"Delineation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... painter, perhaps, could never have been displayed to more advantage than in the delineation of the two groups of figures, which at this time presented themselves. An indifferent spectator would have been at a loss which most to admire; the eyes of famine sparkling at immediate relief, or the horror of their preservers at the sight of so many spectres, ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh
... events of Lincoln's life, and impressions of his character, are given in the actual words of those who knew him—his friends, neighbors, and daily associates—rather than condensed and remolded into other form. While these utterances are in some cases rude and unstudied, they have often a power of delineation and a graphic force that more than compensate for any ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... loved best on earth. He knew not she was there, for she rarely now asked a question respecting his engagements, or expressed any interest in his movements, yet how her ears drank in the music of his voice, and her eyes flashed back the proud light that shone in his! As she listened to his delineation of woman's claims to the sympathy and the defence of every generous heart, as she heard his biting sarcasm on the cowardly nature that, having wronged, would now crush into deeper ruin his fair client, as she saw kindling eyes fixed ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... magistrates were waiting to sit on the case of the expected prisoner; and, finally, the loudly heralding kuk-kuk-ke-o-hos of the overflowing trapper, to announce, over a two-mile reach of the stream, the triumphant approach,—this animated and here extraordinary spectacle, we must leave to the delineation of the reader's imagination. Our attention is more strongly demanded in a different direction, to bring up other important incidents of our story, before proceeding any farther with the actors who have figured in this part of the narrative, or taking ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... undertook, when he stepped so lightly into the position of the biographer of such a man. We will not dwell upon the fact, that a really just and discriminating account of him demanded, as it certainly did, much acuteness of perception and dexterity of delineation, together with a high degree of scholarship. What we are now specifying against the author is, that he took no care whatever to set any wise or modest bounds to his enterprise. He did not bear in mind how much had been said, as well as how little ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... purpose of this book is to exhibit a fair delineation of the credulity of the human mind. Such an exhibition cannot fail to be productive ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... ingenuity in the arguments employed, but the illustrations were so unsatisfactory that the system has never gained ground. The principles of perspective are most ably exemplified in many well-known works, as they set forth very satisfactory modes of delineation. The limits of your periodical prevent a fuller correspondence on this subject, or I think it would not be difficult to {379} satisfy MR. HOARE that there are great ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various
... and abundant supply of labor" required for the maintenance of the British manufacturing system, and "cheap labor" furnishes Mr. Dickens with his "Oliver Twist," his "Tom-all-alone's," and the various other characters and situation by aid of whose delineation he is enabled, as a German writer ...
— Letters on International Copyright; Second Edition • Henry C. Carey
... superficially true, is so imperfect in its delineation of habitual conduct liable to another construction, that the agitated Flowerpot returns, with quick indignation, "your arm was always reaching out whenever you sat in a chair anywhere near me, and whenever I sang you always kept looking straight ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... Plutarch, and that he has represented him as near to the life as a biographer can do. Whatever discrepancies there may he between Plutarch and other authorities, whatever Plutarch may have omitted which other authorities give, still he has shown us enough to justify his delineation of the most prominent man in the Republican Period of Rome, with the exception of the Dictator Caesar. But to complete the view of his intellectual character, a survey of Sulla's legislation is necessary. Sulla was an educated man: he was not a mere ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... landlady, who looked after him as though he were a mad cat scampering up and down-stairs, and fearing that he had gone suddenly crazy. The note he wrote to Mr. Gammon was so exceedingly extravagant, that, candid as I have (I trust) hitherto shown myself in the delineation of Mr. Titmouse's character, I cannot bring myself to give the aforesaid letter to the reader—making all allowances for the extraordinary ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... she published A Romance of the Republic, a story of the days of slavery; powerful in its delineation of some of the saddest as well as the most dramatic conditions of master and slave in the Southern States. Her husband, who had been long an invalid, died in 1874. After his death her home, in winter especially, became a lonely one, and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... granted premises shall be devoted and used solely and exclusively for the delivery of lectures, the production of concerts and operas, and the representation and delineation of the drama of the better character, as shall be approved by the unanimous vote of the committee or board of ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... In the delineation of Isabella, her first tender passion of love, her agony of apprehension giving way to dull despair, her sudden wakening to a brief period of frenzied action, described in stanzas of incomparable dramatic force, and the 'peace' which followed ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... her meditations does not interfere with, but rather aids her performance of the homeliest human duties; and the moral beauty of her nature lends a peculiar grace to her humblest ministries to human affections and needs. The vivid delineation of this character, from her childhood to her death, we cannot but rank among Mrs. Stowe's best claims to be considered a woman of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... stories, and of Miss Mitford's sketches and descriptions, and not a little of Mrs. Opie's, that exhibit the same fine and penetrating spirit of observations, the same softness and delicacy of hand, and unerring truth of delineation, to which we have alluded as characterizing the purer specimens of female art. The same distinguishing traits of woman's spirit are visible through the grief and piety of Lady Russel, and the gayety, the spite, and the venturesomeness of Lady ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... imitated; but I had neither the means nor intention of copying the manners, or tracing the characters, of the persons concerned in the real story. Indeed, I may here state generally that, although I have deemed historical personages free subjects of delineation, I have never on any occasion violated the respect due to private life. It was indeed impossible that traits proper to persons, both living and dead, with whom I have had intercourse in society, should not ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... subordinate. The end and aim of painting among the ancients was to represent and illustrate the myths of the gods, the deeds of heroes, and important historical events, hence giving all prominence to the delineation of the human form. Landscape, on the other hand, illustrated nothing, represented no important event deserving of record, and was thus totally without significance in a Grecian temple or pinacotheca. In an age of decline, as at Pompeii, it ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... extensive and detailed, that on this side he excels Tennyson; but such portraiture is not necessarily poetic, and when it is fond of the complex, it is always in danger of tending to prose. And Browning, picturing human life, deviated too much into the delineation of its more obscure and complex forms. It was in his nature to do and love this kind of work; and indeed it has to be done, if human life is to be painted fully. Only, it is not to be done too much, if one desires to be always the poet. For the representation ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... heard, without much surprise, that his was a constitution which (always with due watching) might be left to itself, so as to offer a beautiful example of a disease with all its phases seen in clear delineation, and that he probably had the rare strength of mind voluntarily to become the test of a rational procedure, and thus make the disorder of his pulmonary functions a ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... proceeding altogether in harmony with the customs and conventions of Ancient Comedy. The Comic Poet never spares us a single detail of everyday life, no matter how commonplace or degrading; he pushes the materialistic delineation of the passions and vices to the extreme limit of obscene gesture and the most cynical shamelessness of ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... give you an illustration of what I mean. We may assume that every boy who goes out of the high school should appreciate the meaning and worth of self-sacrifice as this is revealed (not expounded) in Dickens's delineation of the character of Sidney Carton. There is our problem,—but what a host of subordinate problems at once confront us! Where shall we introduce The Tale of Two Cities? Will it be in the second year, or the third, or the fourth? Will ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... style which, though correct and pure, is generally harsh, elaborate and abrupt; often strained into unnatural energy or condensed into factitious conciseness. The chief excellence of Alfieri consists in powerful delineation of dramatic character. In his Filippo he has represented, almost with the masterly touches of Tacitus, the sombre character, the dark mysterious counsels, the suspensa semper et obscura verba, of the modern Tiberius. In Polinice, the characters of the rival brothers ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... character—two men already mentioned— the hunter Hickman Holt, and his visitor Joshua Stebbins, the schoolmaster of Swampville. The personal appearance of the latter has been already half described. It deserves a more detailed delineation. His probable age has been stated—about thirty. His spare figure and ill-omened aspect have been alluded to. Add to this, low stature, a tripe-coloured skin, a beardless face, a shrinking chin, a nose sharp-pointed and ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... unnecessary that we should, in this place, again attempt the delineation of the theological opinions of the earlier periods of Grecian civilization. That the ancient Greeks believed in one Supreme God has been conclusively proved by Cudworth. The argument of his fourth chapter is incontrovertible.[391] However great the number of "generated gods" who crowded ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... I am ignorant. Yet I know that the classics have much to teach, and I believe that the Orientals have much to learn; the temperate dignity of style, the graceful proportions of art, the forms of visible and intellectual beauty, the just delineation of character and passion, the rhetoric of narrative and argument, the regular fabric of epic and dramatic poetry. [71] The influence of truth and reason is of a less ambiguous complexion. The philosophers of Athens and Rome enjoyed the blessings, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... The delineation of that Promethean fortitude which defied conscience, as he has shown it in Manfred, is his greatest achievement. The terrific fables of Marlowe and of Goethe, in their respective versions of the ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... of all the countries, which he had traversed: and copies of these were given both to [204]the Egyptians, and to the Scythians, who held them in high estimation. This is a curious account of the first delineation of countries, and origin of maps; which were first described upon [205]pillars. We may from hence be enabled to solve the enigma concerning Atlas, who is said to have supported the heavens upon his shoulders. This took its rise from some verses in Homer, which have ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... the intermediate stages, I saw it attain to that fixed, unalterable gold of fine days, on which the sharply cut shadows of the wrought iron of the balustrade were outlined in black like a capricious vegetation, with a fineness in the delineation of their smallest details which seemed to indicate a deliberate application, an artist's satisfaction, and with so much relief, so velvety a bloom in the restfulness of their sombre and happy mass that in truth those large and leafy shadows which lay reflected on that ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... of reflections, and finally lands me at the commencement of this young girl's story, which, as I said, I have found the time and felt the interest to learn something of, and which I think I can tell without wronging the unconscious subject of my brief delineation. IRIS. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... crescent, and that it undergoes varying phases in correspondence with the changes in its relative position to the earth and the sun, we cannot see much of the planet. It is too small and too bright to admit of easy delineation of details on its surface. No doubt attempts have been made, and observations have been recorded, as to certain very faint and indistinct markings on the planet, but such statements must ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... in his delineation of the Duchess. He had to paint a woman in a hazardous situation: a sovereign stooping in her widowhood to wed a servant; a lady living with the mystery of this unequal marriage round her like a veil. He dowered her with no salient qualities of intellect ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... young minister came, however, to study the hostile Indians that flocked to the village, any conclusive delineation of character, or any satisfactory analysis of their mental state in regard to the paleface religion, eluded him. Their passive, silent, sphinx-like secretiveness was baffling. Glickhican had taught ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... also, was displayed in the powerful delineation of character, and the dramatic evolution of human passions. His personages seem to be real—living and breathing before us. So, too, with Cervantes, whose Sancho Panza, though homely and vulgar, is ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... Pavement of rich Mosaick Work of the Ancient Romans, which is adornd with several Figures alluding to Mirth and Concord, in particular that of Bacchus seated on a Panther.) This is to give Notice the Exact Delineation of the same is Engraven and Imprinted on a large Elephant sheet of Paper, which are to be sold at Mr. Charles Lillies, Perfumer, at the corner of Beauford Buildings, in the Strand, at 1s. N.B. There are to be had, at the same Place, at one Guinea each, on superfine Atlas Paper, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... the form of a novel, its truthful delineation of characters is such that in every village in the land you meet the broken manhood it pictures upon the streets, and look upon sad, tear-dimmed eyes of women and children. The characters are not overdrawn, but are as truthful as an artist's ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... from first to last, enlist the sympathies of the reader by its simplicity of style and fresh, genuine feeling.... The author is au fait at the delineation of character."—Boston Transcript. ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... all human wisdom. Either some radical defect must have existed, in the measures devised for its removal, or the time has not yet come for successfully assailing the institution. Our work is completed, in the delineation we have given of its varied relations to our agricultural, commercial, and social interests. As the monopoly of the culture of cotton, imparts to slavery its economical value, the system will continue ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... Snelling, and frequent intercourse with its inmates, have brought them much under the notice of the officers and ladies of the garrison. She has no occasion to present the Indian in a theatrical garb—a mere thing of paint and feathers, less like the original than his own rude delineation on birch-bark or deer-skin. The reader will find in the following pages living men and women, whose feelings are in many respects like his own, and whose motives of action are very similar to those of the rest of the world, though far less ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... written with considerable strength of delineation; although his accounts are not quite safe authority for the character of his enemies. His words he spelled after a provincial pronunciation: thus, describing the crew of the Sydney, he writes, instead of Sepoys and Lascars, "Saypies ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... the real chronology of Rienzi's life, the plot of this work extends over a space of some years, and embraces the variety of characters necessary to a true delineation of events. The story, therefore, cannot have precisely that order of interest found in fictions strictly and genuinely dramatic, in which (to my judgment at least) the time ought to be as limited as possible, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the pleasure of finding myself reliev'd from that apprehension: and of discovering, that, although the delineation of RURAL SCENERY naturally branches itself into these divisions, there was little else except the General Qualities of a musical ear, flowing numbers, Feeling, Piety, poetic Imagery and Animation, a taste for the ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... notable exception. The true representatives of female novelists are now the leaders of that school which confines itself to minute observation, whether of outward facts or inward feeling, and which is above all things devoted to the close delineation of contemporary society. The analysis of character within the range of ordinary experience, the play of civilised emotion, the vicissitudes of grief or joy in the parsonage, the ball-room, and the village, the troubled course of legitimate love-making, have all contributed the congenial ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... error and inconsistency constitute his whole story. In one place, he anticipates and answers a question thus: "To what tense do the constructions, 'I am pleased;' 'He is expected;' 'I am smitten;' 'He is bound;' belong?" "We answer:—So far as these and like constructions are applicable to the delineation of continuous and retained ACTION, they express present time; and must be treated accordingly."—P. 103. This seems to intimate that even, "I am smitten," and its likes, as they stand, may have some good claim to be of the present tense; which ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the life that he lived, makes him as interesting a personage as all history has to show; and it is a pity that Southey's biography—so good in its superficial way, and yet so inadequate as regards any real delineation of the man—should have taken the subject out of the hands of some writer endowed with more delicate appreciation and deeper insight than that genuine Englishman possessed. But Southey accomplished his own purpose, which, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... his countenance will not seek after God; God is not in all his thoughts;"—"He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten; He hideth his face; He will never see it."—"Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God? he hath said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it;" And these words exhibit a graphic delineation, of that state of mind in which occasional thoughts of God are neutralized by habitual unbelief, and the warnings of conscience silenced by the denial of a supreme moral government. In like manner, when the apostle tells the Ephesian converts ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... everything; and a play could have had its natural length then. It would not have been necessary to crowd the whole history of Macbeth, from his youth to his old age, into an absurd epitome of three hours. One cannot trace a touch of real human nature in any actor's delineation of that very interesting Scotchman, because the actor always comes on the stage as if he were the same age when he murdered Duncan, and when, in his sear and yellow leaf, he was lopped off ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... torch. The signal delicacy, beauty and symmetry of this statue forms a striking contrast with the figure of an immense lion sleeping on the sinister side; and this lion is an irrefragable proof that Canova excels in the delineation of the terrible as well as the beautiful, for ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... of the folly of human pride, and also presents at once the evil and the remedy. If good-natured ridicule of the impostures practised by a set of self-styled reformers, who have nothing to lose, and to whom change must be gain—if, in short, a delineation of the mistaken ideas which prevent, and the means which conduce to happiness, be traits deserving of commendation,—the reader will find much to enlist his attention and win his approbation in the pages of this unpretending, but ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... affected indifference, or momentary shame. "It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda"; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language. Now, had the same young lady been engaged with a volume of the Spectator, instead of such a work, how ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... epic, in Hildebrand, Waldere, Finnesburh, Byrhtnoth, besides all the Northern lays of Sigurd, Brynhild, and Gudrun, is dramatic in its method, letting the persons speak for themselves as much as may be. So far it complies with Aristotle's delineation of epic. And further, all this dramatic bent may be seen clearly to have its origin in the mere story,—in the dramatic situation, in fables that might be acted by puppets or in a dumb show, and yet be tragical. No analytic or psychological interest in varieties of character—in ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... a book of great power, which far surpasses either of its predecessors from her pen, and places her high among American writers. The plot is complicated and is managed adroitly.... In the delineation of characters she has shown ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... the church, and desired a suppression of the abuses suffered by the German people in consequence of the corruption and greed of the hierarchy. The legate had presented the papal rule in the most favorable light. Now the Lord moved upon a member of the Diet to give a true delineation of the effects of papal tyranny. With noble firmness, Duke George of Saxony stood up in that princely assembly, and specified with terrible exactness the deceptions and abominations of popery, and their dire results. In ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... had developed a technique of wilderness life deserving of preservation for its value to the white man. While as for the Esquimaux, the author never sees the extraordinary prevalence amongst them of the art of graphic delineation displayed in bold etchings of incidents of the chase upon their implements and weapons (though not upon the articles made by the dozen for the curio-venders at Nome and Saint Michael) without dreaming that ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... a narrow view of geography which confined that science to delineation of terrestrial surface and outline, and to description of the relative position and magnitude of land and water. In its improved form it embraces not only the globe itself and the atmosphere which bathes it, but the living things which vegetate or move upon it, the varied ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... suffering under heavy taxation, were on the whole well ruled. Public interest was concentrated on the capital; and the startling events which took place there gave the fullest scope to the dramatic genius of the historian. The court of Nero lives before us in his masterly delineation. Nero himself, Seneca and Tigellinus, the Empress-mother, the conspirators of the year 65, form a portrait-gallery of sombre magnificence, which surpasses in vivid power the more elaborate and artificial picture of the reign of Tiberius. With all his immense ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... anxiety and anguish of the soul at such a time? The physical form, instead of being adequate to the ideas expressed, and therefore helpful to the artist, is a positive embarrassment, a source of weakness. The most powerful pictorial or sculpturesque delineation of the Judgment, when compared with the pangs inflicted on the spirit by a guilty conscience, pangs whereof words may render some account, but which can find no analogue in writhings of the limbs or face, must of necessity be found a failure. Still more impossible, if ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... words is not easy. Froude himself called it in after life a "cry of pain," meaning that it was intended to relieve the intolerable pressure of his thoughts. It is not a novel, it is not a treatise, it is not poetry, it is not romance. It is the delineation of a mood; and though it was called, with some reason, sceptical, its moral, if it has a moral, is that scepticism leads to misconduct. That unpleasant and unverified hypothesis, soon rejected by Froude himself, has been revived by M. Bourget in Le Disciple, and L'Etape. The ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... sculpture known as Gandhara or Graeco-Buddhist he is frequently shown in a full length portrait. This difference is remarkable. It is easy to say that in the older school the Buddha was not depicted out of reverence, but less easy to see why such delineation should have shocked an Indian. But at any rate there is no difficulty in understanding that Greeks or artists influenced by Greeks would think it obvious and proper to make an effigy ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... positive, and, in and for its purposes, completed method of educating the young; nor, since this latter is a supposition better pleasing certain critically-minded gentlemen, have we in anything like clear delineation and positive practice the several methods that may be imagined requisite for minds of varying bent and capacity. If we sum up in one word the most pervading, constant, and obvious characteristic of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to the very utmost the already abnormal outlines of what I see before me. And then the pictured dwelling lacks the fragile look and its sonority, that reminds one of a dry violin. In the pencilled delineation of the woodwork, the minute delicacy with which it is wrought is wanting; neither have I been able to give an idea of the extreme antiquity, the perfect cleanliness, nor the vibrating song of the ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... while generally the river is too far away to be a part of the picture, the country, the beautiful country, makes one continually wonder, not that the painters of a past generation grew to love the region and to revel in its seductive delights, but rather that they could ever stop its delineation. The effect of the changing light and shade and varying atmospheric conditions lend the same enchantment that lies ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... was fooling them to the top of their bent, accoutred from top to toe as Mynheer Punch the Great, while his clever little wife—who, by the way, possesses, I think, more of the "vis comica" than any actress of the day—caused sides to shake and eyes to water by her naive and humorous delineation of Mrs. Snozzle. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... suddenly the sex note—(as I will call it for want of a better word)—disappeared from the press. Psychology was pronounced 'off,' and plots were the order of the day. Many names well-known at that time and associated with a flair for delicate delineation of character, disappeared from the magazine contents bill and the publisher's list, whilst facile writers who could turn out mild detective yarns or tales of adventure and gore were ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... for construction: now for detail. The legitimate object of comedy is the truthful delineation of manners. In life, manners are displayed by what people do, and by what they say. Comedy, therefore, ought to consist of action and dialogue. ("Thank you," exclaims our reader, "for this wonderful discovery!") Now we have seen that in "Court and City" there is little ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... over one period of my history, on which how gladly would I dwell, could I conjure up your lively powers of delineation! But the vivid hues which are at your command, and which alone can give life and animation to the picture, have left no trace within me; and were I now to endeavour to recall the joys, the griefs, the ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... which prompted Raphael's fondness for lovely women and happy children shows itself also in his delineation of angels. The archangel Michael, the angel visitors of Abraham, and the celestial spirits appearing to Heliodorus all follow closely upon the Madonnas in the purity and serenity of their beauty. In the same fellowship also belongs the beautiful ...
— Raphael - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... epical delineation of the American spirit ... It is an honest and fair story ...It is very interesting: and the heroine is a type of woman as fresh, original and captivating as any that has appeared in American novels for a long time past."—The ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... failed," continued he, "if your heart does not see itself reflected in your own portrait, if you have no secret cause to trust my delineation of the other, it is not yet too late to alter them. I might change the action of these figures too. But would ...
— The Prophetic Pictures (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... have done no more in the delineation of her superhuman beauty. The same ethereal figure which stood before me the preceding night upon the steps of the Ducal Palace, stood before me once again. But in the expression of the countenance, which was beaming all over with smiles, there ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... stood before the choir. The design of this window is also by Mr. Kempe, but it shows a certain departure from his characteristic style in that it is more of a picture and less of a kaleidoscope than most of his other windows. In colouring and accuracy of delineation (anatomical and otherwise) it is perhaps more modern and less mediaeval in treatment than we should be led to expect from the artist's better known manner. The predominant tone is blue, relieved by a delicate base and canopy of amber, and the whole composition is full of the devotional spirit of ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... about Goya, and another about a Thibetian cat. Many passages could be brought forward as evidence that Mr. Saltus loves the fire-side sphynx. The Mr. Incoul of the title gives one a very excellent idea of how inhuman a just man can be. There is not a single slip in the skilful delineation of this monster. The beautiful heroine vaguely shambles into a tapestried background. She is moyen age in her appealing weakness. The jeune premier, Lenox Leigh, is well drawn and lighted. Time after time the author strikes subtle harmonies which must have ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... was intended by the writer as a sketch of some of the more striking features of the railway mania (then in full progress throughout Great Britain), as exhibited in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Although bearing the appearance of a burlesque, it was in truth an accurate delineation (as will be acknowledged by many a gentleman who had the misfortune to be "out in the Forty-five"); and subsequent disclosures have shown that it was in no ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... marriages; tells the object of your visit. Her equal is not to be found—has astonished thousands by her magic power." No. 3.—"Madame F. Gretzburg will ensure to whoever addresses her, giving the year of their birth and their complexion, a correct written delineation of their character, and a statement of their past, present and future lives. All questions regarding love, marriage, absent friends, business, or any subject within the scope of her clear, discerning spiritual vision, will be promptly and definitely answered ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... him as they are to few. He is tempted to draw too largely upon this source of interest: in other words, there is too much of description in his volume. Life is hardly long enough for such elaborate painting. We may admire the skill of the delineation, but we cannot pause sufficiently before the canvas to do full justice to the painter. Those poems in which Mr. Tuckerman expresses the emotions of bereavement and sorrow are those which have the highest merit in point of thought and expression. They are full of tenderness and sensibility; but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... experience of what he had seen, if the art of DRAWING had not been also carried to some excellence—although to PAINTING itself the poet makes none but dubious and obscure allusions. Still, if, on the one hand [178], in embroidery, and upon arms (as the shield of Achilles), delineation in its more complex and minute form was attempted,—and if, on the other hand, the use of colours was known (which it was, as applied not only to garments but to ivory), it could not have been long before two such kindred elements of the same art were united. Although ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... strongly contrasted character; the style flows on pleasantly; but the book is without distinction. Like many a just graduated collegian, Hawthorne had recourse to his academic experience in lieu of anything else, and in the setting of the story and some of its delineation of character Longfellow recognized the strong suggestion of Bowdoin days; in the same way the hero, Fanshawe, borrowed something from Hawthorne's own temperament. The figure of the villain, too, adumbrates, though faintly, the type which engaged Hawthorne's mind in later years. "Fanshawe" ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... knowledge, and expound them aloft and conspicuously; and as we have said in the ear, so to deliver them to whom it is requisite; but not enjoining us to communicate to all without distinction what is said to them in parables. But there is only a delineation in the memoranda, which have the truth sown sparse and broadcast, that it may escape the notice of those who pick up seeds like jackdaws; but when they find a good husbandman, each of them will germinate and will ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... Where delineation of human character is concerned, the case is different. I am bound to avow that she had scarcely more practical knowledge of the peasantry amongst whom she lived, than a nun has of the country people who sometimes pass her convent gates. My sister's ...
— Charlotte Bronte's Notes on the pseudonyms used • Charlotte Bronte
... women brought imitations of men, women, animals, and birds, carved with labour and ingenuity out of sea-horse teeth. The dresses and the figures of the animals were not badly executed, but there was no attempt at the delineation of the countenances; and most of the figures were without eyes, ears and fingers, the execution of which would perhaps have required more delicate instruments than they possess. The men set most value on saws; kutteeswabak, the name by which they distinguish them, was a constant cry. Knives ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... indeed the only piece of real characterization in the book is the delineation of Abe Mollett. This unscrupulous blackmailer is put before us with real art, with something of the loving preoccupation of the hunter for his quarry. Trollope loved a rogue, and in his long portrait gallery there are several really charming ones. He did not, indeed, ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... propensity to self-delineation, which so strongly pervades his maturer works is, to the full, as predominant in his early productions, there needs no better record of his mode of life, as a school-boy, than what these fondly circumstantial ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... the gentleman who acted as editor, Rev. W.R. Clark—thus rescuing an inimitable little work from comparative oblivion—that the parents of the youthful author reluctantly consented to the publication of this curious delineation of child-life. From the date of his birth (1833), Charlie must have written his work some forty years ago. How long he was engaged in its composition is not stated, but from the internal evidence yielded by ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... prominent, or the characters may be made to stand out above the story. You will also remember we found that the stage—the vaudeville quite as much as the legitimate—is "character-ridden," that is, an actor who has made a pronounced success in the delineation of one character type forever afterward wants another play or playlet "just like the last, but with a different plot," so that he can go right on playing the same old character. This we saw has in some cases ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... to a more definite delineation of the reasons that operated to raise up the conspiracy. There was a partial feud that had long existed in the mutual jealousies between the slaveholders and non-slaveholding population. Nothing very remarkable, however, had transpired to indicate an outbreak. Southern white labor ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... the artist's delineation of her charms on this very page humbug your fancy, take from me her authorized description. She was a nice-looking, awkward, loud, rather bashful, brown-haired girl, with a sallow complexion, bright eyes, and a perpetual smile. She had a wholesome, Spraggins-inherited love for plain food, loose ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... about by the interplay of personal and environmental factors. Educated people are not satisfied with novels that fail to depict real characters. Clinical psychiatry, however, has been content with the dime-novel type of character delineation. This is all the more disappointing, inasmuch as the study of insanity should contribute largely to our knowledge of everyday life. This defect can only be remedied by looking on every case as a problem in which the origin of each symptom is to be studied and its relation traced to all other symptoms ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... proportions of things, is, when joined to a feeling heart, the surest guide to him who would describe natural truth, whether of the souls of men or of material forms. The realists of art may not be so well satisfied with a composition, as with the delineation, line by line, and point by point, of a scene in nature; yet the more comprehensive critic will own that universality will gain by the composition far more than local identity can lose. By his imaginative skill, Church has ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... of the incongruities connected with the relations between spirit and matter, or in any confusion of the Copernican with the Ptolemaic system, as in the constant wrenching of our moral sympathies, which the poet demands for the Powers of Good, but which his own delineation of Satan, as a hero waging a Promethean war against Omnipotence, compels us to give to the Powers of Evil. Perhaps a word or two might have been said about the relations of "Paradise Lost" to other "epics." It manifestly belongs not to the same class of ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... injustice to her mother: this was the cause of an interesting conversation of which her father was the subject, and for which she had long sighed. With what deep, unbroken attention she listened to her companion's enthusiastic delineation of his character and career! What multiplied questions did she not ask him, and how eagerly, how amply, how affectionately he satisfied her just and natural curiosity! Hours flew away while they indulged in ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... Mussulmen,—Mami-de-Yong took a long whiff at his pipe, and, receiving from his servant a small bag of fine sand, spread it smoothly on the floor, leaving the mass about a quarter of an inch in thickness. This was his black-board, designed to serve for the delineation of his journey. On the westernmost margin of his sand, he dotted a point with his finger for the starting at Timbo. As he proceeded with his track over Africa towards the grand capital, he marked the outlines of the ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... causes, but at effects. Let but the individuals act morally, and the system, which Gogol never questioned, would work beautifully. This conception caused Gogol to concentrate his best efforts upon delineation of character. It was the characters that were to be revealed, their actions to be held up to scorn and ridicule, not the conditions which created the characters and made them act as they did. If any lesson at all was to ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... compared her to poor Lady Mabel, and in doing so did arrive at something near the truth in his inward delineation of the two characters. Lady Mabel with all her grace, with all her beauty, with all her talent, was a creature of efforts, or, as it might be called, a manufactured article. She strove to be graceful, to be lovely, to be agreeable and clever. Isabel was all this and infinitely ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... in its habitual and exceptional states without reservation or deliberate purpose. They do not, however, reveal any different image from that which is presented in the autobiography: on the contrary, they confirm the truthfulness and frank fidelity of the more conscious self-delineation which is there attempted. There breathes, indeed, through the whole book a tone of unaffected sincerity, the charm of which cannot be overrated. Not only does every statement bear the stamp of veracity, but there is an utter absence of artifice, of any design, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... Kean's superb delineation of the ruthless Richard in the scene where, in the illusion of his dying agony, swordless, he continues to lunge and feint, may comprehend the frightful mental overturn which prompted Raikes to sink inertly into a chair near the table, and with foam-flecked ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... simplicity of belief of the patriarchs did not exclude the employment of symbolical representations. The mind never rests satisfied with a mere feeling. That feeling ever strives to assume precision and durability as an idea, by some outward delineation of its thought. Even the ideas that are above and beyond the senses, as all ideas of God are, require the aid of the senses for their expression and communication. Hence come the representative forms and symbols which constitute the external investiture of every religion; attempts to express ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... relations of the sexes, and the relations of parents to children. The superstitions, also, from the more important myths down to the charms in common use, should be indicated. Next should come a delineation of the industrial system: showing to what extent the division of labour was carried; how trades were regulated, whether by caste, guilds, or otherwise; what was the connection between employers ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... was presented with scones, kippered salmon, and a gallon of Glenlivet; as to their manners and ancient costume, and was pointed out a short fat man, the head of his clan, who promenaded the streets without trousers. Neither did he find the delineation of their customs more satisfactory. He was made nearly tipsy at a funeral—was shown how to carve haggis—and a fit of bile was the consequence, of his too plentifully partaking of a superabundantly rich currant bun. He mused over these defeats of his object, and, unwilling to relinquish ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... has continued work on its program for the Republic, begun three years ago. Because the vast spread of national and human interests is involved within it, I shall not in this Message attempt its detailed delineation. Instead, from time to time during this Session, there will be submitted to the Congress specific recommendations within specific fields. In the comprehensive survey required for their preparation, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... In the delineation of war scenes Captain King's style is crisp and vigorous, inspiring in the breast of the reader a thrill ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... old, were destined to be reproduced in fiery words a quarter of a century afterwards. She saw but one side of Mr. Wilson's character; and many of those who knew him at that time assure me of the fidelity with which this is represented, while at the same time they regret that the delineation should have obliterated, as it were, nearly all that was noble or conscientious. And that there were grand and fine qualities in Mr. Wilson, I have received abundant evidence. Indeed for several weeks past I have received letters almost daily, bearing on the subject ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Arletta, "your ears did not deceive you, for you certainly heard real music. You see in this picture, an exact portrayal of that which existed over four thousand years ago. This delineation is an almost perfect representation of one of our national bands as they once appeared in life ready to play. The music, of course, is reproduced mechanically, the mechanism being concealed from view behind the scenery. When you placed your hand upon the shoulder of the leader you unconsciously ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... natural scenery, a vivid perception of the peculiarities of national manners, habits, and institutions, will at once be acknowledged to be the first requisites. But, in addition to this, how much is necessary to make a work which shall really stand the test of time, in the delineation of the present countries of the world, and the existing state of their inhabitants? How many branches of knowledge are called for, how many sources of information required, how many enthusiastic pursuits necessary, to enable the traveller worthily to discharge his mission? ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... whole soul. His quiet hours seem to have been often spent in thoughts of him who was now gone to glory. There are some lines remaining in which his poetic mind has most touchingly, and with uncommon vigor, painted him whom he had lost,—lines all the more interesting, because the delineation of character and form which they contain cannot fail to call up to those who knew him the image of the author himself. Some time after his brother's death he had tried to preserve the features of his well-remembered form, by attempting ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar |
