"Personate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the manner of the Creole Spanish ladies,—wholly in black. A small black bonnet on her head, covered by a veil thick with embroidery, concealed her face. It had been agreed that, in their escape, she was to personate the character of a Creole lady, and Emmeline that ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... 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 ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... having two or more strings to her bow, she had 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
... myself. Ah! is not that the title said to be assumed by the son of Louis XVI.? but that unhappy child is indisputably no more. Then my neighbour must be one of those unlucky adventurers who have undertaken to bring him to life again. Not a few had already taken upon themselves to personate this Louis XVII., and were proved to be impostors; how is my new acquaintance entitled to greater credit for ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... badly either, for being plump and rosy he was allowed to personate the jolly Friar Tuck. Robin Hood fell naturally to Carl as the oldest and the leader, Bess became Little John, Louise appeared by turns as Allan-a-Dale and the sheriff of Nottingham, and little Helen was occasionally pressed into service as Maid Marian. Who first thought ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... upon a high and pleasant hill Feign'd Fortune to be thron'd: the base o' the mount Is rank'd with all deserts, all kind of natures That labour on the bosom of this sphere To propagate their states: amongst them all, Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fix'd One do I personate of Lord Timon's frame, Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her; Whose present grace to present slaves and ...
— The Life of Timon of Athens • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... arguments comprehends such as relate, to what may be called the manner of the drama. The Quakers object to the manner of the drama, or to its fictitious nature, in consequence of which men personate characters, that are not their own. This personification they hold to be injurious to the man, who is compelled to practise it. Not that he will partake of the bad passions, which he personates, but ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... deep in the improvised traverse but let no drop of blood, while two return shots scattered the attack with the splinters from the heavy panels. Pleading, raging, maddened, Morales learned that the dash had failed, and that two of his most daring men, the two Americanos who had ridden forward to personate prospectors and who had led the rush in the southern front, were ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... 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
... women, and therefore it requires a less profound organic twist to become sexually attracted to them. Anyone who has watched private theatricals in boys' schools will have observed how easy it is for boys to personate women successfully, and it is well known that until the middle of the seventeenth century women's parts on the stage were always taken by boys, whether or not with injury to their own or other people's morals.[204] It is also worthy ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... at Honey's with actors befuddling themselves into that dreamy state regarded by the profession as necessary to the clear bringing out of all the beauties with which a beneficent providence endowed the kings and conquerors they are to personate at night, on that sequestered world called the stage. You may know by the downy state of his wardrobe that he has a place to sleep. But where he gets his breakfast is a mystery no friend has ever yet solved ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... like—if we its hopes may personate— Fall'n Marius, 'mid the ruins, when he stood And pondered darkly o'er his desperate fate, Alone, in th' o'erthrown City's solitude. Oh! we may build a fairy home for love— But, when 'tis blasted, how can we remove? How from the ruins can the ruined part? Or how rebuild the hope ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas
... by way of being an amateur actor, a low comedy man; but he was not sincere enough to personate any character, or be anything either on the stage or off it but his own small inartistic self; and no amount of bawling could make him an actor, though he bawled himself hoarse as a rule, mistaking sound for the science of expression. Still, it was the fashion ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... 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 men and women who people ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... his Apology, where, after stating that "the formal customary way of singing hath no foundation in Scripture, nor any ground in true Christianity," he adds, "all manner of wicked, profane persons take upon them to personate the experiences and conditions of blessed David; which are not only false as to them, but also to some of more sobriety, who utter them forth." "Such singing doth more please the carnal ears of men, than the pure ears of the Lord, who ...
— On Singing and Music • Society of Friends
... and varied entertainments at the house served also to beguile her time. On one occasion the young people were arranging a series of tableaux, and she was asked to personate Jephtha's daughter. When the curtain rose on her lovely face and large, dark eyes, the Hebrew maiden and her pathetic history grew into vivid reality against the dim background of ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... which was printed on the little card said that you must not persuade any one to personate a voter. I have no idea what it means. To dress up as an average voter seems a little vague. There is no well-recognised uniform, as far as I know, with civic waistcoat and patriotic whiskers. The enterprise resolves itself into one somewhat similar to the enterprise of a rich friend ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... Then, with many a 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 these we ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley
... your audacious letter, and proclaim you to be an impostor, worthy of the severest punishment for attempting to personate a son of my late brother. However, for the sake of my friendship for Mr. Kennedy, your father, I give you twenty-four hours to leave the country, before laying any information against you, both as an impostor and as a rebel who has served against the armies of Her Majesty. I ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... Atlee saw that he was to personate the character of a most unsuspecting, confiding young gentleman, who possessed a certain natural aptitude for affairs of importance, and that amount of discretion such as suited him to be employed confidentially; and to perform this ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... than either of them, as existing separately. In truth, mad persons are frequently more anxious to impress upon others a faith in their visions, than they are themselves confirmed in their reality; as, on the other hand, it is difficult for the most cool-headed impostor long to personate an enthusiast, without in some degree believing what he is so eager to have believed. It was a natural attribute of such a character as the supposed hermit, that he should credit the numerous superstitions with which the minds of ordinary Highlanders are almost always imbued. A few of these ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 secret agents waiting for us here. ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... malignant matter as offended), but also to put pen to paper and appear in print (as in this imperfect and impolished piece, which as guilty of an high presumption here in all humility begs your Lordship's pardon) wherein my chief scope is to personate the Good Samaritan, that, as he cured the wounded traveller by searching his wounds with wine and suppling them with oil, so I have here both described the rise and progress of our national malady, and also prescribed the only remedy, that ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... miserly old hunks, who hates to hear any voice but his own. His nephew, Sir Dauphine, wants to wring out of him a third of his property, and proceeds thus: He gets a lad to personate "a silent woman," and the phenomenon so delights the old man, that he consents to a marriage. No sooner is the ceremony over, than the boy-wife assumes the character of a virago of loud and ceaseless ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... me. But the Lear of Shakespeare cannot be acted. The contemptible machinery by which they mimic the storm which he goes out in, is not more inadequate to represent the horrors of the real elements, than any actor can be to represent Lear: they might more easily propose to personate the Satan of Milton upon a stage, or one of Michael Angelo's terrible figures. The greatness of Lear is not in corporal dimension but in intellectual: the explosions of his passions are terrible as a volcano; they are storms turning up and disclosing to the bottom ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... first. Come down first not last:—first. Let the other one come 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 packet ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in a Room hung with Flower-Pieces of her own Painting Evening: an Ode. To Stella To the Same To a Friend To a Young Lady, on her Birthday Epilogue intended to have been Spoken by a Lady who was to personate 'The Ghost of Hermione' The Young Author Friendship: an Ode. Printed in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1743 Imitation of the Style of Percy One ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... Nicholas has a day set apart in his honor. He was born in. Palara, a city of Lycia, and but very little is known of his life except that he was made Bishop of Myra and died in the year 343. It was once the custom to send a man around to personate St. Nicholas on St. Nicholas Eve, and to inquire how the children had behaved through the year, who were deserving of gifts, and who needed a touch of the birch rods that he carried with him into every home. St. Nicholas still goes about in some parts ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... 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 lady's maid was easily prevailed on to do. The extra stateroom, originally engaged for this girl during her mistress's life, was now merely retained. In this stateroom the pseudo-wife slept, of course, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... entertained, the manner in which they were confirmed, and the method by which he had discovered the plot for the rising. He was interrupted several times when he attempted to abbreviate the story, or to omit some of the details, and there were exclamations of surprise at his proposal to personate a Turkish prisoner, and to share the lot of the slaves in their prison, and on the benches of ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... 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 ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... pointing at me with a flash of intelligence, "HE can personate him, and say it. Can you?" ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... for the Caller. Blue, white and rosy scarfs for as many dancers as will personate the three Flowers that respond to the call: Violets, Wild-roses and Daisies. A twisted rope of green to link the dancing Flowers together in ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... with French windows; they are open, and invite the bailiff-hunted Brown into the house. What so natural as that he should find out the state of family affairs from a loquacious Abigail, and should personate the expected nephew? Mr. Tidmarsh (the property old gentleman of the farce-writers) is in ecstacics. Mrs. T. sees in the supposed Selbourne a son-in-law for her daughter, whose vision is directed to the same prospects. Happy, domestic circle! unequalled family felicity! too soon, alas! to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... those 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
... Babu and Salim Sardar were both accomplices of Jogesh, who had rented an office on the Strand for one month at Rs. 300 which was never paid. He had also engaged twenty or thirty loafers at 4 annas (4d.) a head to personate coolies for a couple of hours. This part of the inquiry was satisfactory enough—for the police; not so the efforts they made to trace Jogesh and his accomplices. From that day to this nothing has been heard ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... hands of the Realists they fade away into ineffective and colourless forms. The Sir Peter Teazles and Sir Anthony Absolutes of the old comedy require indispensably the resources of the old art, and no thin, water-gruel realism, so-called, can personate them. In avoiding the declamatory Kembletonianism of the old school, our actors are right enough; but they cannot safely disregard the skill which sharpens and chisels, as it were, the sentences; nor forego the care, study, precision and stern adherence to rules of art, that ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Love in '76 - An Incident of the Revolution • Oliver Bell Bunce
... 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 us, offended ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... often "acted out" her stories and songs, to the great admiration of children and the amusement of older people, but it was very seldom this favor was granted, without earnest and reiterated entreaties. It was the first time she had ever spontaneously offered to personate the Sibyl, whose oracles she uttered, and it was a proof that an unusual fit of inspiration ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... To personate another man and to kiss the other man's wife under that disguise would have seemed to him the meanest act ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... 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 an officer in the rebel ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... 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 ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... they chose a shady and delightful part of a wood, where the sunshine could not incommode them, and where care was taken to clear the ground underfoot, for their performance. A young lady of the most eminence for rank and beauty was chosen to personate the goddess Ceres. Her dress was of an exquisite taste, ornamented with tufts of gold, in imitation of wheat-sheaves: while her head was decked with a kind of crown composed of spangles, representing the ears of ripe corn, ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... 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
... hope of publicly displaying their anti- radical sentiments before all Shellport, looked about for consolation indoors that evening, and found it in a demonstration against the unlucky Bosher, who, against his will, had been forced to personate the Radical at the recent meeting, and now found it impossible to retrieve his reputation. He was hissed all round the playground, and finally had to barricade himself in his study to escape further persecution. ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... [It is the base, the bitter disposition of Beatrice, that puts the world into her person] That is, It is the disposition of Beatrice, who takes upon her to personate the world, and therefore represents the world as saying what she ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... 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, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... wolves 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 listening to you ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... 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 ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who, leaving Europe in 1620 because not permitted to sing psalms through his nose, followed it to Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce |
