"Pantomimical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in groups of five or a dozen dancers and soloists including drummers, through the incomparable pageantry of the buffalo, the eagle, the snowbird, and other varying types of small dances, the mastery of the redman in the art of gesture, the art of symbolized pantomimic expression. It is the buffalo, the eagle, and the deer dances that show you their essential greatness as artists. You find a species of rhythm so perfected in its relation to racial interpretation as hardly to admit of witnessing ever again the copied ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... any other pigeons; and it is in seeing these little birds wing themselves so far into the skies that the fanciers take such delight. For four or five hours tumblers have been known to keep on the wing; and it is when they are almost lost to the power of human vision that they exhibit those pantomimic feats which give them their name, and which are marked by a tumbling over-and-over process, which suggests the idea of their having suddenly become giddy, been deprived of their self-control, or overtaken ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... Mark, the hero, begins as the misunderstood son of one of those widower-fathers who in such stories dwell for ever behind the locked doors of studies, leaving in this instance Mark to be the victim of an aunt whose lack of sympathy approaches the pantomimic. All the usual results follow, even to the acquisition by Mark of a faithful hound, which the least experience of sentimental fiction would have caused any insurance company to refuse on sight. When therefore Aunt Midian, following her appointed course, effaced ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... his humour is at its broadest, and he revels in almost pantomimic fun, he never loses sight of truth and nature—never strikes a false or uncertain note. Robinson goes to an evening party with a spiked knuckle-duster in his pocket and sits down. Jones digs an elderly party called Smith in the back with the point of ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... it has come to be a forced growth; it has altered intrinsically in its composition. Education has learnt to make use of chastity, rather than to acquire it for itself. And, after all, what is it in itself, when the gilt of its glamour is stripped, like tinsel, from the fairy's pantomimic wand? ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... seem a little singular to combine the convivial music of "St. Patrick's day in the morning" with such diabolical grimaces and gestures as those which the Great Chief used in the pantomimic expression of his sentiments. But the people were prepared for originality, and they had it. At any rate the performance received their loud applause. At last, however, it was over: the successive scenes of the programme had come ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... indication that the eye of heaven had not wholly deserted the brotherhood of Cain,—the Federal signal-officers in the distance waved their flags, and other signal-officers in the vicinity repeated their motions. These pantomimic exhibitions, mysterious to the unpractised eye, told to the officers in command, that the Confederates, strongly reinforced by the fresh troops of Jackson and Huger, and their troops inspired by fresh draughts of the maddening gunpowdered whiskey, were being marshalled ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... combination and construction of words to image delicate, and varying shades of thought, and to express vehement manifestations of passion; admitting of greater and more sudden variations in pitch, than is permissable in English oratory, and encouraging pantomimic gesture, for greater force and effect. In other words it was not a cold, artificial, mechanical medium for the expression of thought or emotion, or the concealment of either, but was constructed, as we may fancy, much as was the tuneful tongue spoken by ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... amiability or the less praiseworthy qualities of his grisettes. But somehow or other one feels that the general ethos of the class has been caught.[58] His bourgeois interiors and outings have the same real and not merely stagy quality; though his melodramatic or pantomimic endings may smack of "the boards" a little. The world to which he holds up the mirror may be a rather vulgar sort of Vanity Fair, but there are unfortunately few places more real than Vanity Fair, and few things less ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... That reason was Elizabeth. Her behaviour during dinner, to put it mildly, was disturbing and abnormal. Every time she entered the room to change the plates or hand round the dishes she went through remarkable pantomimic gestures behind the unconscious William's back. She drew my attention to him by nods, winks, and significant gestures. Once or twice she was impelled to clap her hand over her mouth and dash from the room in a spasm of ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... seeing him in the glass case, might have thought him some dried specimen of humanity, not alive at all, had he not chanced to be in the act of taking snuff; and even that was ghostly too, since it produced the pantomimic action of sneezing without its ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... appearances we remarked during our stay here, skulls being brought to us every day for sale. Their weapons are invariably adorned with human hair, and human bones are used as ornaments in almost all their household furniture; they also often gave us to understand by pantomimic gestures that human flesh was regarded ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... to notice the Mime and the Atellanae. The former corresponds roughly with our farce, though the pantomimic element is also present, and in the most recent period gained the ascendancy. Its true Latin name is Planipes (so Juvenal Planipedes audit Fabios [20] in allusion to the actor's entering the stage barefoot, no doubt for the ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... more under Shelley's influence—but alas! as soon as one has felt it, the old cynical, realistic mood descends again, "heavy as frost," and the vision of ourselves, poor, straggling, forked animals, caught up into such regions, shows but as a pantomimic farce; and we awake, shamed and clothed, and in ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... this, he "overlooked" her the next day, with a cigarette between his yellow-stained finger tips, which made her sneeze in a silent pantomimic way, and certain blandishments of speech which she received with more complacency. But I don't think she ever even looked at him. In vain he protested that she was the "dearest" and "littlest" ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... sense of extreme satisfaction in a series of rapid pantomimic nods, and then replied in deliberate but tolerable English, to ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... the best, we made but a sorry meal. While discussing it, the old man tried hard to make himself understood by signs; most of which were so excessively ludicrous that we made no doubt he was perpetrating a series of pantomimic jokes. