"Sketch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Some people who sketch and engrave from imagination, err in representing the natives of Samoa as pulling their short paddles, as the European boatman pulls his long oars. The paddle is about four feet long, something like a sharp-pointed shovel; and when the natives paddle, they sit with their faces in the direction ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... writers having been mentioned in your columns as likely to have suggested to our brilliant essayist and historian his celebrated graphic sketch of the New Zealander meditating over the ruins of London, I would beg leave to hint the probability that not one of those many passages were present to his mind or memory at the moment he wrote. The fact is that the picture is so true to nature, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 233, April 15, 1854 • Various
... Mr. Floyd sent me a topographical sketch of the mountain, with a request to prepare preliminary plans for the observatory. As I had always looked on Professor Holden as probably the coming director, I took him into consultation, and the plans were made under our joint direction in my office. The position and ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... warm'd with kindly zeal, Each others merits ye were sure to feel For one, true virtue's favorite employ, Her happiest exercise! her highest joy. One glorious motive sway'd each active mind Whether the bard, to rhymes no more confin'd, Rapidly sketch'd with glance intensely keen, His bird's-eye prospect of our human scene, Or the fair moralist, in polish'd prose, Describ'd the living manners as they rose. One glorious motive clear in each we prize. Bright as the vestal flame, which ...
— Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects - Printed only as Private Tokens of Regard, for the Particular - Friends of the Author • William Hayley
... honoured file! Next, a stronger evidence of thy violent and almost satanical pride, lay a list of all the morning papers (from the "Morning Chronicle" downwards to the "Porcupine,") with the places of their respective offices, where thou wast meditating to insert, and didst insert, an elaborate sketch of the story of thy play—stones in thy enemy's hand to bruise thee with; and severely wast thou bruised, O Professor! nor do I know what oil to pour into thy wounds. Next, which convinced me to a dead ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... sketch, though a slight one, of the constitution, laws, and policy of this new court corporation. The name by which they choose to distinguish themselves, is that of king's men or the king's friends, by an invidious exclusion of the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... feet 3 inches long, exquisitely carved out of black oak, is now in the possession of A. Nossoc, Esq., the proprietor of a rare and valuable collection of paintings by ancient masters. By this gentleman's kindness I have been able to take a sketch of it, a copy of which I enclose. In these instruments the impulse is not communicated to the arrow directly by the string, but by means of a movable iron bridge, placed behind the string. I subjoin outlines of the arrow used with this kind ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various
... "literary" value in the narrow sense of that word, neither Bradford nor Winthrop seems to have thought of literary effect. Yet the leader of the Pilgrims has passages of grave sweetness and charm, and his sketch of his associate, Elder Brewster, will bear comparison with the best English biographical writing of that century. Winthrop is perhaps more varied in tone, as he is in matter, but he writes throughout as a ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... before he "arrived," and hunger was a familiar companion. One night he had to play in a sketch in which he was supposed to consume a ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... to invite him. It might be well for him to bring paper and pencil—he will assuredly have an irresistible desire to make a sketch of this beautiful nymph." ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... faculty to nobler efforts, raised his moral tone, and infused into his less subtle intellect something of his own philosophical depth and earnestness. Much as he enjoyed Byron's society and admired his writing, Shelley was not blind to the imperfections of his nature. The sketch which he has left us of Count Maddalo, the letters written to his wife from Venice and Ravenna, and his correspondence on the subject of Leigh Hunt's visit to Italy, supply the most discriminating criticism which has yet been passed upon his ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... Southward by the West towards North; but if it pass between him and the Equator, the change will be from Southward by the East towards North; but otherwise in South latitude, as his place in circles sketched will show more clearly than words. The roughest sketch or diagram, indicating the various directions of wind, and the course of the meteor's centre, will show more plainly than descriptions—which must necessarily vary with each case, ...
— Barometer and Weather Guide • Robert Fitzroy
... lines on which the individual may be most perfectly trained into such recognition of his true relation to the All-embracing Spirit of Life is therefore of supreme importance, but it is also of such magnitude that even to briefly sketch its broad outlines would require a volume to itself, and I will therefore not attempt to enter upon it here, my present purpose being only to offer some hints of the principles underlying that wonderful three-fold unity ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... exquisitely beautiful sketch; it is drawn to the life from many an era of pilgrimage in this world; there are in it the materials of glory, that constituted spirits of such noble greatness as are catalogued in the eleventh of Hebrews-traits of cruel mockings ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... were Dick's last words as he waved his straw hat to them. How often the memory of that morning recurred to him as he stood solitarily and thoughtful, contemplating some grand sketch of ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... period of his life, when his youthful spirits were failing him, that the stage, for which he had always felt a fascination, tempted him to write "Ivanoff," and also a dramatic sketch in one act entitled "The Swan Song," though he often declared that he had no ambition to become a dramatist. "The Novel," he wrote, "is a lawful wife, but the Stage is a noisy, flashy, and insolent mistress." He has put his opinion of the stage of his ...
— Swan Song • Anton Checkov
... paid; but still men are often tempted to be unfaithful however well they are paid;" and then he went on to tell Edgar of the arrangement that had been made with the sheik. Edgar in return gave him a short sketch of his life since they had parted at Cheltenham, and told him of the promises he had made to El Bakhat if he would take him down to one of the Red ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... much on the paper, and that was written in a clumsy printing-letter fashion, beneath a rough sketch, and with ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... inspiration, we have no solid ground for any portion of the Bible. We find, therefore, that after this view had become prevalent the popular mind attached no importance to God's revealed will. Interpolations were imagined at every point of difficulty. Schroeckh gives a sketch of the deplorable state of opinion on inspiration, when he says, "Inspiration was given up—interpolations in Scripture were believed to exist. In the oldest and partly in more recent history, instead of historical facts these writers saw only allegories, myth, philosophical principles, ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... believe that he found a keen joy in danger. He was full of a scheme for a night attack upon a position which Gourko had taken up in a height which the Russians called St Nicholas Crag, and he got leave, after a good deal of characteristic procrastination, to go into the forts, and thence to take a sketch of the country he desired to travel in the night-time. I was very eager to see things closer at hand than I had been able to do till then, and it was arranged that I should accompany Campbell on this sketching expedition. By the ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... rock, some trees, a stretch of sandy waste, backed by a rugged hill and a glimpse of sea, all bathed in mist; and his brush moved decisively, heavily at times, lightly, caressingly at others as the sketch grew to completion, while his dark eyes glowed behind their hideous goggles, and the firm lines at his mouth relaxed in a smile. For this moment at least he was tasting immortality—and it ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... Woman who was entitled to a long row of Service Stripes on her Sleeve, sat in the Motor, and watched the remainder of the Sketch try out ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... way; on discovering them, your duty is to report them to the authorities, who immediately add them to the map of London. That is why we are now reporting Friday Street. We shall call it, in the rough sketch drawn for to-morrow's press, 'Street in which the criminal resided'; and you will find Mrs. Dowey's home therein marked with ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... in his Book of Curtesye promises his 'lytyl John' a breechless feast, or as the Oriel MS. reads it, a 'byrchely' one,[1] & as the Forewords have shown that young people did get floggings in olden time, it may be as well to give here the sketch of a boy flea-bitten, no doubt, with little bobs of hazel twigs, that Richard Hill has preserved for us. Boys of the present generation happily don't know the sensation of unwelcome warmth that a sound flogging produced, and how after it one had to sit on the ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... Grace this slight sketch of his personal character, as well to vindicate his memory, as to justify myself for the love which I bore to his person; and I have the rather done it, because I hope it may be acceptable to you to know, that he was worthy of the distinction ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... sketch from the board," he said upon his return, "and write in place of it, 'Do unto others as you would have them do to you,' which will remain there until we need the board for ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... retain the characteristics they bore in life, such as a disposition to sensuality and licentiousness, love of rum, tobacco, and other vices, and that they can, by causing the medium to plunge excessively into these things, thereby still gratify their own propensities to indulge in them. The following sketch by Hudson Tuttle, a very popular author among Spiritualists, is somewhat lengthy, but the idea could not better be presented than by giving it entire. In "Life in Two Spheres," pp. ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... —and a Sketch of the Irish Exchequer Court. A description of the University, with a Vignette view, and ground plan, is perhaps, the most interesting of the whole Number; but as dramatic critics sometimes say of a new performer, we had rather see him in another character before we ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 394, October 17, 1829 • Various
... were traced roughly the location of certain objects intended obviously to be trees. Certain of these were ranged in line like the range lights used by mariners when entering or leaving a harbor. At a spot where two lines of ranges crossed, which was evidently near the water's edge, was a rough sketch of a box. Evidently no ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... observed two low islets, and two rocks above water, the latter not more than three or four miles from us. To the southward also, we saw the land extending a great distance; but the whole are better seen in the sketch. ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... adapted and enlarged in the light of recent research, and all possible sources have been drawn upon to make a complete and rounded story of Napoleon's boyhood upon the basis furnished by Madame Foa's sketch. If this glimpse of the boy Napoleon shall lead young readers to the study of the later career of this marvellous man, unbiased by partisanship, and swayed neither by hatred nor hero worship, the publishers will feel that this presentation ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... that experience, minstrel shows and concerts, and persons who told your fortunes with snakes, or ate glass, were rather an anticlimax; still, I enjoyed them all so much that I was incapable of extreme annoyance when we discovered that The Evening Bat had an "impressionist sketch" of me which made me look ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Court again. It was even lovelier than ever in the sweet spring twilight. Triangles of soft light lay upon its dusty, yet polished, floors. Bert said that the place certainly needed precious little furniture; Nancy added eagerly that one maid could do all the work. She drew a happy sketch of Bert and his friends, arriving hot and weary from the city, on summer afternoons, going down to the bay for a plunge, and coming back to find supper spread on the red-tiled porch. Bert liked the idea of winter fires, with snow and ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... the Alameda, or read the account of the siege in Drinkwater's days; and when he tires of the green cloth and its distractions, and of his own noble profession, he can throw a sail to the breeze in the unequalled Bay, or take a flying trip to Tarifa to sketch the beautiful from the living model, or go to Ceuta to see the Spanish galley-slaves and disciplinary regiments, forgetful of our own chain-gangs; or steam across to Tangier to riot in ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... slight sketch of Brunai of the Brunais. If the Pangerans are corrupt, the lower classes are not, but are law abiding, though not industrious. And the day may yet come when their city may lift her head up again, and be to North Borneo what Singapore is to ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... it been a hawk the mark would have been as shown in the left lower corner, three toes forward and one back, whereas the owl usually sets his foot with two toes forward and two backward, as in the sketch. This, then, I felt sure was the work of an owl. But which owl? There were two, maybe three kinds in that valley. I wished to know exactly and, looking for further evidence, I found on a sapling ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... monsters, why not ordinary mortals? And with whom shall a young lady fall in love but with the person she sees? She is not supposed to lose her heart in a dream, like a Princess in the Arabian Nights; or to plight her young affections to the portrait of a gentleman in the Exhibition, or a sketch in the Illustrated London News. You have an instinct within you which inclines you to attach yourself to some one: you meet Somebody: you hear Somebody constantly praised: you walk, or ride, or waltz, or talk, or sit in the same pew ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... forty thousand dollars did not go to a comparatively obscure and uncapitalized inventor who had written a book to build a world with, or at least a great preliminary design, or sketch, toward a world. The Nobel Prize Trustees, instead of giving the forty thousand dollars to Allen Upward, looked carefully about through all the nations until their eyes fell on a certain Mr. Rudyard Kipling. And when they saw Mr. Rudyard Kipling, piled high with fame and five ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... that Tommy Peck, though a harum-scarum fellow, possessed considerable artistic talent; superior, at all events, to any of the rest of us. He used to amuse Edith by making drawings and figures in her sketch-book—which had, with her small library, been brought on shore—she herself being only ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... Scutari—if I happened to want anything, or if I was tired of work: but without once doing the least harm to anything, but containing my humours, and fearing my Maker. And full of peaceful charm were those little cruises through this Levantic world, which, truly, is rather like a light sketch in water-colours done by an angel than like the dun real earth; and full of self-satisfaction and pious contentment would I return to Imbros, approved of my conscience, for that I had surmounted temptation, and lived ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... seated on a divan in the saloon smoking. The Captain showed me a sketch that gave the plan, section, and elevation of the Nautilus. Then he began his ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... G.F., who was one of the party that went ashore, gives a sketch of the people. They were a set of stout men, of a dark-brown colour, not disagreeable features, with dark curling hair and beards, perfectly naked, and variously marked on different parts of the body. They had the New Zealand custom of touching noses as a salutation; and their language ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... rude drawing to Macleod—a sketch of a wild Highlander, with his hair on end, his eyes starting out of his head, and his hands uplifted in bewilderment. This work of art was the production of Miss Carry, who, on hearing the knock at the door, had whipped into the room, placed her bit of savage satire ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... a list of the plants most worthy of attention near us; there are many others in the township that I am a stranger to; some there are with whose names I am unacquainted. I subjoin a slight sketch, not with my pencil but my pen, of those flowers that pleased me particularly, or that ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... host was now able to study the faces of his guests at his ease, as they sat round the table in the full light of the candles burning upon it in the two theatrical candelabra. He turned his attention to the ladies first, and it perhaps will not be out of place to give a little sketch of them here, while the pedant attacks ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... and grief I have prepared a sketch of the life and character of your dearly loved mother, whom it has pleased God to call to Himself. Slight and imperfect as it is, it may hereafter help to preserve some tender recollections, which you ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... that she would not take his word for her uncle-in- law's evil disposition, gave a hasty sketch of his conduct to Isabella, and the manner in which Wuthering Heights became his property. He could not bear to discourse long upon the topic; for though he spoke little of it, he still felt the same horror and detestation of his ancient enemy that ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... illuminated, the next, they were in blackest gloom. In two or three hours it has all passed away, and as we go out into the silent town, and cross the street where it forms a bridge over the Rille (the spot from which the next sketch was taken), a faint gleam of light appears upon the water, and upon the wet beams of one or two projecting gables. The darkness and the 'dead' silence are soon to be disturbed—one or two birds fly out from the black eaves, a rat crosses the street, ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... high, perhaps the highest place, among English letter writers: and the collection of his letters appended to Southey's biography forms, with the biographical portions of his poetry, the materials for a sketch of his life. Southey's biography itself is very helpful, though too prolix and too much filled out with dissertations for common readers. Had its author only done for Cowper what he did for Nelson! [Our acknowledgments are also due to Mr. Benham, the writer of ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... History is indebted for this sketch to Anne Webb (Mrs. O. Edward) Janney, president of the Friends' Equal Rights Association and superintendent of the department of equal rights of the Committee of Philanthropic Labor ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... Liberty dispense, And bid us shock the Man that shocks Good Sense. Great Homer first the Mimic Sketch design'd What grasp'd not Homer's comprehensive mind? By him who Virtue prais'd, was Folly curst, And who Achilles sung, drew Dunce ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... practical forms." So, for the moment turning away from algebraic formulae and abstruse calculations, wrote Ada, Lady Lovelace, in her twenty-eighth year. See "Translator's Notes," signed A. A. L., to A Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... and the actor work in partnership, with broad strokes, relying upon the eager imagination of the audience to amplify the tiny sketch into a well-rounded, full personality. This is the method simply stated. It does not admit of the laying down ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... the way in which Mrs. Gibson first broached her intention of accompanying Cynthia up to London for a few days' visit. She had a trick of producing the first sketch of any new plan before an outsider to the family circle; so that the first emotions of others, if they disapproved of her projects, had to be repressed, until the idea had become familiar to them. To Molly it seemed too charming a proposal ever to come to pass. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... decorations all wrought to great perfection, give to that part of the edifice a nicety that makes it resemble a work coming from the hands of a chaser. But how to describe, in the short space which the limits of this sketch admit, all the details, all the particular parts of our Cathedral? There is in it such a profusion, such a richness, that to be properly explored, it would require volumes. We must therefore limit ourselves to some brief indications ...
— Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of Strasburg • Anonymous
... taken them all by storm. Sandoz declared that her name of Becot was very well suited for a novel; Claude asked whether she would consent to pose for a sketch; while Mahoudeau already pictured her as a Paris gamin, a statuette that would be sure to sell. She soon went off, however, and behind the gentleman's back she wafted kisses to the whole party, a shower of kisses which quite upset ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... cynical description of the political situation was pointed by a quotation of the retort of Demades to the successful tragedian "Are you so proud of having got a talent for speaking? why, I got ten talents from the king for holding my peace".[549] This sketch was probably more witty than true; condemnation, when it becomes universal, ceases to be convincing, and cynicism, when it exceeds a certain degree, is merely the revelation of a diseased or affected mental attitude. Gracchus was too good a pleader to be a fair observer. But the suspicion revealed ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... containing some sarcastic remarks on married women. We know that Steele was personally acquainted with Mrs. Manley, and it is possible that he knew Mrs. Haywood, since she later dedicated a novel to him. With some reservation, then, we may accept this sketch as a fair likeness. As a young matron of seventeen or eighteen she was evidently a lively, unconventional, opinionated gadabout fond of the company of similar She-romps, who exchanged verses and specimen letters with ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... the good faith of this sketch of former social glories; the picnic at the Lido had remained vivid through the ages, and poor Miss Tita evidently was of the impression that she had had a brilliant youth. She had in fact had a glimpse of the ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... of Manu and the inveteracy of old custom, there gleams here and there in Hindu literature and history a bright ideal of woman's character and rank; while the Ramayana has its model Sita, the Mahabharata, i., 3028, has this peerless sketch: ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... the eastern margin of the marshes. The physical condition of this tract is described by Prony, in his "Description Hydrographique et Historique des Marais Pontins," 4to. Paris, 1822; the work is accompanied by a volume of plans and sections and a map of the district. A sketch of the physical character of this district, and of the various attempts to drain it, is also given in the 'Penny Cyclopaedia,'—art. Pomptine Marshes. See also Westphal's two valuable maps of the Campagna di Roma, and his accompanying ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... wheat and maize sufficient to supply the farm, and to leave 200l. worth for sale. The outlay for the twelve months, including every thing, did not exceed 350l.; and I have shewn the returns to have been 1100l. This slight sketch will afford an idea of what an industrious farmer may do in the Paterson district. As soon as he can collect a few pounds, they may be profitably invested in the purchase of some good cows, which will not only supply him and his family with butter and milk, but will pay ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... "on the edge of this photograph a rough sketch calling attention to a mark like an L which is the chief characteristic of this hammer, although there are other detailed markings which show well under the microscope but not in a photograph. You will note that the marks on a hammer are reversed on the primer in the same way that a metal type and ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... selected from his portfolio a sketch done with a black-lead pencil; but mamma, who delighted in highly-coloured pictures, looked at the pale ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... to know 'how people look', we will take this moment to give them a little sketch of the four sisters, who sat knitting away in the twilight, while the December snow fell quietly without, and the fire crackled cheerfully within. It was a comfortable room, though the carpet was faded and the furniture very ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... to sketch the strange tempestuous career of Caesar Borgia because in the remaining chapters of The Prince and elsewhere in his writings, it is the thought and memory of Valentinois, transmuted doubtless and ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... survived. Peter Porcupine, the Aurora, and the much loftier Columbiad are alike forgotten. Yet it is indicative of the extent to which politics ruled the day to note that in Knickerbocker's History of New York, Washington Irving turns aside from the ostensible object of a humorous sketch of early New York to ridicule President Jefferson. William the Testy, a dreamer, a speculative philosopher, an impractical inventor, with a smattering of all knowledge, was easily recognised as the President of the United States. His suggestion ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... particular made an impression upon our heroes; partly, because it was a bear story, and partly because it illustrated a very characteristic phase of squatter life and practical humour. In fact, Alexis made a sketch of it in his journal, and from his notes ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... Public School of Industrial Art of Manual Training and Art in the R. C. High School, and in several Night Schools, Member of the Art Club, Sketch Club, and Educational Club, and of the Academy of ...
— The Peanut Plant - Its Cultivation And Uses • B. W. Jones
... conversed but sparingly. She was occupied with the phantom pages of her banker's book; with the shortcomings of a new housemaid; not a little with the vague sketch of a dress, to be worn at certain approaching gaieties, which should embody the majesty of the chaperon without entirely resigning all pretensions to youth. But for one remark, "that the coachman was driving very badly," I think she travelled ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... Crusaders, but he was conscious at the same time that that interest was of a character which it might be more easy to create than to satisfy, and that by the mention of so magnificent a subject each reader might be induced to call up to his imagination a sketch so extensive and so grand that it might not be in the power of the author to fill it up, who would thus stand in the predicament of the dwarf bringing with him a standard to measure his own stature, and showing himself, therefore, says Sterne, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... be a sketch of the life of Mrs. Brenton and her husband. This would be number one, and above it would be the Roman numeral I. Under the heading II. would be a history of the crime. Under III. what had occurred afterwards—the incidents that had led suspicion towards the unfortunate woman, ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr
... at all find anyone to explain to me the difference between a "Comedian" and a "Comic"; or a "Comedian and Patterer" and an "Eccentric Comedian"; or a "Society Belle" and a "Burlesque Artiste"; or, again, "A Sketch Artiste" and a "Speciality Dancer." For to me they seemed precisely similar. There were "four Charming Lyric Sisters," who performed a dance in long expansive skirts, and in conclusion did all turn heels-over-head in simultaneity; but this, it seems, was—contrary to my ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... tempted to regard the subject; and what so liberal a historian avows, a poor romance-writer dares not disown. But he hopes the influence of a prejudice, almost as natural to him as his native air, will not be found to have greatly affected the sketch he has attempted of England's Elizabeth. I have endeavoured to describe her as at once a high-minded sovereign, and a female of passionate feelings, hesitating betwixt the sense of her rank and the duty she owed her subjects on the one hand, and on the other her attachment to a nobleman, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... not permit us to give more than a sketch of the proceedings of the captain, in taking possession; though we feel certain that a minute account of the progress of such a settlement would possess a sort of Robinson Crusoe-like interest, that might repay the reader. ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... Silence of Colonel Bramble is the best composite character sketch I have seen to show France what the English gentleman at war is like ... much delightful humour.... It is full of good stories.... The translator appears to have ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... of the table and took out a large sheet of Windsor board. She had completed her pencil sketch and Mrs. Morgan gasped appreciatively. It was a picture of a masked man holding a villainous crowd at bay at the ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... great painting has over us often makes us ask, How did the painter do this? did he think of everything beforehand? did he paint the picture bit by bit, or did he rapidly sketch it all as he meant to have it, and then at leisure fill in the parts, and add ...
— Raphael - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... Bertrand, meditated dressing and "making up" after the manner of Talleyrand. Sir Thomas Mash, the comptroller of the Chamberlain's office, made direct inquiries in this respect. The manager supplied a sketch of the costume to be worn by the actor. "I knew it was to be submitted to the king," writes Mr. Bunn, and he looked forward to the result with anxious curiosity. On the 7th of February came an answer from Sir Thomas ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... her war work by an onlooker, and a slight sketch of Miss Macnaughtan's character, may form an appropriate conclusion to ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... dark eyes. But the next phrase reads, "Neither tall nor short for her age." Now the reader knows it is a girl of common stature. Later on he learns that her eyes are "deep blue;" her lips "perfectly lovely in profile;" and so on through the details of the whole sketch. Many times in the course of the description the reader makes up a new picture; he is continually reconstructing. Any one who will observe his own mind while reading a new description can prove that the picture is arranged and rearranged many times. This is due to the means ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... propose to furnish a brief sketch of the life of Sir John Frederick William Herschel, the only son of Sir William, and not less illustrious as a man ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... passed in wondering whether Drew would be able to get hidden behind him unseen, he took out his pocket-book and pencil, and with trembling fingers began to sketch. Fortunately he had taken lessons at the big Hampshire school, and often received help from his mother, who was clever with her pencil, so that to give colour to his position there he went on drawing, a tiny reproduction of the landscape ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... first time criticised my future wife. It was a good, honest, plain, sensible face, with some fine, insidious lines about the corners of the eyes and lips, and across the forehead. They could hardly be called wrinkles yet, but they were the first faint sketch of them, and it is impossible to obliterate the slightest touch etched by Time. She was five years older than I—thirty-three last birthday. There was no more chance for our Guernsey girls to conceal their age than for the unhappy daughters of peers, whose dates are ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... attack of enlargement of the heart. So many things have happened since your leaving. But first I must tell you about your sketch. We just know you did not leave it here. Katy says there was not a scrap in our bedroom when she cleaned it; and as she knows you make plans and how precious they are to you, I guarantee she would ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... of my books, this has appeared in my hands without being planned, and not at my bidding. I was asked to write an autobiographical sketch of ten or fifteen pages. Ten or fifteen pages seemed a great many to fill with the personal details of a life which is as insignificant as my own, and far too few for any adequate comment upon them. I did not know ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... graphic sketch written for my "Irish Library" by William James Ryan, that in the convict ship that took John Flood into penal servitude was another distinguished Irishman, John Boyle O'Reilly, whose offence against British rule was his successful recruiting ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... the tin ferrule?" he said. "It has been a brush; and that was a box of colours!" He pointed to the cinder at his feet. "That being so," he went on, "that paper and card was probably a sketch-book. Brett! come outside a ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... suggests, at the very beginning, the far-reaching purpose and the world-wide significance of the people and religion of Israel. The narrative has not travelled far till it becomes apparent that its dominant interests are to be religious and moral; for, after a pictorial sketch of man's place and task in the world, and of his need of woman's companionship, ii. 4b-25, it plunges at once into an account, wonderful alike in its poetic power and its psychological insight, of the tragic and costly[1] disobedience by which the divine purpose for man was at least ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... This brief sketch of the early intercourse between the colonists and the aborigines of this country, is not over-drawn, nor is it at all inapplicable to the period which has elapsed since the formation of the federal government. With an insatiable ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... a really spirited little sketch of two rabbits, and Mrs. Wolf was both surprised ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... for refusing to make, and are cited as models of virtue to be followed. Yet, notwithstanding her strange misapplication or perversion of what the world calls "female honor," her world had nothing but the most profound respect and admiration for her. It requires an extremely delicate pencil to sketch such a character, and even then, a hundred trials might result in failing to seize upon its most vivid lights and shades and bring ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... which the Ladvocat publishing-house had just issued; and we had remarked more than once how exempt these Memoirs were from both that spirit of disparagement and of adulation which we had noticed with disgust in other books on the same subject. M. Ladvocat advised me to complete the sketch of the Emperor, which, owing to his elevated position and habitual occupations, Bourrienne had been able to make only from a political point of view; and in accordance with his advice, I shall relate in simple words, and in a manner suited ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... attitude while here, or perhaps my early youth returns to me—a thing very different from your own boyhood, Don Antonio. Nevertheless, I promise you some laughter in the Rue Auber. Though you will not be able to understand the half of what I shall tell you—particularly the portraits I shall sketch of my defeated rivals—your spirit ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... you'll see. By that directing-post, where the two roads meet. As a man devoted to art, Ladywell, who has had the honour of being hung higher up on the Academy walls than any other living painter, you should take out your sketch-book and dash off ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... that first sketch I thought I had exhausted the subject, but our editor wrote that he would like something more of the same, so I sent him a marriage, and he took it, and then I tried him with a funeral, and he took it, and really it began to look as if we had him. ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... with this, the social and industrial side of the history of those years, that we are mainly concerned here. Charles Kingsley has left other and more important writings of those years. But these are beside our purpose, which is to give some such slight sketch of him as may be possible within the limits of a preface, in the character in which he was first widely known, as the most outspoken and powerful of those who took the side of the labouring classes, at a critical time—the crisis in a word, when they abandoned their ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... of the films, and his scenario of Mr. Punch's great picture play, when finally gummed together, is given below. The illustrations depict a few representative incidents in the story—taken from the sketch-book of an artist who was present when the films were first ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... that, being what he was, he should now have fallen into the misery and neglect of the time about to be described, was a subject on which thoughts were frequently interchanged between us; and on one occasion he gave me a sketch of the character of his father, which, as I can here repeat it in the exact words employed by him, will be the best preface I can make to what I feel that I have no alternative but to tell. "I know my father to be as kind-hearted ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... the same time the way of equal-handed justice under the rule of free institutions; at the same time, in a fully commercialised community, such as the English-speaking commonly are, material benefits in the way of trade will go far to sketch in a background of decency for any enterprise that looks to the enhancement of the ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... declared "It was the best drill he had seen out of his company room!" a celebrated artist, whose name I dare not tell for the world, sharpened his pencil, and broke the point off three times in his hurry, and at last produced the beautiful sketch which appears at the front of this volume; while all the little boys who were looking on, felt as if they would give every one of their new boots and glass agates to belong to ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks. Part Second - Being the Second Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... up before the minds of the listeners. By the light of the camp-fire the stripling heard, with kindling eye and throbbing pulse, the tales of the heroic dead; and he early formed the ambition to become a leader of his race. Some sachem would sadly sketch the smiling scenes of health and happiness in the days before the pale-face came to wrest from the Indians their land, the gift of the Great Spirit. And as the boy listened to these stories of encroachment and oppression, ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... don't you? On one side, looking landward, we had a Constable picture: a sky with tumbled clouds, shadowed downs, and forests cleft by a golden mosaic of meadows. Seaward, an impressionist sketch of Whistler's: Southampton Water and historic Portsmouth Harbour; stretches of glittering sand with the sea lying in ragged patches on it here and there like great pieces of broken glass. Over ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... her economical practices; pursuing her own interest in every thought, courting the favour of Colonel Brandon, of Mrs. Jennings, and of every wealthy friend. In Edward, she knew not what she saw, nor what she wished to see. Happy or unhappy, nothing pleased her; she turned away her head from every sketch of him. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... tortoises, a dodo, and other animals, wander about, heedless of the presence of man. This is the first engraving of the dodo, and, judging from more pictures of greater pretension, by no means a bad likeness; indeed, the whole sketch bears strong evidence of its having been taken from nature. In the letter-press, the walghvogel is described as a large bird, the size of a swan, with a huge head furnished with a kind of hood; and in lieu ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... he had had no opportunity of taking lessons in his younger days, except now and then from a mess-mate who had enjoyed the advantage on shore, though he was accustomed to draw ships and to sketch the outlines of the coasts that he might recognise them on subsequent visits, but that now, with the probability of remaining on shore, he should be glad to study ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... concluding that it is not a causal connexion. These reasons are, of course, extra-physiological; but they are not on this account less conclusive. Within the limits of a lecture, however, I can only undertake to give an outline sketch of what I take to be the ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes
... these—indeed in one instance (the sketch of the Indian) the entire stanza of eleven lines, by the insertion of one "and" only, becomes a smooth blank-verse piece of seven, two of which are indeed hemistichs, and three "weak-ended," but only such ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... give him home and children—and, I was forced to add, commonplace happiness? How often does it happen that some train of thought, unacknowledged almost to ourselves, runs abruptly into a blind alley; especially when we try to plan out the future life of some one else, or to sketch for him what we should call happiness. The accidental confronting of two individuals pleases the eye, we unite them in our imagination, carrying on the picture before us, and suddenly we find ourselves in a quagmire of absurd incongruities. Now what could be ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... very much as an old infinitely-handled and greasy violoncello of the orchestra might have been. It was but an effect doubtless of the heat that she scarcely seemed clad at all; slippered, shuffling and, though somehow hatted and vaguely veiled or streamered, wrapt in a gauzy sketch of a dressing-gown, she pointed to my extravagant attention the moral of thankless personal service, of the reverse of the picture, of the cost of "amusing the public" in a case of amusing it, as ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... indispensable that the student of Shakespeare and Music should have a clear idea of the social status and influence of music in Shakespearian times, here follows a short sketch of the history of this subject, which the reader is requested to peruse with the deliberate object of finding every detail confirmed ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... foreknowledge. Something seemed to say to him, "You will be the father of one child." And yet, when he came to think of it, he realized how probable, how indeed almost certain it was that the silent voice issued from within himself. Rosamund and he had talked about a child, a boy, had begun almost to sketch out mental plans for that boy's upbringing; they had never talked about children. He believed that he had penetrated to the secret of the voice. He said to himself, "All that sort of thing comes out of one's self. It doesn't reach one from the outside." And yet, when he looked out over the world, ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... muck secluded; made his first appearance in public, and, as you wilt have inferred, visited our box during a part of the performance, drawing all eyes upon us, which agitated me greatly. Dadda told him I was learning to sketch, and nothing would do but I must give him an example, so on the back of the play-bill I made a caricature of General Lee, which was extravagantly praised, and was passed from hand to hand all over the house, and excited a titter wherever it went, for ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... of Dibdin A Sketch from Life On the Portrait of the Son of J.G. Lambton, Esq. Written in the Album of the Lady of Counsellor D. Pollock The Heliotrope Sonnet On seeing a Young Lady I had previously known, confined in a Madhouse Prometheus Rosa's Grave The Sibyl. ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... which has no such pretention to philosophic construction, is coming into such prominence as to deserve the attention of the readers of this JOURNAL, hence I present the following sketch which has been abridged from an article in the American Magazine for June, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... In preparing this sketch it is needless to say how deeply I am indebted to Mr. Spedding and Mr. Ellis, the last editors of Bacon's writings, the very able and painstaking commentators, the one on Bacon's life, the other on his philosophy. It is impossible to overstate ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... chapter closed with a brief sketch of the life of Beckwith, so that in the present I might be free to speak of the work done, without interpolations as to the personal movements of him who was in several respects the chief worker. To those who desire to read the full particulars of General Beckwith's life, ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... case at one period, but whether throughout the existence of the Assyrian empire, may be doubtful. At any rate, I believe the real Assyrians and the Phoenicians, like all the nations occupying Syria and Mesopotamia, to have been of the pure Semetic stock. I regret that I have not time to make you a sketch of a bas-relief. A specimen of this kind would at once show you how much nearer allied the arts of Greece are with those of Assyria, than with those of Egypt. One thing appears now to be pretty certain—that ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... any time in leading up to the subject, and after I had given her a rapid sketch of the affair, how misfortune had obliged La Croix to abandon Mdlle. Crosin, how I had been able to be of service to her, and finally, how she had had the good luck to meet a wealthy and distinguished person, who would come to Marseilles to ask her hand in a fortnight, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... of this sketch was born in Providence, R. I. When quite a wee child she proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, her fitness for the stage as a race representative, and has, among other things, maintained her ground, never weakening and giving down, but nourishing a faith fit only ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... Sutherland called with the Duchess of Argyle. Miss Greenfield happened to be present, and I begged leave to present her, giving a slight sketch of her history. I was pleased with the kind and easy affability with which the Duchess of Sutherland conversed with her, betraying by no inflection of voice, and nothing in air or manner, the great lady talking with the poor girl. She asked all her questions ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... heroic and endearing a portrait of what every Christian man ought to be,—for the law of God is the same to the poor as to the rich,—I have chosen one of that illustrious and, I believe, now extinct race for the subject of my sketch; and the more aptly did it present itself, it being necessary to show my hero amidst scenes and circumstances ready to exercise his brave and generous propensities, and to put their personal issues to the test on his mind. Hence Poland's sadly-varying destinies seemed to me the stage ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... in the exercise of the French tongue. By Sir William Temple and Lord Chesterfield it was only used on occasions of civility and business, and their printed letters will not be quoted as models of composition. Lord Bolingbroke may have published in French a sketch of his Reflections on Exile: but his reputation now reposes on the address of Voltaire, "Docte sermones utriusque linguae;" and by his English dedication to Queen Caroline, and his Essay on Epic Poetry, it should seem that Voltaire himself ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... Dan observed, printed an excellent biographical sketch of the dead Senator, and its news article on the Democratic opportunity was seemly and colorless. The state and federal statutes bearing upon the emergency were quoted in full, but the names of Bassett and Thatcher ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... the energetic and somber pencil of Salvator or of Goya to sketch these diverse specimens of physical and moral ugliness; to describe their hideous habiliments, the variety of costume of these wretches, covered for the most part with miserable clothing; for, only being attainted, that is to say, supposed innocents, they were not dressed in the ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... as if you lived on roses; but you can't thrive long on such unsubstantial diet. It was real good of you to read to those children so long. If I had been an artist, I would have made a sketch of you three. You and that little dark-eyed girl make ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... see the nature of the defences; presently, to my dismay, I saw him gradually going nearer and nearer, by rushes from cover to cover, until he got behind a small outlying pagoda within 100 yards of the wall, and here he was quietly making a sketch and taking notes. I, in the meantime, was shouting myself hoarse in trying to get him back, for not only were the rebels firing at him from the walls, but I saw a party stealing round ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Sketch of the System of Civil Government, with some Account of the Natives, and Native Institutions, Second Edition, revised. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 • Various
... plead the cause of his Mohawks, who had lost so much in the struggle. It is even likely that he was pondering over his design of uniting all the tribes and wished to disclose this scheme to the home authorities. A striking sketch of the War Chief's appearance during this period is given by the Baroness Riedesel. This talented lady, who had met the Mohawk chief at Quebec, was the wife of the noted general who led a troop of Hessians in the War ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... account of the terminology to be employed and of the methods of investigation, I propose to sketch no less briefly the ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... said, "is a drawing of the Gatun dam, and this other is a crude sketch of the basement of the Daily Planet ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... father will understand how it was not only possible, but natural. The autobiography bears the heading, 'Recollections of the Development of my Mind and Character,' and end with the following note:—"Aug. 3, 1876. This sketch of my life was begun about May 28th at Hopedene (Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood's house in Surrey.), and since then I have written for nearly an hour on most afternoons." It will easily be understood that, in a narrative of a personal and intimate kind written for his wife and children, passages ...
— The Autobiography of Charles Darwin - From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin • Charles Darwin
... to those who have read nothing about Natural Selection, if I here give a brief sketch of the whole subject and of its bearing on the origin of species.[1] This is the more desirable, as it is impossible in the present work to avoid many allusions to questions which will be fully discussed in ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... would be as well to start out with a broad and rapid sketch of Nietzsche as a writer on Morals, Evolution, and Sociology, so that the reader may be prepared to pick out for himself, so to speak, all passages in this work bearing in any way upon Nietzsche's views in those ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... humorous sketch, which represented a native in the act of carrying a kangaroo, the height of the man being three feet. The number of drawings in the cave could not altogether have been less than from fifty to sixty, but the majority of them consisted ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc |
