a slight foreboding of evil which the memory ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale

... intermittent impulse," writes Bishop Alexander. "It is a fixed habit of mind, the result of a particular discipline. Historians of the school of the author of the Acts of the Apostles are not men to build a flamboyant portal of romance over the entrance to ...
— The Virgin-Birth of Our Lord - A paper read (in substance) before the confraternity of the Holy - Trinity at Cambridge • B. W. Randolph

... hath deigned to grace With yellow robe and sapphire chain, May pass beyond that outer space. For now within the painted hall The Firstborn keeps high festival. Before the glittering valves all night Their post the chosen captains hold. Above the portal's stately height The legend flames in lamps of gold: "In life united and in death "May Tirzah and Ahirad be, "The bravest he of all the sons of Seth, "Of all the house of ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... moment when hand touched hand she looked up into his eyes with warm softness glowing in her own, and on her lips stood an invitation which his heart sprang to seize, like an eager guest leaping through the portal of welcome. ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... for you hold immortal What has been born a day or two! "But it was destined?" Ay, your portal Only has God to heed—and you! He with his thrice three million thirsting Worlds in the throes of death and life Surely has time to spare for choosing Your ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice

... giant then stretched the pale warrior senseless upon the marble floor. In that deep trance he remained till the dawn of morning; and when he awoke, all the pageantry of the previous evening was gone, and he lay beneath the ruined portal—himself arrayed in wretched weeds, and his gallant courser, which had borne him unharmed amid the din of battle, gone. Centuries have passed by, yet still the wandering knight lingers amid the desolate towers ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope

... on reaching the gate, not by a warder, but by the growl and bark of a ferocious mastiff, who would have been more in keeping at his post near a henroost, than at the portal of a princely castle. One "half-groom, half-seneschal," and who was withal a little drunk, however, soon came forth to receive us, and, after an exhortation to the dog in a Dutch that was not quite as sonorous as the growl of the ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... most critical and depressing time, rose to extremest hope and confidence, rejoicing that the great crisis had at length come, and feeling to my very depths of conviction that, as we were sublimely in the right, we must conquer, and that the dread portal once passed we should find ourselves in the fairy palace of prosperity and freedom. But that I was absolutely for a time alone amid all men round me in this intense hope and confidence, may be read as clearly as can be in what I and others published ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... enlighten these degraded souls by knowledge; to humanize their hardness; to save women and children; to deliver all from sin; to bring them upward to the Father whom they have forgotten, by opening to them His divine compassion in the Lord Jesus; to make life worth living for, because it is the portal of a heavenly life for ever: this has been the purpose and this the work of our faithful brethren for fifty years. Other men have gone there with very different aims. When once the missionary had made it safe, ...
— Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society • Various

... grasp its meaning, Dante begs Virgil to interpret, and learns they are about to descend into Hades. Having visited this place before, Virgil boldly leads Dante through this portal into an ante-hell region, where sighs, lamentations, and groans pulse through the starless air. Shuddering with horror, Dante inquires what it all means, only to be told that the souls "who lived without praise or blame," as well as ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... pass carefully, and formed the hope, that by occupying two or three houses on the left bank of the river, with the copse and thickets of alders and hazels that lined its side, and by blockading the passage itself, and shutting the gates of a portal, which, according to the old fashion, was built on the central arch of the bridge of Bothwell, it might be easily defended against a very superior force. He issued directions accordingly, and commanded the parapets of the bridge, on the farther side of the portal, to ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... people submit to in the revered name of Law, and in the sacred but in their case profaned name of Equity, is more enormous than the future historian will be able remotely to conceive. The keystone of the barbarous Gothic portal to Justice in our common-law procedure was struck out some twenty years ago, when the logical forms of legal contest were reduced to their now moderate number; other heavy blows have further undermined the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... two transepts, one arch of the nave, and the chapter-house; Under the Edwards the nave unfolded itself farther west, and the Abbot's House and Jerusalem Chamber were built. Richard II. was very fond of the Abbey, and rebuilt, at great expense, the famous north portal, often spoken of as "The Beautiful Gate," or "Solomon's Porch." By Henry V. the nave was prolonged nearly to its present length. It was just completed in time for the grand procession to sweep along it when the Te Deum was sung for the victory at Agincourt. ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... continuous roar. To get involved in those giant breakers would have been destruction to the raft, and probably death to most of those on board. One narrow opening, marked by a few shrubs and palms on either side, formed the only portal to the calm lagoon. The captain himself took the steering oar, and summoned our philosopher to ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne

... about Mondana's knees greeted the Morning. And all the while in the plains the shapes of cities came looming out of the dusk. And Kongros stood forth with all her pinnacles, and the winged figure of Poesy carved upon the eastern portal of her gate, and the squat figure of Avarice carved facing it upon the west; and the bat began to tire of going up and down her streets, and already the owl was home. And the dark lions went up out of the plain back to their caves again. Not as yet ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... Lieutenant Field—this very Thanksgiving night, in fact,—the single sentry at the door stood attention to the commanding officer, who in person ushered in a womanly form enveloped in hooded cloak, and with bowed head Nanette Flower passed within the guarded portal, which then closed behind her and left her alone with her ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... go back to firm ground. If you compare a dog's profile with that of a horse you will note at once that the nostrils are in advance of the lips, and have a kind of portal to themselves. This is a distinct advance. The sense of smell has come to the front and pushed aside the lower sense of touch. You will observe, too, that with the growth of the brain the brain-pan has elevated itself above the ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... Hurrah!" Grodman was outwardly calm and pale, but his eyes glittered; he waved his hand encouragingly as the hansom dashed up to the door, cleaving the turbulent crowd as a canoe cleaves the waters. Grodman sprang out, the constables at the portal made way for him respectfully. He knocked imperatively, the door was opened cautiously; a boy rushed up and delivered a telegram; Grodman forced his way in, gave his name, and insisted on seeing the Home Secretary on a matter of life and death. Those near the door heard his words and cheered, and ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... striplings glance Conceitedly on Tania fair, And views amongst themselves advance Unfavourable unto her. But one buffoon unhappy deemed Her the ideal which he dreamed, And leaning 'gainst the portal closed To her an elegy composed. Also one Viazemski, remarking Tattiana by a poor aunt's side, Successfully to please her tried, And an old gent the poet marking By Tania, smoothing his peruke, To ask ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... in Garin's shadow all day, whistled shrilly and stood on tiptoe to tug at his hand. Trar smiled. "That one may go, its eyes may serve you well. Urg will guide you to the outer portal of the Place of Ancestors and set you upon the road to the Caves. Farewell, outlander, and may the spirits of the Ancient Ones ...
— The People of the Crater • Andrew North

... barrier is a gap, which, when viewed from the French valley of the Gave de Gavernie, appears like a notch made in a jaw by the loss of a single tooth, but which is in reality a magnificent and colossal portal, 134 feet ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various

... stream rays of golden light, and two angels who are passing into the portal, are aerial and luminous, as ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino

... the Taj gives a good idea of its effect. Standing at the portal of the main entrance one gets the superb effect of the marble pathway that borders the two canals in which the building is mirrored. Midway across this pathway is a broad, raised marble platform, with a central fountain, from which the best view of the ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch

... the portal, stood, Eager to gild his arms with hostile blood; Well skill'd, in fight, the quivering lance to wield, Or pour his arrows thro' th' embattled field: From Ida torn, he left his sylvan cave, [i] And sought a foreign home, a distant grave. To watch the movements of the Daunian host, With him ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... soldiers of the guard, the faithful companions of so many battles, took no notice of them. He hastened with the princess through the hall into the corridor, and down the broad winding stairs opening immediately into the second court-yard of the palace. He then conducted her across through the inside portal to the splendidly-carpeted principal staircase in ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... the cavalcade came to pause, while Caterina dismounted—the people clinging about her to kiss her hand, to prove their loyalty—until pale from emotion she left them, and passed with all her noble company under the fretted arches of the vast portal, to offer up her orisons—her first act in this city of her adoption, a service of faith and adoration—her first resting-place in her new home, the altar of the church which was ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... he whom my love I gave Rides off to the church right over my grave; Must hear him forever suffer and languish, And yet can not lessen his anguish! O, how my bosom is filled with despair! The angels of God have forgotten my prayer! They heed no longer my weeping and woe— The portal is closed to the heavenly bliss— Dig me up again! Let me not lie ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen

... shone through the transparency she was, if that mild taper could be said to shine in proof of a vitality rarely notified to the outer world by the opening of her mouth; chiefly then, though not malevolently to command: as the portal of some snow-bound monastery opens to the outcast, bidding it be known that the light across the wolds was not deceptive and a glimmer of light subsists among the silent within. The life sufficed to her. She was like a marble effigy seated upright, requiring ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Sinbad in the crook of his arm, had tailed his guest and arrived just in time to see the native come to an abrupt halt before one of the most important doors in the spacer—the portal of the hydro garden which renewed the ship's oxygen and supplied them with fresh fruit and vegetables to vary their ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... but to lament? Who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved—when he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portal—would accept of consolation that ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof

... Awaited the women. They stood by the graves, and hung on the headstones Garlands of autumn leaves and evergreens fresh from the forest. Then came the guard from the ships, and marching proudly among them Entered the sacred portal. With loud and dissonant clangor Echoed the sound of their brazen drums from ceiling and casement,— Echoed a moment only, and slowly the ponderous portal Closed, and in silence the crowd awaited ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... the arch of the water-gate, in expectation that the stranger would rejoin him within its shadows; but, to his great alarm, he saw the form darting through the outer portal of the palace into the square of St. Mark. It was not a moment ere Gino, breathless with haste, was in chase. On reaching the bright and gay scene of the piazza, which contrasted with the gloomy court he had just quitted like morning with night, he saw the utter fruitlessness of further pursuit. ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... When the system is surcharged with bile, from a congested condition of the liver, we use these agents in order to obtain necessary relief. In this temperament there is moderate hepatic development, lack of biliary activity, deficiency in the secretion of bile, and a sluggish portal circulation. Therefore, to apply the term bilious to this temperament is not only unreasonable, but it is calculated to mislead. The condition of the bowels is generally constipated, the skin dark and sometimes sallow. For these and other obvious reasons, we dismiss ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... Returning to Rogero, left, I said, When through a gloomy path, upon his steed, Following the giant and the dame who fled, He from the wood had issued on the mead; I say that he arrived where Roland dread Arrived before him, if I rightly read. The giant through the golden portal passed, Rogero ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... set my foot on the door-step, I went back to see whether the two snow-birds were in their nightly places under the roof of the porch—the guardian spirits of our portal. There they were, wedged each into a snug corner as tightly as possible, so not to break their feathers, and leaving but one side exposed. Happening to have some wheat in my pocket, I pitched the grains up to the projecting ledge; they can take their breakfast in bed ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen

... the door, so light, And yet the sound seemed rude. My pulses beat So loud they drowned the coming of her feet The arrow of her taper pierced the gloom— The portal closed behind me. She was there— Love on her lips and yielding in her eyes And but the sea to hear our vows and sighs. She took my hand and ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... to have a peep, and even Tattie mustered up sufficient courage to screw through the narrow portal, though she squealed in the process, and clung tightly to Magsie's hand. Diana and Wendy were among the last to effect the investigation. By that time the piece of candle was guttering out, and Miss Todd, ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... crashing seas, Foams upward to the painted frieze, Echoes and ebbs. Still surges in, To yelp of hautboy and violin, Plumed and bedazzling, rosed and rare, Dance-bemused, with cheek aglow, Stooping the green-twined portal through, Sighing with laughter, debonair, That concourse of the proud and fair— And lo! 'La, la! Mamma ... Mamma!' Falls a small cry in the dark and calls— 'I see you ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... the back-door, across the yard, through the garden, out of the small gate leading to the meadow, down the foot-path, up the mountain-road, jumping from stone to stone, courageous and intrepid as a true daughter of the Tyrol. Now she stood at the portal of the castle, in front of which some of the Bavarian soldiers were lying in idle repose on a bench, while others in the side-wing of the castle allotted to them were looking out of the windows, and dreamily humming a Bavarian song, frequently interrupted ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... so. But what was their surprise on beholding a tall edifice of white marble, with a wide-open portal, occupying the spot where their humble ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... dew,—its subtle, spicy fragrance pervading, lingering after the leaves were drooping and the bloom fled, but its rich, royal hues were yet to come. In his blind coarse blundering, he had mistaken the bud for the flower, the portal for the church; he had entered with heedless, profane foot, and blighted the blossom and rifled the altar. For the leaves had been unclosed, the gates unbarred under his neglect; and Leslie, with a noble woman's frankness, generosity, and meekness—that true meekness which oftenest cleaves and ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth; Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, Nor attempt the Future's portal with the ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... haste His travelled steps: far distant he descries Ascending by degrees magnificent Up to the wall of Heaven a structure high; At top whereof, but far more rich, appeared The work as of a kingly palace-gate, With frontispiece of diamond and gold Embellished; thick with sparkling orient gems The portal shone, inimitable on earth By model, or by shading pencil, drawn. These stairs were such as whereon Jacob saw Angels ascending and descending, bands Of guardians bright, when he from Esau fled To Padan-Aram, in the field of Luz ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... while the speakers waited a passage through the crowd which had gathered on each side of the gateway, leaving an open avenue to the portal of the province-house. A black slave in livery now leaped from behind the coach and threw open the door, while at the same moment Governor Shute descended the flight of steps from his mansion to assist Lady Eleanore in alighting. ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... opened, and two men in space suits crawled out. Jarl captured the first man single-handed, and Nizzo and Ragna, with perfect teamwork, overpowered the second before he realized what was taking place. Within a minute the men crowded into the air-lock, and shut the outer portal. Automatically, the inner ...
— The Space Rover • Edwin K. Sloat

... portal. Within, they saw some fifty of those large oblong dwellings so familiar in after years to the eyes of the Jesuit apostles in Iroquois and Huron forests. They were about fifty yards in length, and ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.



Words linked to "Portal" :   entree, portal site, entry, site, venous blood vessel, portal vein, vena, website, portal system, vein, hepatic portal vein, vena portae, entryway, internet site



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