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... that music makes it possible to simplify dramatic action and it gives a chance, as well, for the free expression and play of sentiments, emotions and passions. In addition, music makes possible pantomimic scenes which could not be done otherwise, and the music itself flows more easily under such conditions. But that does not mean that such conditions are indispensable for music. Music in its flexibility and adaptability offers inexhaustible ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... was all one to the king and the court, who never wearied of the diverting vagaries of the dance. Now studying that pantomimic group of merrymakers, in the rhythmical expression of action and movement could almost be read the influence and relative positions of the fair revelers. The countess, airy and vivacious, perched, ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... often lonely in his tent, and often Mrs. Kyley stormed at Jim, highly vociferous and wildly pantomimic, but good-natured and sympathetic at bottom, for there was a vagabondish harmony between the two women that made them fast friends, and caused Mary Kyley to feel a ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... the boy had started out of the captain's cot, where he had him in a sound sleep, and came out of the cabin straight to help Seth—the negro's version of the story losing nothing, it need hardly be mentioned, through his telling it with much pantomimic action, and his frequent affirmation, "Golly, massa, I tell ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... the moment's impulse, he suddenly opened the door of the outer office, and there found that Mr. Roland's industry had, for the present, come to an end. He was standing before the window, making pantomimic signs through the glass to a friend of his, Knivett. His right thumb was pointed over his shoulder towards the door of Mr. Galloway's private room; no doubt, to indicate a warning that that gentleman was within, and that the office, ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... page; the milkmaid energetically drained her cow; and a miser counted gold into his strong-box,—all at the same turning of a crank. Yes; and, moved by the self-same impulse, a lover saluted his mistress on her lips! Possibly some cynic, at once merry and bitter, had desired to signify, in this pantomimic scene, that we mortals, whatever our business or amusement,—however serious, however trifling,—all dance to one identical tune, and, in spite of our ridiculous activity, bring nothing finally to pass. ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... with his hand as if he would put all unpleasant thoughts behind him, and now he made the motion not only once, but many times. And it seemed that his thoughts would not obey him, for he became more imperative in his pantomimic demand. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... pilgrims" to visit Alexander's grave. Augustus crowned the still life-like body with a golden laurel-wreath, and scattered flowers over the tomb: Caligula stole the breastplate, and wore it during his pantomimic triumphs; Septimius Severus buried in the sarcophagus the writings of the priests, and a clue to the hieroglyphics. Finally, the sarcophagus and its sacred remains disappear, and Alexander himself passes into the land ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... the company, together with his new acquaintance, into a recess formed by one of the arched windows of the hall. She watched their conference with eyes almost dazzled by the eagerness of suspense, and, with observation rendered more acute by the internal agony of her mind, could guess, from the pantomimic gestures which accompanied the conversation, the progress and fate of the intercession in ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... card-table was still going on, Minard, Thuillier, and two of the new acquaintances being the players. Phellion had just quitted the group with which he had so far been sitting, to join his wife, who was talking with Brigitte in a corner; by the vehemence of his pantomimic action it was easy to see that he was filled with some virtuous indignation. Everything seemed to show that all hope of seeing the arrival of the tardy lover ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... the broken arm I saw the young lady going through some pantomimic exercises with her hands, as if seeking to revive the memory of some previous position; then her face blazed with a light, half pleasure and half shame, and ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... of the Moon, which is certainly as Lowe says 'one of the best pantomimic farces ever seen' on the English boards at any rate, was produced with great success at the Duke's Theatre, Dorset Garden, in 1687. The character of Scaramouch was admirably suited to Tony Leigh, a low comedian 'of the mercurial kind', ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... delightful romance about men growing as tall as trees; and that here, again, he seems to me to have been a victim of this vague relativism. "The Food of the Gods" is, like Mr. Bernard Shaw's play, in essence a study of the Superman idea. And it lies, I think, even through the veil of a half-pantomimic allegory, open to the same intellectual attack. We cannot be expected to have any regard for a great creature if he does not in any manner conform to our standards. For unless he passes our standard of greatness we cannot even call him great. ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... apples and choke-cherries and cakes and cider sprang magically into existence after service, and people were already eating and drinking at them. The carriage-drivers resumed their chase of the tourists, and the unvoiceful stir of the new week had begun again. Quebec, in fact, is but a pantomimic reproduction of France; it is as if two centuries in a new land, amidst the primeval silences of nature and the long hush of the Northern winters, had stilled the tongues of the lively folk and made them taciturn as we of a graver race. They have kept the ancestral vivacity ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... guessed the sun would rise in the west yet, if American citizens did a bit more hustling." Those, however, who mock American journalism from the standpoint of somewhat mellower traditions forget a certain paradox which partly redeems it. For while the journalism of the States permits a pantomimic vulgarity long past anything English, it also shows a real excitement about the most earnest mental problems, of which English papers are innocent, or rather incapable. The Sun was full of the most solemn matters treated in the most ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... appreciation of a good smiling face and here I had two of them and the most typical faces which are prominent in the making of this heterogeneous republic, John, representing the Huguenot and Dutch, and Jack whose father and mother were Irish, and Jack was Irish too. Both these gentlemen with pantomimic actions in a few words which now I know were English words but at that time I could not tell if they were Chinese or Hindoo. They tried to make me understand that Mr. George N., whom they knew I was looking for, as they had heard him speaking ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... this seance Delsarte appeared disposed to efface himself in favor of his brilliant representative, he kindly consented to speak a few words (and what a charming French lesson was his causerie!) and to present a specimen of his pantomimic powers. The latter exhibition was really surprising. He depicted the various passions and emotions of the human soul, by means of expression and gesture only, without uttering a single syllable; moving the spectators to tears, ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... was not necessary to unpack them, as we were about to return with them to visit another king, who lived some days' journey distant. "Don't go; don't go away," said the headman and his companions. "Kamrasi will—" Here an unmistakable pantomimic action explained their meaning better than words; throwing their heads well back, they sawed across their throats with their forefingers, making horrible grimaces, indicative of the cutting of throats. I could not ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... being about his own age, a little under sixteen, was his special chum in the family, Jack gathered a general idea of the situation. Olga was an adept at pantomimic action, and a natural mimic; hence, although he could only understand a word here and there, he obtained an accurate idea of the conversation between her father and the governor, and of her father's calm manner, and the gestures and intonations of apparent friendship but veiled menace. By putting ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... in Mr. Corbeck was almost ludicrous. His start of surprise, coming close upon his iron-clad impassiveness, was like a pantomimic change. But all idea of comedy was swept away by the tragic earnestness with which he remembered ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... our loaded boats were moored, by a number of people; about the whole population in fact, and that did not make a crowd. None of the Chinamen came down, and there were no Indians in town that day. The only unpleasant circumstance was the persistent repetition by a deaf-mute of a pantomimic representation of the disaster that he believed was to overwhelm us. "Dummy," as we called him, showed us that we would be upset, and, unable to scale the cliffs, would surely all be drowned. This picture, as vividly ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... it was not quite usual to have pantomimic performances on the seventh day, but Judy ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... and richly coloured masque or pantomimic play which is here printed in book form for the first time, was invented sometime in 1894 or possibly a little earlier. It was written, not for publication, but as a personal gift to the author's friend and friend of his family, Mrs. Chan Toon, and ...
— For Love of the King - a Burmese Masque • Oscar Wilde
... Concino Concini, while the son of the Balafre, the Duke of Mayenne, and all their adherents were making common cause with the Huguenots. What better example had been seen before, even in that country of pantomimic changes, of the effrontery with which Religion was made ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Christianity. A neighboring lion had just eaten a Hottentot faute de mieux; and these good Kafirs wanted the Europeans not to go on at night and be eaten for dessert. But they could not speak a word of English, and pantomimic expression exists in theory alone. In vain the women held our travellers by the coat-tails, and pointed to a distant wood. In vain Kafir pere went on all-fours and growled sore. But at last a savage youth ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... a salient phenomenon of the time. The lyric drama became a field for gorgeous display and its pomp and circumstance included not only elegant song, but considerable assemblies of instruments, dazzling ballets, pantomimic exhibitions, elaborate stage machinery, imported singers and instrumentalists. As the painters had represented popes and potentates mingling with the holy family at the sacred manger, so the lyric dramatists assembled the gods and heroes of classic fable to do ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... his neck, which was like a prize-bull's, would not lend itself to the illustration. "That wheel was ferry smooth—with a sharp gorner. His noce touch that corner." The Baron said no more in words, but pantomimic action and a whistle showed plainly how the wheel-rim had glided on the bridge of Mr. Harrisson's nose. "It took off the gewdiggle, and made a sgar. Your hussband's noce has that ferry sgar. That affected my imatchination. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... nay, had seen him unstuff him, cut his head off and blow him limb from limb from a gun, and then put him together again; the only mistake being that the unfortunate official's head was turned the wrong way. So this Constable, too, looking backwards, as had done the poor pantomimic policeman, remembered all the slights, insults, and injuries, publicly inflicted on his cloth for many years, and now rejoiced—Ha! ha!—at last at having the Clown, the original JOEY, nay, the last of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... gives back the identical tone of existing society and current events; another deals with the classical ideas of the past. Satire and song, the horrible and the brilliant, the graceful and the highly artistic, pictorial, elocutionary, pantomimic, tragic, vocal, statuesque, the past and present, all the elements of Art and of life, find representation in the plot, the language, the sentiment, the costume, the music, and the scenery of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Hawarden, Flintshire. She found tending children a tedious task, and forsook it. At sixteen, she went to London, and became a lady's maid there. Her leisure time was spent in reading novels and plays, which inspired a love for the drama. She early developed a rare ability for pantomimic representation; and this became a favorite form of entertainment in drawing-rooms and studios. Her duties as a domestic agreed not with the drama, so her next position was as barmaid in a tavern much frequented by actors and artists. She formed the acquaintance of a Welsh youth, on whose ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... emotional occasions among Indians are invariably accompanied by singing and dancing. These are frequently derived from the movements of animals and are both pantomimic ...
— The Arrow-Maker - A Drama in Three Acts • Mary Austin
... paper-folder which he caught up for that purpose. After disposing of his victim in this way, he was not satisfied, for the dull lecture still went on in the other room, and he fired an imaginary revolver several times at an imaginary head; still the droning speaker proceeded; and now began the greatest pantomimic scene of all, namely, murder by poison, after the manner in which the player King is disposed of in 'Hamlet.' Thackeray had found a small phial on the mantel-shelf and out of it he proceeded to pour the imaginary ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... given to laughter, but whenever she looked at Lord Curryfin during breakfast she could not quite suppress a smile which hovered on her lips, and which was even the more forced on her by the contrast between his pantomimic disappearance and his quiet courtesy and remarkably good manners in company. The lines ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... anything to say, or in one character being so enamoured with the ease he or she improvises, that the affair resolves itself into a mere monologue. I would venture to suggest that our charades should be merely pantomimic." ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... and speeches had given place to songs, the wheat subject being quite forgotten. Men were putting their heads together in twos and threes, telling good stories, with pantomimic laughter which reached convulsive grimace. Some were beginning to look as if they did not know how they had come there, what they had come for, or how they were going to get home again; and provisionally sat on with a dazed smile. Square-built men showed a tendency to become hunchbacks; men ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... ground. They swayed their bodies to and fro in a melancholy way to a very monotonous plaintive sort of music, but their chief art consisted in the wonderful success with which they twisted their arms and fingers. In a second dance they carried bows and arrows, and went through a kind of pantomimic fight. After this was over, as I had expressed a wish to see more of his house, I was taken across a court to another ground- floor room, and was startled by finding myself suddenly introduced to Madame la Regente, an odd little woman, with a wizened face, ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... manifest in the impersonating phase, he may yield to that peculiar psychic law which seems to operate in the direction of causing a spirit, manifesting for the first time, to enact his dying experiences, and to manifest a pantomimic reproduction of his last hours preceding death. In such cases, the medium reproduces, in a most startlingly real manner, the movements, ways of breathing, coughing, gestures, ejaculations, and may even go so far as to utter the ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... but they kept the idea of dramatic representation in being, though no such thing as a theatre or building constructed for the purpose existed as yet. The performances were given either in Church, or, later, in a nobleman's hall, or in the courtyard of an inn. The "masque" or pantomimic pageant, without dialogue, was also a familiar spectacle of the later times, and remained an occasional feature of ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... up to me and, repeating the same question, explained it by pantomimic gestures; laying one hand upon the other, then placing her head upon them, gently ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... hummed the shot from the British guns, on the Serra Hill. Oporto itself was in a state of uproar. Drums were beating, trumpets sounding, bells clanging, while from the house-tops the population, men and women, were waving their handkerchiefs to the English, gesticulating and making all sorts of pantomimic ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... similar festivals in the year," answered the lama, "and we arrange particular ones to represent 'mysteries,' susceptible of pantomimic presentation, in which each actor is allowed considerable latitude of action, in the movements and jests he likes, conforming, nevertheless, to the circumstances and to the leading idea. Our mysteries are simply pantomimes ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... sign of interrogation to Faringhea, who answered him privately in the following symbolical manner:—After laying his forefinger on his head and heart, he pointed to the fire burning in the chimney, signifying by his pantomimic action that the head and heart of Djalma were both in flames. No doubt Rodin understood him, for an imperceptible smile of satisfaction played upon his wan lips; then he said aloud to Faringhea, "I wish to be alone with the prince. Let down the shade and see that ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... any of the effectiveness of the old savage martyrdom, because it does not leave the victim absolutely alone with his cause, so that his cause alone can support him. At the same time it has about it that element of the pantomimic and the absurd, which was the cruellest part of the slaying and the mocking of the real prophets. St. Peter was crucified upside down as a huge inhuman joke; but his human seriousness survived the inhuman joke, because, in whatever ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... carried on in whispers, but his pantomimic performance drew on us the attention of our neighbours, and now he looked round to inform them with a grin and a nod that his Oriental wit was getting the victory. I was determined not to be put down by him, however, and tapped my revolver ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... jokes were cracked; the cafe, the chasse-cafe, the enigmas, the conundrums, the anecdotes, the songs, the tableaux-vivants followed each other. My amiable hostess seemed to think I must have had enough of it, and, with her graceful acquiescence, I stole out after a confidential pantomimic leave-taking ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... splendid triumph for them all. "The Child's Dream of Fairyland," by the Jacob Grimm booth, was a delicately conceived tableau. The quick changing of the beautiful representation of "Peg Woffington," which might properly be termed a pantomimic representation of a drama, was efficiently executed, the characters all entering into the spirit, to the delight of the interested spectators. The Alhambra booth, with its wilderness of eastern magnificence, presented "The Lovers of Abdallah." "The Minuet de la Coeur" was danced nightly by the French ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... casual observer that she was bent upon arson, at the least. At the occasional crunch of the gravel she scowled; the well meant effort of a speckled gray hen, escaped from some distant part of the grounds, to bear her company, produced a succession of pantomimic dismissals that alarmed the hen to the point of frenzy, so that her clacks and cackles resounded far beyond the trim hedge that separated the drying-ground from the little ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... she pushed back her chair and said slowly, "All right, I'll go; but mind you are punctual with tea, for I don't bargain to stay a moment after four o'clock." She brushed the ends of cotton from her dress, walked across to the door, and disappeared through the doorway with a pantomimic gesture of distaste. At the other side she paused and stood facing the invalid in silent embarrassment, for his cheeks were flushed, and he looked so supremely uncomfortable that it was evident he had overheard the loud-toned conversation which had ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... and suggestions were made as to whether these two could not visit each other. We introduced the matter, and persisted in it; till at last Von Reineck resolved to go out with us one Sunday afternoon. The greeting of the two old gentlemen was very laconic, indeed almost pantomimic; and they walked up and down by the long pink frames with true diplomatic strides. The display was really extraordinarily beautiful: and the particular forms and colors of the different flowers, the advantages of one ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... in the borders hung their heads. Berkeley passed the open window, looking cool and fresh in summer clothing, and Pocahontas, catching sight of him, put her fingers to her lips and whistled sharply to attract his attention, which being done, she followed up the advantage with pantomimic gestures, indicative of despair, and need of swift assistance. Berkeley turned good-naturedly, and came in to the rescue, but when he discovered the service required of him, he regarded it with aversion, and showed a mean desire to retreat, which unworthiness was promptly detected ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... to) 642; call attention to &c. (attention) 457; give notice &c. (inform) 527. Adj. indicating &c. v., indicative, indicatory; denotative, connotative; diacritical, representative, typical, symbolic, pantomimic, pathognomonic[obs3], symptomatic, characteristic, demonstrative, diagnostic, exponential, emblematic, armorial; individual &c. (special) 79. known by, recognizable by; indicated &c. v.; pointed, marked. [Capable of being denoted] denotable[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... nearly an hour. But few ladies, only the inveterate mass-goers, were out. About the entrance of the frequent cafes the masculine gentility stood leaning on canes, with which now one and now another beckoned to Jules, some even adding pantomimic hints of the ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... these exhibitions, mute and still, 260 Others of wider scope, where living men, Music, and shifting pantomimic scenes, Diversified the allurement. Need I fear To mention by its name, as in degree, Lowest of these and humblest in attempt, 265 Yet richly graced with honours of her own, Half-rural Sadler's Wells? [Q] Though at that time Intolerant, as is the way of youth Unless itself be pleased, here more ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... individuals of the dominant race already mentioned, having had need of multiplying the signs for the rapid communication of their ideas, now become more and more numerous, and, no longer contented either with pantomimic signs or possible inflexions of their voice to represent this multitude of signs now become necessary, would succeed by different efforts in forming articulated sounds: at first they would use ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... the mean hope that this movement in the nape of my neck would be taken as sufficient proof that I had read, marked, and learned. I do not forgive myself for this pantomimic falsehood, but I was young and morally timorous, and Vorticella's personality had an effect on me something like that of a powerful mesmeriser when he directs all his ten fingers towards your eyes, as unpleasantly visible ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... to quiet them, but they pay no attention to him. WIEGAND puts his hands to his ears and rushes off. During the singing of the next stanza the weavers rise and form, into procession behind BECKER and WITTIG, who have given pantomimic signs ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... signal for general disorder among the boys. Without speaking a word, and so preserving the letter of the rule, if not the spirit, they, with Tommy as leader, went through various pantomimic performances. They hitched up their trousers in seamanlike fashion, they pretended to row boats, they spit on their hands and hauled in imaginary ropes, and as a climax, Tommy danced ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... simple, reflex muscular action, the response being anatomical and not physiological in its extent. Then come our simple physiological reactions. A more complex reaction is by those physiologically co-ordinated motor reactions or movements which go to comprise our pantomimic movements. This is seen most characteristically in our facial expressions, gestures, mimicry and dancing. Still higher up in the scale we find our conduct and feelings as exemplified in our speech. And finally, highest of all, we must place our conduct as shown in written or printed ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... dance in the Heian epoch. Most of the dances were foreign in their origin, some being Hindu, more Korean, and still more Chinese, according to the usual classification. But imported dances, adaptations of foreign dances, and the older native styles were all more or less pantomimic. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... good," cried Betty, with real gratitude in her voice. "But you don't have to take us away back to camp. If you will drop us at the end of the road we can walk back." All this despite sundry vigorous and desperate shakings of Grace's head and pantomimic pointings toward her feet. At the conclusion of Betty's sentence she groaned, but brightened up again ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... drive away, and with only now and again a passer-by moving across the dim vista, masked beneath an umbrella, or bent forward with chin buried in turned-up collar. In the doorway outside the sulky boy stamped his feet and slapped his sides with his arms in pantomimic mutiny against the task of guarding the book-stalls' dripping covers, which nobody would be mad enough to pause over, much ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... demanded all his collectedness and courage, and he seemed as though he had previously made up his mind not to be deficient in either. Perhaps it was well that he had been temporarily deprived of sight, for could he have remarked the numerous tomahawks that were raised towards him, in pantomimic representation of what they would have done had they been permitted, the view would in no way have assisted his self-possession. The entrance to the fort once gained by the little party, the clamour began to subside, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... hundred or two of men and women represented our mortal race before the refinements of the arts and sciences, and loves and graces, came on earth to soften them. I never saw anything more effective. Generally speaking, the pantomimic action of the Italians is more remarkable for its sudden and impetuous character than for its delicate expression, but, in this case, the drooping monotony: the weary, miserable, listless, moping life: the sordid passions and desires of human creatures, destitute of those elevating ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... had the happiness of pleasing the king. As will readily be believed, Montalais was not mistaken; and Malicorne, with his quick ear and his sly look, seemed to interpret her remark as "All goes on well," the whole being accompanied by a pantomimic action, which he fancied conveyed ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a photoplay as being a story prepared for pantomimic development before the camera; a story told in action, with inserted descriptive matter where the thought might be obscure without its help; a story told in one or more reels, each reel containing from twenty-five to ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... were licensed fools, mummers, and droll mimics, who by their antics revived the lagging spirits of the gangs. There is an unsuspected capacity for mimicry in what are called savage men. I have seen Red Indians give excellent pantomimic entertainments, and aborigines in other lands exhibit high mumming talent. In the railroad battalion there was an eccentric negro who was a very king of jesters. From the Sirdar and the Khalifa downwards—for he was an ex-dervish and had played pranks ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... to the inebriety, and yet distinctly different, is the erotic character of the dance. Lovemaking is the most central, underlying motive of all the mimic dances all over the globe. Among many primitive peoples the dance is a real pantomimic presentation of the whole story from the first tender awaking of a sweet desire through the warmer and warmer courtship to the raptures of sensual delight. Civilized society has more or less covered the naked passion, but ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... a spirit of singular originality; often there was something so strange in either tone or gesture, that the audience, even in the midst of the most unrestrained burst of laughter, felt a cold shiver run through them. He was excellently supported by Dr. Gratiano,[4.3] who in pantomimic action, in voice, and in his talent for saying the most delightful things mixed up with apparently the most extravagant nonsense, had perhaps no equal in the world. This role was played by an old Bolognese named Maria Agli. Thus in a short time all educated Rome was seen ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... of all God's creatures, I detest letters-affecting, authors-hunting ladies. But Fanny "will have it so." So Miss Many Things and I are to have a conference, of which you shall have the result. I dare say she does not play at whist. Treasurer Robertson, whose coffers are absolutely swelling with pantomimic receipts, called on me yesterday to say he is going to write to you, but if I were also, I might as well say that your last bill is at the Banker's, and will be honored on the instant receipt of the third Piece, which you have stipulated for. If you have any such in readiness, strike while ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... acted as love's signal, and was used to express alternate admiration and indifference, shyness and audacity, fear and transport, coyness and coquetry, as the dance proceeded. I need not say that Enriquez' pantomimic illustration of these emotions was peculiarly extravagant; but it was always performed and accepted with a gravity that was an essential feature of the dance. At such times sighs would escape him ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... predecessors as I have referred to; and they are rather picturesque to the eye, though far from odoriferous to the nose. What a visitor left to his own interpretings and imaginings might suppose these noblemen to be about, when they give vent to that pantomimic expression which is quite settled to be the natural gift of the noble savage, I cannot possibly conceive; for it is so much too luminous for my personal civilisation that it conveys no idea to my mind beyond a general stamping, ramping, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... to the old, the weak, and the sick. According to Mr. Howitt, the boys of the Coast Murring tribe are taught in the Mysteries "to speak the straightforward truth while being initiated, and are warned to avoid various offences against propriety and morality." The method of instruction is bad, a pantomimic representation of the sin to be avoided, but the intention is excellent. {74b} Among the Kurnai respect for the old, for unprotected women, the duty of unselfishness, and other ethical ideas are inculcated, {74c} while certain food taboos prevail during ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... had been witness to a series of pantomimic actions that interested him more than Amabel's conduct under this final examination. Frederick, who had evidently some request to make or direction to give, had sent a written line to the coroner, who, on reading it, had passed ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... and highly studied attitude, Eve has just stepped forth behind him, and God stands robed in massive drapery, raising His hand as though to draw her into life. There is, perhaps, an excess of dramatic action in the lifted right leg of Eve, and too much of pantomimic language in the expressive hands of Eve and her Creator. The robe, again, in its voluminous and snaky coils, and the triangular nimbus of the Deity, convey an effect of heaviness rather than of majesty. Yet we feel, while studying this composition, that it is a noble ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... first—gradually making them more simple and suggestive. The elimination of signs kept pace with the development of his intuitions. It was slow work and hard work, but I gave all my time to it. After he became familiar with a sign, I began to make it less pantomimic, until finally a lift of the eyebrow, a movement of the lips, or an inclination of the head served to express my meaning. In time he could detect the passing shades of expression in my eyes and understand them. Look at me," said he, laying his hand on my head and watching my eyes as the firelight ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... old feller,' said Charly. As he said it, Master Bates caught up an end of his neckerchief; and, holding it erect in the air, dropped his head on his shoulder, and jerked a curious sound through his teeth; thereby indicating, by a lively pantomimic representation, that scragging and hanging were ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... of goose, with the deadly stuffing thereof—Darius simply could not resist it, like most dyspeptics he was somewhat greedy—he foresaw an indisposed and perilous father for the morrow. Which prevision was supported by Clara's pantomimic antics, and even by Maggie's grave and restrained sigh. Still, he had sworn to write and send the letter, and he should do so. A career, a lifetime, was not to be at the mercy of a bilious attack, surely! Such a notion offended logic and proportion, and he scorned ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... noticing the kindness of Providence in creating comets for the great relief of bewildered philosophers. By their assistance more sudden evolutions and transitions are effected in the system of nature than are wrought in a pantomimic exhibition by the wonder-working sword of harlequin. Should one of our modern sages, in his theoretical flights among the stars, ever find himself lost in the clouds, and in danger of tumbling into the abyss ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... mysterious pantomimic play directed toward a singularly noiseless and soft-mannered butler, our host arose, assumed an attitude as if he were about to address the universe, and spoke ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... (evidence) 467; underline &c (give importance to) 642; call attention to &c (attention) 457; give notice &c (inform) 527. Adj. indicating &c v., indicative, indicatory; denotative, connotative; diacritical, representative, typical, symbolic, pantomimic, pathognomonic^, symptomatic, characteristic, demonstrative, diagnostic, exponential, emblematic, armorial; individual &c (special) 79. known by, recognizable by; indicated &c v.; pointed, marked. [Capable of being denoted] ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... reins and raises his whip encouragingly. The car and horse back slowly, awkwardly, and turn. Corny Kelleher on the sideseat sways his head to and fro in sign of mirth at Bloom's plight. The jarvey joins in the mute pantomimic merriment nodding from the farther seat. Bloom shakes his head in mute mirthful reply. With thumb and palm Corny Kelleher reassures that the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what else is to be done. With a slow nod Bloom conveys his gratitude ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... cringes to his wealthy rival and successor,—are they not both admirable? As for the acting of Madame SCHMIDT as Madame Pierrot, loving wife and devoted mother, it is, as it should be, "too good for words." Her pantomimic action is so sympathetic throughout, so—well, in fact, perfect. Who wants to hear them speak? Facta non verba is their motto. Yet with what gusto the Black, heavily bribed, mouths out the titled Baron's name, though never a syllable does he utter! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... will very readily be believed, Montalais was not mistaken; and Malicorne, with his quick ear and his sly look, seemed to interpret her remark as "All goes on well," the whole being accompanied by a pantomimic action which he fancied conveyed ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... shoulders of a young man emerged from the deck. Partly from her father's description, and partly from the impossibility of its being anybody else, she at once conceived it to be the new lodger. She had time to note that he was young and good-looking, graver perhaps than became his sudden pantomimic appearance, but before she could observe him closely, he had turned, closed the hatch with a certain familiar dexterity, and walked slowly towards the bows. Even in her slight bewilderment she observed that his step upon the deck seemed different to her father's ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... faint creaking sound, and looking behind him, it was to see that the inner office door was open, and Pringle standing there framed as it were, and going through a pantomimic performance expressive of his intense delight, grimacing, rubbing his hands, and laughing silently. Then he gesticulated and pointed toward the private office, and rubbed his hands again, till there was a sound in the ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... theory commonly inculcated, certainly commonly held, is that the fact of death ushers in a perfect transformation scene, more wonderful than anything thought of or devised by man, nor should we be accounted irreverent did we describe the language of the book of Revelation as pantomimic in the exuberance of its splendour. All sorrow is supposed to cease as if by magic, the sun shines perpetually, it is eternal noon; the home of the blessed is a wondrous city, built four-square, ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... own love story, those two had noticed nothing, not even the uncountable figures of stone in the bas-reliefs which, appearing to turn and whisper to each other, seem in the shadows to take a delight in portraying by pantomimic gestures a love wholly ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... went a lonely way, he burst out again in song and pantomimic celebration of his estate. His ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... more action! lend me your bays, do it thus—Quid igitur, &c. [He acts it after the old kind of pantomimic action. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... Here an unmistakeable pantomimic action explained their meaning better than words; throwing their heads well back, they sawed across their throats with their forefingers, making horrible grimaces, indicative of the cutting of throats. I could not resist laughing at the terror that my threat of ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... hag danced and gesticulated before him, singing the while a monotonous song. The gestures were pantomimic and menaced him with abominable mutilations; the words described in simple and unexpurgated language the grievous death agonies which immediately awaited him, and the eternity of torture in hell which he ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... eminence on which they were placed, the purveyors of this public banquet expressed their contempt for its noisy recipients, by holding their noses, stopping their ears, turning their backs, and other pantomimic demonstrations of lofty and excessive disgust. These actions did not escape the attention of those members of the assembly who, having eaten their fill, were at leisure to make use of their tongues, and who ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... the effect of dramatic and pantomimic action. At first sight action, like that of Messia or the Arab reciter, might seem to make for freedom in narration. But it may well be questioned if this be so to any great extent. For in a short time certain attitudes, looks, and gestures become inseparably wedded, not only in the actor's mind, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... din of the drum and cymbals, which were plied so vigorously, that the clarionet and fife shared the same fate as O'Grady's voice. The trumpeter could judge of O'Grady's rage from the fierceness of his actions only, and answered him in pantomimic expression, holding up his trumpet and pointing into the bell, with a grin of vexation on his phiz, meant to express something was wrong; but this was all mistaken by the fierce O'Grady, who only saw in the trumpeter's grins the ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... the towns or to the courts of the native princes. It is a very simple business—far beneath a punch-and-judy show in point of art, but the audience watch the puerile display for five or six hours without intermission. The theatre consists of pantomimic representations, with which is mingled a ballet, the basis of which is ancient tradition. The following story (which I have condensed from D'Almeida's book) is a specimen. A certain King Praboe Sindolo of Mendang Kamolan, feeling tired of the ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... flung his limbs in wild dislocation: the wineglasses danced; and last, Mrs. Triplet was observed to be bobbing about on her sofa, in a monstrous absurd way, droning out the tune, and playing her hands with mild enjoyment, all to herself. Woffington pointed out this pantomimic soliloquy to the two boys, with a glance full of fiery meaning. This was enough. With a fiendish yell, they fell upon her, and tore her, shrieking, off the sofa. And lo! when she was once launched, she danced ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade |
