"Delineate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... combined every shade of affection which our powers of analysis can discern, and which modern society has created; one of the most remarkable men of our age, whose death is a recent loss to the world of letters, Beyle (Stendhal), was the first to delineate ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... of the greatest works of art in this age were paintings of Death and Hell, Heaven and Judgment. Orcagna, in the Strozzi Chapel of S. Maria Novella, set forth these scenes with a wonderful blending of beauty and grotesque invention. In the treatment of the Inferno he strove to delineate the whole geography of Dante's first cantica, tracing the successive circles and introducing the various episodes commemorated by the poet. Interesting as this work may be for the illustration of the "Divine Comedy" as understood by Dante's immediate ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... of colonial life; in which the advantages possessed by many emancipists, the splendour of their equipage, and the luxurious profligacy of their lives, were exhibited as the larger prizes of a fruitful lottery. Among these works, the most popular, that of Cunningham, professed to delineate the sentiments of the prisoners, from which it might be inferred that few conditions of human life offered so many chances ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... been the more anxious to delineate fully the person and habits of Wouter Van Twiller, from the consideration that he was not only the first but also the best Governor that ever presided over this ancient and respectable province; and so tranquil and benevolent was ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... terror, the discomfited caricaturist stood shivering at his column, while his tormentor made unmercifully merry with him; twitting him with his amorous overtures, mocking his stammered prayers, and irreverently suggesting an appeal for aid to the beauty he so loved to delineate. The penitent wretch at last took the advice thus jeeringly given—when lo! the Virgin descended, radiant in heavenly loveliness, loosened his cords, and bade him bind the Evil One to the column ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... hieroglyphic, anaglyph [obs3],kanji[Jap]; diagram, monogram. map, plan, chart, ground plan, projection, elevation (plan) 626. ichnography[obs3], cartography; atlas; outline, scheme; view &c. (painting) 556; radiograph, scotograph[obs3], sciagraph[obs3]; spectrogram, heliogram[obs3]. V. represent, delineate; depict, depicture[obs3]; portray; take a likeness, catch a likeness &c. n.; hit off, photograph, daguerreotype; snapshot; figure, shadow forth, shadow out; adumbrate; body forth; describe &c. 594; trace, copy; mold. dress up; illustrate, symbolize. paint &c. 556; carve ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... nearest was twenty or thirty miles from us, to be tinged with a red colour, which, contrasted with the snow on their summits and the deep azure sky above, against which their huge forms appeared to lean, produced a scene as difficult to delineate as it was sublime ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... confusion in my brain, which refuses to delineate distinctly succeeding events. Sometimes the irradiation of my friend's gentle smile comes before me; and methinks its light spans and fills eternity—then, again, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... also to whom it affords exquisite delight, and who, indeed, prefer it to any other of my poems. This proves that the feelings there delineated are such as men may sympathise with. This is enough for my purpose. It is not enough for me as a Poet, to delineate merely such feelings as all men do sympathise with; but it is also highly desirable to add to these others, such as all men may sympathise with, and such as there is reason to believe they would be better and more moral beings if ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... addressed for two hours by Bryant, with all his cool, judicious, deliberate criticism, warmed into glowing appreciation of the most delicate and peculiar beauties of the character and literary services he was to delineate,—and this rich banquet fittingly desserted by the periods of Everett,—such an evening was worthy of the subject, and worthy to be remembered. The heartiness and the genial insight into Irving's best traits which the poet displayed were peculiarly gratifying to the nearer friends ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... country, with the assistance of a common carpenter and plasterer, a large globe of lath and plaster may be made for the instruction and entertainment of a numerous family of children. Upon this they should leisurely delineate from time to time, by their given latitudes and longitudes, such places as they become acquainted with in reading or conversation. The capital city, for instance, of the different countries of Europe, the rivers, and the neighbouring towns, until at ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... Forbes, "before reading my chapter I'll read you the letter. And then remember that our story is to be built up solely upon this document. There are to be no characters in the story except those mentioned in the letter, and our task must be to delineate them in such a way that they are in keeping with the suggestions the letter gives us. Here ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... this not merely by producing a pleasing variety of tints, but by a peculiar kind of beauty which belongs to each individual part. Thus it is to the solidity and arrangement of the bones that the human figure owes the grandeur of its stature, and its firm and dignified deportment. The muscles delineate the form, and stamp it with energy and grace; and the soft substance which is spread over them smooths their ruggedness, and gives to the contours the gentle undulations of the line of beauty. Every organ of sense is a peculiar and separate ornament; and the skin, which ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... you magnificent superb garrulity mos peen to der strange-alien-isolate in dot platty dilemma mit Schloss unt minezelluf, invaluable unt moch velcome. Dot gootdefine kevartz reef, by instance, vich you loquacious-delineate, mit der visible golt destitute-by tam! he schall mine eyes from der skleep fly-away mit der enchantment-glitter! Ach Gott! Nefer py vhite man vitness, you schall say, pefore fife unt seex yare pass-gone, unt by pushmen diminutive nomber unt platty few altogedder. Bot ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... from day to day all that I should do and see, and that should happen, as will be seen further on. Also, Lords Princes, I resolved to describe each night what passed in the day, and to note each day how I navigated at night. I propose to construct a new chart for navigating, on which I shall delineate all the sea and lands of the Ocean in their proper positions under their bearings; and further, I propose to prepare a book, and to put down all as it were in a picture, by latitude from the equator, and ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... require the pen of a Tacitus to delineate with accuracy the character of such a man, who, to use the words of the lamented Moreau, "had covered the French name with such shame and disgrace, that it would be almost a disgrace to bear it; and ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... poetically, not only in Paul and Virginia, but in Chaumiere Indienne and Etudes de la Nature. The science which these two writers lacked, Buffon possessed in a high degree; but he had not the power to delineate Nature and feeling in combination: he lacked insight into the hidden analogies between the movements of the mind and the phenomena of the outer world. Chateaubriand, on the contrary, had this faculty to its ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... now accepted and those still rejected, attend, or are said to attend, persons of singular physical constitution. It is not for nothing that Iamblichus, describing the constitution of his diviner, or seer, and the phenomena which he displays, should exactly delineate such a man as St. Joseph of Cupertino, with his miracles as recounted in the Acta Sanctorum {9} (1603-1663). Now certain scientific, and (as a layman might suppose), qualified persons, aver that they have seen and even tested, in modern instances, the phenomena ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... to Sir William Herschel, more than to any other astronomer, for our knowledge of the stellar universe. It was he who ascertained the vastness of its dimensions, and attempted to delineate its structural configuration. He also explored the star depths, which occupy the infinitude of space by which we are surrounded, and made many wonderful discoveries, which testify to his ability as an observer, and to his greatness ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... elucidation and commentary on a dark text, soon showed itself in the schools of the prophets. Many of them, trusting to their own ingenuity rather than to the suggestion of the Spirit of Truth, ventured to foretel the issue of events, and to delineate the future fortunes of nations, as well as of individuals. Hence the race of false prophets, who brought so much obloquy upon the whole order, and not unfrequently barred against the approach of godly admonition the ears of those who were actually addressed by an inspired messenger. Nay, ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... continuous human experience. The consciousness of moral failure is terrible and universal. This consciousness requires neither definition nor illustration. Experience is a sufficient witness. Who has been able exhaustively to delineate the soul's humiliation? AEschylus and Sophocles, Shakespeare and Goethe, Shelley, Tennyson, and Browning have but skimmed the surface of the great tragedy of human life. Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, Faust, and Wilhelm Meister, Beatrice Cenci, the ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... in flower all the year round. The finest species is the odontoglossum, having long, chocolate-colored petals, margined with yellow. "Such is their number and variety (wrote Humboldt) that the entire life of a painter would be too short to delineate all the magnificent Orchideae which adorn the recesses of the deep valleys of the Peruvian Andes." For many curious facts respecting the structure of these flowers, see Darwin's ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... Prairie (1826), The Red Rover (1831), The Bravo (1840), The Pathfinder, The Deerslayer (1841), The Two Admirals (1842), and Satanstoe (1845). He also wrote a Naval History of the United States (1839). C. was possessed of remarkable narrative and descriptive powers, and could occasionally delineate character. He had the merit of opening up an entirely new field, and giving expression to the spirit of the New World, but his true range was limited, and he sometimes showed a lack of judgment in choosing subjects with which he was not fitted to deal. He was ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... in his writings. There is neither sentiment nor declamation—painting nor reflection. He is neither descriptive nor didactic. With great powers for portraying nature, as the exquisite choice of his epithets, and the occasional force of his similes prove, he never makes any laboured attempt to delineate her features. He had the eye of a great painter; but his pictorial talents are employed, almost unconsciously, in the fervour of narrating events, or the animation of giving utterance to thoughts. He painted ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... was not a sovereign who materially affected the interests or destiny of England; nor was he one of those interesting characters that historians love to delineate. It is generally admitted that he was respectable, prudent, judicious, and moral; amiable in his temper, sincere in his intercourse, and simple in his habits,—qualities which command respect, but not those which dazzle the people. It is supposed ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... men of genius. I shall ever esteem it one of the great privileges of my life that I was permitted to know him well, and call him friend. These papers are given to the public with the hope that they may be of more than ordinary interest to the intelligent reader, and that they may delineate Landor in more truthful colors than those in which he has heretofore been painted. In repeating conversations, I have endeavored to stand in the background, where I very properly belong. For the inevitable egotism ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... generally is produced than that of diverting our attention from the main business of the piece, and dissipating it on accessory circumstances. And then after all they imperceptibly fall back again into the old well-known character. It is better to delineate the characters at first with a certain breadth, and to leave the actor room to touch them up more accurately, and to add the nicer and more personal traits, according to the requirements of each composition. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... Attempts to delineate local character are always liable to misconstruction; for, the more truthful the sketch, the greater is the number of persons, to whom resemblance may be discovered; and thus, while in fact only describing the characteristics ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... nor at a field so near the front. We sensed the war to better advantage than at Luxeuil or Bar-le-Duc. When there is activity on the lines the rumble of heavy artillery reaches us in a heavy volume of sound. From the field one can see the line of sausage-shaped observation balloons, which delineate the front, and beyond them the high-flying airplanes, darting like swallows in the shrapnel puffs of anti-air-craft fire. The roar of motors that are being tested, is punctuated by the staccato barking of machine guns, and at intervals the hollow whistling ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell
... not sufficient for the artist to choose beautiful scenery, and delineate it with accuracy. He must not be a mere copyist. Something higher and more subtle is required. He must create, or at any rate interpret, as ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... really admired. Hence, notwithstanding his love of the economies of gipsy life, his gipsy women are all mere scenic characters, they clothe and beautify the scene: they are not dramatic characters. When he comes to delineate a heroine, Isopel Bernes, she is physically the very opposite of the Romany chi—a Scandinavian Brynhild, ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... tolling the hour of twelve at night when the lamp was extinguished. The miserable king had ceased to breathe. The ensuing scene no pen can delineate or pencil paint. The courtiers, totally forgetful of French etiquette, rushed down the stairs, crowded into their carriages, and the silence of night was disturbed by the clattering of the horses' hoofs, as they were urged, at their ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... of all these biographical sketches of remarkable men is, that delicacy, discretion, or some other euphemistically named form of hesitancy, induces writers to suppress the incidents which supply the very angles of the form they want to delineate; and it is especially so in Shelley's case. I am sure, that, if Mary, or my father, or any of those with whom Shelley conversed most thoroughly, had related some of the more extravagant incidents of his early life exactly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... is to let the youth thumb and punch and dabble in wet clay, and see what he can make of it; and the way to make a painter is to give the boy now a burnt stick, and at another time a pin and a back of a looking-glass, and see what he can delineate with such materials as these and with all other materials with which a line can be drawn. To look at the world, and what it contains, and to try and render what is suggested to him,—that is the training for the artist, and it has more to do with our beloved study of archaeology than if they ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... soever they may fall short of the truth, they are, I feel, in the absence of any nearer approach to the truth, capable of rendering excellent service. However faintly and hazily the outlines of Deity be shown in them, the Deity whom they so imperfectly delineate is yet one to whom may justly be ascribed glory in the highest, one worthy of all trust, love, and adoration—of an adoration, too, inclusive not ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... pursuits to be convinced how little they are connected with wisdom. Since, to describe the nature of some particular place, the form, situation and magnitude of a certain city; to trace the windings of a river to its source, or delineate the aspect of a pleasant mountain; to calculate the fineness of the silkworm's threads, and arrange the gaudy colours of butterflies; in short, to pursue matter through its infinite divisions, and wander in its dark labyrinths, is the ...
— An Essay on the Beautiful - From the Greek of Plotinus • Plotinus
... Her ability to delineate a growing mind, and a mind at work under the influence of new and rare experiences, is shown in the case of Daniel Deronda. His quiet love of ease as a boy is described as he sits one day watching the falling rain, and meditates on the possibility which ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... literature. The great Realists have never been mere Realists; they have never thought that to produce art it is sufficient merely to reproduce fact. The word "Truth" has been introduced in the most shameless fashion. It is true that there are men without arms and legs and noses, but to delineate such a creature with exquisite accuracy is not to produce a faithful rendering of life. It is true that there are drab, sordid, expressionless lives, without happiness, without hope, without ideals. To describe these lives in all their miserable detail ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... address to Miss Angelina Porter, a daughter of Old Joe Porter, who kept the groggery. This, of course, was very distasteful even to Mr. and Miss Sealy; but language would fail us in any attempt we might make to delineate the utter consternation of the high-toned Mrs. Sealy when she became satisfied that the rumor was founded on fact. She had again and again remonstrated with him, but without effect, as he had treated her remonstrances with good-natured contempt; and when she resorted ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... little paragraphs to describe his visit to Fort-George and his entertainment there by Sir Eyre Coote. I have always admired the Doctor's sly way of avoiding a description of the Fort: "I cannot," he says, "delineate it scientifically, and a loose and popular description is of use only when the imagination is to ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... dexterity with his pencil, and a little time at his disposal (all the better if it be at a somewhat early hour of the morning)" may by this method "deliberately and satisfactorily view, measure, and (if skill suffice) delineate most of those interesting and grand solar phenomena of which he may have read, or which he may have seen depicted, in ...
— Half-hours with the Telescope - Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a - Means of Amusement and Instruction. • Richard A. Proctor
... was begun. She was to read, to study, to depict by a gesture, a look, the passions she was to delineate on the boards; lessons dangerous, in truth, to some, but not to the pure enthusiasm that comes from art; for the mind that rightly conceives art is but a mirror which gives back what is cast on its surface faithfully only—while ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... vehicle in the English tongue, speak for themselves and are winning their own way to renown. The only criticism I venture to make is that some of them are too much inclined to look backward instead of forward, to idealize the far past rather than to illuminate the future, and to delineate the deformities of national character produced by ages of repression, rather than to aid in conjuring into ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... Quarterly Journal of Science. It is one which deserves attention. It was there termed "The Investigation of Residual Phenomena," and I can conceive no better title to express the idea. The investigator who first explores an unknown region is content if he can in some measure delineate its grand features—its rivers, its mountain chains, its plains; if he be a geologist, he attempts no more than broadly to observe its most important rock formations; if a botanist, its more striking forms of vegetation. So with the scientific investigator. The chemist or physicist who discovers ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... holds the axe or the plough, how much more refined on the contrary those of the European, whose mind is improved by education, example, books, and by every acquired advantage! Those feelings, however, I will delineate as well as I can, agreeably to ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... of refined culture, I have found on either side, and be they French or German, I have nearly always found their behaviour correspond to that which I have here tried to delineate. ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... style, that of the short sentences containing that affected liveliness which so excited certain readers that they cannot mention Strauss any more without coupling his name with Lessing's. "I am well aware that what I propose to delineate in the following pages is known to multitudes as well as to myself, to some even much better. A few have already spoken out on the subject. Am I therefore to keep silence? I think not. For do we not all supply each other's deficiencies? If another is better informed ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... TALK ABOUT NOT RESORTING TO FORCE. Every body must look to the introduction of force of some kind or other—and it is in truth a question of expediency; of moral justice; of political good faith—whether we shall fairly delineate our whole system on the face of the bill, or leave the acquisition of extorted consent to other processes. The real question—the only question of magnitude to be settled, is the great preliminary question—Do ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... that the South was a political unit on the question of the attempted revolution. This declaration has been reiterated by the Southern press, by travelers, and by all the influences connected with the rebellion. It is not now necessary to delineate the quasi military organization of the Knights of the Golden Circle, or their operations in cajoling and terrorizing the Southern population into acquiescence. Much unanimity through this process was made to appear on the surface; but it is more palpable ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... fields of which I was writing the other day, I found an artist at work at his easel; and a pleasant nook be had chosen. His brush did its work with a steady and sure stroke that indicated command of his materials. He could delineate whatever he selected with technical skill at all events. He had pitched his easel where two hedges formed an angle, and one of them was full of oak-trees. The hedge was singularly full of "bits"—bryony, tangles ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... not until the spring of 1883 that Will was able to put into execution his long-cherished plan—to present to the public an exhibition which should delineate in throbbing and realistic color, not only the wild life of America, but the actual history of the West, as it was lived for, fought for, died for, by Indians, pioneers, ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... perfet while they stood; how last unfould The secrets of another world, perhaps Not lawful to reveal? yet for thy good 570 This is dispenc't, and what surmounts the reach Of human sense, I shall delineate so, By lik'ning spiritual to corporal forms, As may express them best, though what if Earth Be but the shaddow of Heav'n, and things therein Each to other like, more then on earth is thought? As yet this world was not, and Chaos wilde Reignd where these ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... theologians in the old or the new world. His style is gorgeous and enchanting, and his Rationalistic tendencies so subdued and covert that few would suspect him of sympathy with the Broad Church theology of the last ten years' growth. In his work on Sinai and Palestine he aimed to delineate the outward events of the Old and New Testament in such a way that they should come home with a new power to those who, by long familiarity, had almost ceased to regard them as historical truth; and so to bring out their inward spirit that the more complete realization of their ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... were placed there, there would be a certain resultant force experienced by it dependent upon the distribution of electricity producing the field. When we know the strength and direction of this resultant force, we know all the properties of the field, and we can express them numerically or delineate them graphically, Faraday (Exp. Res., 3122 et seq.) showed how the distribution of the forces in any electric field can be graphically depicted by drawing lines (which he called lines of force) ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... and privilege—they shall be riches and privilege—they shall perceive who the most affluent man is. The most affluent man is he that confronts all the shows he sees by equivalents out of the stronger wealth of himself. The American bard shall delineate no class of persons, nor one or two out of the strata of interests, nor love most nor truth most, nor the soul most, nor the body most—and not be for the Eastern States more than the Western, or the Northern ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... symmetrical figure; that looked as if it only awaited the will of the owner to be the most active piece of human machinery that ever responded to the impulses of youth and health. But then, his face! What pencil could faithfully delineate features at once so comical and lugubrious—features that one moment expressed the most solemn seriousness, and the next, the most grotesque and absurd abandonment to mirth? In him, all extremes appeared to meet; the man was a contradiction to himself. Tom was a ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... has not gained a place on the French stage, it nevertheless possesses some fine passages. Molire wished to create a counterpart of Sganarelle, the type of ridiculous jealousy, and to delineate passionate jealousy, its doubts, fears, perplexities and anxieties, and in this he has succeeded admirably. However noble-minded Don Garcia may be, there rages within his soul a mean passion which tortures and degrades him incessantly. When at last he is banished from the presence ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... energy and enthusiasm shown by Mr. Percival Lowell in founding an observatory in regions where the planets can be studied under the most favorable conditions, they cannot lose sight of the fact that the ablest and most experienced observers are liable to error when they attempt to delineate the features of a body 50,000,000 or 100,000,000 miles away through such a disturbing medium as our atmosphere. Even on such a subject as the canals of Mars doubts may still be felt. That certain ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... Amalthaean goat. By the virtue of Acheron, he justled, bulled, and lastauriated in one day the third part of the world, beasts and people, floods and mountains; that was Europa. For this grand subagitatory achievement the Ammonians caused draw, delineate, and paint him in the figure and shape of a ram ramming, and horned ram. But I know well enough how to shield and preserve myself from that horned champion. He will not, trust me, have to deal in my person with a sottish, dunsical Amphitryon, nor with a silly witless Argus, for all ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... very age and body of the time its form and pressure.] i.e., to delineate exactly the manners of the age, and the particular humours of the day—pressure signifying ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... of the art appeared to be, that both painting and sculpture are wholly unfit for the representation of PASSION, as expressed by motion; and that, to attempt to delineate it, necessarily injures the effect of the composition. Neither, it is clear, can express actual motion: they should not attempt, therefore, to represent those passions of the mind which motion alone is adequate to express. The ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... gentlemen, how wide is the difference between sticks or stones, and double-triggered, loaded rifles cocked at your breast!' The effect of this terrific image, exhibited in this great orator's peerless manner, cannot be described. I dare not attempt to delineate the paroxysm of emotion which it excited in every heart. The result of the whole was, that the prisoner was acquitted; with the perfect approbation, I believe, of the numerous assembly who attended the trial. What was it that gave such ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... The whole moral world had accused the author of high treason. He has no other excuse to offer than the climate under which this piece was born. If any of the numberless censures launched against 'The Robbers' be just, it is this, that I had the presumption to delineate men two years before I knew anything about them." He was but twenty-one when The "Robbers" appeared in print and was produced upon the stage, and while he was hailed on all sides as the German Shakespeare, he lived in ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... am to describe in the last few pages of this volume! The task is far beyond my strength. In the future, some writer may delineate that hideous dream—to do so to-day, in this year 1868, would ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... that writ, alas! was malicious mockery; they were insulted with the form, but denied the reality, for there was one man excepted from their choice. The character of the man, thus fatally excepted, I have no purpose to delineate. Lampoon itself would disdain to speak ill of him of whom no man speaks well. Every lover of liberty stands doubtful of the fate of posterity, because the chief county in England cannot take ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... altogether new, are interesting as determining the range and habitat of the birds, and the zones of vegetation and trees; but it is to be regretted that there was no one in the party having sufficient knowledge of drawing to figure such objects, or to delineate some of the more striking scenes and incidents of the journey. As these can now only be supplied from the graphic descriptions given by the actors in them, the Editor, without drawing too much on ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... rapid, but not turbulent; copious, but not ever over-bearing its Shores. The Ease and Sweetness of his Temper might not a little contribute to his Facility in Writing: as his Employment, as a Player, gave him an Advantage and Habit of fancying himself the very Character he meant to delineate. He used the Helps of his Function in forming himself to create and express that Sublime which other Actors can only copy, and throw out, in Action and graceful Attitude. But Nullum sine Venia placuit Ingenium, says Seneca. The Genius ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... most envied by their fellow-creatures, than in any other of the numerous gradations into which the social scale has been divided. He who reads our present legend with the eyes that we could wish, will find in its moral the illustration of this truth; for, if it is our intention to delineate some of the wrongs that spring from the abuses of the privileged and powerful, we hope equally to show how completely they fall short of their object, by failing to confer that exclusive happiness which is the goal that all struggle ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... knowledge of history will enable him to invest the study of geography with new interest. Acquaintance with algebra will give a clearness to his perceptions, and consequently to his mode of inculcating the principles, of arithmetic. The ability to delineate off-hand with chalk or pencil the forms of objects, gives him an unlimited power of illustrating every subject, and of clothing even the dullest with interest. Familiarity with the principles of rhetoric and with the rules of criticism, gives at once ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... vnderstanding of the great charges and notable enterprise of that worthie Gentleman maister Thomas Sackford, in procuring the Charts of the seuerall prouinces of this realme to be set foorth, we are in hope that in time he will delineate this whole land so perfectlie, as shall be comparable or beyond anie delineation heretofore made of anie other region; and therefore leaue that to his well deserued praise. If any well willer will imitate him in so praiseworthie ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (1 of 12) - William the Conqueror • Raphael Holinshed
... to receive the visits of a celibate whom he suspects of being her lover, and whom she has promised never again to see. Some minor scenes of the domestic interior we leave for matrimonial imaginations to conjure up; a husband can delineate them much better than we can; he will betake himself in thought back to those days when delightful longings invited sincere confidences and when the workings of his policy put into ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... regard the cases in their most general aspect, we see that the labourer, who, on hearing certain notes in the adjacent hedge, can describe the particular form and colours of the bird making them; and the astronomer, who, having calculated a transit of Venus, can delineate the black spot entering on the sun's disc, as it will appear through the telescope, at a specified hour; do essentially the same thing. Each knows that on fulfilling the requisite conditions, he shall have a preconceived impression—that after a definite series of actions ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... hawking has been so frequently and so fully explained, that it would be superfluous, if not arrogant, to trace its progress, or delineate its history, in this place. In the earliest periods it appears to have been exclusively practised by the nobility; and, indeed, the great expense at which the amusement was supported, seems to have been ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... thanks for the pleasure your volumes have given me. In the perusal of them I felt a great inclination to write and say so. And I also, dear Madam, wished to be allowed to ask you to delineate in some future work the habits of life, and character, and enthusiasm of a clergyman, who should pass his time between the metropolis and the country, who should be something ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... beauty, for it will be remembered that she was greatly distressed by the admiration of some of the "rogues" of the place; but incidentally he has a word of high praise for the owner of the garden. "To delineate the particular beauties of these gardens would, indeed," the novelist writes, "require as much pains, and as much paper too, as to rehearse all the good actions of their master, whose life proves the truth of an ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... heart under a most gentle exterior; but when roused, then indeed are we a very dragon; or rather, to keep up our former simile, (which we think a taking one, though, alas! it is not our own,) and delineate, by one expressive phrase, a mouldering, rage kept in check; by the constitutional cowardice on which it is superinduced—then are we a pigeon-hearted hawk, wanting only the courage to be desperately cross! (An impertinent friend, who has been looking over our shoulder, suggests that ourselves, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... Wonota merely played herself. I was successful in fitting my story to her individuality. But she cannot always play the same part. In this story we are about to do on the St. Lawrence, she will be called upon to delineate a character quite different from that of ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... for the sake of saving both labour and expense, he had had his bed removed into it; and though anything but comfortable, a solitary, impoverished, and yet gorgeous appearance pervaded the whole, such as those who delineate interiors, loving small lights and deep shadows, would covet to convey to their canvass. The bed upon which the old man lay was canopied, and of heavy crimson damask. In the dim light of that spacious room, it looked to the worn-out eyes of Sarah Bond more like a hearse than a bed. Near it was ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... wearing of brocade or embroidered silk by ladies not of the highest class; enjoined simplicity in costumes for the no dance, in children's toys, in women's pipes, or tobacco-pouches, and in ladies' hairpins or hairdress; forbade gold lacquer in any form except to delineate family crests; limited the size of dolls; vetoed banquets, musical entertainments, and all idle pleasures except such as were justified by social status, and actually went to the length of ordering women to dress their own hair, dispensing entirely with professional Hairdressers, who ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... upon character, habitually resort to extreme quaintnesses and singularities of circumstance, in order to confer upon their weak portraitures some vigor of outline. It takes a Giotto to draw readily a nearly perfect O; but a nearly perfect triangle any one can draw. Shakspeare is able to delineate a Gentleman,—one, that is, who, while nobly and profoundly a man, is so delicately individualized, that the impression of him, however vigorous and commanding, cannot be harsh: Shakspeare is equal to this task, but even so very ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... Prophecy, if we regard it as an anticipation of History." (Sermons, i. p. 375.) "I think that, with the exception of those prophecies which relate to our LORD, the object of Prophecy is rather to delineate principles and states of opinion which shall come, than external events. I grant that Daniel seems to furnish an exception." (Life and Correspondence, p. 59.) This was written in 1825. In 1840, we are informed:—"The latter chapters of Daniel, if genuine, ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... the floor of Siena Cathedral, as offering to a Jew and a Gentile—nine represents the sun and all beautiful bright things that draw their influence from it, as the gleam of beaten gold, the rustle of silken stuffs, the smell of the flower heliotrope, and all such men as delineate human beings with colours, or make their effigy in stone or metal; moreover, Phoebus Apollo, whom the poets describe as the most beautiful of the gods, as indeed he is represented in all statues ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... that the lower edge may be about five feet from the floor, and cover it with white Italian gauze, varnished with gum-copal. Provide several frames of the same size as the aperture, covered with the same kind of gauze, and delineate upon the gauze different figures, such as landscapes and buildings, analogous to the scenes which you intend to exhibit by means of small figures representing men and animals. These figures are formed of pasteboard, and their ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... This he did repeatedly, until at last, with a groan, he dropped into a chair, where, crossing his arms upon his breast, he remained for awhile lost in thought. Who can say what were the reflections that filled his mind? Was he considering whether the painter meant to delineate insanity, or whether it was not a delusion springing from his own ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... and Women (which it followed after an interval of nine years) is a collection of dramatic monologues, in each of which it is attempted to delineate a single character or a single mood by setting the "imaginary person" in some revealing situation. Of the two possible methods, speech and soliloquy, Browning for the most part prefers the former. In Dramatis Personae, however, he recurs, rather more frequently than usual, to ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... now proceed to delineate an escape wheel for a detached lever. We place a piece of good drawing-paper on our drawing-board and provide ourselves with a very hard (HHH) drawing-pencil and a bottle of liquid India ink. After ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... has not always prevailed. Many centuries ago Leonardo da Vinci, whose insight at so many points anticipated our most modern discoveries, affirmed clearly and repeatedly the charm of parity. After remarking that painters tend to delineate the figures that resemble themselves he adds that men also fall in love with and marry those who resemble themselves; "chi s'innamora voluntieri s'innamorano de cose a loro simiglianti," he elsewhere puts it.[171] But from that day to this, it would seem Leonardo's statements ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... failings and difficulties have attended men in estimating the character of individuals, so they seem to have attended those who have attempted to delineate that of the society of the Quakers. Indeed, if we were to take a view of the different traits which have been assigned to the latter, we could not but conclude, that there must have been some mistake concerning them. We should have occasion to ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... are in uniting conjunction, you may both remain to formulate ideas and to delineate. You are no doubt desirous of the full enfranchisement of the human race. You seem just and liberal, as read by these various lights, amid contentions, yet with ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... two nuns belonging to the Order of St. Charles, and I wish I could delineate the hideousness of their costumes, and the unmitigated ugliness of their general appearance. Their dress consisted of a plain black gown with round cape and close fitting hood, on each side of which projected black gauze flaps extended on wires, shading their withered, ill-favoured countenances, ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... sublime than the denunciation of these great enemies by Ezekiel; and the well-known statement in the Apocalypse fastened the Hebrew feeling regarding them with a new meaning into the mind of the early Church: hence it was that the medieval map-makers took great pains to delineate these monsters and their habitations on the maps. For centuries no map was considered orthodox which did ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... admirably seconded by the sedulous diligence of Mr. Anderson, who omitted no opportunity of collecting every kind and degree of information. I shall only so far trespass on the patience of my readers, as to mention a few circumstances tending to delineate the character of the natives. They seemed to be a people perfectly satisfied with the little they already possess; nor are they remarkably curious either in their observations or their inquiries. New objects are so far from striking them with such a degree ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... shoulders and well-expanded bust, and closely girt about at the waist by a neatly-knotted Indian belt, while the flowing folds below streamed gracefully aside in the wind, he displayed one of those compact, shapely figures, which the old Grecian sculptors so delighted to delineate. And in addition to these advantages of figure, he possessed an extremely fine set of features, which were shown off effectively by the profusion of short, jetty locks, that curled naturally around his white temples ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... laughs and tells her publisher that at all events his share of the offering is appreciated, whatever hers may be! We are also favoured with some valuable suggestions from Mr. Clarke, the Royal librarian, respecting a very remarkable clergyman. He is anxious that Miss Austen should delineate one who 'should pass his time between the metropolis and the country, something like Beattie's minstrel, entirely engaged in literature, and no man's enemy but his own.' Failing to impress this character upon the authoress, ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... couldn't. How full is life of these missed opportunities! ("You're leaving out his nose, Guv'nor!" from a Blazer, and giggles from idiotic girls in front.) I feel very forlorn and friendless up here. Professor has finished measuring, and is preparing to "delineate" me. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various
... side of music which I am convinced has never been fully studied, namely, the relation between it and declamation. As we know, music is a language which may delineate actual occurrences by means of onomatopoetic sounds. By the use of more or less suggestive sounds, it may bring before our minds a quasi-visual image of things which we more or ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... said "picturesque." This word does not satisfy me, nor can I think of one that will delineate my idea. I must make use of a phrase, "picturesquely beautiful," to express my admiration of the scenery of those shores. I have no hesitation in pronouncing it the finest in ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... able to preserve, when the prosecution of a design requires it, an immovable heart amidst even the most imperious causes of subduing emotion, is perhaps not an impossible constitution of mind, but it is the utmost and rarest endowment of humanity."[30] Such a character, almost as difficult to delineate in fiction as to find in real life, has Shakspeare given us in Helena; touched with the most soul-subduing pathos, and developed with ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... the light of the true religion), yet very superior to it in point of material well-being. Not a race of cannibals, as the credulous Diodorus Siculus, on the strength of some vague tradition, was pleased to delineate; but a people acquainted with the use of the precious metals, with the manufacture of fine tissues, fond of music and of song, enjoying its literature and its books; often disturbed, it is true, by feuds and contentions, but, on the whole, ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... the most effective, as it is the most valuable, mode of conveying knowledge of this nature, he would have made a far better book. But in commencing to describe scenes, and perhaps he may add characters, that were so familiar to his own youth, there was a constant temptation to delineate that which he had known, rather than that which he might have imagined. This rigid adhesion to truth, an indispensable requisite in history and travels, destroys the charm of fiction; for all that is necessary to be conveyed ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... landscapes and figures. He was a sober, diligent, and ingenious young man, and greatly regretted by Mr Banks; who hoped, by his means, to have gratified his friends in England with representations of this country and its inhabitants, which no other person on board could delineate with the same accuracy and elegance. He had always been subject to epileptic fits, one of which seized him on the mountains of Terra del Fuego, and this disorder being aggravated by a bilious complaint which he contracted ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... excuse nor delay—a piece of undignified conduct which would bitterly have scandalised Lady Foljambe, could she have seen it. By the time that Kate returned with the articles prescribed, Agatha had possessed herself of a lighted candle, wherein she burnt the end of the cork, and with it proceeded to delineate, in the middle of the sheet, a very clever sketch of a ferocious Turk, with moustaches of stupendous length. Then elevating the long mop till it reached about a yard above her head, she instructed Kate to arrange the sheet thereon in such a manner that the ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... this journalistic project bearing date, August, 1830, declares in its opening sentence its "primary object" to be "the abolition of slavery, and the moral and intellectual elevation of our colored population." "I shall spare no efforts," he pledged himself, "to delineate the withering influence of slavery upon our national prosperity and happiness, its awful impiety, its rapid extension, and its inevitable consequences if it be suffered to exist without hindrance. It will also be ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... in their nature, so freely applicable to all times and places, that the artist may be allowed to delineate any people, anywhere, at any time. Nursery rhymes, so often alluded to, lend themselves to an endless variety of imaginary people and places. The old woman might be living still in her shoe and whipping her children soundly, in a twentieth-century wrapper, or clothed in skins she might send ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... burned beneath it seemed to her eager sight to crown that fair head with a bishop's mitre—a cardinal's hat—aye, at times she even saw the triple crown of the Vicar of Christ resting upon those raven locks. Jose knew this. If her own pen did not always correctly delineate her towering hopes, his astute uncle did not fail to fill in whatever hiatus remained. And the pressure of filial devotion and pride of race at times completely smothered within him the voice of Truth which Carmen continually sounded, and ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... in the annals of American history. We do not give his history to show how he struggled through privations, overcoming all obstacles, until victory at last crowned his efforts, as so many of our great men have been obliged to do, but we do delineate his achievements to illustrate what hard work will do, provided a man has ability to develop. Yes, to show what hard work will do. But some will say, 'Well, that does sound well, but I guess if Edward Everett had been an ordinary man no amount of hard work would have made him the Edward ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... gentlemen, do you stare? Well, I allow there are not so many languages spoken in this vile world; but then, have I not been in the moon? and trust me, whenever I write a treatise upon education, I shall delineate methods of inculcating whole dozens of languages at once, French, Spanish, Greek, Hebrew, Cherokee, &c., in such a style as will shame all the ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... may be said that the aristocratic element is favorable to poetry. When the universe is peopled with supernatural creatures, not palpable to the senses but discovered by the mind, the imagination ranges freely, and poets, finding a thousand subjects to delineate, also find a countless audience to take an interest in their productions. In democratic ages it sometimes happens, on the contrary, that men are as much afloat in matters of belief as they are in their laws. Scepticism then draws the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... to narrate them that their characteristic elements shall be shown; to give such an account of the general career as may make it clear what these chosen events really were,—to show their respective bearings to one another; to delineate what is expressive in such a manner ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... said Tom, "by a call on Merrywell after six weeks residence among the gay blades that inhabit the walls of the King's Bench, have all the benefit of his previous observation. He will be able to delineate the characters, consciences, and conduct of his neighbours. He will describe all the comforts and advantages of a college life, introduce us to the Bloods and the Blacks, and, in short, there are few persons I know, except Sparkle himself, more able to conduct us through ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... the true, living image of a waterfall on canvas—the movement is wanting; how can one describe it in words, delineate this majestic grandeur, brilliancy of colour, and arrowy flight? One cannot do it; one may however attempt it; get together, by little and little, with words, an outline of that mirrored image which our eye gave us, and which ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... observations on atmospherical electricity, and was attending a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, when the sound of distant thunder caught his ear. He immediately hastened home, taking with him his engraver, Sokolow, in order that he might delineate the appearances that should present themselves. While intent upon examining the electrometer, a large globe of fire flashed from the conducting rod, which was insulated, to the head of Richman, and passing through his body, instantly deprived ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... invention in Lowell, that, unlike Longfellow and Holmes, he never tried his hand at a novel. One of the most important parts of a novelist's equipment he certainly possesses; namely, an insight into character, and an ability to delineate it. This gift is seen especially in his sketch of Parson Wilbur, who edited the Biglow Papers with a delightfully pedantic introduction, glossary, and notes; in the prose essay On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners, and in the uncompleted poem, Fitz-Adam's ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... imagination, was the climax of his tales, the furthest reach of his romantic allegorizing moral art in creation; but he now undertook to utilize his experience and observation in the attempt to delineate life in its commoner and more realistic aspects of character and scene. He began "The House of the Seven Gables" in September and finished it early in January. He wrote regularly, but the story went on more slowly than he ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... companionship and the great love which every true woman needs. I answered with spirit, and just as I felt, that while his love might be boundless, it could no longer be anything for me. I knew his soul was capable of maintaining the appearance of purity of thought long enough to delineate its outline on canvas, and while I admired his talent in verse, I had tasted the bitter dregs of his falseness, and was now thoroughly undeceived as to his character. Never again could I be misled by the semblance of ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... Nature's face express In silk and gold, and scenes of action dress; Dost figured arras animated leave, Spin a bright story, or a passion weave By mingling threads; canst mingle shade and light, Delineate triumphs, or describe ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... produced by this law, and whether its results at all corresponded to the views of those who enacted it, will be gathered from the following chapters of this work, in which an attempt will be made to delineate briefly the present condition of the ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... preserved. From his earliest years he delighted, above all things, in observing the habits of animals; and it was his fondness for this study that gave rise, while he was yet a boy, to his first attempts in drawing. Long before he had received instruction in that art, he used to delineate his favourites of the lower creation with great accuracy and spirit. His introduction to the regular study of his future profession was purely accidental. He was in the habit of exercising his genius by covering the walls ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... clinging to them, giving a freshness and a fragrance not otherwise to be conveyed. In other cases, as in the few poems of shipwreck or of mental conflict, we can only wonder at the gift of vivid imagination by which this recluse woman can delineate, by a few touches, the very crises of physical or mental struggle. And sometimes again we catch glimpses of a lyric strain, sustained perhaps but for a line or two at a time, and making the reader regret its sudden cessation. ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... Christian Science is to be a Chris- [5] tian Scientist; and it demands more than a Raphael to delineate ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... is this to be noted in the passages where the poet has taken pains openly to portray their various characteristics, but there are many passages, or single lines perhaps, which serve more subtly to delineate them. What proud reserve, what sorrow painfully restrained, the following line, for example, contains: "Two evenings after he had ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... HISTORY.—The subject of history is man. History has for its object to record his doings and experiences. It may then be concisely defined as a narrative of past events in which men have been concerned. To describe the earth, the abode of man, to delineate the different kingdoms of nature, and to inquire into the origin of them, or to explain the physical or mental constitution of human beings, is no part of the office of history. All this belongs to the departments ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... to delineate a character need not keep a note-book. There is a quicker road to the heart — if he has the gift to find it. Probably his readers will not themselves have kept note-books, and his elaborate observations ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... it, and the perils to which the soul and society are thereby exposed, in a manner more striking, startling and instructive than is elsewhere to be found. For all reasons, truth and justice require of those who venture to explore and portray it, the utmost efforts to elucidate its passages and delineate ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... as nearly a canvas upon which to delineate almost anything in the range of emotion as it was possible for a visage of flesh ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... truant eyes of Alston or Greenough turn, but for a time, from their gaze at the models of antiquity, to contemplate this wronged and humbled people, little would be left for such inferior artists as ourselves to delineate. ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in cap and gown, but went on his way, as if intending, in that extraordinary guise, to take a country walk. He took the path which they were going themselves, and they tried to keep behind him; but they walked too briskly, and he too leisurely, to allow of that. It is very difficult duly to delineate a bore in a narrative, for the very reason that he is a bore. A tale must aim at condensation, but a bore acts in solution. It is only on the long-run that he is ascertained. Then, indeed, he is felt; he is oppressive; like the sirocco, which the native detects at once, while a foreigner ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... dead. He died after a short illness some day last week. It would require a nice discrimination of character and intimate knowledge of the man to delineate his, a great deal more of both than I possess, therefore I shall not attempt it. During the period of his embassy in England I lived a good deal with him, his house being always open to me, and I dined there en famille whenever I pleased. Nothing ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... delineate, in minute terms, the portraiture of the mysterious lady who had inspired Agnes on three occasions with so much terror, and whom Agnes herself had depicted in such ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... place, by the fact that the dramatist is devising his story for the use of actors, he is definitely limited both in respect to the kind of characters he may create and in respect to the means he may employ in order to delineate them. In actual life we meet characters of two different classes, which (borrowing a pair of adjectives from the terminology of physics) we may denominate dynamic characters and static characters. But when an actor appears upon the stage, he wants to ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... have seen and experienced, I have been governed by no partial motives whatever. On the contrary, I have laboured to represent every object faithfully as it has affected my senses. I am, however, conscious at the same time, that it requires an abler pen than mine to delineate adequately the sublime and majestic works of nature in the regions I have been describing, and to portray them to the imagination in all their simplicity, beauty, and grandeur. Siberia does not possess the climate of Italy, nor the luxurious productions of India; but she ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... the ideas that determined my choice. Thus did my youthful mind delineate the system of distant years, even when the threats of instant calamity still sounded in my ears. I was inured to the apprehension of mischief, till at last the hoarse roarings of the beginning tempest had lost their power of annihilating my peace. I however thought it necessary, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... thoughts. The voice still rung in my ears. Every accent that was uttered by Carwin was fresh in my remembrance. His unwelcome approach, the recognition of his person, his hasty departure, produced a complex impression on my mind which no words can delineate. I strove to give a slower motion to my thoughts, and to regulate a confusion which became painful; but my efforts were nugatory. I covered my eyes with my hand, and sat, I know not how long, without power to arrange ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... could ever have calculated on before we knew him through his works: prejudiced, he was not false; cold, he was rarely cruel; egotistical, he was seldom vain-glorious. Every age should have a Horace Walpole; every country possess a chronicler so sure, so keen to perceive, so exact to delineate peculiarities, manners, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... extraordinary confession. St Augustine, Rousseau, De Quincey, have not quite equalled this. He found it had been made the subject of serious criticism and ludicrous banter. But his one object, as he tells 'serious criticks,' has been to delineate Johnson's character, and for this purpose he appeals from Philip drunk to Philip sober, and to the approbation of the discerning reader. Later on, he has laid the flattering unction to his heart, and has extracted comfort from the soul of things evil. He felt comfortable, ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... what an insight he may acquire into the springs of action and feeling, and yet how incapable he may be of making any practical application of the knowledge he has acquired and the result of which he can faithfully delineate. He gives a list of the books he had read at eighteen which appears incredible, particularly as he says that he was always idle, and eight years after Scott says he did not appear well read either in poetry or history. Swift says 'some men know books as ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... White as he appeared to others; but there are minuter traits of character which no observer can catch, and which the possessor must himself delineate. Though early impressed with melancholy, it was not of a misanthropic nature; and while despair and disappointment were preying on his heart, he was all sweetness and docility to others. A consciousness of the possession of abilities, and of being capable of better ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... analyze himself; he cannot see himself as others see him. We must derive our sense of who and what he is, solely from the things he does and says, and from his manner of telling us about them. And although it is not especially difficult, within a brief compass, to delineate a character through his way of telling things [Notice Laughton O. Zigler, in Mr. Kipling's "The Captive," whose speech has been examined in a former chapter], it is extremely difficult to maintain this expedient ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... from Lord George, and went to work on it, the others observed that he would come to no good by it, because he would "have to keep a maid just to talk to his wife." Men could not be got for any wages to work at draining, or at making the "ditches" or embankments to delineate the new holdings; and when Lord George found adventurous "tramps" willing to earn a few shillings by honest work of the kind, conspiracies were formed to undo by night what was done by day. However, ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... enthusiastic amateur sat down to delineate the stately pile of the palace, soaring aloft amid its enveloping greenery, than he is attracted by a fascinating glimpse of the lake, where, perhaps, a royal elephant comes down to drink, or a crimson-clad bevy of Rajputni lasses ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... are made by the ingenious Angler, according to Art, in shape, colour and proportion like the Natural Fly, of Fur, Wool, Silk, Feathers, &c. To delineate which I must confess my self not so accurate and skilful a Painter, nor can any Pen-drawing illustrate their Various Colours so, as to direct their Artificial Counterfeit; Nature will help him in this by Observation, curiously Flourishing their several Orient and bright Colours, ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... and unstudied grace she would have delightedly sketched in another. Have ever I described my favorite's appearance? I believe not; and yet there was much in her face and figure to arrest and enchant younger eyes than mine. I could not, if I would, delineate her features, for I only recall their charm of emotion, their attractive variety of sentiment. Her eyes were gray, with dark lashes, and their expression was at once brilliant and melancholy, and the most spiritual I have ever seen. Her hair was long ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... imagination wholly to reproducing the outward circumstances,—the court in its splendor and the patriarch with his wagons, his household, and his stuff; this scene Mr. Beecher etches vividly but carelessly in a few outlines, then proceeds to delineate with care the imagined feelings of the king, awed despite his imperial splendor by the spiritual majesty of the peasant herdsman. Yet Mr. Beecher could paint the outer circumstances with care when he chose to do so. Some of his flower pictures in 'Fruits, Flowers, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... philanthropic interest, she wrote, during another winter in this city, her novel, "Ramona," a book composed with the greatest rapidity, and printed first in the Christian Union, afterward appearing in a volume in 1884. Its sole object was further to delineate the wrongs of the aborigines. Besides these two books, she wrote, during this later period, some children's stories, "Nelly's Silver Mine, a Story of Colorado Life" (1878), and three little volumes of tales about cats. But her life-work, as she viewed it at the end, was ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... stars delineate its outline; two are of the first magnitude, five of the second, and one of the third (Fig. 12). The most brilliant are Betelgeuse ([alpha]) and Rigel ([beta]): the former marking the right shoulder of the Colossus as ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... St. Maries, when a child, voyded a lumbricus biceps. Mr. Winceslaus Hollar, when he was at Mechlin, saw an amphisbna, which he did very curiously delineate, and coloured it in water colours, of the very colour: it was exactly the colour of the inner peele of an onyon: it was about six inches long, but in its repture it made the figure of a semicircle; both the heads advancing equally. It was found under a piece of old timber, ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint of much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the entry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however wild, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... much occupied in arranging for my wedded life, too much absorbed in the feeling of bliss, to analyze it. I believed in her love,—that was sufficient for me. In after years I resolved the impression into its prismatic elements, and thus it is I am able to delineate them. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... with fire, the features and edges of a general mass of awful obscurity; but in painting, such indistinctness would be a defect, and imply that the artist wanted the power to pourtray the conceptions of his fancy. Mr. West was of opinion that to delineate a physical form, which in its moral impression would approximate to that of the visionary Death of Milton, it was necessary to endow it, if possible, with the appearance of super-human strength and energy. He has therefore exerted the utmost force and ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... a satire in one act on the exaggerations of the Hotel de Rambouillet. This was followed in the succeeding year by Sganarelle ou le Cocu Imaginaire; in the beginning of 1661 appeared Don Garcie de Navarre, a heroic piece in five acts, intended to delineate the evils of passionate jealousy; and in the same year were produced L'Ecole des Maris, a satire on unreasonable jealousy, and Les Facheux, a court sketch of several kinds of bores; in 1662 L'Ecole des Femmes—an attempt to show ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... possesses all the sublimity that vastness and space can bestow; but it is that sublimity which is to be seen, not described, which the heart may acknowledge and the mind contain, but which no mere words may delineate—which even painting itself may but ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... have been noble writing. But where would have been that strong impression of reality, which, in accordance with his plan, it should have been his great object to produce? It was absolutely necessary for him to delineate accurately "all monstrous, all prodigious things,"—to utter what might to others appear "unutterable,"—to relate with the air of truth what fables had never feigned,—to embody what fear had never conceived. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... woman; on one side of the Cross, the appearance of a half moon, with a face; on the other side, the sun; on the top of the Cross, the letters I.H.S.; on the left arm, a man and woman dancing, with an effort to delineate the female's dress; under which, initials.' Another seaman 'had, on the lower part of the right arm, the device of a sailor and a female; the man holding the Union Jack with a streamer, the folds of which waved over her ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... when he has never been out of his native village, and knows nothing of the class with which he deals except through the society column of his newspaper. Therefore he will of course "fall flat when he attempts to delineate manners. It is too evident that he has not had the entree to the circle he would describe: his gentlemen commit too many blunders, his ladies are from the wrong side of the town, the love-passages are silly and ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... wanted me to stay in the neighborhood and deliver a lecture the next night on Phrenology. But as we were billed at Elkhart for that date, it was impossible to do so. We remained over night with the school director, and the next morning he requested me to delineate the character of his son by an ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... last numbers of this paper have been dedicated to an enumeration of the dangers to which we should be exposed, in a state of disunion, from the arms and arts of foreign nations. I shall now proceed to delineate dangers of a different and, perhaps, still more alarming kind—those which will in all probability flow from dissensions between the States themselves, and from domestic factions and convulsions. These have ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... effected by these voyages, and what yet remains to be done upon the northern coasts of Australia. Beginning with the north-eastern coast, I have been enabled to lay down a very safe and convenient track for vessels bound through Torres Strait, and to delineate the coastline between Cape Hillsborough, in 20 degrees 54 minutes South, and Cape York, the north extremity of New South Wales; a distance of six hundred and ninety miles. As my instructions did not authorise ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... the mountain vedettes from the point of view of the Forest Ranger, a federal officer who represented our newly acquired ideals of Conservation, and whose duty it was to act as custodian of the National Forests. I decided to write a novel which should, in some degree, delineate the heroic side of this warden's solitary life as I had seen it and shared it in a half-dozen forests ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... experience. Bonnetless, her luxuriant hair is set high upon her head, held by a square tortoise-shell comb, and carelessly thrown off her forehead with a parting on one side. Be sure some sad story underlies her career. She is of just that gypsy cast that painters love to delineate. They sit down at a side table and order ices, cake, and champagne. These are consumed amid jests and laughter, the spurious champagne, at a fabulous cost, is drunk merrily, the hours creep on, and ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... Marco Polo. When they do not surround the whole Indian Ocean with land, they give to Asia a much less extent in the north and east than it actually possesses, make the land in this direction completely bounded by sea, and delineate two headlands projecting towards the north from the mainland. To these they give the names Promontorium Scythicum and Tabin, and they besides place in the neighbourhood of the north coast a large island to which they give the name that already ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... I? There are some figures that cannot be painted, as there are some melodies which cannot be uttered by the softest wind which ever swept the harp of Aeolus. You can scarcely delineate a star, and the glories of the sunset die away, and live not upon canvas. How difficult, then, the task you have imposed upon me, amigo mio—to seal up in a wicker flask that moonlight; chain down, by words, that flitting and almost imperceptible ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... decapitate, deciduous, declivity, decompose, decorous, dedicatory, deduction, deferential, deficiency, deglutition, dehiscence, delectable, delete, deleterious, delineate, deliquescent, demarcation, demimonde, demoniac, denizen, denouement, deprecate, depreciate, derelict, derogatory, despicable, desuetude, desultory, deteriorate, diacritical, diagnosis, diaphanous, diatribe, didactic, diffusive, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... Opimian. Their system of painting did not require perspective. Their main subject was on one foreground. Buildings, rocks, trees, served simply to indicate, not to delineate, the scene. ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... were as multifarious as have been portrayed by the whole band of Italian painters; but, as a wizard in words, he resembled the magician in mosaic, who can delineate in stone every feature of those portraits because he can discriminate and imitate shades of color more numberless than even ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... Uffizi Gallery at Florence.... The picture is completed by the dark background and the solicitous attitude of the girls as they cluster around the sufferer.... With a little imagination one can delineate the jeweled crown which the two girlish angels are holding above her head.... Pathos, resignation and a sort of recreating FAITH are painted against that threatening wall and overhanging dirt.... If that ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... petroleum) resources, fisheries, dams, and nuclear power plants. Many islands or island groups are also disputed, including those at sea and in streams. Nonetheless, many nations are actively cooperating to clarify, delineate, and demarcate their international borders. The tragic aspect of international discord is the impact on the sustenance and welfare of populations caught in the conflict. It is frequently left to members of the world community to cope with enormous refugee ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Governors, and Inhabitants, I have not much to offer in favour of the subject or of the character. One of these, Sir Denys Brand, may be considered as too highly placed for an author, who seldom ventures above middle life, to delineate; and, indeed, I had some idea of reserving him for another occasion, where he might have appeared with those in his own rank: but then it is most uncertain whether he would ever appear, and he has been so many ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... Eton will not, I hope, be construed into any intention of the author's to follow in the track of any previous publication: his object is faithfully to delineate character, not to encourage vulgar phraseology, or promulgate ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... right in the main, in the general tenor of his opinion; for this country, in its ordinary aspects, probably presents as barren a field to the writer of fiction, and to the dramatist, as any other on earth; we are not certain that we might not say the most barren. We believe that no attempt to delineate ordinary American life, either on the stage, or in the pages of a novel, has been rewarded with success. Even those works in which the desire to illustrate a principle has been the aim, when the picture has been brought within this homely frame, have had to contend with ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper |
