"Portly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... coming of the commissary to nourish while it consumes that vitality in the fascia of the glands to develop the portly child we call mumps. Both male and female conceive and give birth to such beings, then tear up the tracks and roads behind them, by killing the demand for ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... Superintendent. I thought him the most impressive looking man I had ever seen. He overpowered me; in his presence I never felt at ease. He was a big man, and looked bigger than he was; good-looking too; ruddy, portly, well-dressed and formal. An embodiment of commercial energy and dignity. In his face gravity, keenness, and good health were blended. Soon after I joined his staff he left the Caledonian to become General Manager of Young's Paraffin ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... nurse as well as being wife to the King's French valet. She was a kindly, portly Englishwoman, who seemed wrapped up in her charge, and she greeted her new subordinate in a friendly way, which, however, seemed strange in one who at home would have been of an inferior degree, expressed hopes ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... While every portly alderman, In linen suit arrayed, Manipulates the palm-leaf fan And seeks the cooling shade; And he perspires who not in vain Suggests his funny squibs, By poking his unwelcome ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... a thousand little eyes; the birds sang all along the way; and all the notables turned out to hear the Doctor. Mrs. Scudder received into her pew, with dignified politeness, Colonel Burr and Colonel and Madame de Frontignac. General Wilcox and his portly dame, Major Seaforth, and we know not what of Vernons and De Wolfs, and other grand old names, were represented there; stiff silks rustled, Chinese fans fluttered, and the last court fashions stood ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... It had occurred to me that in a district which was so little populous and so well wooded, a criminal of any intelligence might play hide-and-seek with the authorities for months; and this idea was strengthened by the aspect of the portly constable as he walked by my side with deliberate dignity and turned-out toes. But a few minutes' converse set my heart at rest. These rural criminals are very tame birds, it appeared. If my informant did not immediately lay his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... soon found myself sitting beside the bleached anatomy of some stranded leviathan, and gazing at the mountains of Squillace that glowed in the soft lights of sunset. The shore was deserted save for myself and a portly dogana-official who was playing with his little son—trying to amuse him by elephantine gambols on the sand, regardless of his uniform and manly dignity. Notwithstanding his rotundity, he was an active and resourceful parent, and enjoyed himself vastly; the boy pretending, ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... palms and costly rugs that backgrounded a marvelous regal dais occupying one long end of the great room, sat the glittering figure of the portly Haroun-al-Raschid, Sultan of Bagdad and husband of many lovely wives, whose multi-colored costumes made a glowing garden on the rugs at the foot of the dais, while on the embroidered cushions at the side of the monarch a lovely Scheherazade in shimmering white satin with strings of glistening ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... Brandon of Midbranch. The clothes and the hat were the same that that gentleman wore, and the same heavy gold chain with dangling seal-rings hung across his ample waistcoat; but there was a general air of haggardness and stoop about him which did not in the least suggest the upright and portly gentleman who had written his name in the hotel ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... milk and honey, but in Tantalian distance. Nature's true heart is invested with a pericardium so thick that it resists the scalpel of the skillful critics, to whom the stethoscope alone betrays the healthful throb of vitality beneath. With portly arguments, Emerson bars the door to the simple but earnest-hearted. That Nature, whose prophet he is, gleams, bright and unloving, down from ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... answered almost immediately by a cleanshaven, portly and dignified man with the most impassive countenance in the world. This man looked upon ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... regions of the Northwest, lay piled up to the beams—skins of the smooth beaver, the delicate otter, black and silver fox, so rich to the eye and silky to the touch that the proudest beauties longed for their possession; sealskins to trim the gowns of portly burgomasters, and ermine to adorn the robes of nobles and kings. The spoils of the wolf, bear, and buffalo, worked to the softness of cloth by the hands of Indian women, were stored for winter wear and to fill ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... portly waiting-maid, carrying a silky-haired spaniel on a cushion under each arm. These petted darlings, King Charles' own special favourites, were all the rage at Court at this time, and accompanied their ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... he demolished every false god, broke their images, slew their priests, and burnt their groves with fire. But, when a worldly Christianity came to be in vogue, when emperors adorned their banners with the cross, and the poor fishermen of Galilee, (in their portly representatives,) came to be encrusted with gems, and rustling with seric silk; then was made that fatal compromise; then it was likely to have been made, which has lasted even until now: a compromise which, newly baptizing the damned idols of the heathen, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... all this with his wicked left eye, but continued to beam mildly with his right. Removing the coat and waistcoat of Gashwiler from a chair, he drew it towards the table, pushing aside a portly, loud-ticking watch,—the very image of Gashwiler,—that lay beside him, and, resting his elbows on ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... another inch to improvement." The Englishman says that America is forever bullying with her restlessness and innovation. The American might at first say that England bullied by never budging,—bullied the future, and every rational or humane suggestion, by planting a portly attitude to challenge the New Jerusalem in an overbearing chest voice, through which the timid clarion of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... a portly, sensual-faced, red-haired man, raised his brows, and, tipping a sly wink at Quirk, ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... should take them for men of sixty-five, and as, before beginning it, both of them had darkened their faces several shades, they felt confident that no one at the fort was likely to recognise them. When Surajah had put on the padded undergarment, and converted himself into a portly-looking old man, and Dick the great horn spectacles, they indulged in a burst of laughter at their changed appearance, while ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... him and slunk out of the store. Hiram turned his back on the whole crowd and waited at the end of the counter for Mr. Schell. The storekeeper was a tall, portly man, with a gray mustache and side-whiskers, ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... had to examine a witness whose evidence would be somewhat dangerous unless he was thrown off his guard and "rattled." The witness in question—an influential man, whose vulnerable point was said to be his self-esteem—was ushered into the box, a portly overdressed person, beaming with self-assurance. Looking him over for a few minutes without saying a word Sir James opened fire: "Mr. Tompkins, I believe?"—"Yes."—"You are a stockbroker, I believe, are you not?"—"I ham." Pausing for a few seconds ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... the Wali's young men, "Go in and tell the Emir that I would have audience of him on some privy business." So the servant went in and told his master, who bade admit the visitor. When he entered, the Emir saw him to be a man of handsome semblance and portly presence; so he received him with honour and high distinction, seating him beside himself, and said to him, "What is thy wish?" Replied the stranger, "I am a highwayman and am minded to repent at thy hands and turn to Almighty Allah; but I would have thee help me to this, for that I am in thy ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... pretty but extremely slender girl entered a street car and managed to seat herself in a narrow space between two men. Presently a portly colored mammy entered the car, and the pretty miss, thinking to humiliate the men for lack of ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... Charles's friends foreboded danger in his liaison. Miss Walkinshaw had a sister, 'good Mrs. Catherine Walkinshaw, the Princess dowager's bed-chamber woman.' Lady Louisa Stuart knew her, and described to Scott 'the portly figure with her long lace ruffles, her gold snuff-box, and her double chin.' {141} The English Jacobites believed that Clementina was sent as a spy on Charles, communicating with her sister in London. In fact, Pickle was the spy, but Charles's refusal to desert his mistress broke up the party, ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... hung the stillness of the country and the long empty road. The woods stirred; a bird called; a portly hare poked his nose through the brush over the way, and suddenly scuttled off, his white flag up. In Mrs, Thurston's ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... and obliterated countenances. None of these, thought Mr. Rolles, would know more on dangerous topics than he knew himself; none of them were fit to give him guidance in his present strait. At length in the smoking-room, up many weary stairs, he hit upon a gentleman of somewhat portly build and dressed with conspicuous plainness. He was smoking a cigar and reading the FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW; his face was singularly free from all sign of preoccupation or fatigue; and there was something in his air which seemed to invite confidence and to expect submission. ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... streets of Padua or beyond its gates: his footsteps kept time with the throbbings of his brain, so that the walk was apt to accelerate itself to a race. One day he found himself arrested; his arm was seized by a portly personage, who had turned back on recognizing the young man and expended much breath ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... with a smile of resignation to his will, she followed him through the vestibule into the dining-car. As they went in they met a portly man who stood ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... the clothes on the line were flecked with black. The buildings had the dull, dingy look which soot alone can give. The houses sagged on either side of narrow, unpaved streets, where during a rainy period ducks clattered about with their broods, and a few portly pigs led their ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... against the icy whips of the black winter's night, a portly gentleman, well advanced in years, picked his way carefully down the wet, slippery steps of the jetty by the light of a lanthorn, whose rays gleamed lividly on crushed brown seaweed and trailing green sea slime. Leaning heavily upon the arm which a sailor held out to his assistance, ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... street leading from the main thoroughfare. Presently he came to a brilliantly-lighted liquor saloon. As he paused in front of the door, a heavy hand was laid upon his shoulder, and, looking up, he met the glance of a well-dressed gentleman, rather portly, whose flushed face and uncertain gait indicated his condition. He leaned rather heavily upon Tom, apparently for support, for he seemed to have been drinking more ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... most infernally pretty girl. Black, mischievous eyes, with the devil's light in them; hair curly, crispy, frisky, luxuriant, all tossing over her head and shoulders, and an awfully enticing manner. A portly old bloke was with her—her father, I afterward learned. Somehow my hat blew off. She laughed. I laughed. Our eyes met. I made a merry remark. She laughed again; and there we were, introduced. She gave me a little ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... the second officer in rank, almost supreme, however, in the internal affairs of his ship. Captain Claret was a large, portly man, a Harry the Eighth afloat, bluff and hearty; and as kingly in his cabin as Harry on his throne. For a ship is a bit of terra firma cut off from the main; it is a state in itself; and the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... the pier, laughing and chatting at the little "Virginie" dipping her bows in the water and flapping her sails in the brisk wind. Natalie's pink bonnet blushed in the early sunshine, and Natalie's mamma, comely and portly, did chaperonage duty. It was not long before the sails gave swell into the breeze and the little boat scurried to the Sound. Past the lighthouse on its gawky iron stalls, she flew, and now rounded the white sands of ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... the earth. Have you never been there? Were you never in the larder, where cheeses lie on the shelves, and hams hang from above; where one dances about on tallow-candles; that place where one enters lean, and comes out again fat and portly?" ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... placed at the head of their army, was one of the usual army-destroyers whom the Carthaginians were in the habit of employing as generals; strutting about in his general's purple like a theatrical king, and pampering his portly person even in the camp, that vain and unwieldy man was little fitted to render help in an exigency which perhaps even the genius of Hamilcar and the arm of Hannibal could have no longer averted. Before the eyes ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... were all men of marked character. Colonel Moor was a German of portly presence and grave demeanor, a gentleman of dignity of character as well as of bearing, and a brave, resolute man. He had been long a citizen of the United States, and had, as a young man, seen some military service, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... horn and the shouts of the children, he clambered forward to the platform, bobbing to right and left, and tweaking the ears of those he passed. Long, yellow rope hair hung down from under a round, scarlet cap, and a rope beard reached to his portly waist. Cotton snow and another kind that melted promptly in the warm room covered his shoulders and sleeves. In a gruff though merry voice that sounded above all the others, he sang out the names pinned to an ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... too, prided himself on having lived at Paris, and seized every occasion ostentatiously to show he was not ignorant of its pleasures and refinements; concealing beneath this film of varnish his inborn rusticity, he assumed as well as he was able the polish of one accustomed to good society. His tall, portly form was always tightly buttoned in a close-fitting uniform, and he lied outrageously about his age, never being able to bring himself to own up to his forty-five years. Had he had more intelligence he might have made himself an ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... of portly and robust figure; and it was easily seen that one leg of his ample pantaloons would have been sufficient to have made a pair for the thin limbs and ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... Lagoon is the story of two cousins, Dicky and Emmeline Lestrange, stranded on a remote island with a beautiful lagoon. As children, they are cared for by Paddy Button, a portly sailor who drinks himself to death after only two and a half years in paradise. Frightened and confused by the man's gruesome corpse, the children flee to another part of Palm Tree Island. Over a period of five years, ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... it was his vanity to keep a red flag flying from the centre tower as though he had been royalty. All the reception-rooms and more than half the bedrooms were permanently shuttered up, and there was a portly and very dignified housekeeper, who rattled her keys at her chatelaine, and went through all the unused apartments daily, followed by a meek phalanx of housemaids, to see that all the rooms were well-aired and well kept in order, ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... waiting without she hears the sound of a horse behind, and, turning quickly, is surprised to see a stranger riding up the hill. A tall, handsome woman well developed, with portly shoulders and large hands. She is riding an immense charger, and whistling gaily. At a second glance Eleanor sees that this masculine young woman is strikingly attractive, her style distinctly original, her figure, though large, splendidly proportioned. She ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... and the Garden Room. My old friend, Jack Governor, "slung his hammock," as he called it, in the Corner Room. I have always regarded Jack as the finest-looking sailor that ever sailed. He is gray now, but as handsome as he was a quarter of a century ago—nay, handsomer. A portly, cheery, well-built figure of a broad-shouldered man, with a frank smile, a brilliant dark eye, and a rich dark eyebrow. I remember those under darker hair, and they look all the better for their silver ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... should commence. The remarkable size and structure of the carriage which the king had caused to be constructed, the number of horses drawing the carriages, the martial figures and commanding features of the three body-guard strangely contrasting with the livery of menials, the portly appearance and kingly countenance of Louis, who sat in a corner of the carriage in the garb of a valet de chambre, all these circumstances conspired to excite suspicion and to magnify the dangers of the royal family. They, however, proceeded without interruption until ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... Mr. Armitage, the portly butcher, made his way into the ring and held up two fat hands, sparkling with rings, as a ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... too keenly alive to the monetary side of the transaction to pay heed to the quip. His portly figure ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... last," she said, with a big sigh of relief, "and here you are, Martin," as a portly looking butler came forward. "That's all right. Thanks ever so for the lift, Miss Carson. You'll excuse me now, won't you, though. I expect Geoffrey is tearing his hair in the billiard-room." And with that Maud vanished at top speed, and Margaret was left ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... The portly client puffed out his chest with an appearance of some little pride, and pulled a dirty and wrinkled newspaper from the inside pocket of his great-coat. As he glanced down the advertising column, with his head thrust forward, and the paper flattened out upon his knee, I took a good look at ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... days than the notions of these progressive times. Yet it is a sight which may have inspired many a City apprentice, and spurred him onward to become an 'honourable of the land;' it is, moreover, the very type of this 'red-letter day' in the City; and, costly as it is, with its disappearance, even portly aldermen will vanish into ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... to the good-natured, portly stewardess of the Climatus, who at that moment was passing through ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... for caricature at once asserted itself, and she laughed as she saw in fancy the portly little Frenchman, with his round, ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... a smooth-faced portly man, clad in fine broadcloth, unmistakably a Catholic Priest; next is a man of soldierly bearing whose uniform and shoulder-straps proclaim him to be the commander of the national guard of the State; ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... got up on the wall and laughed; a Dresden mirror was tripping about, crowned with flowers, and a Japanese bonze was riding along on a griffin; a slim Venetian rapier had come to blows with a stout Ferrara sabre, all about a little pale-faced chit of a damsel in white Nymphenburg china; and a portly Franconian pitcher in gres gris was calling aloud, "Oh, these Italians! always at feud!" But nobody listened to him at all. A great number of little Dresden cups and saucers were all skipping and waltzing; the ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... of the affections and the sentiments; and his imagination, warmed with the ardor of his faith, shaped the ideal forms of his worship into visible realities. Brbeuf sat conspicuous among his brethren, portly and tall, his short moustache and beard grizzled with time,—for he was fifty-six years old. If he seemed impassive, it was because one overmastering principle had merged and absorbed all the impulses of his nature and all the faculties of his mind. The enthusiasm ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... from the yacht, of course," she said. "What other gentlemen are there?" This with a contemptuous up-and-down sort of look at the Lutheran minister's portly form. "Sir Philip Errington was here with his friend yesterday evening and stayed a long time—and today a fine boat with four oars came to fetch the master and Froeken Thelma, and they are all gone for a sail to the Kaa Fjord or some other place near here—I cannot ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... big, immobile, surly. It lined the sidewalks in the vicinity of the station and stared with curious, half-closed eyes at the portly capitalist and his party, which, by the way, was rendered somewhat imposing in size by augmentation in the shape of lawyers from Paris and London, clerks and stenographers from the Paris office, and four plain ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... took the trick and gathered it up in silence. He was a portly, antique gentleman, with a fine taste for scandal in its proper place, but disliked ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... appearances, you would never have taken this portly, rubicund, iron-gray, bushy-browed gentleman for a statesman. But a statesman he was for all that, and the Emperor and Germany miss him sorely. I would have taken him for a Boer Dopper or an English yeoman. This suggestion was supported ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... presented himself to view of sympathetic House as specimen of what a man of ordinarily healthy habits might be brought to by necessity of paying Income-tax on the gross rental of house property. A procession of friends of the Agriculturist was closed by portly figure of CHAPLIN, another effective object-lesson suitable for illustration of lectures on Agricultural Depression. Mr. G., feeling there was no necessity for speech, had resolutely withstood the others. CHAPLIN at the table, proved irresistible. To him, CHAPLIN ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various
... walked up and down the room, henceforward to be called the studio, in sweet and silent communion. They heard rapping at Torpenhow's door. 'That's some ruffian come up for a drink,' said Torpenhow; and he raised his voice cheerily. There entered no one more ruffianly than a portly middle-aged gentleman in a satin-faced frockcoat. His lips were parted and pale, and there were ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... maids flickered through the long passage-ways. The portly butler violently ejected from the dining-room had been seen passing swiftly through the hall, with the ungainly movement of a prehistoric animal ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... effects. Even fair ladies, too, came in their carriages, holding high their aristocratic skirts as they threaded their way through the rooms where piles of carpeting and furniture of various kinds lay awaiting the shrill voice and hammer of the auctioneer, a portly little man, who felt more for the family than his ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... her. Some loaded freight cars, their contents untouched, likewise stood on the spur. That Bill Whiting, however, meant to guard the railroad's property, was evidenced by the fact that strapped to his waist was a portly revolver, while a rifle lay handy in the ticket office, in which, since the outbreak of trouble, he had watched and ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... dressed by the Laird of Garth, but the pride of the Macgregors and Glengarries who thronged around the royal person, suffered a serious blow when a London alderman entered the circle clothed in a suit of the same tartan. The portly figure and civic dignity of Sir William Curtis gave to the costume too much the appearance of a burlesque to pass unnoticed either by the Sovereign or his loyal admirers, and it was some time before ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... to match. But here,—here was the Big Young Gobbler, the pride and glory of the poultry yard, no longer ruffling it in black and red, but shining in rich golden brown, with strings of nut-brown sausages about his portly breast. Here was cranberry sauce, not in a bowl, but moulded in the wheat-sheaf mould, and glowing like the Great Carbuncle. Here was an Alp of potato, a golden mountain of squash, onions glimmering translucent like ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... Thackeray had given him a very unusual fare. "Who is your fat friend?" I asked, crossing over to shake hands with him. "O, that indomitable youth is an old crony of mine," he replied; and then, quoting Falstaff, "a goodly, portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent, of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage." It was the manner of saying this, then, and there in the London street, the cabman moving slowly off on his sorry vehicle, with one eye (an eye dewy with gin and water, and a tear of gratitude, perhaps) ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... lordship would refresh his portly person in the bath, an officer of high rank shelters his noble head with a great umbrella of crimson and gold, while others wave golden fans before him. On these occasions he is invariably preceded by musicians, who announce his approach with ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... Mr. White" was. He appeared, a portly gentleman with frock coat and lawn tie who resembled the man in the moon. His head, like polished ivory, increased the beaming effect of his welcome, and the hand that pressed Honora's was large and soft ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... bring the chin tight upon the breast under the bloated feather bulk which is meant for covering, and which rises over the sleeper from a thick substratum of cotton coverlet, neatly buttoned into the upper sheet, with the effect of a portly waistcoat. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... thank you, I am as haste ordain'd me, a thing slubber'd, my sister is a goodly portly Lady, a woman of a presence, she spreads sattens, as the Kings ships do canvas every where, she may spare me her misen, and her bonnets, strike her main Petticoat, and yet outsail me, I am ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... was poured out, and handed to us by a black girl of most disgustingly dirty appearance, no sooner did the engine drivers, and persons connected with the railroads and coaches, sit down to their meal, than the landlady herself, a portly dame, with a most dignified carriage, took the head of the table, and did the honors with all the grace of a most accomplished hostess. Our male fellow-travelers no sooner had dispatched their dinner ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... an admirer of ancient literature, and to his last days read the Greek classics in the original. A rare scholar, a lover of books, his tastes were eminently domestic; he was, from his nature, much secluded from the busy world around him. Nearly six feet high, rather portly and dignified, as is shown by his portrait, taken when he was about sixty years of age—he was kind and obliging to all, and emphatically a true Virginia gentleman of the old school. His sympathies during the War of Secession, were strongly in favor of the Union cause, the ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... made me lose my train and I was obliged to take a late train which did not stop at my home. I was still paying for my horse out of my own bone and sinew. At last the luscious green hills, the thick grasses, the tall corn-shocks and the portly hay-stacks of my native valley came in view and they never looked so abundant, so generous, so entirely sufficing to man and beast as now in returning from a land of cold green forests, sparse grass, and ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... portly, rosy, well-fed parson, whom I observed ogling several mouldy polemical writers through an eyeglass. He soon contrived to slip on the voluminous mantle of one of the old fathers, and having purloined the gray beard of another, endeavored to look exceedingly wise; ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... title, if the value of a title lie in its application, Mr. Swinburne is right. It has little relevance to the verses in the volume. On the other hand, as a portly and attractive mouthful of syllables The Passionate Pilgrim can hardly be surpassed. If not "a perfect title," it is surely "a charming name." But Mr. Humphreys' contention that Jaggard "set up a good precedent" and produced a "forerunner" ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and master is John Brown, Esq., Director of the Deptford Direct, the Stag Assurance, and Churchwarden of this parish—St. Stiff the Martyr,—a portly upright man; for had he not been so erect, to balance a "fair round belly," he would have toppled on his nose. Everybody said that he was clever, too—and, moreover, always thought so; for luck had made our friend a rising man amongst the suburban aristocracy of Mizzlington. ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... appeared in the doorway. It is the cartoonist's conventional conception of the modern Captain of Industry. His silk hat is on the back of his head as if he had just come from his office as fast as his forty-horse-power automobile could carry him. His portly form shows evidences of intense excitement. He is holding his hand aloft to stay the proceedings, while from his lips comes the stage whisper: "Gentlemen, stop! You will hurt business!" What would those old New England ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... keeper of an oyster-room and minor hell in Pickering Place, is prevailed upon to take the chair, supported on his right by Mr. Jorrocks, and on his left by Mr. Tom Rhodes, of Thames Street, while the stout, jolly, portly Jerry Hawthorn fills—in the fullest sense of the word—the vice-chair. Just as the waiters are removing the covers, in stalks the Baron, in his conical hat, and reconnoitres the viands. Sam, all politeness, invites him to join the party. "I tank you," replies the Baron, "but I have my wet ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... enough." Mrs. Rheinholdt sighed, glancing down at her somewhat portly figure. "Dixon," she added, turning to the footman who had admitted Craig, "take Professor Ashleigh's servant into the kitchen and see that he has something before he leaves for home. Now, Professor, if you ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... group at the hall door, as the vehicle rattled and rumbled under the ivied archway. Sir Michael was in request everywhere. Shaking hands with the young sportsmen; kissing the rosy-cheeked girls; sometimes even embracing portly matrons who came to thank him for their pleasant visit; everywhere genial, hospitable, generous, happy, and beloved, the baronet hurried from room to room, from the hall to the stables, from the stables to the ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... duty which it would have been difficult for him to escape. The old gentleman who had decided the suspension and the resumption of the game, gave audible expression to the prevailing sentiment of the party. He was a portly man, who puffed like a porpoise when he talked, and whom his companions called the baron. "Your words do you honor—really do you honor," he said, addressing Ferdinand—"and no possible blame can attach to you. That your friend is not an honest man is no fault of yours. There ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... visited Mr. Macnaghten in the afternoon, his visit was preceded by one from his Hindoo minister, and another man, Imaam Shah, who is a very fat ruffianly- looking fellow. The Khan was attended by numerous suwarries; he is a portly looking, middle-aged man. ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... a portly and well-dressed pillar of the church, "I was a good deal surprised. Rather too wild and flowery. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... to us even here; and down by the banks of the river, away westward, as far as the eye can see, up spring clean bright houses of the wealthy manufacturers and traders of Rouen,—rich, sleek, and portly gentlemen with the thinnest boots, who never even pass down the old streets if they can help it, but whom we shall find very pleasant and hospitable; and with whom we may sit down at a cafe under the trees and play at dominoes ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... concluded, and the streets are again crowded with people. Long rows of cleanly-dressed charity children, preceded by a portly beadle and a withered schoolmaster, are returning to their welcome dinner; and it is evident, from the number of men with beer-trays who are running from house to house, that no inconsiderable portion of the population are about to take theirs at this early hour. The bakers' shops in the humbler ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... awoke with a start. The proprietor's wife, portly and sympathetic, stood staring in at the half-open door. She eagerly accepted my stammering invitation to come in and be seated. Seeing that I was weak and embarrassed, she refrained from questions as to my name or connections. ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... creaked behind them, and the two captains turned their heads. A portly, broad-shouldered gentleman, in a suit of snuff colour, came slowly across the court, with both hands behind him, and a ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... apartment at a most exciting moment. For there, facing her portly old father, whose clouded face bespoke his troubled mind, stood her trimly-built young cousin Carausius the admiral, bronzed with his long exposure to the sea-blasts, a handsome young viking, and, in the eyes of the hero-loving Helen, very much of a hero because ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... flutter of colour which surprise brought to her maidenly, middle-aged cheek. How they both divined it I cannot tell, but it certainly was no surprise to either of them when a tall embarrassed figure, following the portly one of Mr Wodehouse, stepped suddenly from the noisy gravel to the quiet grass, and stood gravely awkward behind the ...
— The Rector • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... moment the manager's voice was heard, introducing the new-comers, under the stage names of Johnson and Digby, to Mrs. Crummles, a portly lady in a tarnished silk cloak, with her bonnet dangling by the strings, and with a quantity of hair braided in a large festoon over each temple; who greeted them with ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... sorrow-pang as he paused for a moment on Lute's Aunt Mildred and Uncle Robert, mellow with ripe middle age and genial with the gentle buffets life had dealt them. He passed amusedly over the black-eyed, frail-bodied Mrs. Grantly, and halted on the fourth person, a portly, massive-headed man, whose gray temples belied the youthful ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... meant by THE TRUTH it would be hard to say, but if the visual embodiment of it was not a departed dean, it was at least always associated in her mind with a cathedral choir, and a portly ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... mile or more from the sea, the school occupied a building called "The Gables," and was an offshoot of a former ancient school connected with the famous parish church. In my time this "academy" was carried on as a private venture by a certain James Anthony Bown, a portly old gentleman ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... Minister, proved to be a rubicund, rather portly gentleman, with white side whiskers and an air of urbane courtesy that set her at her ease at once. She told him who she was, hopefully, and was delighted to find that he ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... outside, and so imbued with oil within, as to suggest having been used on excursions to the bottoms of the various wells; but uninviting as is their appearance, they are always crowded, and Miselle shared her seat with a portly gentleman, whom at the second glance she recognized as Viator Ignotus, and he, presently alluding to the fact of their having dined together the previous day, a conversation grew up, through which Miselle, much to her amusement, was initiated ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... enter in a manner so polite and pressing we could not choose but do so. This is a universal custom with the country innkeepers. In a little village which we passed toward evening there was a tavern with the sign "The Mother of Soldiers." A portly woman whose face beamed with kindness and cheerfulness stood in the door and invited us to stop there for the night. "No, mother," I answered; "we must go much farther to-day." "Go, then," said she, "with good luck, my ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... ever, since he has discovered, on such good authority, who the stout gentleman was; and will never forgive himself for not having made a more resolute effort to get a full sight of him. He has anxiously endeavored to call up a recollection of what he saw of that portly personage; and has ever since kept a curious eye on all gentlemen of more than ordinary dimensions, whom he has seen getting into stage coaches. All in vain! The features he had caught a glimpse of seem common to the whole race of stout gentlemen; and the ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... The portly wife of the postmaster replied that the evening boat was late and that they were waiting ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... helm of the petala looked eagerly ahead at the last sloop of the line. He could see the subahdar on deck, a somewhat portly figure in resplendent costume. A small dinghy was passing between his vessel and the shore. It contained a number of servants, who had brought him his breakfast from the fort. The crews of the other vessels had prepared their food ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... means strict with his flock. He was a tall man, inclined to be portly, a good shot and an ardent fisherman; and although he did not hunt, he was frequently seen on his brown cob at the meet, whenever it took place within a reasonable distance of Sidmouth; and without exactly following the hounds, his knowledge of the country often enabled him to ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... been known from her childhood by the name of Two-to-the-Pound? Could they silence the accuser by making him their friend?—or could they repel his revelations by dint of unhesitating, unqualified lying?—or finally, would it be necessary to quit the neighbourhood? Mr Gillingham Howard was a tall portly man, with his hair slightly grizzled, and an air of quiet assurance reposing on his somewhat coarse features, which his partial aunt considered the solemn dignity of virtue and high birth. To a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... old crony of his, one Bob Still, would come in; and then they would occupy the sentry-box together, and swill their beer in concert. This pot-friend of Danby was portly as a dray-horse, and had a round, sleek, oily head, twinkling eyes, and moist red cheeks. He was a lusty troller of ale-songs; and, with his mug in his hand, would lean his waddling bulk partly out ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... surgeon with the Aberdeen accent; "the ranker," erect and grizzled, and looking ever so little not quite at his ease, you know, for the languid lad with fawn-coloured moustache straddling on the chair beside him is an Honourable; the jovial portly Yorkshireman, who is in the Highland Light Infantry, naturally; and the lively loud-voiced Irishman, laughing consumedly at his own jokes—all are here, conversing, smoking, mildly chaffing each other, and exchanging "tips" as to the next ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... surprise and regret that Mr. Howard Pyle's illustrated books are not as well known in England as they deserve to be. And this is the more vexing when you find that any one with artistic sympathy is completely converted to be a staunch admirer of Mr. Pyle's work by a sight of "The Wonder Clock," a portly quarto, published by Harper Brothers in 1894. It seems to be the only book conceived in purely Duereresque line, which can be placed in rivalry with Mr. Walter Crane's illustrated "Grimm," and wise people will be only too delighted to admire both without attempting to compare ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White |
