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Portal   Listen
noun
Portal  n.  
1.
A door or gate; hence, a way of entrance or exit, especially one that is grand and imposing. "Thick with sparkling orient gems The portal shone." "From out the fiery portal of the east."
2.
(Arch.)
(a)
The lesser gate, where there are two of different dimensions.
(b)
Formerly, a small square corner in a room separated from the rest of the apartment by wainscoting, forming a short passage to another apartment.
(c)
By analogy with the French portail, used by recent writers for the whole architectural composition which surrounds and includes the doorways and porches of a church.
3.
(Bridge Building) The space, at one end, between opposite trusses when these are terminated by inclined braces.
4.
A prayer book or breviary; a portass. (Obs.)
Portal bracing (Bridge Building), a combination of struts and ties which lie in the plane of the inclined braces at a portal, serving to transfer wind pressure from the upper parts of the trusses to an abutment or pier of the bridge.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Portal" Quotes from Famous Books



... blind ways provided, the foredone Heart-weary player in this pageant world Drops out by, letting the main masque defile By the conspicuous portal. ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris

... of these reports are positively humorous on account of this determination to keep "display" in the background. Here is a gem of that type. It is a report written by Corporal C. Hogg, who was stationed at North Portal on the Soo Line near the international boundary. Such localities are often a sort of "No Man's Land" where would-be desperadoes think they can set law to defiance. Corporal Hogg's report of an evening's ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth

... intention to light a fire beneath and have the finest stew in all England? The castle is a stern place, perhaps; but how can I ever think it grim, with such a jolly old flatterer as you stationed at its portal? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... Cathedral, in the inside, from the great portal to the extremity of the chapel of the Virgin, is four hundred and eight feet (about four hundred and fifty english); the chapel of the virgin is eighty eight feet in length; the choir is one hundred ...
— Rouen, It's History and Monuments - A Guide to Strangers • Theodore Licquet

... Maslova's case was to be examined at the Senate, and Nekhludoff and the advocate met at the majestic portal of the building, where several carriages were waiting. Ascending the magnificent and imposing staircase to the first floor, the advocate, who knew all the ins and outs of the place, turned to the left and entered through a door which had the date of the introduction ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... and Chandon's Epernay cellars—which, burrowed out in all directions, are of the aggregate length of nearly seven miles, and have usually between 11,000,000 and 12,000,000 bottles and 25,000 casks of wine stored therein—is through a wide and imposing portal, and down a long and broad flight of steps. It is, however, by the ancient and less imposing entrance, through which more than one crowned head has condescended to pass, that we set forth on our lengthened tour through these intricate underground galleries—this ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly

... and portal barred, The mistress scanned the darkening space, And with a visage hot and hard— At bay before the cruel chase— She held them in her ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland

... World-eternal, Onward, onward, is my face; Resting spot in vain I wish for, Till in thee I find my place: Death's dark portal, Though so dark I must ...
— Favourite Welsh Hymns - Translated into English • Joseph Morris

... looking up to the tower, saw a signal made with a handkerchief from the window. Nothing doubting that it was his antagonist, he paused, expecting him. But it was Mary Avenel, who glided like a spirit from under the low and rugged portal. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... confabulation passed in the hall while Tim was relieving me of my cloak and hat. He now preceded me to the library, at the door of which he knocked, and then, flinging open the portal, he ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... was a lovely girl of twenty, he a bright youth of twenty-five. She passed away from his despairing sight, fair and fresh as a spring flower, with beautiful golden hair and violet eyes; she came out from that fatal portal a woman of forty-five, stout, spectacled, with faded, thin hair beneath her nun's cowl, to meet a portly gray-haired man of fifty, in whom not even love's eye could detect the faintest vestige of the slender ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... damp, muggy January evening when I journeyed to this suburban retreat. It rained dismally, and the wind nearly blew the porter out of his lodge as he obeyed our summons at the Dantesque portal of the institution, in passing behind which so many had literally abandoned hope. I tried to fancy how it would feel if one were really being consigned to that receptacle by interested relatives, as we read ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... of a stream, a wonderful picture stretched before me. The small stream and the surrounding country were walled in by dense green trees. To the west the cool, dark depths parted only wide enough for the creek to disappear through a narrow portal. Through small openings in the southern wall, I caught glimpses of the summer cottages on the sandy shore. To the north stretched the pasture-lands with shade-trees happy to hide their nakedness with thick foliage. Here, too, a large elm displayed all its grace. To the east was a bridge ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort

... now approached the portal, within which I found a person with a brown freckled face, enveloped in a cowl of the same colour, seated motionless on a cold stone bench behind the gate. For the instant, I was the rude Gaul, surveying the mysterious senator of the forum; ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.

... him: "When at fall of day Come the kine for milking, I abroad will stay; I the castle portal every eve should close: Ye shall find it opened, free for tread of foes: I will say the weakling calves awhile I keep; 'Tis for milk, I'll tell them: come then while they sleep; Come, their castle enter, all its wealth to spoil; Only rests that serpent, he our plans may foil: Him it rests to ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy

... while willingness" (docility) "unlocks the portal to the divine mysteries of God. I would not attempt to solve a mystery by intellect, but ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... already in shadow, but the sunshine still poured through the great rose window above the western portal, lighting the dim interior of the church with long shafts of brilliant reds, blues, and greens, and falling at last in a shower of broken color upon the steps of the high altar. Somewhere in the mysterious shadows an unseen musician touched the ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... zenith of the heavens descried a crown blazing with incredible jewels, and inscribed with letters that he felt rather than spelled: "This is the reward of the noble." All around the crown, hanging in air like sculptured cloudwork, spread a splendid city with towers: a noble castle, with open portal and stairway inviting his princely feet, stood at the centre, and the spires of sacred churches still sought, as they seek on earth, to pierce the unattainable heaven. When he awoke his courtiers were around him, for they had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... nor left; cross the first court to the great portal. There await me. Quick, quick—here they come!" And he pushed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... line which occurs so often in "Christabel"—"Jesu Maria shield her well!" In the same poem, the passage where the Lady Margaret steals out of Branksome Tower at dawn to meet her lover in the wood, gliding down the secret stair and passing the bloodhound at the portal, will remind all readers of "Christabel." The dialogue between the river and mountain spirits will perhaps remind them of the ghostly antiphonies which the "Mariner" hears in ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... rascal; I've been trudging on Till now I've reached the portal, where I'm going First to turn in. Boy! Boy! I say ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes

... through the snow and over the ice and rocks until he reached the door of the cabin. He pounded loudly on the portal. ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield

... it was his duty, he would not be affrighted by the formidable character of the undertaking, but go and judge of the difficulties in the way for himself. Accordingly he went. Arriving within three hundred yards of the portal which conducted to the charmed circle where "Big Six" held court, he was not astonished at the spectacle of fourteen hundred Irishmen, twenty-seven Germans, and three boys, all crowding, in no little confusion, to get a glimpse of the space behind the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various

... as the palace builded for Aladdin, Yonder St. Mark uplifts its sculptured splendor— Intricate fretwork, Byzantine mosaic, Color on color, column upon column, Barbaric, wonderful, a thing to kneel to! Over the portal stand the four gilt horses, Gilt hoof in air, and wide distended nostril, Fiery, untamed, as in the days of Nero. Skyward, a cloud of domes and spires and crosses; Earthward, black shadows flung from jutting stonework. High over all the slender ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... was Rose who drew the blank that made her "guardian of the portal" for the first twenty minutes. At the end of that time the girls would draw again and let another ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler

... Every sweet we gain is sauced with a bitter. Our eyes forever bent on the future, which can never be ours, we fritter away the present, which alone we possess. Ere we have got ourselves ready to live, we must die. Fooling ourselves even here, we represent death as the portal to joy unspeakable; and forthwith discredit our words by avoiding it in every ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... light into the building. Outside, their gray masses are shored up from point to point by enormous beams. The great nave and its two small lateral galleries are lighted solely by the rose-window of stained glass, which pierces with miraculous art the wall above the great portal, whose fortunate exposure permits a wealth of tracery and dentellated stone-work belonging to that ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... the pillared portal and was immediately swallowed up by a shroud of silent, velvety darkness. Wes could not see her, but her soft hand touched his arm lightly to guide him forward, and he sensed the girl's warm body close to ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... length, he was suddenly seized, and, before he could open his lips to raise an alarm, the silence of death closed them up for ever. They next descended rapidly the spiral staircase of the tower, and opening the portal, admitted the whole of their companions. Raymond of Toulouse, who, cognisant of the whole plan, had been left behind with the main body of the army, heard at this instant the signal horn, which announced that an entry had been effected, and, leading on his ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... salt-water cracks, I reckon he would want to go home to his bath and bed; and if the savage combers gnashed at him like white teeth of ravenous beasts, I take it that his general feelings of jollity would be modified; while last of all, if he saw the dark portal—goal of all mortals—slowly lifting to let him fare on to the halls of doom, I wager that poet would not think of rhymes. If he had to work!—But no, a real sea ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman

... was shut and barred; still, at Ayesha's coming, yes, before the mere breath of her presence, the iron bolts snapped like twigs, the locks flew back, and inward burst that massive portal. ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard

... down, and opening it saw by the light of a lamp which he had seized upon the way, a female figure crouching in the portal. It hurried swiftly past him and glided up the stairs. He looked for pursuers. There were none in ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens

... Mondana's knees greeted the Morning. And all the while in the plains the shapes of cities came looming out of the dusk. And Kongros stood forth with all her pinnacles, and the winged figure of Poesy carved upon the eastern portal of her gate, and the squat figure of Avarice carved facing it upon the west; and the bat began to tire of going up and down her streets, and already the owl was home. And the dark lions went up out of the plain back to their caves again. Not as yet ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... beautiful inherited things, where tradition had built strong walls about the Malletts, the sight of Caroline was like a gate leading into the wide, uncertain world and the sight of Rose, all cream and black, was like a secret portal leading to a winding stair. At this hour, romance was in the house, beckoning Henrietta to follow through that gate or down that stair, but chiefly hovering about the figure of Rose who sat so straight and kept so silent, her white hands moving slowly, ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG

... greatly delighted. The roof was of copper externally, and was painted black, while the walls, in common with those of the church, were staringly white. To this mausoleum there was no access from the church. It had a portal and steps of its own on the ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James

... holy lunar day of the auspicious season, king Bhima summoned the kings to the Swayamvara. And hearing of it, all the lords of earth smit with love speedily came thither, desirous of (possessing) Damayanti. And the monarchs entered the amphitheatre decorated with golden pillars and a lofty portal arch, like mighty lions entering the mountain wilds. And those lords of earth decked with fragrant garlands and polished ear-rings hung with jewels seated themselves on their several seats. And that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... to solace him. They brought him sweet cakes and juicy meats; they tempted him with the best they had; they tried to lure him to abide by the warmth of the hearth; but it was of no avail. Patrasche refused to be comforted or to stir from the barred portal. ...
— A Dog of Flanders • Louisa de la Rame)

... contract, we find only its lowest member, the Great Conglomerate. This last is by far the most picturesque member of the system,—abrupt and bold of outline in its hills, and mural in its precipices. And nowhere does it exhibit a wilder or more characteristic beauty than at the tall narrow portal of the Auldgrande, where the river,—after wailing for miles in a pent-up channel, narrow as one of the lanes of old Edinburgh, and hemmed in by walls quite as perpendicular, and nearly twice as lofty,—suddenly expands, first into a ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... superior crossed the street and quickly entered the ornate portal of Shultberger's cabaret, which was in reality the annex ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... carved and gilded. A ragged squad of Turkish soldiers lolled about the gate now; a couple of boys on a donkey; a grinning slave on a mule; a pair of women flapping along in yellow papooshes; a basket-maker sitting under an antique carved portal, and chanting or howling as he plaited his osiers: a peaceful well of water, at which knights' chargers had drunk, and at which the double-boyed donkey was now refreshing himself—would have made a pretty picture for a sentimental ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... to keep my appointment with Captain Marmaduke; but then, as ever, the hands of the clock went round their appointed circle, and at half-past eleven I was at my destination. The Noble Rose stood in the market square. It was a fine place enough, or seemed so to my eyes then, with its pillared portal and its great bow-windows at each side, where the gentlemen of quality loved to sit of fine evenings drinking their ale or their brandy, and watching the world ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... traditions of the best models known to him—and, undoubtedly he knew the best. His works cover and line the Louvre, and anyone who visits Paris may get a perfect conception of his genius—certainly anyone who in addition visits Rouen and beholds the lovely tracery of his earliest sculpture on the portal of St. Maclou. He was eminently the sculptor of an educated class, and appealed to a cultivated appreciation. Coming as he did at the acme of the French Renaissance, when France was borrowing with intelligent ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell

... cathedrals, after all: Santa Maria del Fiore, with Brunelleschi's dome, which Michel Angelo wouldn't copy and couldn't beat; Milan, aflame with statues, like a thousand-tapered candelabrum; Tours, with its embroidered portal, so like the lace of an archbishop's robe; even Notre Dame of Paris, with its new spire; Rouen, Amiens, Chartres,—we must give them ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... the direction of Westminster, got out at the very centre of the Empire on which the sun never sets. Some stalwart constables, who did not seem particularly impressed by the duty of watching the august spot, saluted him. Penetrating through a portal by no means lofty into the precincts of the House which is the House, par excellence in the minds of many millions of men, he was met at last by the volatile ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... suit me very well," said the other, and in half an hour he returned to Brendon, found him chatting with Jenny in the dark portal of the silkworm ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... West, from the North and the South, In communion and intercourse sweet, Her children have come, on this festival day, To sit, as of old, at her feet. And our mother,—God bless her benevolent face!— How her heart thrills with motherly joys, As she stands at the portal, with arms opened wide, To welcome her ...
— Ballads • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... the staircase of the Province House. Now, he mounted to the cupola, and looked sea-ward, straining his eyes to discover if there were a sail upon the horizon. Now, he hastened down the stairs, and stood beneath the portal, on the red freestone steps, to receive some mud-bespattered courtier, from whom he hoped to hear ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... strange place, indeed, in which I found myself. Our eyes were unbandaged after we entered the portal of the ranch house, and when Big Pete and I turned toward our guide, we were facing in a direction that gave us a sweeping view of the entire ranch. And what we ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard

... Snare thee in a downward error, Drag thee through the narrow gate, Give thee up to windy fate, To be blown for evermore Up and down without a shore; For to shun the good as ill Makes the evil bolder still. But oftener far the portal opes With the sound of coming hopes; On the joy-astonished eyes Awful heights of glory rise; Mountains, stars, and dreadful space, The Eternal's azure face. In storms of silence self is drowned, Leaves the ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald

... with his axe upon the gate of the castle, protected in part from the shot and stones cast by the defenders by the ruins of the former drawbridge, which the Templar had demolished in his retreat from the barbican, leaving the counterpoise still attached to the upper part of the portal. The followers of the knight had no such shelter; two were instantly shot with cross-bow bolts, and two more fell into the moat; the others retreated back into ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... train our youth? Not in the arts that are immortal, But in the greed for gains that speed From him who stands at Death's dark portal. ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field

... rapidity through the back-door, across the yard, through the garden, out of the small gate leading to the meadow, down the foot-path, up the mountain-road, jumping from stone to stone, courageous and intrepid as a true daughter of the Tyrol. Now she stood at the portal of the castle, in front of which some of the Bavarian soldiers were lying in idle repose on a bench, while others in the side-wing of the castle allotted to them were looking out of the windows, and dreamily humming a Bavarian song, frequently ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... the delicate woodwork of Hancy? What has time, what have men done with these marvels? What have they given us in return for all this Gallic history, for all this Gothic art? The heavy flattened arches of M. de Brosse, that awkward architect of the Saint-Gervais portal. So much for art; and, as for history, we have the gossiping reminiscences of the great pillar, still ringing with the tattle ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... entrance-hall of the Museum, where his third visit should close. In the hall are deposited four colossal specimens of sculpture from Nimroud. The first of these, to which the visitor should direct his attention, is a colossal figure of a winged human-headed bull, found by Mr. Layard at the portal of a door at Nimroud. Of the discovery of this marvellous specimen of ancient Assyrian art, Mr. Layard gives a graphic account:—"I was returning to the mound, when I saw two Arabs urging their mares to the top of their speed. On approaching me, they ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold

... joyns, and each man builds his own Appartment: so that the Building goes quite round like a circle, only one gap is left, which is to pass thro to the Bogahah Tree: and this gap is built over with a kind of Portal. The use of these Buildings is for the entertainment of the Women. Who take great delight to come and see these Ceremonies, clad in their best and richest Apparel. They employ themselves in seeing the Dancers, ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... before us, Veiled, the dark Portal, Goal of all mortal. Stars silent rest o'er us— Graves ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle

... god-love! Let me kiss On thy cold lips thy hot lips now immortal, Greeting thee at Death's portal's happiness, For to the gods Death's ...
— Antinous: A Poem • Fernando Antonio Nogueira Pessoa

... before the dreary portal, Phantom-shapes, the guards of Hades, lie; None of heavenly kind, nor yet of mortal, May unchallenged pass the warders by. None that path may go, If he cannot show ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun

... dreams of that New Earth divine, Conceived of seed immortal: She sings, "Not mine the holier shrine, But mine the cloudy portal!" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... and female pelvis. His knowledge of the skeleton was particularly complete and accurate. He describes very fully the bones of the head, including the perforated plate of the ethmoid bone, the sutures, the teeth, and the skeletal bones generally. Portal states that Celsus knew of the semicircular canals. He understood the structure of the joints, and points out that cartilage is part of ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... Thou thy people's cry, Star of the deep and portal of the sky, Mother of Him who Thee from nothing made, Sinking we strive and call to Thee for aid. Oh, by that joy which Gabriel brought to Thee, Thou Virgin first and last, let ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley

... princes, and of a more ambitious character than any other of the remains. An open court, about fifty feet in breadth, and extremely deep, is excavated out of the rock. One side is formed by a portico, the frieze of which is sculptured in a good Syro-Greek style. There is no grand portal; you crawl into the tombs by a small opening on one of the sides. There are a few small chambers with niches, recesses, and sarcophagi, some sculptured in the same flowing style as the frieze. This is the most ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli

... had emerged from a side portal of the mansion, and approached the gateway, the traveller still felt that there was something lost, or something gained (he hardly knew which), that set the Donatello of to-day irreconcilably at odds with him ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Countess of Leicester arrived at the outer gate of the Castle of Kenilworth, she found the tower, beneath which its ample portal arch opened, guarded in a singular manner. Upon the battlements were placed gigantic warders, with clubs, battle-axes, and other implements of ancient warfare, designed to represent the soldiers of King Arthur; those primitive Britons, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... either the funeral procession of some great personage had halted in front of the Province House, or that a corpse, in a velvet-covered and gorgeously-decorated coffin, was about to be borne from the portal. After listening a moment, Sir William Howe called, in a stern voice, to the leader of the musicians, who had hitherto enlivened the entertainment with gay and lightsome melodies. The man was drum-major to ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... followed the pointing of the candlestick. "There!" he exclaimed. The door was immediately upon the left, not five feet from the portal he had lately belaboured. "Then 't was against his window that ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... of his life, as said above, the eldest scion of the golden-wing family made his appearance at the portal of his home. The sight and the sound of him came together, for he burst out at once with a cry. It was not very loud, but it meant something, and the practice of a day or two gave it all the strength that was desirable. In fact, it became clamorous to a degree that ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... reached the portal common spirits fear, And read the words above it, dark yet clear, 20 "Leave hope behind, all ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson

... the outmost of its untrodden streets was entered, not through towered gate or guarded rampart, but as a deep inlet between two rocks of coral in the Indian sea; when first upon the traveller's sight opened the long ranges of columned palaces—each with its black boat moored at the portal—each with its image cast down, beneath its feet, upon that green pavement which every breeze broke into new fantasies of rich tessellation; when first, at the extremity of the bright vista, the shadowy Rialto threw its colossal curve slowly forth ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... house, with Butch and Beef holding the helpless, but loudly protesting Hicks, who would fain have executed what may mildly be termed a strategic retreat, big Tug Cardiff boldly marched, in close formation, toward the door, when the portal suddenly flew open. ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... minute later the betrayed maidens were carried, feet-foremost-and-fainting, through a particularly dirty portal, over which gleamed the infernal legend: "Who enters here leaves soap behind!" I ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... prismatic tints combine to white. And then, after the first dazzle of admiration, when the spirit of curiosity urges you to penetrate the centre aisle, lo and behold it is but a gate! The dupe of unexpected splendor, you have been paying court to the means of approach. It is only a portal after all. For as you pass through, you catch a glimpse of a building beyond more gorgeous still. Like in general to the first, unlike it in detail, resembling it only as the mistress may the maid. But who shall ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell

... of "whitewashing" than a payment in full. His passing was what is technically called a "shave," a metaphor alluding to that intellectual density which finds it difficult to squeeze through the narrow portal which admits to the privileges of a Bachelor of Arts. As Mr S. himself, being a sporting man, described it, it was "a very close run indeed;" not that he considered that circumstance to derogate, in any way, from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... is only the pathway and portal, To the life that shall die nevermore; And the cross leadeth up to the crown everlasting, The Jordan ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson

... upon Sienese architecture and early Tuscan art, upon Italian street-life and the geological idiosyncrasies of the Apennines. If he had only gone to the other inn, that nice-looking girl whom he had seen passing under the dusky portal with her face turned away from him might have broken bread with him at this intellectual banquet. Then came a day, however, when it seemed for a moment that if she were disposed she might gather up the crumbs of the feast. Longueville, every morning after breakfast, ...
— Confidence • Henry James

... a portal's blazon'd arch Arose; the trumpet bids the valves unfold; And forth a host of little warriors march, Grasping the diamond lance, and targe of gold. Their look was gentle, their demeanour bold, And green their helms, and green their silk attire; And here and there, right venerably old, The long-robed ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... heathen gods?" Upon his coat of mail the captain thumped a vigorous sign of the cross. "Go, get thee back, lest aught should happen in thy absence. Thou knowest the penalty, both for thee and any gallant that dare pass the Lady Suelva's portal. Thou know'st the penalty," and he slapped his thigh with the flat of the halberd that hung ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... pine, yellow pine, libocedrus and Douglas spruce. The trip need not require more than two days, spending a night in a good hotel at Wawona, a beautiful place on the south fork of the Merced River, and returning to the Valley or to El Portal, the terminus of the railroad. This extra trip by stage costs fifteen dollars. All the High Sierra excursions that I have sketched cost from a dollar a week to anything you like. None of mine when I was exploring the Sierra cost over a dollar a ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir

... these tall woods awakened terrific images in her mind, and she almost expected to see banditti start up from under the trees. At length, the carriages emerged upon a heathy rock, and, soon after, reached the castle gates, where the deep tone of the portal bell, which was struck upon to give notice of their arrival, increased the fearful emotions, that had assailed Emily. While they waited till the servant within should come to open the gates, she anxiously surveyed the edifice: but the gloom, that overspread it, allowed her to distinguish ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... stopped suddenly before a wide, pillared portico I was wholly taken by surprise. Mills opened the carriage-door, and I got down with a blank, dreamy feeling, and followed him up the steps through the wide portal and along the hall. He ushered me into the library, and left me while he went to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... in the world; it arrests the vanishing apparitions which haunt the interlunations of life, and veiling them, or in language or in form, sends them forth among mankind, bearing sweet news of kindred joy to those with whom their sisters abide—abide, because there is no portal of expression from the caverns of the spirit which they inhabit into the universe of things. Poetry redeems from decay the visitations of the divinity ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... tripped before the prophet the walls alone repelled. The terrace was a garden in which were lilies and sentries. For entrance there was a portal of red porphyry, above which was a balcony hemmed by a balustrade of yellow ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus

... candles, and by their gleam, I obtained a far-off view of the mouth of the bottomless abyss. But if that was a horrible sight, overhead was one still more horrible—Justice, on her throne, guarding the portal of hell, and holding a special tribunal above the entrance thereto, to pronounce the doom of the damned as they arrive. I beheld the seven hurled headlong over the terrible verge, and the Wrangler, too, rushing to throw himself ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... donkeys and were following the crowd up the dromos (Harry Snell actually with Enid, thanks to me and the wisdom of second thoughts), Cleopatra's eyes wandered over the Hathor-headed columns with their clinging colour; and over the portal with its brilliant mass of yellow, of dark Pompeian red, and the green-blue sacred to Hathor, whom Horus loved —Venus-Hathor, whose priestesses danced within these walls in Cleopatra's day. "Oh, this red and this green-blue were my colours, I remember," she murmured, ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... and Godefroid were both surprised when they entered together the rue Massilon, which is opposite to the small north portal of the cathedral, and turned together into the rue Chanoinesse, at the point where, towards the rue de la Colombe, it becomes the rue des Marmousets. When Godefroid stopped before the arched portal of Madame de la Chanterie's house, the priest turned towards him and examined him by the light ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac

... was known by the name of Brasen Nose Hall, which peculiar name was undoubtedly owing, as the same author observes, to the circumstance of a nose of brass affixed to the gate. It is presumed, however, that this conspicuous appendage of the portal was not formed of the mixed metal which the word now denotes, but the genuine produce of the mine; as is the nose, or rather face, of a lion or leopard still remaining at Stamford, which also gave name to ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... front door, of course, but no one thought of meddling with that. That door had been opened but once during the late pastor's thirty-year tenantry. On the occasion of his funeral the mourners came and went, as was proper, by that solemn portal. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... sound is that as of one knocking gently? Yet who would enter here at hour so late? Arise! draw back the bolt—unclose the portal. What figure standeth ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... thickets, till he came up to a certain spot where he uttered these strange words, "Open, O Simsim!"[FN291] and forthwith appeared a wide doorway in the face of the rock. The robbers went in and last of all their Chief and then the portal shut of itself. Long while they stayed within the cave whilst Ali Baba was constrained to abide perched upon the tree, re fleeting that if he came down peradventure the band might issue forth that very moment and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... this person. She gets in a great flutter, about the twentieth of the month, over her accounts. Just now, however, she is placidly benevolent and hopes that author has slept well. He has and says so, and opening the outer door, an immense portal of heavy wood studded with big black nails, he steps down into the archway, where Mr. Honeyball is encountered. Mr. Honeyball has been in the army, has retired on a sergeant-major's pension after twenty-three years service and he salutes ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... right side (Figs. 71 and 72), and is the largest gland in the body. It weighs about four pounds and is separated into two main divisions, or lobes. It is complex in structure and differs from the other glands in several particulars. It receives blood from two distinct sources—the portal vein and the hepatic artery. The portal vein collects the blood from the stomach, intestines, and spleen, and passes it to the liver. This blood is loaded with food materials, but contains little or no oxygen. The hepatic artery, which branches ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.

... structure directly ahead. At its entrance— a wide, square portal which opened into a fan-shaped lobby—Estra paused and smiled apologetically—as he mopped his forehead and upper lip with a paper handkerchief, which he immediately dropped into a small, trap- covered opening in ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint

... above it, as the great sledge-hammers rattled on the nailed and plated door: the sparks flew off in showers; men worked in gangs, and at short intervals relieved each other, that all their strength might be devoted to the work; but there stood the portal still, as grim and dark and strong as ever, and saving for the dints upon its ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... trying to sell them; and, in their eagerness, they speak in high, shrill voices. The courtly person leaves the talking mostly to his servants; occasionally he answers with much dignity; directly, seeing the Cypriote, he stops and buys some figs. And when the whole party has passed the portal, close after the Pharisee, if we betake ourselves to the dealer in fruits, he will tell, with a wonderful salaam, that the stranger is a Jew, one of the princes of the city, who has travelled, and learned the difference ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... honour best may greet My lord, the majesty of Argos, home. What day beams fairer on a woman's eyes Than this, whereon she flings the portal wide, To hail her lord, heaven-shielded, home from war? This to my husband, that he tarry not, But turn the city's longing into joy! Yea let him come, and coming may he find A wife no other than he left her, true And faithful as a watch-dog to his home, His foemen's foe, in ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus

... entrance, the rain was coming down in torrents. Great lanterns hung either side of the portal, and disclosed the fact that the gates ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells

... churchyard, Waited the women. They stood by the graves, and hung on the headstones Garlands of autumn-leaves and evergreens fresh from the forest. Then came the guard from the ships, and marching proudly among them Entered the sacred portal. With loud and dissonant clangor Echoed the sound of their brazen drums from ceiling and casement,— Echoed a moment only, and slowly the ponderous portal Closed, and in silence the crowd awaited the will of the ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow

... preserved in traditionary history, when so much had been forgotten,—when even the features and architectural characteristics of the mansion in which it was merely a piece of furniture had been forgotten. And, as he gazed at it, he half thought himself an actor in a fairy portal [tale?]; and would not have been surprised—at least, he would have taken it with the composure of a dream—if the mimic portal had unclosed, and a form of pigmy majesty had appeared within, beckoning him to enter and ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... also very commonly noticed that these two paths, after diverging awhile, run into each other. True love leads many wandering souls into the better way. Nor is it rare to see those who started in company for the gates of pearl seated together on the banks that border the avenue to that other portal, gathering the roses for ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... of the royal guard, their fine figures in brilliant uniform, stood in line from end to end of the chapel, each holding a torch. It was a superb scene, no doubt; the torches throwing their wavering glare against the tracery and the low, pointed arch of window and portal, so beautiful in this chapel, in the ruins of Kenilworth, or wherever it appears; the great space filled with the splendour that Roger Ascham thought so wonderful; and, among the glitter, the troop of handsome youths doing their best to please the sovereign. Froude gives ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... his snore, Which from their dusty nooks expostulate And close with stormy clamor the debate. To low melodious thunders then they fade; Their murmuring lullabies all ears invade; Peace takes the Chair; the portal Silence keeps; No motion stirs the dark Lethean deeps— Washoe has spoken and the ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... was long before the dusky hour at which Englishmen love best to dine. About that period, the carriages drove into the old courtyard of the Hospital in great abundance; blocking up, too, the ancient portal, and remaining in a line outside. Carriages they were with armorial bearings, family coaches in which came Englishmen in their black coats and white neckcloths, elderly, white-headed, fresh-colored, squat; not beautiful, certainly, nor particularly dignified, nor ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the palace through the wide portal, on each side of which, standing open, were two curiously carved doors of some substance resembling mother-of-pearl, they passed through the various apartments of the palace—all ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin

... grace, O bibliomania! How good and sweet it is that no distance, no environment, no poverty, no distress can appall or stay thee. Like that grim spectre we call death, thou knockest impartially at the palace portal and at the cottage door. And it seemeth thy especial delight to bring unto the lonely in desert places the companionship that ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... doors, immediately realised the failure of the conspiracy, and, wise man that he was, put his own safety before all other considerations. He worked his way through the struggling crowd in the Cathedral and got out by the south portal. Luckily enough, the Cardinal's horse had been left tethered by its affrighted groom hard by, so without awaiting news from the Archbishop, he vaulted into the saddle and made off at a hand gallop ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... portal yields him way, Through little vents and crannies of the place The wind wars with his torch to make him stay, And blows the smoke of it into his face, Extinguishing his conduct in this case; But his hot ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]

... in this process, the deduction of watchful intelligence, not by fortuitous discovery, that the first impulse was given to European art. Many a plank had yawned in the sun before Van Eyck's; but he alone saw through the rent, as through an opening portal, the lofty perspective of triumph widening its rapid wedge;—many a spot of opaque color had clouded the transparent amber of earlier times; but the little cloud that rose over Van Eyck's horizon was ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... their wands with one sonorous clang upon the floor, and with bitter sighs and wringing hands flitted one after another to the portal, bewailing, as they went, their wasted gifts ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... insisted on accompanying her. They came out of the first court, through the narrow and lofty portal upon which traces of the exquisite blue-green, the "love colour," still linger. This colour makes an effect that is akin to the effect that would be made by a thin but intense cry of joy rising up in a sombre ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... becoming detached, are transported by the blood-current to distant organs, where they are arrested in the capillaries and give rise to secondary growths. These are most frequently situated in the lungs, except when the primary growth lies within the territory of the portal circulation, in which case they occur in the liver. The secondary growths closely resemble the parent tumour. Sarcoma may invade an adjacent vein on such a scale that if the invading portion becomes detached it may constitute a dangerous ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... well nigh high water now, and Cuthbert could bring the prow of his boat to within a foot of the door. There were rings all along the topmost step for the mooring of small craft, and he quickly made fast his wherry and stood at the iron-clamped portal. ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... knocks only once at a man's door, but while opportunity thundered at Mr. Lansing's portal "his ear was closed with ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous

... especially as it was so close to a church, a small, seedy, frame church nearly all roof, a narrow-chested, slope-shouldered churchlet with a frame cupola for a steeple. It looked abandoned, and an ivy flourished on it so impudently that it almost closed the unfrequented portal. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... possibilities of Cousin This or That's home as a country place. This reached fever heat after visits to Great Aunt Laura who lived in a roomy old house painted white with green blinds in a town bordering on Lake Champlain. A pair of horse-chestnut trees flanked the walk to the front door,—a portal unopened save for weddings, funerals, ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... doorway. I knew now where I was, and, laying down my stick and bundle, and taking off my hat, I advanced slowly, and cast myself—it was folly, perhaps, but I could not help what I did—cast myself, with my face on the dewy earth, in the middle of the portal of ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... persist in reading the volume, she ought to be prevented by delicacy from despising the author, from the very moment that he, forfeiting the praise which most artists welcome, has in a certain way engraved on the title page of his book the prudent inscription written on the portal of certain ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... tale. In "pensive ease" no mortal Is stopped by thwarting bar or cullis'd portal; Fearless we cleave the ether without bound; In practice, tho', we shrewdly hug the ground; For all love life and, having choice, will choose it; And no man dares to leap ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen

... paid a visit to one of the largest, not far from the South Gate. It was a wide, rambling, wooden building standing near a grove of unusually fine trees, a sort of alder. The approach was not unattractive, flowers growing under the walls and about the entrance. Once inside the portal, we found ourselves in a large courtyard paved with stone and surrounded by two-story galleried buildings. Facing us was the temple, scarcely more imposing in outward appearance than the others. On one side a group of half-naked lamas were gathered about an older ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

... Gate. This is, alike, the entrance to, and exit from, the inner sanctuary of this land of marvels. Accordingly a solitary boulder, detached from its companions on the cliff, seems to be stationed at this portal like a sentinel to watch all tourists who come and go. At all events it echoes to the voices of those who enter almost as eager as seekers after gold; and, a week later, sees them return, browned by the sun, invigorated ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard

... the porch, and the jasmine had been cleared away altogether. Mr. Brumley could not quite understand what was in progress; Sir Isaac he learnt afterwards had found a wonderful bargain in a real genuine Georgian portal of great dignity and simplicity in Aleham, and he was going to improve Black Strand by transferring it thither—with the utmost precaution and every piece numbered—from its original situation. Mr. Brumley stood among the preparatory debris of this and rang a quietly ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... the hill he turned away from the village. Here he remembered something that both amused and annoyed him. He had not asked just where the parsonage was. He knew its location with reference to the outer portal of the tunnel, to be sure, but he had come to that underground. However, he remembered where the sun had been when he had emerged into the open air before, and, after some profitless scouting about, a passing motorcycle set him on the right ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine

... for a dinner at commons, so he ate his mutton-chop at a tavern, and went to the play. Ineffably bored, he sauntered along the almost deserted streets of the city, and just as midnight was striking, he turned under the arched portal of the college. Secretly hoping that Atlee might be absent, he inserted the key and ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... rambling, stairway leading from the drawbridge, and often running round a considerable part of the wall. One or more gates in the course of this stair could be closed at pleasure. A large and imposing portal admitted the visitor to a small tower occupied by the guards, through which the real entrance was approached. This stood in the thickness of the outer wall, and was protected by another pair of gates and a portcullis, just inside which was the porter's lodge. On ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... we went out for a stroll through the town. The city of Epernay offers little remarkable except its Rue du Commerce, flanked with enormous buildings, and its church, conspicuous only for a flourishing portal in the style of Louis XIV., in perfect contradiction to the general architecture of the old sanctuary. The environs were little note worthy at the season, for a vineyard-land has this peculiarity—its veritable spring, its pride of May, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... the bugle notes strike his ear, "Before that sound is heard again, I shall be far away." His heavy breathing grows thicker and shorter, until that radiance which comes but once to any mortal face, streaming through the open portal of eternity, tells of the glory upon which his soul is entering, as his eyelids are quietly closed on earth. The men in the beds around mutely gaze upon him, wishing that they may die like him when their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... Retreating from the inhospitable portal of the casual ward, I had taken the first turning to the left,—and, at the moment, had been glad to take it. In the darkness and the rain, the locality which I was entering appeared unfinished. I seemed to be leaving civilisation behind me. The path was unpaved; ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... kept his word. Not a rat was seen or heard upon the pilgrimage, which was exceedingly toilsome to the aged Pope, from the number of passages to be threaded and doors to be unlocked. At length the companions stood before the portal of the Appartamento Borgia. ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... of his perfidious brother, Reginald, and, muttering curses, "not loud but deep," he passed on. Having lighted his lantern in no tranquil mood, he descended into the vault, observing a similar caution with respect to the portal of the cemetery, which he left partially unclosed, with the key in the lock. Here he resolved to abide Luke's coming. The reader knows what probability there was ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... the Gates put on his own glasses and told them he was ready to show them to the Palace. Taking a big golden key from a peg on the wall, he opened another gate, and they all followed him through the portal into the streets of ...
— The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... walked forth with a proud step from beneath the portal, I perceived, looking down from the square along the street, that there was already some commotion in the town. I saw the flowing robes of many Arabs, with their backs turned towards me, and I thought that I observed the identical gown and turban of my friend Mahmoud on the back and head ...
— George Walker At Suez • Anthony Trollope

... till E'en doomsday, a poor insignificant reptile; Half lawyer, half actor, pert, dull, and inglorious, Obscure, and unheard of—but now I'm notorious: Fame has but two gates, a white and a black one; The worst they can say is, I got in at the back one: If the end be obtain'd 'tis equal what portal I enter, since I'm to be render'd immortal: So clysters applied to the anus, 'tis said, By skilful physicians, give ease to the head— Though my title be spurious, why should I be dastard, A man is a man, though he should be a bastard. Why sure 'tis some comfort that heroes should ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... there just now are Watts's. Our old blind friend at Manchester has sent a lot. It is a very fine collection. I think few paintings do beat Watts's 'Love and Death'—Death, great and irresistible, wrapped in shrowd-like drapery, is pushing relentlessly over the threshold of a home, where the portal is climbed over by roses and a dove plays about the lintel. You only see his back. But, facing you, Love, as a young boy, torn and flushed with passion and grief, is madly striving to keep Death back, his arms strained, his wings crushed and broken ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden

... the goat her pendent dugs to fill, And browse the herbage of a distant hill, She latch'd her door, and bid, With matron care, her kid;— 'My daughter, as you live, This portal don't undo To any creature who This watchword does not give: "Deuce take the wolf and all his race!"' The wolf was passing near the place By chance, and heard the words with pleasure, And laid them up as useful treasure; And hardly need we mention, Escaped ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... the northern extremity of the rue St Jean, in the centre of the town. In the main, its architecture is Gothic, but the choir and the apsidal chapels, with their elaborate interior and exterior decoration, are of Renaissance workmanship. The graceful tower, which rises beside the southern portal to a height of 255 ft., belongs to the early 14th century. The church of St Etienne, or l'Abbaye-aux-Hommes, in the west of the town, is an important specimen of Romanesque architecture, dating from about 1070, when it was founded by William the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various



Words linked to "Portal" :   web site, internet site, entranceway, portal site, site, vein, entryway, entrance, portal tomb, vena portae, website



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