"Personate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to take up an inheritance, having on him no doubt, the necessary proofs of identification. He's met by one person only—his agent. He dies next day. The agent buries him, under a false name, takes his effects and papers, gets some accomplice to personate him, introduces that accomplice to everybody as the real man—and there you are! Oh, Chatfield knew what he was doing! Who on earth, wandering in this cemetery, would ever connect Mark ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... left her niece irritated, but the trace of anger she felt was likely to enhance her interest. The meal, however, was a trial to him, for he had during eight long years lived for the most part apart from all his kind, a lonely toiler, and now was constrained to personate a man known to be almost dangerously skillful with his tongue. At first sight the task appeared almost insuperably difficult, but Winston was a clever man, and felt all the thrill of one playing a risky game just then. Perhaps it was due to excitement ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... prepared as the pidaneys or offerings to be made at sunset, at midnight, and the morning; and in the intervals the dancers perform their incantations, habited in masks and disguises to represent the demon which they personate, as the immediate author of the patient's suffering. In the frenzy of these orgies, the Kattadia having feigned the access of inspiration from the spirit he invokes, is consulted by the friends of the afflicted, and declares the nature of his ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... remain sitting in your chair, adorned with that dignity which Heaven has been pleased to grant you. I have given you this advice out of friendship, and for your good; you are now at liberty to do as you please. At all events, I will send you some one to-night to personate the Dominican, and he will only have to return if ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... pleasure; for it was wholly destitute of brim except for a space some three or four inches wide over the eye-rows; and the crown had been so pertinaciously and completely eaten in, that the sides sloped inward at the top, as if to personate a bishop's mitre; a fishing line was wound about this graceful and, if its appearance belied it not most foully, odoriferous headdress; and into the fishing line was stuck the bowl and some two inches of the shank of a well-sooted pipe. An old red handkerchief was twisted rope-wise about his ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... majesty of justice as represented by the Wittleworths. It was alleged that the defendant had his daughter in court—and a beautiful young lady she was; but Mr. Wittleworth insisted that this person—elegant and richly dressed as she appeared—was an impostor, employed to personate the deceased child of his powerful rival, and thus enable him to retain the block of stores and ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... Scribe and Sardou and the manufacturers of the "well-made play" give the performers only effective parts, to be presented as skilfully as might be, Ibsen has proffered to them genuine characters to get inside of as best they could,—characters not easy to personate, indeed, often obscure and dangerous. Because of this danger and this doubt, they are all the more tempting to the true artist, who is ever on the alert for a tussle with technical difficulty. The ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... Briseis. Achilles withdrew in wrath to his tent, where he consoled himself with music and singing, and refused to take any further part in the war. During his absence the Greeks were hard pressed, and at last he so far relaxed his anger as to allow his friend Patroclus to personate him, lending him his chariot and armour. The slaying of Patroclus by the Trojan hero Hector roused Achilles from his indifference; eager to avenge his beloved comrade, he sallied forth, equipped with new armour fashioned by Hephaestus, slew Hector, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... lying-to. Direct attack of a force so very much superior to that of the Chilian fleet seemed out of the question. Therefore Lord Cochrane bethought him of a subterfuge. Learning that two North American war-ships were expected at Callao, he determined to personate them with the O'Higgins and Lautaro, and so enter the port under alien colours. It was then carnival-time, and on the 21st of February, deeming that the Spaniards were more likely to be off their guard, he proposed "to make a feint of sending a boat ashore ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... reasonably be conjectured that Shelley's peculiar sympathy for snakes was due to the dim recollection of his childhood's favourite. Some of the games he invented to please his sisters were grotesque, and some both perilous and terrifying. "We dressed ourselves in strange costumes to personate spirits or fiends, and Bysshe would take a fire-stove and fill it with some inflammable liquid, and carry it flaming into the kitchen and to the back door." Shelley often took his sisters for long country rambles over hedge and fence, carrying them when the difficulties of the ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... and puzzling situations in life, this was certainly the worst; for however often my lot had been to personate another, yet hitherto I had had the good fortune to be aware of what and whom I was performing. Now I might be any body from Marshal Soult to Monsieur Scribe; one thing only was certain, I must be a "celebrity." ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... told. We have seen in our own time how even an Arthur Orton could find sensible and good people to believe the tale with which he sought to enforce claim upon the Tichborne baronetcy. Savage had literary skill, and he could personate the manners of a gentleman in days when there were still gentlemen of fashion who drank, lied, and swaggered into midnight brawls. I have no doubt whatever that he was the son of the nurse with whom the Countess of Macclesfield had placed a child that died, ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... man may personate characters, like a play- actor, and pretend to be what he is not, for two different objects. He may do it for other people's sake, ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... that had been intrusted to thy rule. Not an individual has been lost from the number, either by secret practices, or by open violence. This could scarcely have been, if thy good dispositions had not been natural, but assumed. No one can long personate a character. A pretended goodness will speedily give place to the real temper; while a sincere mind, and acts prompted by the heart, will not fail to go on from one stage of excellence ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... rehearsing. Gardner was to be Hamlet; Lieut.-Col. Theodore Gregg, 45th Pa., was to be Claudius, the usurping king; the smooth-faced Capt. William Cook was to be the queen-mother Gertrude; Capt. W. F. Tiemann, 159th N. Y., was to personate Marcellus; Lieut. C. H. Morton of Fairhaven, Mass., I think, was Horatio; and I, having lost about forty pounds of flesh since my capture—it was thought most appropriate that I should be the Ghost! Every ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... able to personate the stupid society woman if you try for ever. But it doesn't matter, after all; you're too fair to look upon for spies to guess your opinions, even though you can't simper and hide behind your fan like ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... infirmities, that he could give them but little light into their inquiries; and all that could be recollected from him of his brother Will in that station was the faint, general, and almost lost ideas he had of having once seen him act a part in one of his own comedies, wherein being present to personate a decrepit old man, he wore a long beard, and appeared so weak and drooping and unable to walk, that he was forced to be supported and carried by another person to a table, at which he was seated among some company who were eating, and one of ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... I can dispute you. Millie Lundsford has just gone home. She and I have been going through with our old-time play, when, with window curtains wound about us to represent long dresses, and with brooms to personate the brave knights who had rescued us from the merciless Turks, we danced in the castle. And I was just taking a turn with a duke when you came. What a knight you ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... stores and prisoners, and, leaving them under a strong guard, proceed with two of his prows loaded to the gunwale with merchandise, to the port. The merchant-boats which he had previously sunk, and whose crews he had murdered, provided him with "port-clearances," which enabled him to personate the trader and regularly enter and clear the customs at Singapore, so as to cause no suspicion; then, returning to his place of rendezvous with a fresh supply of guns, ammunition, etcetera, he divided his ill-gotten gains and ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... race and descendants, our founder Mars, whom clamor and polished helmets, and the terrible aspect of the Moorish infantry against their bloody enemy, delight, satiated at length with thy sport, alas! of too long continuance: or if thou, the winged son of gentle Maia, by changing thy figure, personate a youth upon earth, submitting to be called the avenger of Caesar; late mayest thou return to the skies, and long mayest thou joyously be present to the Roman people; nor may an untimely blast transport thee from ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... with his. He went as a comic Valentine. Pink begged her to dress as the Queen of Hearts, and she was almost persuaded to do so, thinking that would be the easiest of costumes to prepare, till she guessed from something he let fall that he intended to personate the King himself. Then nothing would have induced her to do it. She knew it would give occasion for the coupling of their names together in the familiar and teasing way they ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... he begins to understand. Let him imitate the airy flight of the bird, and he enters partially into bird life. Let the little girl personate the hen with her feathery brood of chickens, and her own maternal instinct is quickened, as she guards and guides the wayward motion of the little flock. Let the child play the carpenter, the wheelwright, the wood-sawyer, ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... soberly. "Well, this story, to be truthful, must do justice to the one who is supposed to personate its author. And, in the first place, to avoid all circumlocution, let me tell you there has never been a moment since I first loved Daisy Fern that she has not been the dearest thing on this earth ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, "Janet Jo" used to be a dramatic entertainment amongst young rustics. Suppose a party have met on a winter evening round a good peat fire, writes Chambers, and is resolved to have "Janet Jo" performed. Two undertake to personate a goodman and a goodwife; the rest a family of marriageable daughters. One of the lads—the best singer of the party—retires, and equips himself in a dress proper for representing an old bachelor in search of a wife. He comes in, bonnet in hand, ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... fact,' said Rollo, 'that Wych Hazel could not conveniently personate a pine tree or Primrose ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... says that it had its Chang and Liu, and "many more gods, supreme gods, celestial gods, great gods, and divine rulers." [171] And Dr. Edkins writes: "The Taouist mythology resembles, in several points, that of many heathen nations. Some of its divinities personate those beings that are supposed to reside in the various departments of nature. Many of the stars are worshipped as gods." [172] Buddhism not only supplies further evidence, it also furnishes a noteworthy instance of mythic transformation. Sakchi or Sasi, the moon, is literally ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... kept plenty of money in the house ever since she had feared for her son, and this they put in a belt round his waist. Altogether, he came out not at all unlike the laquais Jacques Pierrot, whom he was to personate. Eustace said the old lady took leave of her son with her stern Jansenist composure, which my tender- hearted Clement could not imitate. Eustace rejoined the chairmen and came back through the dark streets, while Clement walked at some distance, and ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a girl who had the care of me brought me into the nursery to see my mother. It happened that she wanted something from her own home, which she dispatched the girl to fetch, and desired her to leave me till her return. In her absence she changed our clothes: then keeping me to personate the child she was nursing, she sent away the daughter of sir Edward to be brought up in ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... indubitable victory of the stronger, with the prospect of slavish charms, fawning submission, marrowy spoil. Or perhaps, preferably, a sullen submission, reluctant charms; far more marrowy. Or who can say?—the creature is a rocket of the shot into the fiery garland of stars; she may personate any new marvel, be an unimagined terror, an overwhelming bewitchment: for she carries the unexpected in her bosom. And does it look like such indubitable victory, when the man, the woman's husband, divided from her, toothsome to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... impressed with that which had no real existence, I was perfectly calm and self-possessed, knowing the whole thing to be but a pleasing illusion. I did not in the least fear these figures of the brain, but on the contrary found them pleasant company. Not always, however, did they personate the same characters. Occasionally they would change to the old feudal knights, sometimes on horseback, sometimes on foot, but always ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... with a merry laugh. "Order up gray Bess, and dress him to personate thee. He can put on a mask and drop his shoulders. Thy plaided camlet cape will do well. And put Moppet on a pillion behind. Someone else must go. Ah, Madam Kent! who will enjoy it mightily and sit up like a brigadier. Then, when he is out of ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... was great, industrious, insinuating, and artful, and his character was so supple that he could become as many different men as he had occasion to personate. But he was shortsighted even in his grandest projects; and, unlike his predecessor, whose mind was bold but his temperature timid, Mazarin was bolder in temper than in conception. A pretended ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... here, Cliff, don't yo' personate me! Counting from de little finger back to de thumb—yo' start anythin', I ...
— Three Plays - Lawing and Jawing; Forty Yards; Woofing • Zora Neale Hurston
... have been said to take their religion from Milton, and their history from Shakspeare:' and as far as they draw the character of the last royal Plantagenet from the bloody ogre which every grand tragedian has delighted to personate, they set up invention on the pedestal of fact, and prefer slander to truth. Even from the opening soliloquy, Shakspeare traduces, misrepresents, vilifies the man he had interested motives in making infamous; while at the death of Jack Cade, a cutting address is made to the future monarch upon ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... to him some messages of which he was to be the bearer to this Spaniard. A thought flashed upon me—Montreuil's letter mentioned, accidentally, that the Spaniard had never hitherto seen Barnard: could I not personate the latter, deliver the messages myself, and thus win that introduction to the daughter which I so burningly desired, and which, from the close reserve of the father's habits, I might not otherwise effect? The plan was ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... I, speakin' more ironicler as my fear died away, leavin' in its void a great madness and tiredness, "if you'd brung your scythe along you might personate ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... King's cabinet when arrested, and interrogated, and confronted with her face to face. The Prince started when he saw her. The comparison of her features with those of the guilty wretch who had dared to personate her in the garden at Versailles completely destroyed his self-possession. Her Majesty's person was become fuller, and her face was much longer than that of the infamous D'Oliva. He could neither speak nor ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... the murder the plan was formed by which this woman was to personate the other. The striking similarity in the hair, which was the most conspicuous beauty of ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter
... whose sole interest in theatricals lay in the consideration of his costume and the sound of his own voice in the ears of the audience. With such an unobjectionable person to enact the part of lover, the prominent character of leading young lady or heroine, which Paula was to personate, was really the most satisfactory in the whole list for her. For although she was to be wooed hard, there was just as much love-making among the remaining personages; while, as Somerset had understood the play, there could occur no flingings of her person upon her lover's neck, or agonized ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... with a medal by the townsfolk. It was from here also that, a little while after, tidings of his own death reached him, together with most gratifying obituary notices. It would seem that, after his departure, an adventurer, attempting to personate him, met ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... Lake City throve finely, and so did Utah. One of the last things which Brigham Young had done before leaving Iowa, was to appear in the pulpit dressed to personate the worshipped and lamented prophet Smith, and confer the prophetic succession, with all its dignities, emoluments and authorities, upon "President Brigham Young!" The people accepted the pious fraud with the maddest enthusiasm, and Brigham's power was sealed ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... system. Its nature may be explained in a moment. It was simply a swindling transaction between the squatter on the one hand and some wretched fellow on the other, often a labourer in the employment of the squatter, in which the former for a consideration induced the latter to personate the character of a free selector, to acquire from the State, for the purpose of transferring to himself, the land he most coveted out of that thrown open for selection adjoining ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... produced by magic spells: on the stage it is an ass's head, and nothing more; certainly a very strange costume for a gentleman to appear in. Fancy cannot be embodied any more than a simile can be painted; and it is as idle to attempt it as to personate Wall or Moonshine. Fairies are not incredible, but fairies six feet high are so. Monsters are not shocking, if they are seen at a proper distance. When ghosts appear at mid-day, when apparitions stalk along Cheapside, then may the MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM be represented without injury ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Shakespeare; and Betty's recitations were sufficiently striking to arrest the attention of the entire room. She flung herself into the part. She was Desdemona, she was Portia, she was Rosalind. She was whatever character she wished to personate. Once she chose that of Shylock; and most uncanny became the expression of her face, and her words were hurled forth with a defiance worthy ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... down after you; and you come down first. Leave her behind, la Lazzeruola; and here, 'Luigi displayed a black veil, the common head-dress of the Milanese women, and twisted his fingers round and round on his forehead to personate the horns of the veil; 'take it, signorina; you know how to wear it. Luigi and the saints watch over you.' Vittoria found herself left in possession of the veil and a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... her, got a friend of his, who was called Sygurd, the serpent-killer, to wrestle with her, disguising him in his own armour. Sygurd flung her down, and won her for his friend, though he loved her himself. I shall not use a similar deceit, nor employ Jasper Petulengro to personate me—so get up, Belle, and I will do my best ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... those men from whose lips nothing ever sounds as if it were meant seriously. His statement that he regarded a serving girl from the temple of Serapis as fit to personate Hebe, was spoken as naturally and simply as if he were telling a tale for children; but his words produced an effect on his hearers like the sound of waters rushing ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... opportunity of gratifying her passion, at last, by the means of a female slave, settled an assignation with him at the celebration of the rites of the good goddess. Claudius was directed to come in the habit of a singing girl, a character he could easily personate, being young and of a fair complexion. As soon as the slave saw him enter, she ran to inform her mistress. The mistress eager to meet her lover, immediately left the company and threw herself into his arms, but could not be prevailed upon by him ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... make no appointments with tinkers," replied Melissa; "if you personate that young man, you must be content to wait for days or months to catch a glimpse of the hem of my garment; to bay the moon and bless the stars, and I do not know what else. It is, in short, catch me when you can; and now farewell, good ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... portraits, d'Oliva, who was to personate the Queen, in an interview with the Cardinal, was not at all like Marie Antoinette. Her short, round, buxom face bears no resemblance to the long and noble outlines of the features of the Queen. ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... challenge-call, We will romp from house and hall, Gypsying with the birds and bees Of the green-tress'd garden trees. In a bower of leaf and vine Thou shalt be a lady fine Held in duress by the great Giant I shall personate. Next, when many mimics more Like to ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley
... very restive, he saw a violet in the grass, and stooped to pick it. The horse lashed out with its heels, and struck him in the back of the neck and killed him.... Then the idea came to David to exchange clothes with the dead man, and to take his papers, and personate him. Thus, he could escape from the individuality which was his curse, and find his true self, as it were, in another person. He said, too, that his greatest hope had been to win my love and make me his wife; but he found ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... was in the year 1840; the veteran Braham was to appear as Henry Bertram. A Meg Merrilies had to be improvised. The obscure "utility" actress was called upon to take Mrs. Chippendale's place. She might read the part if she could not commit it to memory but personate Meg Merrilies after some sort she must. She had never especially noticed the part; but as she stood at the side scene, book in hand, awaiting her moment of entrance, her ear caught the dialogue going on upon the stage between two of the gypsies, "conveying the impression that Meg ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... into Arabia, and to visit Mecca and Medina. In order to secure his own safety, and at the same time gain such information as could alone be obtained in the character of a Mahomedan, he assumed the dress, and he was enabled to personate the religion, manners, and language of the native Hadje, or pilgrims. Thus secure and privileged, he resided between four and five months in Mecca. Here he gained some authentic and curious information respecting the rise, history, and tenets of the Wahabees, a Mahomedan sect. These travels ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... "and I have no doubt that many persons have been ruined by going; but they did not go for the same object that we go. I am not going just for the pleasure of witnessing the play, by any means; I want to see how the actors personate the different characters. To read Shakspeare well, it must be read just ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... make it tolerably certain that a large snake (Python) still lingered in Eastern Europe. Huge tame snakes were kept as sacred by the Macedonian women; and one of them (according to Lucian) Peregrinus Proteus, the Cagliostro of his time, fitted with a linen mask, and made it personate the god AEsculapius. In the "Historia Lausiaca," cap. lii. is an account by an eye-witness of a large snake in the Thebaid, whose track was "as if a beam had been dragged along the sand." It terrifies the Syrian monks: but the Egyptian monk sets to work to kill it, saying that he had seen much ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... surveyed the strong and massy bolts with which every door and hatchway was secured. Their appearance produced rather an uncomfortable sensation in him; so much so, that when the jailer asked him his name, he thought it more prudent, in consequence of a touch of conscience he had, to personate Art for the present, inasmuch as he felt it impossible to assume any name more safe ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... of his mouth may signify vengeance upon his enemies; his eyes as a flame of fire, superior intelligence and penetrating vision, etc.—but he distinctly announces himself to be the Christ of God. There is no creature in the universe that could personate "him that liveth, and was dead, ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... tableaux; and in this list there should be a variety of designs, comprising the grave, the comic, and the beautiful. A manuscript should be used in which to write the names of the tableaux, directions for forming each, the names of the performers, the parts which they personate, the styles of the costumes, and the quantity and kind of scenery and furniture used in ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... The Base o'th' Mount Is rank'd with all deserts, all kinde of Natures That labour on the bosome of this Sphere, To propagate their states; among'st them all, Whose eyes are on this Soueraigne Lady fixt, One do I personate of Lord Timons frame, Whom Fortune with her Iuory hand wafts to her, Whose present grace, to present slaues and seruants Translates ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... in the day-time to witness the rehearsals, and otherwise examine into the economy of the stage in general. I also made myself, without any evil intent at the time, entirely conversant with the localities of the place. To draw a full house, Mr. Betty, once the Young Roscius, had been engaged to personate the Earl of Warwick, and admirably he sustained it, too. During the performance, I had crept from the gallery—here always appropriated to the Etonians—through a door which had been purposely made not to appear such, into a place immediately over the stage. Across this space stretch the enormous ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... kings and princes, and could find admittance into all society. As a squire, he could only go to the Holy Land in attendance upon some one else, nor could he carry the sword and belt of the dead man whom he was to represent. A knight must personate a knight. ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... quand un tel regard l'atteste." The remark is perfectly just, nothing can be imagined more calculated to dispel at once the effect which the countenance of a great actor, in such circumstances, would naturally produce, than bringing any one on the stage to personate the ghost; and whoever has seen Talma in this part, will acknowledge that the mind is not disposed to doubt, for an instant, the existence of that form which no eye but his has seen, and of that voice which no ear but his has heard. We regretted much, while ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... royal mistress. There was at that time in Paris a young woman named D'Oliva, noted for her resemblance to the queen; and Madame de la Motte, on the promise of a handsome reward, found no difficulty in persuading her to personate Marie Antoinette, and meet the Cardinal de Rohan at the evening twilight in the gardens of Versailles. The meeting took place accordingly. The cardinal was deceived by the uncertain light, the great resemblance of the counterfeit, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... and packed, with a large quantity of salt, in a box of suitable dimensions, should be conveyed on board as merchandise. Nothing was to be said of the lady's decease; and, as it was well understood that Mr. Wyatt had engaged passage for his wife, it became necessary that some person should personate her during the voyage. This the deceased's lady's maid was easily prevailed on to do. The extra state-room, originally engaged for this girl during her mistress' life, was now merely retained. In this state-room the pseudo-wife ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... Leam's birthright. Was he mad? Was he dreaming? What was this mocking trick of eyesight that was perplexing him? Surely it was madness; and yet—no, it could be no one else. Supreme, beloved, who else could personate her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... other's doors; Extol the Greek and Roman masters, And curse our modern poetasters; Complain, as many an ancient bard did, How genius is no more rewarded; How wrong a taste prevails among us; How much our ancestors out-sung us; Can personate an awkward scorn For those who are not poets born; And all their brother-dunces lash, Who crowd the press ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... last was pretty Ellen Kingsbury, who had agreed to personate the Queen of Scots, in the garden scene from Schiller's tragedy of Mary Stuart; and this circumstance accidentally afforded Master Horner the opportunity he had so long desired, of seeing his fascinating correspondent without the presence of peering eyes. A dress-rehearsal occupied the ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... throw her into your power. How you have requited her is too apparent. It becomes the character we all bear, to disclaim your actions by her. And let me tell you, that to have her abused by wicked people raised up to personate us, or any of us, makes a double call ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... tell you all about my adventures presently—and you have no idea what difficulty I had in cutting it, for the knife was so blunt that I had to cut and pull at it a whole afternoon. But it had to be done, for I meant to personate a boy—having stolen a boy's hunting dress for that purpose. Wasn't it fun to rob the robbers? And then— and then—I ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... of Samaria!" read Flossy, now bending over the book, and her eyes and cheeks told the story of her aversion to the idea. "Who would be willing to personate the Saviour?" ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... after leaving the room, and, seeing O'Halloran's fancy for me, they thought I might often come again. They saw, too, that I had noticed their agitation, but had not recognized Marion. They judged that I would suspect them, and so Nora volunteered to personate the lady so as to save Marion from that outburst of indignation which was sure to fall on her if her father knew of her disobedience. This, then, was the cause of Nora's assumption of a false part. She had told some plausible ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... as overcome now with his affections, and no longer able to personate an angry man, commanded all that were present to depart, that he might make himself known to his brethren when they were alone; and when the rest were gone out, he made himself known to his brethren; and said, "I commend you for your virtue, and your kindness to our brother: I find you better ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... Henry's government, by raising a pretender to his crown, and for that purpose he cast his eyes on Lambert Simnel, a youth of fifteen years of age, who was son of a baker, and who, being endowed with understanding above his years, and address above his condition, seemed well fitted to personate a prince of royal extraction. A report had been spread among the people, and received, with great avidity, that Richard, duke of York, second son of Edward IV., had, by a secret escape, saved himself ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... charms to appease the anger of the triumvir. She ascended the Cydnus in a gilded barge, with oars of silver, and sails of purple silk. Beneath awnings wrought of the richest manufactures of the East, the beautiful queen, attired to personate Venus, reclined amidst lovely attendants dressed to represent cupids and nereids. Antony was completely fascinated, as had been the great Caesar before him, by the dazzling beauty of the "Serpent of the Nile." Enslaved by her enchantments, and charmed by her brilliant wit, in the pleasure ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... got up a flirtation with the leader of the band, a most respectable man by the way, and of considerable talent. After giving the affair all due consideration, we decided upon a mock-duel, in which I was to personate one of the heroes, my rival being the aforesaid leader. We carefully and ostentatiously avoided all appearance of communication, and in such a way that it always reached her knowledge. Thus by gentle innuendoes she discovered that something serious was in contemplation, and of course ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... next week my door was kept carefully locked, and no one but the doctor and the nurse were permitted to enter. Yet I learnt afterwards all that happened. Marie, my maid, who was slowly dying of consumption, was moved into the principal bedchamber; and when Martin arrived, she was made to personate me. It was the priest who gained her consent; the priest who confessed her and gave her absolution. His share of the spoil was to be the De Vaux estates, handed over to the Church if ever they carried out their plot successfully. Martin came, and, as he thought, granted that fervent prayer ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of his friend, began to consider the affair more favourably. Pepper stuck to his guns, and used them so well that when the captain saw him off that evening he was pledged up to the hilt to come down to Sunset Bay and personate the late Captain Budd ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... who love adventure, and I do not think that he can come to any harm. Let him play out his game. It was his own idea to personate you, and the risk is ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... invent, under the permissions of sovereignty, though not for that sin forenamed, yet for our many transgressions. For we do at present suppose, that it may be a method within the severer but just transactions of the infinite majesty of God, that he sometimes may permit Sathan to personate, dissemble, and thereby abuse innocents and such as do, in the fear of God, defy the Devil and all his works. The great rage he is permitted to attempt holy Job with; the abuse he does the famous Samuel in disquieting his silent dust, by shadowing his venerable person in answer to the charms ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... pursued Brigida, smiling, "to give a reward of two hundred scudi to any one able to tell you who the woman is who wore the yellow mask at the Marquis Melani's ball, and how she contrived to personate the face and figure ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... upon the present occasion, it will be no disparagement to you to recede from some of your Paradoxes, since the nature and occasion of your past Discourse did not oblige you to declare your own opinions, but only to personate an Antagonist of the Chymists. So that (concludes he, with a smile) you may now by granting what I propose, add the Reputation of Loving the truth sincerely to that of having been able ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... round them and sing it. And then hands are taken once more and all go round in the original circle singing it a fourth time. If no boys are playing, the girls should arrange, before the game begins, which shall personate them. ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... such a magnificent spectacle as the pioneers had never yet witnessed. Pete had received orders to prepare dinner for fifty guests and whiskey for twice as many. There was to be a grand rally early in the morning at the home of Tom Caldwell, who was to personate the great Protestant monarch, and at high noon a triumphal march up over the hills and down into the Glen to the feast,—with fifes and drums and a greater display in crossing the Oro than King William himself had had in ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... much wit makes him a fool. He is like our painting gentlewomen, seldom in his own face, seldomer in his cloaths; and he pleases, the better he counterfeits, except only when he is disguised with straw for gold lace. He does not only personate on the stage, but sometimes in the street, for he is masked still in the habit of a gentleman. His parts find him oaths and good words, which he keeps for his use and discourse, and makes shew with them of a fashionable companion. He is tragical on the stage, but rampant in the tiring-house,[42] ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... country to Zaandam, say, by way of Amsterdam. That's about twenty miles. Meanwhile Argyle shall come aboard here. The schooner shall take him up to Egmont; he'll get there this afternoon. He must come aboard disguised though. At Zaandam, we three will separate, Jermyn will personate me, remaining in Zaandam. The boy shall carry letters in a hurry to Hoorn; dummy letters, of course. While I shall creep off to meet Argyle—somewhere else. If we start in a hurry they won't have time to organize a pursuit. There are probably only a few ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... learned that a certain William Beresford was Bishop of Ossory once on a time, and I intend to personate this dignitary, clad in Dr. La Touche's cap and gown. We spend this sunny morning by the river-bank; Francesca hemming the last of the yellow window curtains, and I making souvenir programmes for the great occasion. ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the war. I remember thinking General Grant, who could not have been more than forty, a pretty well preserved old chap, considering his habits. As to men of middle age—say from fifty to sixty—why, they all looked fit to personate the Last of the Hittites, or the Madagascarene Methuselah, in a museum. Depend upon it, my friends, men of that time were greatly younger than men are to-day, but looked much older. The ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... consistent personal form, or to take permanent possession of an organism, yet always craving to do so, it might get its head into the air, parasitically, so to speak, by profiting by weak spots in the armor of human minds, and slipping in and stirring up there the sleeping tendency to personate. It would induce habits in the subconscious region of the mind it used thus, and would seek above all things to prolong its social opportunities by making itself agreeable and plausible. It would drag stray scraps of truth with it from the wider environment, ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... conscious art, which, though it be derived from play, is itself an abstract, impersonal thing, and depends largely upon philosophical interests beyond the scope of childhood. It is when we make castles in the air and personate the leading character in our own romances, that we return to the spirit of our first years. Only, there are several reasons why the spirit is no longer so agreeable to indulge. Nowadays, when we admit this personal element ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... among themselves, and at length agreed to make the attempt. I then returned to my comrades, and explained to them more fully my design. It was nothing less than to personate the French captain, and to lead my party across country just as he had been doing. The three deserters would exchange their peasant rags for the uniforms of three of the French soldiers, and three of my comrades would wear ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... cast a look of contempt on the Moor, who, thoroughly prepared for his part, most efficaciously assumed the appearance of the mercenary he was then undertaking to personate. ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... with your opinions. An actor, like a king, should only appear on state occasions. He loses popularity by too much publicity; or, according to the proverb, familiarity breeds contempt. Both characters personate a certain abstract idea, are seen in a fictitious costume, and when they have 'shuffled off this more than mortal coil,' they had better keep out of the way—the acts and sentiments emanating from themselves will not carry on the illusion ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... (falsehood) 544; celluloid. imitator, echo, cuckoo|, parrot, ape, monkey, mocking bird, mime; copyist, copycat; plagiarist, pirate. V. imitate, copy, mirror, reflect, reproduce, repeat; do like, echo, reecho, catch; transcribe; match, parallel. mock, take off, mimic, ape, simulate, impersonate, personate; act &c. (drama) 599; represent &c. 554; counterfeit, parody, travesty, caricature, lampoon, burlesque. follow in the steps of, tread in the steps, follow in the footsteps of, follow in the wake of; take pattern by; follow suit, follow the example of; walk in the shoes of, take ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... completeness as we see the species, genera, and entire families belonging to one hemisphere, reflected as it were, in analogous animal and vegetable forms in the opposite hemisphere. There are, so to speak, the 'equivalents' which mutually personate and replace one another in the great series of organisms. These connecting links and stages of transition may be traced, alternately, in a deficiency or an excess of development of certain parts, in the mode of junction of ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... because he despairs of any other way, he will pretend great love and kindness to you, and that he will marry you. You may expect a parson, for this purpose, in a few days; but it is a sly artful fellow, of a broken attorney, that he has hired to personate a minister. The man has a broad face, pitted much with the small-pox, and is a very great companion. So take care of yourself. Doubt not this advice. Perhaps you'll have had but too much reason already to confirm you in the truth of it. From your ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... was on the outside of the building), about some runaway cattle, and the old trapper thought all the while that he was talking to his chum, Dick Lewis. Now Archie had a new subject to practice upon. He laid himself out to personate Arthur Vane; and he not only successfully imitated that young gentleman's pompous style of talking, and his dignified manner of riding and walking, but even the tone of his voice. He criticised Frank and Johnny continually, and made them laugh, till their jaws ached, ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... falling off towards the close of the Tatler, but that it was not want of matter that brought about the abandonment of the paper is proved by the commencement only two months later of the Spectator. Steele himself said that on many accounts it had become an irksome task to personate Mr. Bickerstaff any longer; he had in some places touched upon matters concerning Church and State, and he could not be cold enough to conceal his opinions. Gay tells us, in "The Present State of Wit," that the ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... of the girls was willing to represent the elderly bridegroom so unflatteringly described as "a laggard in love and a dastard in war." It was not an ingratiating character, and Nancy and Barbara flatly refused to personate it. Susan could do it, she was the smallest, and would best look the part. For two minutes on end Susan stoutly refused to do anything of the kind, and then placidly consented, being of a peace-at-any-price disposition, which found it easier to submit than to preserve a determined ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... waiting to spring. But you are not really hungry, except for something which is not food! And you are not waiting for anything except for permission to talk! I give it to you—talk, children! Talk yourselves hoarse! It will do you good! And I will personate supreme wisdom by ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... Christy that the remarkable attempt of one or the other of the officers on board as passengers to personate the other had been explained to those on the quarter-deck, for he observed that they all regarded him with curiosity, and were interested in the matter. As the surgeon passed near him he ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... car, on the top of which was a golden dragon, with coloured reins round its neck, which were held by an old man, dressed as an ancient Briton, and supposed to personate St. George. Then came a number of mounted ladies, dressed in brilliant velvet habits, one green, one red, one yellow, one violet; each of them holding long orange reins, which were fastened to spirited piebald horses, which they ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... conducted outside the walls without meeting a single official. The ruse, however, got wind, and the decree of the 14th of June was the consequence. To frustrate this, the royalist committee caused several children to personate me, imparting to the impostors several circumstances connected with my family. One they sent to Bordeaux, another to La Vendee, a third to Germany, and so on. These are the children who, when they became men, tried to keep ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... and highest degree of the society requires a greater number of feasts than before, and the candidate, who continues to personate the Bear Spirit, again uses his sacred drum, as he is shown sitting before it in No. 78, and chants more prayers to Dzhe Manid[-o] for his favor. This degree is guarded by the greatest number and the most powerful ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... Birmingham Town Hall, where, notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, nearly two thousand persons had assembled. The work selected was the Christmas Carol. The high mimetic powers possessed by Mr. Dickens enabled him to personate with remarkable force the various characters of the story, and with admirable skill to pass rapidly from the hard, unbelieving Scrooge, to trusting and thankful Bob Cratchit, and from the genial fulness of Scrooge's nephew, to the hideous ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... conspirators, Don Pedro, Don Sallust, and Don Florio, enter, the first of whom has designs on the throne. They indulge in a buffo trio, which develops into a spirited bacchanal ("Wine, Wine, the Magician thou art!"). Observing Elvira's likeness to the Queen, they persuade her to personate her Majesty. She consents with feigned reluctance, and after accepting their escort in place of Manuel's, being sure that he will follow, she sings a quaint rondo ("Oh, were I the Queen of Spain!"), and the act closes with a ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... pointing at me with a flash of intelligence, "HE can personate him, and say it. Can you?" he turned ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... nonsense. But he corrected himself by reflecting that he was perhaps as well entertained, and instructed too, by this same modest gauger, as he should have been by such a man as he had thought proper to personate. And surely the fault may more properly be imputed to that rank where the futility is real than where it is feigned: to that rank whose opportunities for nobler accomplishments have only served to rear a fabric of folly ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... the forms of prayer (Mantras) proper for the occasion, but retire when the animal is about to be killed by the Got who represents Bhairavi. The shrine, in which the images of the gods are kept, is always shut, and no person is allowed to enter but the priest (Pujari) and the Gots, who personate in masks these deities. Once in twelve years the Raja offers a solemn sacrifice. It consists of two men, of such a rank that they wear a thread; of two buffaloes, two goats, two rams, two cocks, two ducks, and two fishes. The lower animals are ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... proceeded far, when a large plantation became visible, the white mansion gleaming through the trees. Wright recognizing the place, suggested that Glazier might procure a good supper, and something for the haversack, if he would boldly call and personate a rebel officer, trusting to his face and ready wit to carry him through. He had heard from some negroes that the only occupant was a Mrs. Keyton and some young children, the wife and family of the planter, who was ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... at all (for he has passed away into Devachan), but nevertheless, not only bears his exact personal appearance, but possesses his memory and all his little idiosyncrasies, and may, therefore, very readily personate him, as indeed it frequently does at seances. It is not, of course, conscious of any act of impersonation, for as far as its intellect goes it must necessarily suppose itself to be the individual, but ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... produced by magic spells: on the stage, it is an ass's head, and nothing more; certainly a very strange costume for a gentleman to appear in. Fancy cannot be embodied any more than a simile can be painted; and it is as idle to attempt it as to personate Wall or Moonshine. Fairies are not incredible, but fairies six feet high are so. Monsters are not shocking, if they are seen at a proper distance. When ghosts appear at midday, when apparitions stalk along Cheapside, then ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... benefactor of the West, St. Benedict, was laying the foundations of the coenobitic life. In the first instance, Totila tried to deceive the Saint. He dressed up a high officer as king, and sent him, with three of his chief counts in attendance, to personate himself. When Benedict saw the Gothic train approaching he was seated, and as soon as they were within earshot, he cried out to the warrior pretending to be king: "Son, lay aside that dress which is not thine". The Goth fell to the ground ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... tell you, friend Hamad," he began, for Haroun and Giafer were known to him only by their assumed names of Hamad and Yussuf—"I must first tell you how it came about that I was induced to personate our sovereign lord, Haroun Alraschid, whom may Allah preserve, and from whose ears may the story of my presumption be ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... warriors who remained behind was to personate a woman, and, if possible, make the old chief's people think he was Chaf-fa-ly-a. Souk said he knew a pass through the Black Hills that would bring them to his father's country two days sooner than by any other route, and, although the way was somewhat dangerous, they must ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... us who had seen a play during the vacation at home told the others the plot. The whole was divided into scenes, and each character was assigned to some representative who was left to personate it according to his own conception, choosing the words and gestures which he deemed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... pretend to avoid; and that the abolishment of the Christian religion will be the readiest course we can take to introduce Popery. And I am the more inclined to this opinion because we know it has been the constant practice of the Jesuits to send over emissaries, with instructions to personate themselves members of the several prevailing sects amongst us. So it is recorded that they have at sundry times appeared in the guise of Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Independents, and Quakers, according as any of these were most in credit; ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... To personate characters, time is represented by King Nimaera; birth, life, and death respectively by Kalim, Weemus, and Sero; while mankind is represented by Nimaera's subjects, and the world by his kingdom, heaven by "The Land of Bliss," and hell by "The Pit ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... wealth, and set forth his early and late relations with the prisoner, a dishonored and unscrupulous outcast of society. The prisoner had been intimately acquainted with the circumstances of Johnson's early life, with his history and his home. His plan, therefore, was to kill him, and then personate him. A celebrated case, which would be present to the minds of the jury, proved that a most plausible attempt at the personation of a long-missing man might be made by an uneducated impostor, who possessed ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... competitor. Yet, if we may credit his own professions, very far from being desirous of the empire, he had accepted it with the most sincere reluctance. "But it is no longer in my power," says Probus, in a private letter, "to lay down a title so full of envy and of danger. I must continue to personate the character which the soldiers have imposed upon me." [25] His dutiful address to the senate displayed the sentiments, or at least the language, of a Roman patriot: "When you elected one of your order, conscript fathers! to succeed the emperor Aurelian, you acted in a manner suitable ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... cries of babies, the barking of dogs, and the shrill screams of elderly ladies, entered the broad door of the clothes-warehouse, and thrust his nose into Mr. O'Brallaghan's face, just as that gentleman was cutting out the sixth pair of pantaloons for himself, in which he was to personate St. Michael. ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... at once, but at last he said firmly: "Either the dead, or some class of intermediate spirits who personate the human dead. Yes, Varick, that is exactly what ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... here intend to personate the bashful Author, and out of a point of Honour undervalue my Comedy. I should very unseasonably disoblige all the People of Paris, should I accuse them of having applauded a foolish Thing: as the Public is absolute Judge of such sort of ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... rule was to be more constitutional, less absolute than it had been. The public were no longer to be confined to Drury Lane and Covent Garden in the winter, and the Haymarket in the summer. Actors were enabled, managers and public consenting, to personate Hamlet or Macbeth, or other heroes of the poetic stage, at Lambeth, Clerkenwell, or Shoreditch, anywhere indeed, without risk of committal to gaol. It was no longer necessary to call a play a "burletta," or to touch a note upon the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... appeared, seemingly issuing from the element whose deity he aspired to personate. Mops, dripping with brine, supplied the place of hoary locks; gulf-weed, of which acres were floating within a league of the ship, composed a sort of negligent mantle; and in his hand he bore a trident made of ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... him. Was he running his head into a noose, blindfold? Who was the Billington he was thus made to personate, and who must really be staying at the very same time in the Duke of Devonshire? Was this just another of Nevitt's wily tricks? Had he induced his victim to accept without question the name and character of some ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... irons, by means of which they regained that symmetry with which nature had at first endowed them. Three years afterwards, in March, 1794, John Kemble was acting Macbeth at Drury Lane; and, in the "cauldron scene," he engaged some children to personate the supernatural beings summoned by the witches from that weird vessel. Little Edmund with his irons was the cause of a ridiculous accident, and the attempt to embody the ghostly forms was abruptly abandoned. But the child seems to have been pardoned for his blunder, ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... in which two boys personate a Centaur, a creature of Greek mythology, half man and half horse. One of the players stands erect and the other behind him in a stooping position with his hands upon the first player's hips, as shown in Fig. ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... think your choice of metre a little too much of the measured elegiac, for the bursts of alternate passion, love, and anger—those sudden breaks of vexation, which I see, or fancy I see, in the original Latin. Now, Aquilius, let us hear you personate the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... Knowing from report that the janissaries ran riot at such times, and being aware that my son Lucien—who is a noted linguist, Signor Bacri—spoke their language almost as well as a native, I suggested that he should procure a uniform and personate a janissary, while I should act the part of a runaway slave. Being a favourite with poor Achmet, as you know, Lucien had much influence among the domestics, and easily procured the disguise. The moment the insurrection took place we fled from the palace, ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... a celebrated author is very much in vogue now, and is helpful in many ways. For instance, an evening with Dickens is observed in the following way: A number will personate the leading characters in any of Dickens' works, talking only in language and tone suited to the character, the invited guests ascertaining from his acquaintance with Dickens just where they belong. This can be done with or without costumes. ...
— Why and how: a hand-book for the use of the W.C.T. unions in Canada • Addie Chisholm
... Nay, nay, put not on that strange face. I am privy to the whole design, and know that Waitwell, to whom thou wert this morning married, is to personate Mirabell's uncle, and, as such winning my lady, to involve her in those difficulties from which Mirabell only must release her, by his making his conditions to have my cousin and her fortune left ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve |
