"Characterization" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... encounter in the works of the great novelists who followed him, and this is almost literally true, at least so far as the male characters are concerned. In particular, this applies to his famous "Dead Souls," which contains if not the condensed characterization in full of these types, at least the readily recognized germs of them. But in this respect, his early Little Russian Stories, "Tales from a Farm-house Near Dikanka," and the companion volume, "Mirgorod," ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... This characterization applies to the Alaskan Eskimo only; so far as is now known the other Eskimo branches do not have ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes
... is indeed inexhaustible, and even the greatest poets must suffer some subtraction from universal pre-eminence. Therefore we may frankly admit the deficiencies of Wordsworth,—that he was lacking in dramatic force and in the power of characterization; that he was singularly deficient in humor, and therefore in the saving grace of self-criticism in the capacity to see himself occasionally in a ridiculous light; that he has little of the romantic glamor and none of the narrative energy of Scott; ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... a brief characterization of the system with details on the domestic and international components. The following terms and abbreviations are ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... or hasty-pudding, that quivers when it is touched;" or of the picture of St. Ursula's companions, by the same hand: "Their squab noses poking out of bladders of lard that did duty for their faces;" not to speak of the characterization of a "Sacred Heart" too revolting to reproduce? Surely when, after having reviled M. Tissot almost personally, he describes his works as painted with "muck, wine-sauce, and mud," it is difficult not to answer with a tu quoque as far as this word-painting is concerned—difficult not to ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... which the actor calls The Revenge; or, A Match in Newgate, has sometimes been erroneously ascribed to Mrs. Behn by careless writers. She has also been given The Woman Turn'd Bully, a capital comedy with some clever characterization, which was produced at Dorset Garden in June, 1675, and printed without author's name the same year. Both Prologue and Epilogue, two pretty songs, Oh, the little Delights that a Lover takes; and Ah, how charming is the shade, together ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... veterinary surgeons showing that unsatisfied sexual desire in animals may produce nervous symptoms very similar to hysteria.[263] The present writer, when in 1894 briefly discussing hysteria as an element in secondary sexual characterization, ventured to reflect the view, confirmed by his own observation, that there was a tendency to unduly minimize the sexual factor in hysteria, and further pointed out that the old error of a special connection between ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... not merely a general characterization, but a review, of Mr. Mill's powerful work, we should venture to take issue on some matters both general and special,—as an example of the latter, on the possible utility of protective duties. The reasoning by which he, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... of good material, with original characterization, and is written in a style piquant ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... teacher's face, but the incident had jarred the old wound; Miss Leary's description of the teacher, together with Plato's characterization, had stirred lightly sleeping memories. He was more or less abstracted during the remainder of the drive, and did not recur to the conversation that had been interrupted by coming ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... in the hand placed connected with the mouth in the hieroglyph of Horus (the) son, "Hor-(p)-chrot," the gesture familiar to themselves of a finger on the lips to express "silence," and so, mistaking both the name and the characterization, invented the God of Silence, Harpokrates. A careful examination of all the linear hieroglyphs given by Champollion (Dictionnaire Egyptien) shows that the finger or the hand to the mouth of an adult (whose posture ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... and, with a fair degree of composure, awaited the onrush of doctor and attendant. They soon had me in hand. Each taking an arm, they marched me to my room. This took not more than half a minute, but the time was not so short as to prevent my delivering myself of one more thumb-nail characterization of the doctor. My inability to recall that delineation, verbatim, entails no loss on literature. But one remark made as the doctor seized hold of me was apt, though not impromptu. "Well, doctor," I said, ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... frugal as his parents, to relieve his father of the expense of his support, and to save a few pounds. Meanwhile he read widely, and wrote of his reading at great length, and with considerable power of satiric characterization, to some of his college friends. But he found himself "abundantly lonesome, uncomfortable, and out of place" in Annan, and from the first disliked teaching; while his "sentiments on the clerical profession" were "mostly of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... heroine of the piece, take her place upon the platform beside him. Here the resemblance to reality ceased, for the heroine was dark and Aristide blonde and beardless, and yet this very discrimination on Olga's part seemed to point more definitely to Hermia even than if the characterization had been truthfully followed. The actors were professionals who had been well drilled in their parts and the plot developed quickly in the dialogue between Madeleine, the erring wife, and Aristide, the recreant husband, who had fled from fashionable Paris, met upon the road and joined ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... without,—all the elements of ancient tragedy were there. Seated indeed amid the theatrical trappings of the French Saloons of State, one could wonder if the extraordinary visages of Wilson and of Clemenceau, with their fixed hue and unchanging characterization, were really faces at all and not the tragi-comic masks of some strange drama ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... Opera in London and on the Continent Dr. Leopold Damrosch and His Enterprise The German Singers Amalia Materna Marianne Brandt Marie Schroeder-Hanfstngl Anton Schott, the Military Tenor Von Blow's Characterization: "A Tenor ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... To this characterization of Evelyn Lucy took opposing views. Her friend, as a matter of fact, wasn't in the least lonely, but was excellent company for herself, and led a full life. She was not the marrying kind. If she liked men it was only because they played the games ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... The first English tragedy, Gorboduc, closely imitative of Seneca, but on {30} a mythical British subject and written in English blank verse, did not appear until 1562, nearly a quarter of a century later. Seneca's tragedies had little action, slight characterization, and many extremely long speeches, which often display, however, much brilliant rhetoric. Gorboduc has all these qualities except the brilliance. The history, the third of the types into which the editors of the First Folio were to divide Shakespeare's plays, ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... dropped the one-sided conception of infinity, we must look for another characterization of the relationship between a point and a plane which are infinitely distant from one another. This requires, first of all, a proper characterization of Point and ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... a greengrocer operating on a large scale; he provided the British public with coffee for its breakfast, with drugs for its stomach, and with strange woods for its dining-room furniture and walking-sticks. He combated this ignominious characterization of his position indignantly. The new arrivals certainly gave him no hint that they considered him so lightly. This thought greatly comforted him, for he felt that in some way he was summoning to his aid ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... and the comments upon them may be characterized in certain quarters as disloyal to a superior and as violative of the seal of silence which is considered generally to apply to the intercourse and communications between the President and his official advisers. Under normal conditions such a characterization would not be unjustified. But the present case is different from the usual one in which a disagreement arises between a President and a high official ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... immense gains. In a few years the relation of the South to the North would resemble that of Poland to Russia or of Ireland to England. The author sees no call for any arguments against slavery as an economic system; he would simply bring the earlier characterization of the situation down ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... including a sentimental description of Palestine, written in oratorical style. Joseph Efrati (1820) wrote an historical drama, Meluhat Shaul ("The Royalty of Saul"), which deserves mention for its fine conception. And Judah Mises, in his two works, Tekunat ha-Rabbanim ("Characterization of the Rabbis"), and Kinat ha-Emet ("The Zeal for Truth"), opposed Rabbinic tradition and the authorities of the Middle Ages. His antiquated rationalism called forth the severe reproaches of Rapoport. Nevertheless he stirred up a grave controversy, which gave rise to ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... or miss, an accidental gunshot giving Foster's men the alarm. For five hours it waged, most of the time across the village street, not more than sixty feet wide, and during those five hours every recruit there felt the force of Gen. Sherman's characterization—"War ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... frank, fearless hero, its glowing love passages, and its variety of characters, captivating or engaging humorous or saturnine, villains, rascals, and men of good will. A tale strong and interesting in plot, faithful and vivid as a picture of wild mountain life, and in its characterization full ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... trainmaster, recommending him to mercy in the event of a general beheading in the Angels head-quarters. "A lame duck, like most of the desert exiles, and the homeliest man west of the Missouri River," was Ford's characterization. "He is as stubborn as a mule, but he is honest and outspoken. If you can win him over to your side, you will have at least one lieutenant whom you can trust—and who will, I think, be duly grateful for small favors. Mac couldn't get a job east of ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... the Court House," was the general characterization of the House of Detention. "Jail was a Paradise compared to this depraved place," said Miss Morey. "We slept in our clothes, four women to a cell, on iron shelves two feet wide. In the cell was an open toilet. The place slowly filled up during ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... dramatization of Washington Irving's immortal story has approached the original in art of expression or in vividness of scene. But, if historical record can be believed, it is the actor, rather than the dramatist, who has vied with Irving in the vitality of characterization and in the romantic ideality of figure and speech. Some of our best comedians found attraction in the ri?1/2le, yet, though Charles Burke and James A. Herne are recalled, by those who remember back so far, for the very Dutch lifelikeness of the genial old drunkard, Joseph ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Rip van - Winkle • Charles Burke
... less well known, but not less effective, as a reviewer—no one ever dissected Charlotte Yonge so justly—and she excelled in personal description. Her accounts of her friends Miss Emily Lawless, Miss Mary Coleridge, and Joseph Joachim, are masterpieces of characterization. All her literary work was based on a wide and strong foundation of generous culture. German was to her a second mother-tongue, and she lectured delightfully on Faust. Though she spoke of herself ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... dislike the Yankee dialect of these verses. Some think Lowell struck too hard; but they forget Grant's characterization of the Mexican War as "one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation." There are critics who think the First Series of "Biglow Papers" too sectional; an exhibition of New England's ancient tendency towards nullification of the national will. No doubt Lowell underestimated ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... 'History of the Dutch Republic' is in my judgment a work of the highest merit. Unwearying research for years in the libraries of Europe, patience and judgment in arranging and digesting his materials, a fine historical tact, much skill in characterization, the perspective of narration, as it may be called, and a vigorous style unite to make it a very capital work, and place the name of Motley by the side of those of our great ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... O'Brien, I take a very unfavorable view of your action in this matter. You had no right to have what are at least putatively sapient beings treated in this way, and even viewing them as mere physical evidence I must agree with Mr. Brannhard's characterization of your conduct as criminally reckless. Now, speaking judicially, I order you to produce those Fuzzies immediately and return them to the custody of ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... true Constitution—concerned only with fundamentals, and guarded against change in a manner suited to the preservation of fundamentals. To put into it a regulation of personal habits, to buttress such a regulation by its safeguards, is an atrocity for which no characterization can be too severe. And it is something more than an atrocity; the Eighteenth Amendment is not only a perversion but also a degradation of the Constitution. In what precedes, the emphasis has been placed on the perversion of what was designed as a safeguard ...
— What Prohibition Has Done to America • Fabian Franklin
... problems of to-day. Equally obdurate must one be to the seductions of Indian ethnology, except so far only as it may simplify the classification of the present Indian population to refer tribes and bands to recognized groups or families, for the better or briefer characterization of their qualities ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... and were widely different from the Queen's and Rossin of the present day. Some of my readers will doubtless remember John Gait's savage fling at them several years later. To parody Dr. Johnson's characterization of the famous leg of mutton, they were ill-looking, ill-smelling, ill-provided and ill-kept. In a word, they were unendurable places of sojourn for a man of fastidious tastes and sensitive nerves. Perhaps the Captain's tastes ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... neither was such as he would himself have perhaps rejected if he had been editor. Then he plunged at the heap, and in a fifteen-cent magazine of recent renown he found among five poems a good straight piece of realistic characterization which did much to cheer him. In this, a little piece of two stanzas, the author had got at the heart of a good deal of America. In another cheap magazine, professing to be devoted wholly to stories, he hoped for a breathing-space, and was tasked by nothing less familiar than Swift's ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... red, and full; and the same peculiarity, or rather want of peculiarity, attached itself to her countenance, which I before mentioned in the case of the president—that is to say, only one feature of her face was sufficiently distinguished to need a separate characterization: indeed the acute Tarpaulin immediately observed that the same remark might have applied to each individual person of the party; every one of whom seemed to possess a monopoly of some particular portion of physiognomy. With the lady in question this portion proved to be the mouth. Commencing ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Rosenthal contributed to the pattern of his moustache. Moreover, he assumed a Paderewski tuft, a rolling collar that exposed the points of his right and left clavicles, a Windsor tie, and, to preserve the unity of his characterization, a slight nondescript foreign accent, despite the circumstance that he was born in Newark, N. J. All this, however, was not an idle pose on Felix's part. He merely applied to a dry-goods store the business principles of the successful ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... the Epid. to an ideal of comic excellence (Introd. Ps. p. 27). He even goes so far as to contend that Plautus lives up to the following characterization:[25] "Nicht blos durch naturgetreue and lebhafte Charakterschilderungen und durch eine komisch gehaltene, aber die Grenzen des Wahrscheinlichen und des Grazioesen nicht ueberschreitende Zeichnung des taeglichen Lebens soll der Dichter ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... is not a copy of that song; three or four tones descending chromatically are given as the cat's mew, but they are made to be such only by placing the syllables Mi-au (taken from the vocabulary of the German cat) under them. Instances of this kind might be called characterization, or description by suggestion, and some of the best composers have made use of them, as will appear in these pages presently. The list being so small, and the lesson taught so large, it may be well to give ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... President Van Buren and a man of genius. Although he was very erratic, his ability was so great that when serious he captured not only the attention but the judgment of people. He was an eloquent speaker and had a faculty of entrancing the crowd with his wit and of characterization of his opponent which was fatal. I have seen crowds, when he was elaborately explaining details necessary for the vindication of his position, or that of his party which did not interest them, to remain with close attention, hoping for what was certain to come, ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... aesthetic defects matter little in comparison with its dynamical value. It was a great step to hang the chestnuts of discourse upon a string of incident. The story is feeble, the plot puerile, but it was something to have a story and a plot which dealt with contemporary life. And lastly, though characterization is not even attempted, yet now and again these euphuistic puppets, distinguishable only by their labels, are inspired with something that is almost life by a phrase ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... refer to his important paintings. So composite are the parts of which any distinguished talent is made up that we have to feel our way as we enumerate them; and yet that very ambiguity is a challenge to analysis and to characterization. This "nobleness" on Mr. Parsons' part is the element of style—something large and manly, expressive of the total character of his facts. His landscape is the landscape of the male vision, and yet his touch is ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... in the June number of this Magazine, we spoke of his general comprehensiveness and creativeness, of his method of characterization, and of the identity of his genius with his individuality. In the present article we purpose to treat of some particular topics included in the general theme; and as criticism on him is like coasting along a continent, we shall make little pretension ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... characterization of a few of the subordinate officers, I must not omit to mention the fact that the gastald had also certain military functions attached to his office. When called upon by the king he took command in the army, together with the minor officers who were under him in his jurisdiction, ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams
... know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? for thou bringest certain strange things to our ears; we would know, therefore, what these things mean" (verses 19-20). And then follows that wonderful characterization of those Athenians of the decadence, those dainty connoisseurs of the curious, "for all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing" (verse 21). A wonderful stroke which depicts for us the condition ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... there are illustrations of the methods of closing. In each case, there is an important detail or an artistic repetition of the general impression. Many examples of short characterization can be found in all narratives. In Irving's description of Ichabod Crane, the next to the last sentence gives the significant detail, and the last gives ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... and will of God could set down as worldly. Frivolity, of which there was little in this sober boy, was in her eyes a vice; loud laughter almost a crime; cards, and novelles, as she called them, were such in her estimation, as to be beyond my powers of characterization. Her commonest injunction was, 'Noo be douce,'—that is sober—uttered to the soberest boy she could ever have known. But Robert was a large-hearted boy, else this life would never have had to be written; and so, through all this, his ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... the most noteworthy stories for girls issued this season. The life of Henrietta is made very real, and there is enough incident in the narrative to balance the delightful characterization."—Providence Journal. ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... The name of Montgomery was not one for even Indians to conjure with. James Montgomery was the most notorious of bushwhackers. For an account of some of his earlier adventures, see Spring, Kansas, 241, 247-250, and for a characterization of the man himself, Robinson, Kansas ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... characterization is fine and strong. Meanwhile it evinces careful study of the period in which the scene is laid, and will help those who read it with reasonable attention to realize the nature and conditions of Hebrew ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... Potter's characterization of Grace. It was no easy task for a girl of eighteen to thus assume the responsibility, but she had the courage, and ...
— Larry Dexter's Great Search - or, The Hunt for the Missing Millionaire • Howard R. Garis
... command of military officers in the respective departments, thus saving the expense of a separate organization. This would create a responsibility that would secure uniformity of action throughout the South. His general characterization of the Bureau was, that it tended to impress the freedman with the idea that he would not be compelled to work, and that in some way the lands of his former master were to be divided among the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... Governor's Family; a Rus-Urban Tale, simple and popular, yet cultured and noble, of morals, sentiment and life." It is worthy of the author of "Margaret." Though it evinces very little of the constructive faculty, it illustrates in every page a quick and intelligent observation, a happy talent for characterization, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... "If a place could be provided for their reception," said Randolph, "and a mode of sending them hence, there were [sic] hundreds, nay thousands of citizens" who would manumit their slaves.[279] Randolph's characterization of the free black was generally approved by the leaders in this movement. Caldwell used "degraded" and "ignorant" in describing this class of people. Mills said: "It will transfer to the coast of Africa the blessings of religion and civilization; ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... answers to mental questions—questions, too, the answer to which none of those having their hands on the board could possibly know. Often, again, remarks are volunteered conveying information not possessed by any one of the writers. The distinct characterization of a personality is frequently seen,—and a personality of a very detestable sort. The language employed, frequently, is quite unprintable. The "ouija" lies as coolly and confidently as it tells ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... emphatically before us in the stately pages which once charmed readers of English as the model of historic eloquence, and now excite the admiration of scholars as a monument of erudition and elaborate but artificial writing. There was a new attraction in the pleasing style of Robertson and the characterization of Hume; the winsome language of the one and the transparent diction of the other made historical reading not so much a task to cumber the memory as a pastime to entertain the mind; in the one chronicle we followed events gracefully unfolded, and in the other discussed persons ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... mimicry was cordially admired, though it was not always clear to his audience which was the doctor and which was his daughter. A stare, a strut, a toss, an affected drawl were the leading features of each characterization. ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... The true artist will seek to shape this living substance into the most beautiful and satisfying form, by skilful selection and arrangement of his materials, and by the most direct and appealing presentation of it in portrayal and characterization. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... discriminating than in the Wars. He sums him up as "cruel towards all men equally, a slave to his passions, and claiming to be above the righteous law: yet was he favored by fortune more than any man, for from a private station he was raised to be a king."[1] One piece of characterization may he quoted,[2] which is not the less interesting because we may suspect ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... as with an editorial in his own personal organ. This latter occupied an entire page and reviewed completely the position of the Greek monarch since the dissolution of the last Chamber of Deputies. Referring to the king's alleged characterization of himself as a ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... the dining-room floor and covered daily with fresh rushes for a week at a stretch, and fertilizer accumulated in a living-room as now in a modern stable. Clothing was put on for the season, shirts were unknown, and strong perfumes took the place of a bath. Michelet's famous characterization of the Middle Ages in one phrase as Un mille ans sans bain (a thousand years without ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... of being the correspondent on home and clerical affairs. I don't know how many of them—if any—are women, but I seem to trace a female hand in some of the domestic details. But the book contains strong matter, too—both of narrative and characterization; as in the dying of Armand de la Roche-Guyon, and the picture of his lover, Madame de Vigerie. And there is something of the inspiration of the Holy Grail in that "Vision Splendid" which heartens Tristram Hungerford to make sacrifice of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... and D | cover the lesson. Some | to our book on respectively for the | topics go unexplained | literature and tried same work. Sometimes a | because during the next| to justify the a student who "cribbed"| hour the blackboard | characterization which his outline from | problems are based on | the author gives of another who actually | the lesson. If I | Chaucer. The class "worked it up" receives| understood the second | agreed with all in the a higher mark ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... illustration of true dialect sketch and characterization might here be offered than Colonel Johnston's simple story of "Mr. Absalom Billingslea," or the short and simple annals of his like quaint contemporaries, "Mr. Bill Williams" and "Mr. Jonas Lively." The ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... Aleck," was Mr. Peaslee's characterization. To tell the truth, he mistrusted the man's ability, and was afraid of him. If that fellow knew, Mr. Peaslee felt that it would go hard with ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... and when Henry turns on his talk he is a wizard. Meredith Nicholson, who has heard Henry talk at a dinner, in a recent number of Scribner's magazine, said of him: "He's the best talker I've ever heard. It was delightful to listen to discourse so free, so graphic in its characterization, so coloured and flavoured with the very soil," and that night at the English dinner, all of Henry's cylinders were hitting and he took every grade without changing gears. But my ears were eager for the man on Henry's right. He told some stories; ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... before and behind the foot-lights, artists and their models, literary men of Bohemian tendencies, these are the people whom Billy Burgundy has selected for characterization. True, they speak their lines in slang, but it is the slang of the educated, and is always ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... assembly declined to accept the characterization. Since the king's own patent expressly relieved them from his jurisdiction, it was impossible that their refusal to meet three of his gentlemen-in- waiting could rightly be construed as treason. The commissioners finally ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... its buoyant humor, clear-cut characterization, prodigality of invention, tenderness and pathos, is on many accounts one of the most distinguished works of fiction of the year.—Philadelphia ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... characterization of Andrew Jackson by his greatest American contemporary it is impossible to make noteworthy addition. His was a character of striking contradictions. His personal virtues were honesty, bravery, open-heartedness, chivalry toward women, ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... expressive, is Emerson's characterization of Lincoln as one who had been "permitted to do more for America than ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... and rhythm depends, however, upon their interrelation, the concrete musical structure, the motive or melody in the complete sense, being an indissoluble unity of both. Now if we take the term will with a broad meaning, Schopenhauer's characterization of melody as an image of the will still remains the truest aesthetic interpretation of it. For, when we hear it, we not only hear, but attend to what we hear; we hear each tone in its relations of harmony or contrast or fulfillment to other tones, ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... Bismarck not been a diplomat, he might have made his mark as a radical writer. His letters very often show almost anarchistic dissent. At vulgar characterization, no ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... 1851-8, 4 vols.). These are marked by clearness of statement, force of argument, and felicity of illustration. The style, although less direct and simple than that of his unofficial writings, is still excellent. A large part of the interest attaching to these early papers lies in their acute characterization of the diplomatists with whom he had to deal. His analysis of their motives reveals from the outset that thorough insight into human nature which was to count for so much in his subsequent diplomatic ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... 330). Hill employed the device, the good news coming as a complete surprise, but he made it part of a carefully ordered plot designed to reveal the direct intervention and mysterious workings of a particular Providence, making characterization and action consistent, and giving his play a precise theological significance. In Moore's day, however, under the impact of deism and the developing rationalism, the concept of a particular Providence in orthodox ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... Thackeray, essay is so much mixed up with narrative, and comment with characterization, that they can hardly be thoroughly appreciated in poor editions. The temptation to skip is almost irresistible, when wisdom can be purchased only at the expense of eyesight. We are therefore glad to welcome the commencement ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... "A very accurate characterization of his Highness, Mr. Taylor. Now, of course, the Princess being a woman—and a young woman—would naturally be very anxious to attend the Duchess of Chiselhurst's ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... you must find out. If you object that there is very little in all this to suggest the spirit of fine romance which you have learnt to associate with the names of AGNES and EGERTON CASTLE, I can only say that (while my rough synopsis does no justice to some pleasant characterization) I myself greatly prefer these two writers in their earlier ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... membership in the Clergy Club of Cincinnati, an organization which is composed of many of the leading Protestant ministers. On the occasion of the club's twenty-fifth anniversary in 1919, Dr. Dwight M. Pratt, then of the Walnut Hills Congregational Church, wrote a witty and apt characterization of each member. The following is his superb sketch of ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... WORDSWORTH'S characterization of the woman in one of his poems as "a creature not too bright or good for human nature's daily food" has always appeared to me too cannibalesque to be poetical. It directly sets one to thinking of the South ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... after the failure of 'Guillery' at the Theatre Francaise and 'Gaetena' at the Odeon, renounced the theatre. Indeed, his power is in odd conceptions, in the covert laugh and humorous suggestion of the phrasing, rather than in plot or characterization. He will always be best known for the tales and novels in that thoroughly French style—clear, concise, and witty—which in 1878 elected him president of the Societe des Gens de Lettres, and in 1884 won him a seat in ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... his captains, securing their hearty support, and familiarizing them with his plans for action in whatever circumstances a meeting might occur. An interesting reference to this practice of Nelson's appears in a later characterization of him written by the French Admiral Decres to Napoleon. "His boastfulness," so the comment runs, "is only equalled by his ineptitude, but he has the saving quality of making no pretense to any other virtues than boldness and good nature, so that he is accessible ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... will observe that Ulysses pervades the serious parts of the play, which is all Ulyssean in its thought and language. And this is the reason or rather the fact of the play's lack of distinctive characterization. For Ulysses cannot speak all the time that he is on the stage; and therefore the other personages, such as may, speak Ulyssean, with, of course, such personal allusion and peculiar trick as a dramatist of Shakespeare's skill could ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... spirited staccato style. It is no doubt a shock to our feelings to find that Wollust's aria became the Virgin's cradle-song, while Hercules's reply became the alto aria in which Zion is bidden to "prepare for the Bridegroom." But it does not warrant the inference that Bach's music lacks definite characterization: on the contrary, these two arias are the best demonstration of his profound insight into the possibilities of musical expression within his range. It is no part of his conception of art that Wollust should be represented by a Wagnerian Venusberg-music; the obvious ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... Gallatin did not hold to all the dogmas of Calvin, but he could not speak of the creatures—like Dyer, for example—who employ their pennyworth of wit to prejudice the vulgar against him, without some signs of scorn. We can never forget his merciless characterization of a malicious feeble-mind, who in a book entitled A Monograph of Moral Sense, declared that Calvin never had enough humanity in his nature to select even one verse by the Evangelists for pulpit illustration,—though ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... sweeping characterization, they all laughed and walked along together, Tylo galloping ahead or falling behind as his sweet ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... functioned very ineffectively. The small number of methods used in the selection of the right box, and the slight variations from the chief method, that of choosing the first box at the right end and then the one next to it, apparently justify Doctor Hamilton's characterization of this ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... contemporary portraits they stand approximately on a footing of equality. In spite of the quiet pose, the lack of strongly contrasted light and shade and all of the clever tricks and forced accents of Lawrence and his followers, they are alive and alert. The characterization is excellent. The young people were not of so profound or complicated a nature as the Father of his Country, and the faces are not wrought out with the delicate subtlety of the Gibbs-Channing Washington which ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... attention which is the material of memory, till no one has patience to spin from it a continuous thread of thought." We have the defects of our qualities. Nevertheless, I am struck with the likeness between a common attribute of the Greeks and Matthew Arnold's characterization of the Americans. Greek thought, it is said, goes straight to the mark, and penetrates like an arrow. The Americans, Arnold wrote, "think straight and see clear." Greek life was adapted to meditation. American quickness and habit of taking the short cut to the goal make us ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... "Life and Letters," vol i., p. 473. This characterization seems by no means fair, and probably it would have been so regarded by the writer in calmer moments. Is indignation chiefly directed to the "indifference to animal suffering," or to the "OPEN PROFESSION" of the feeling? For men, perfectly ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... days, and left him lorn. Madame de Sevenie had taken a flattering fancy to him, and frequently came to gossip beside his bed or chair. He found her tremendously entertaining, endowed as she was with an excellent and well-stored memory, a gift of caustic characterization and a pretty taste in the scandal of her bygone day and generation, as well as with a mind still active and better informed on the affairs of to-day than that of many a Parisienne of the haute monde and ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... Grizzly, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1943. Stevens, a Cambridge Englishman, ranched, hunted, and made deductions. See characterization under "Bears and ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... play on words in the following epigrammatic characterization of a loud and violent speaker: ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... works are for a day, having no enduring interest because they have no human kindness, but occasionally Dryden portrays a man of his own time so well that his picture applies to the vulgar politician of all ages, as in this characterization of Burnet: ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... see his Mosaic Deluge, London, 1837, p. 358. For a very just characterization of various schemes of "reconciliation," see Shields, The Final Philosophy, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... also, and the structural subtilties of a more developed literary period, we must not, of course, look in 'Beowulf.' The narrative is often more dramatic than clear, and there is no thought of any minuteness of characterization. A few typical characters stand out clearly, and they were all that the poet's turbulent and not very attentive audience could understand. But the barbaric vividness and power of the poem give it much more than a merely ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... literature designed to make the least demand upon the mind? People say they have read, but, when questioned, they show that they have got merely a glimmering of the real action, the faintest hint of style and characterization, have perhaps noted some stray epigram which they quote with evidently ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... are Welsh versions of all three stories, though their exact relation to the French has not been determined. Chretien's style is easy and graceful, such as might be expected from a court poet; he is analytical, but not dramatic; in depth of thought and power of characterization he is decidedly inferior to Wolfram von Eschenbach, and as a poet he is probably to be ranked below Thomas, the author of the Tristan, and the translator of Thomas, Gottfried von Strassburg. Much that has been claimed ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... comment save that of the diligent governor's faithful pen, as the first example of an action, to be repeated in these later days in prairie farms and Western ranches by women who share the same spirit, though more often young than "ancient" maids. But ancient, though in her case a just enough characterization, was a term of reproach for any who at sixteen or eighteen at the utmost, remained unmarried, and our present custom of calling every maiden under forty, "girl" would have struck the Puritan mothers with a sense of preposterousness ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... dozen lines well contain a fuller description or more apt characterization of a bird than these "To ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... were called the children of the sun. They had a sacred feeling for the heavenly bodies, and worshipped the sun as the creator and ruler of the universe. They had made some progress in astronomy, by a characterization of the sun and moon and chief planets, mostly for a religious purpose. However, they had used a calendar to represent the months, the year, and the changing seasons. Here, as elsewhere in primitive civilization, religion becomes ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... Somehow the characterization had struck Fred Starratt as very apt even in his younger days. And as he shook hands with Mrs. Hilmer these same ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... characterization of the results secured at the University of Illinois Experiment Station, and described in its Bulletin No. 29, is somewhat misleading. It is true that the wording of the original reference states in two places that "stirrups do not come into action, at least not to any great extent, until a ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... article betoken the death-bed of Darwinism? For my own part I repeat what I said above, that I consider it the most valuable contribution to the characterization of decadent Darwinism that has appeared up to the present time. The sooner a theory, which is thus treated and characterized by one of its own advocates, is stored away in the lumber-room of science, the better. In view of the sound judgment, which is to-day becoming more and more apparent ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... to the Oberland and up the St. Gothard; then back again to Lucerne and round by the Stelvio to Venice and Verona, and finally through the Tyrol and Germany homewards. The ascent of the St. Bernard was told in a dramatic sketch of great humour and power of characterization, and a letter to Richard Fall records the night on the Rigi, when he saw the splendid sequence of storm, sunset, moonlight, and daybreak, which forms the subject of one of the most impressive ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... National to the core, he embodied in his music the finest qualities of the folk-song, and noble tone-painter that he was he excelled his predecessors in his employment of the orchestra as a means of dramatic characterization. ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... Westland Marston had been in the dramatic, and it is probable that he will always be more largely read, 'sicklied o'er' though his poetic outcome be 'with the pale cast of thought.' The works of the present Lord Lytton and of Mr. Aubrey de Vere are too well appreciated to need much characterization. These writers would no doubt deprecate any comparison of their products with those of the first Lord Lytton and Sir Aubrey de Vere, but it is one from which, on the score of absolute merit, they would have no occasion to ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... martyrdom, the original difference in them remains. Isabel has her great weaknesses, as Dorothea had, but these seem to me, on the whole, the most nobly imagined and the most nobly intentioned women in modern fiction; and I think Isabel is the more subtly divined of the two. If we speak of mere characterization, we must not fail to acknowledge the perfection of Gilbert Osmond. It was a profound stroke to make him an American by birth. No European could realize so fully in his own life the ideal of a European dilettante in all the meaning of that cheapened word; ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... says that he is fifteenth-century Italian. You have both done a proper bit of characterization! But I," said Alexander, "I know another great ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... that enthralling interest which justifies its existence. Coppee possesses preeminently the gift of presenting concrete fact rather than abstraction. A sketch, for instance, is the first tale written by him, 'Une Idylle pendant le Seige' (1875). In a novel we require strong characterization, great grasp of character, and the novelist should show us the human heart and intellect in full play and activity. In 1875 appeared also 'Olivier', followed by 'L'Exilee (1876); Recits et Elegies ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... his power of visualization; (2) his choice of significant detail; (3) his originality or lack of it; (4) his range in characterization; (5) his power of suggestion as over against his vividness of delineation; (6) his economy—or lack of it—in expression. Where does ...
— Contemporary American Literature - Bibliographies and Study Outlines • John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert
... characteristic traits—independence of British materials and methods. It is in substance a powerful tale of ventriloquism operating on an unbalanced and superstitious mind. Its psychology is acute and searching; the characterization realistic and effective. His second book, 'Ormond: or the Secret Witness' (1799), does not reach the level of 'Wieland.' It is more conventional, and not entirely independent of foreign models, especially Godwin, whom Brown greatly ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... of magazine space necessitated the omission—in its serial form—of so large a portion of THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE as to eliminate much of the charm of characterization and the creation of atmosphere and background which add so greatly to the power and ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... becoming dissatisfied with this form, he cultivated the French classic tragedy on the model of Racine. This he modified by combining with the regularity of the French treatment of dramatic action a richness of characterization in which he showed himself a disciple of Shakespeare, and of this mixed type his best example is "All for Love." Here he has the daring to challenge comparison with his master, and the greatest testimony to his achievement is the fact that, as Professor Noyes has said, "fresh ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... Perhaps in "The Old Curiosity Shop" these qualities are best seen in their struggle and divergence, and the result is a magnificent juxtaposition of romantic tenderness, melodramatic improbabilities, and broad farce. The humorous characterization is joyously exaggerated into caricature,—the serious characterization into romantic unreality, Richard Swiveller and Little Nell refuse to combine. There is abundant evidence of genius both in the humorous and the pathetic parts, but the artistic impression ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... Such fidelity in characterization deserved good reward, and had in it a rare stroke of fortune; for as he drew up to it, the door opened, and Sturm came out, saw ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... of the close connection between Julius Caesar and Hamlet as regards date of composition and the characterization of Brutus and Hamlet, interest attaches to Professor Gollancz's theory (Julius Caesar, Temple Shakespeare) that the original of the famous speech of Brutus to the assembled Romans (III, ii) may be found in Belleforest's History of Hamlet, in the oration ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... had also come over to us; among others, the characterization of the three German Emperors: the first William as "Der greise Kaiser," the Emperor Frederick as "Der weise Kaiser," and the second William as "Der Reise Kaiser"; and there were unpleasant murmurs regarding sundry trials for petty treason. But at the same time there was evident, in the ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... removed from the ordinary mass of featureless fiction. There is no gainsaying the strength of characterization and ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... Honorable Freddie said: "A chappie can't take a step in this bally house without stumbling over that damn feller, Baxter!" The manservant and the maidservant within the gates, like Miss Willoughby, employing that crisp gift for characterization which is the property of the English lower orders, described ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... background as this could have evolved the conception of "Architecture, sculpture, and painting in motion" and given authenticity to its presentation. The validity of Lindsay's analysis is attested by Freeburg's helpful characterization, "Composition in fluid forms," which it seems to have suggested. To Lindsay's category one would be tempted to add, "pattern in motion," applying it to such a film as the "Caligari" which he and I have seen together and discussed during these past few days. Pattern in ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay |
