"True to life" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grease with which to paint the decoys black—save where he left spots of the light-coloured wood to represent the white markings of those beautiful birds. When the decoys were eventually anchored in the bay they bobbed about on the rippling water quite true to life and they even took an occasional dive, when ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... Sevier nor Bonaventure are there the buoyancy, vital interest, and unity of impression of The Grandissimes, which is one of the artistic products of American novelists. Cable may not have rendered the Creole character exactly true to life; but he has in a measure done for these high-spirited, emotional, brave people what Irving did for the Knickerbockers of New York and what Hawthorne did ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... danger, and its pain, war has been a great excitement and joy to men. Tennyson is doubtless true to life in making Ulysses exclaim "All times I have enjoyed Greatly, have suffered greatly. . . And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, As ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... him by the lapel, "would you have accepted 'The Alarum of the Soul' if you had believed that the actions and words of the characters were true to life in the parts of the story that ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... displayed so completely as in "La Peau de Chagrin," which we render as "The Magic Skin." Published in 1831, it is the earliest in date of his veritable masterpieces, and the finest in conception. There is no novel more soberly true to life than this strange fairy tale. His hero, the Marquis de Valentin, is a young aristocrat of the Byronic type. He rejects the simple joys and stern realities of human existence; he wants more than life can give. He gets what he wants. He obtains a magic skin which enables him ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... for believing one of their own number was the author was based on the conversations in the Scenes from Clerical Life. Not only were they true to life, but they were conversations that had actually taken place. How did George Eliot hear them? Had she loitered in the public room of the village tavern? Mr. C.S. Olcott writes in the Outlook,—"The real conversations which were so cleverly ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... covered in the grain, Smoothing with harrows what the plough had ridged. With ever fresher joy he hailed the fields, Returning still with larger powers of sight: Each time he knew them better than before, And yet their sweetest aspect was the old. His labour kept him true to life and fact, Casting out worldly judgments, false desires, And vain distinctions. Ever, at his toil, New thoughts arose; which, when still night awoke, He ever sought, like stars, with instruments; By science, or by wise philosophy, Bridging ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... fairy stories, absurdities in them soon become tiresome. Ordinarily they read merely for the excitement in the tale, for the effect it has upon their naturally vivid imaginations. If they are led to think, to analyze, their intelligence will quickly call for something more substantial, more nearly true to life. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... may be true to life, though it is evidently prompted by anxiety to excuse his violence on the ground of his insanity. On this ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... not a cheerful view altogether of the retrospective; but a sketch true to life, as life was there. It was not all like that. A good ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... unusual, the improbable, the highly colored in Charlotte Bronte's books we shall say little. In criticizing works so true to life and nature as these, one should not be hasty. We feel the presence of a seer. Some one once made an objection in Charlotte Bronte's presence to that part of 'Jane Eyre' in which she hears Rochester's voice ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Alexander's horse Bucephalos so true to life that some mares came up to the canvas neighing, under the supposition that it was a real ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... True to life, our author furnishes the "great man," and the "odd habits," and the miserable years of "glorious" endurance. "Dorothea looked deep into the ungauged reservoir of Mr. Casaubon's mind, seeing reflected there every quality she herself brought." They exchanged ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... in her hearing about books with another gentleman who was staying in the house, and in the course of it he happened to praise "Roderick Random" and "Tom Jones" eloquently. He said they were superior in their own line to anything which the present day has produced. "They are true to life in every particular," he maintained, "and not only to the life of those times, but of all time. In fact, you feel as you read that it is not fiction, but human nature itself that you are studying; and there is an education in ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... great power in a sculptor. No model could constantly repeat this action, and if he could there is but a flash of time in which the artist sees just the position he reproduces. This figure, however, is so true to life that one feels like keeping out of the range of the quoit when it flies (Fig. 22). There are several other existing works attributed to Myron: they are a marble copy of his statue of Marsyas, in the Lateran at Rome; two ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... and shameful things she sees. And yet, in spite of all, she comes back to Leone Leoni, and cannot love any one else. Her love is stronger than she is, and her passion sweeps away all scruples and triumphs over all scruples. The difference between the novel of the eighteenth century, which was so true to life, and this lyrical fantasy of the nineteenth century is very evident. Manon and Des Grieux always remained united to each other, for they were of equal value. Everything took place in the lower depths of society, and in the mire, as it were, of the heart. You have only to make ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... printing process had been finished, my brother placed the pictures in a chemical bath, as usual, finally washing them in clean water. This caused Her Majesty even more surprise when she saw how clear the pictures came out, and caused her to exclaim: "How extraordinary. Everything is quite true to life." When they were finally completed, she took the whole of them to her own room and sat down on her little throne, and gazed at them for a long time. She even took her mirror in order to compare her reflection with the photographs ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... outcome, not of one "thing seen," but of reiterated observation of the same thing in identical or closely similar guise. The results in either case vary as the method employed. Mrs. Gamp, the outcome of a single observation, is a type certainly, but exaggerated and "founded on fact" rather than true to life. "The Suburbanite" (see p. 24), though an equally imaginary portrait, is the real thing—the absolute personification of a type ...
— Frank Reynolds, R.I. • A.E. Johnson
... spirit, which rendered the public dissatisfied with fanciful pictures of past ages and with the impossibilities of wild romance. Realism, as the word indicates, adheres to reality. Discarding what is idealistic or unreal in characters and situations, it aims at being true to life. All the great novelists of this period—Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot—were in the best sense of the ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... for assuming that the first record was worn and old, the last one, fresh and new; but after examining both tapes under a glass, and seeing how equally clear cut and sharp the impressions all were, they agreed that the extraordinary voice they had heard was practically true to life. ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... book lies in the fact that she is so true to life that we tire of the goodness and beauty, and long for a rogue to keep us company and break the pall of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... sea to marry. "Miss Muffet," bowl in hand, ran away from an immense black spider, which waggled its long legs in a way so life-like that some of the children shook in their little shoes. The beggars who came to town were out in full force, "rags, tags, and velvet gowns," quite true to life. "Boy Blue" rubbed his eyes, with hay sticking in his hair, and tooted on a tin horn as if bound to get the cows out of the corn. Molly, with a long-handled frying-pan, made a capital "Queen," in a tucked-up gown, checked apron, and high crown, to good "King Arthur," who, very properly, did not ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... To the right the barber stands with his fire-bowl hanging from a chain; this is to light the funeral pyre. The smoke interfered with the photo, but then it is true to life. To the left stands the man with the shell ready to blow. At the back, with the sacred ashes rubbed on forehead and breast and arms, stand the two nearest relatives, who to-morrow will gather the ashes and throw them ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... series of stories is that they are absolutely true to life ... the photographic accuracy and minuteness displayed ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... questions of food, the matter of transport, the manner of the soldier's illness, the hospitals he stayed in, the tsetse fly that bit him by day, the mosquitoes that made his nights a perfect torment, they are the more true to life. For fights are few, and, in this thick bush country, frequently degenerate into blind firing into a blinder bush; but the "jigger" flea is ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... book of ringing Irish ballads that will stir the heart of every lover of true poetry. "Here and there a verse may be as frankly unadorned as the peasant cabins themselves in their homely cloaks of thatch, but every line rings true to life and home and with the tone, as heartmoving as the Angelus which holds Millet's peasants in its spell," from ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... what they see; and since, furthermore, ignorance disposes to exaggeration and thus to untruth, these people ended by asserting that they saw fairies. "Now, my child," continues the parent, "it would grieve me to see you the victim of such folly. Do not read fairy stories. They are not true to life; they fill your mind with idle notions; they cannot form your understanding, or aid you to do your work in the world. If you should happen to fall in with such fables, be careful as you read to bear in mind that they are pure inventions—pretty, sometimes, ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... tones. He does not think of beautiful tones at all. Hatred and jealousy should be expressed in the voice as well as in action and gesture; they are far from lovely in themselves, and to be natural and true to life, they will not make lovely tones in the voice. We want singing actors to-day, men and women who can adequately portray the characters they impersonate through ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... suffering may sometimes be necessary, but wherever a home fulfills this purpose it is overflowing with joy. One of my friends has drawn the following picture which he says is fanciful, but which I think is absolutely true to life: ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... of the present day, presenting in a new light the aims and objects of the Nihilists. The story is so vivid and true to life that it might easily be considered a history of political intrigue in Russia, disguised as a novel, while its startling incidents and strange denouement would only confirm the old adage that "truth is stranger than fiction," ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... to tell you the story of the mistake you made,' she continued, as Trent, his hands clasped between his knees, still looked at her enigmatically. 'You will have to believe it, Mr Trent; it is utterly true to life, with its confusions and hidden things and cross-purposes and perfectly natural mistakes that nobody thinks twice about taking for facts. Please understand that I don't blame you in the least, and never did, for jumping to the conclusion you did. You knew that I was estranged ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... cried Dexter. "I'll talk to them," and, to Helen's horror, he went down on his hands and knees and ran at the drove, imitating the barking of a dog, not very naturally, but sufficiently true to life to make the drove turn tail again and gallop off, their flight being hastened by the flight of Edgar's damaged hat, which Dexter picked up and sent flying after them, and spinning through the air like a black firework till ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... years I have watched the procession of nations on my path. French, German, English, Russian, Austrian, American, Italian—they all brought me a picture of their tribal characteristics, trivial, thumbnail sketches, but nevertheless true to life. It may be urged that holiday-makers do not constitute reliable material for the observation of national peculiarities. I am not so sure. A man on a holiday generally takes his goodwill with him, and ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... real novel, a well-told story in tune with human experience, holding true to life, exercising fancy but keeping it under control, arousing thought as well as feeling, and appealing to our intellect as well as to our imagination. [Footnote: This convenient division of prose fiction into romances and novels is open to challenge. Some critics use the name "novel" ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... a work of art—powerful, convincing and abiding. Powerful, because true to life; convincing, for it has the saving touch of humor; and abiding because love, like "A Heart of Flame," prevails ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... His sailors, his scouts and spies, his good and bad Indians, are as veritable human figures as Squire Western. Long Tom Coffin, Harvey Birch, Hawk-Eye, and Chingachgook are physically and morally true to life itself. Read the Leather-Stocking books in the order of the events described, beginning with "The Deerslayer," then "The Last of the Mohicans," "The Pathfinder," "The Pioneers", and ending with the ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... Then, as usually happens, there came a rupture—a rupture which is sometimes violent, sometimes gentle, but which is never altogether good-natured. Then also, as usual in such cases, each went a separate way—the eternal ending, which is always prosaic, because it is true to life. But the one thing that distinguishes Jean's liaison from the usual affair is the truly admirable character of the ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... of the dissenting chapel is exaggeratedly humble, though if we suppose it to be a Methodist Chapel, it may be true to life, as Methodism was the form of religion which made its appeal to the lowest classes. Indeed, at the time of its first successes, it was the saving grace of England. "But for the moral antiseptic," writes Withrow, "furnished ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... simple, tender and pretty as one would care to read. The action throughout is brisk and pleasing; the characters, it is apparent at once, are as true to life as though the author had known them all personally. Simple in all its situations, the story is worked up in that touching and quaint strain which never grows wearisome, no matter how often the lights and shadows of love ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... philosopher was "the first real American in fiction," an important contribution to the world's literature. In addition, Cooper created the Indian of literature—perhaps a little too noble to be entirely true to life—and various simple, strong seamen. His Chingachgook and Uncas and Long Tom Coffin justly brought him added fame. In these narrative gifts, as well as in the robustness of his own character, Cooper was not unlike Sir Walter Scott. He once modestly referred to himself as "a ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... fop with his dogs and their dwarf keeper. Far beyond stretch the lagoons; the sea and air of Venice clear and fresh. What is noticeable even now in an Italian crowd, the absence of women, was then most true to life, for except on special occasions they were not seen in the streets, but were kept in almost Oriental seclusion. The dismissal of the ambassadors affords the opportunity for drawing an interior with the ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... portrait of a witch, taken from Otway's Orphan, Act. II., is given in No. 117 of the Spectator. It is so true to life and apposite to our subject that I will ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... years my friend, Professor E. H. Palmer, translated this into Arabic, and promised me that it should be sung in the East. It is not much of a poem, even for a boy, but there is one touch true to life in it—which is the cursing. This must have come to me by revelation; and in after years in Cairo I never heard a native address another as "Afrit! Ya-hinzeer—wa Yahud—yin uldeen ak?"—"curse your religion!"—but I thought how marvellous ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... be popular with our boys, for the reason that they are thoroughly up-to-date and true to life. As a writer of outdoor tales ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... 399 disgusted Plato; democracy apparently was as intolerant as any other form of political creed. His writings are in a sense a vindication of the honesty of his master, although the picture he draws of him is not so true to life as that of Xenophon. The dialogues fall into two well-marked classes; in the earlier the method and inspiration is definitely Socratic, but in the later Socrates is a mere peg on which Plato hung his own system. In itself the dialogue form was no new thing; Plato adopted it and made ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... mimicry, and the faces of the listeners reflect all the emotions of the speaker. The numerous scenes, therefore, wherein a group of listeners follow with keenest interest a tale that is told, are eminently true to life. The supreme merit of Mireio lies in this power of narration that its author possesses. It is all action from beginning to end, and even the digressions and episodes, which occasionally arrest the flow of the narrative, are in themselves admirable pieces of narrative. Most critics ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... poor man fishing in St. James's Park and not catching any fish. And this really was uncommonly good and true to life—with wonderful artistic details, that ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... has happened—that is, to fact; while the poet relates what should happen—what is possible according to the law of probability or necessity. Instead of rehearsing facts, the dramatist or the epic poet creates truth. We expect him to be "true to life," and that is what is implied in Aristotle's "imitation of nature."[21] This truth to life controls, according to Aristotle, both the characterization and the action. ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... book, except with a deep spirit of reverence and appreciation not due other books. Parts of the Bible are plainly history, and as accurate as history of other kinds is. Other parts are accounts of the lives of people, and the descriptions are wonderfully vivid and true to life. Other parts are plainly poetry, and should be read and interpreted as poetry. Other parts are clearly the stories and legends current in the days when the accounts were written, and should be read as other stories and legends are read. The great question is not the problem of the ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... medium; but in this essay I am more concerned to trace the meaning of Mr Wells' books than to criticise or praise the detail. With regard to the latter, the reader may always feel so perfectly safe. He need have no doubt that description of action, of mood, or of place will be vivid and convincing, true to life and essential to the story. I do not pass this detail by because I have found it better done in other contemporary writers; I have not; but because I find a pregnancy and a growing force behind these minutiae that is strangely lacking from any other ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... The popular thought that a parable necessarily rests on a fictitious incident is incorrect; for, inasmuch as the story or circumstance of the parable must be simple and indeed common-place, it may be real. There is no fiction in the parables we have thus far studied; the fundamental stories are true to life and the given circumstances are facts of experience. The narrative or incident upon which a parable is constructed may be an actual occurrence or fiction; but, if fictitious, the story must be consistent and probable, with no admixture of the unusual or miraculous. In this respect the parable ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... very much indeed, and I'll place it near my favorite chimney corner, where I can see you all winter. Mr. Van Berg, I congratulate you; I'm not much of a judge of art, but this is my little friend here, true to life. You have been very happy in catching the expression which I am learning ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... very nature of things that the original mind cannot conform to models; it has its norm within itself; it can work only in its own way, and by its self-given laws. Criticism does not inquire whether a work is true to life, but tacitly or explicitly compares it with models, and tests it by them. If literary art travelled by any such road as criticism would have it go, it would travel in a vicious circle, and would arrive only at the point of departure. Yet this is the course that criticism must always prescribe ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of the present day, and its scene is San Francisco, the author's home. It deals with art, with journalism, and with human nature, and its love episodes are charming and true to life. The three women characters of the book are finely drawn and contrasted, there is much local color in the story, and a great deal of bright and epigrammatic writing. The author's previous book, "In the Country God Forgot," has been received with the utmost favor. The Boston ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... Browning has in high degree. With the poet's insight into character and motives, the poet's grasp of the essential laws of human life, the poet's vividness of imagination, he has portrayed a host of types distinct from each other, true to life, strongly marked and consistent. With fine dramatic instinct he has shown these characters in true relation to the facts of life and to each other. In this respect he has satisfied the most exigent demands of art, and has already ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... symbolical!" Of the first kind of portrait one may say that it brings the man before you; of the latter you may say that the artist has striven to paint the soul rather than the body. Well, I think it is fair to call Jane Eyre symbolical. Some of the people depicted are very true to life. The old, comfortable, good-humoured housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax; Bessie the nursemaid; Adele, the little French girl, Mr. Rochester's ward; the two Rivers sisters—they are admirable portraits. But Mr. Rochester, the haughty Baroness Ingram of Ingram Park, Miss Ingram, who says to ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... [FN148] Another instance, and true to life, of the democracy of despotism in which the express and combined will of the people is the only absolute law. Hence Russian autocracy is forced into repeated wars for the possession of Constantinople which, in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... is well in so serious a matter not to confuse things. This new religion may borrow from Christianity as it may borrow from Plato, or from Buddhism, or Confucianism, or even Islam. But it is not Christianity. Robert Elsmere may be true to life, as representing one of those tragedies which happen in critical moments of history. But a Christianity which tells us to think of Christ doing good, but to forget and put out of sight Christ risen from the dead, is not true to life. It is as delusive to the conscience and the soul ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... and the sense of truth has inspired his pen in many passages with wonderful power. The terrible sufferings of an almost white man and slave as here portrayed, his revenge and punishment at the stake, are as moving as they are manifestly true to life. We commend this little pamphlet-poem to every friend of freedom, and sincerely trust that it will attain the large circulation which ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... known personally many patient Jewish ploughmen, many laborious Jewish blacksmiths, many active Jewish hedgers and ditchers, or even many energetic Jewish hunters and fishermen. In short, the popular impression is tolerably true to life, as popular impressions very often are; though it is not fashionable to say so in these days of democracy and self-determination. Jews do not generally work on the land, or in any of the handicrafts that are akin to the land; but the Zionists reply that this is because it can never really ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... all are virtuous persons in that story, even extraordinarily virtuous. But do you think them really true to life? Are there many like them? It is true that while reading, one accepts them because of the cleverness ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... that are mounted true to life in form and expression may go far to beautify many dining rooms, dens, and hallways, enhancing the artistic tone of the rooms in which ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... times upon my own countenance. The moment Harley appeared upon the scene I chose to have Marguerite hastily clasp the book in her hands, raise it to her lips, and kiss the picture—and it must have been intensely true to life, for she did it without a moment's hesitation, almost anticipating my convenience, throwing an amount of passion into the act which made my pen fairly hiss as I dipped it into the ink. Of course Harley could not fail to see it—I had taken care to arrange all that—and equally ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... SWINNERTON'S Nocturne (SECKER). I don't quite know (and I don't see how the author can quite know) whether his portraits of pretty self-willed Jenny and plain love-hungry Emmy, the daughters of the superannuated iron-moulder, are true to life, but they are extraordinarily plausible. Not a word or a mood or a move in the inter-play of five characters in four hours of a single night, the two girls and "Pa," and Alf and Keith, the sailor and almost gentleman who was Jenny's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... a faithful old black mammy, true to life and traditions, and refused her freedom, at the close of the war, as wanted to stay and raise "Old Massa's chilluns," which she did, for she was nursing her sixth generation in the Waddell family at the time of her death. Even to that generation there was a ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... free to leave them out, of course, but in so far as he does, so far is he from producing an effect of reality. The eye does not see everything, but all the eye would naturally see along with the principal objects, must be painted, or the picture will not look true to life. This incorporation of small episodes running parallel with the subject rather than forming part of it, is one of the chief characteristics of modern as distinguished from ancient art. It is this ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson
... Davis. It grips the attention of the reader in the first chapter and holds it till the last.... It is a story of strenuous life, the spirit of which might well be applied in some of our modern Crusades. While true to life in its local coloring, it is sweet and pure, and leaves no after-taste of bitterness. The author's first book, 'A Friend of Caesar,' revealed his power, and 'God Wills It' confirms and deepens the ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... company. A very subordinate personage in Lord Jim as far back as the year 1899, he became notably active in a certain short story of mine published in 1902. Here he appears in a still larger part, true to life (I hope), but also true to himself. Only, in this instance, his deeper passions come into play, and thus his grotesque psychology is ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... reached this haven was a question, since it was the only book in the house except a Big Creek bible, as the catalogue of a mail-order house is called in that country. Beaudry resented the frank, insolent observations of Dickens on the manners of Americans. In the first place, the types were not true to life. In the second place— ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... sight, in some regards not unlike industrial parades in our own country. At night we saw something totally unique and difficult to describe to those who have not witnessed the same in China. Men bore aloft great dragons and fishes innumerable, of all sizes and shapes, (but very true to life), given a natural color and lighted up within, like Chinese lanterns. These were held aloft on the ends of long poles, and as the men who carried them were invisible, because of the darkness, and trod noiselessly because of bare, or merely ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... elephants, serial fairy stories, and the rest were all worth studying; but I think the chefs-d'oeuvre of the two artistic centres were a peacock and a multi-coloured dragon. The bird stood before a temple (on the mid forearm), serenely conscious of its own perfection. Every feather on its body was true to life, every spot on its tail a microscopic wonder. The beast (or the creeping thing, if you so prefer to name it) twined round one of his lower limbs, leaving the dent of its claws in the flesh, and resting its squat, outstretched ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... "Even if they are true to life," he said, "I don't see why it's necessary to drag in unpleasant subjects. I tell you a fella gets too much of bad things in this world without reading about 'em in books. Trouble with all these 'realists' as you call 'em, ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... the drama permits himself for one moment not to be absurd, he at once hastens back to his prescribed style, his melodious roulades and grupetti, his trills and contemptible frivolities, either for voice or orchestra; and these, succeeding so abruptly to something true to life, have an unreal effect, and give the opera seria all the appearance of a ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... and not one has the lineaments of utter baseness. To Cristoforo Solari's statues of Lodovico Sforza and his wife, Beatrice d'Este, the palm of excellence in art and of historical interest must be awarded. Sculpture has rarely been more dignified and true to life than here. The woman with her short clustering curls, the man with his strong face, are resting after that long fever which brought woe to Italy, to Europe a new age, and to the boasted minion of fortune a slow death in the prison palace of Loches. Attired in ducal robes, they lie in state; ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... touching story. I know every detail of it, and yet whenever I come across the volume the same sympathy always draws me to it; I open it, and for the hundredth time I live over again with the heroine of the Abbe Prevost. Now this heroine is so true to life that I feel as if I had known her; and thus the sort of comparison between her and Marguerite gave me an unusual inclination to read it, and my indulgence passed into pity, almost into a kind of love for the poor girl to whom ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils |
