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Mimic   Listen
noun
Mimic  n.  One who imitates or mimics, especially one who does so for sport; a copyist; a buffoon.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mimic" Quotes from Famous Books



... dear Colonel, had you not been in England, you had undoubtedly borne a part. You have asked me a question; I will answer it with a story, and so the time may pass more rapidly until the arrival of Mr. MacLean with our friends who set traps." He turned the mimic horseshoe this way and that, watching the small gems, that simulated nails, flash in the red light. "Some days to the west of Germanna," he said, "when about us were the lesser mountains, and before us those that propped the sky, we came one sunny noon upon a ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... the woods flecked with soft gray shadows in the moonlight, the dark sentinel evergreens keeping silent watch about the place, the wild little creatures playing about among the junipers, flitting through light and shadow, jumping over each other and tumbling about in mimic warfare, all unconscious of a spectator as the foxes that played there before the white man came, and before the Indians. Such scenes do not crowd themselves upon one. He must wait long, and love the woods, and be often disappointed; but ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long

... multitude of snow points from smaller jets. The basin occupies the whole breadth of the piazza, whence flights of steps ascend to its border. A boat might float and make voyages from one shore to another, in this mimic lake." ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... own poems, as a teller of humorous stories, as a mimic, indeed as a finished actor, Riley's genius was rare and beyond question. In a lecture on the Humorous Story, Mark Twain, referring to the story of the One Legged Soldier and the different ways of ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... Cambridge, he became one of a corps of volunteers, who were then being called out all over the country to resist the apprehended invasion by the French. I have heard him allude, in late years, to Lord Palmerston as one who had often been associated with him then in the mimic military duties which they ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell

... get into these magic spaces is responsible for an entire crop of petty crimes made more easy because two children are admitted for one nickel at the last performance when the hour is late and the theater nearly deserted. The Hull-House residents were aghast at the early popularity of these mimic shows, and in the days before the inspection of films and the present regulations for the five-cent theaters we established at Hull-House a moving picture show. Although its success justified its existence, it was so obviously but one in the midst of hundreds ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... Nature's pregnant stores, Whate'er of mimic Art's reflected forms 140 With love and admiration thus inflame The powers of Fancy, her delighted sons To three illustrious orders have referr'd; Three sister graces, whom the painter's hand, The poet's tongue confesses—the Sublime, The ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... according to the ideas of the time—the one haranguing soldiers, presiding over councils, walking with her veil raised; the other using the axe like a carpenter, rowing like a Cossack, brawling with foreign adventurers, and fighting with his grooms in mimic battles. But to the one her emancipation was only a means of obtaining power; to the other the emancipation of Russia, like the emancipation of himself, was the end. He wished the nation to shake off ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... did! 'Slocked away the man in charge by mimicking Pascoe's voice—he's the freighter, and talks like a man with no roof to his mouth. I'm a pretty good mimic, though I say it. Nothing easier, after that. You see, Lydia had laid me ten pounds that as a Justice of the Peace I hadn't wit nor pluck to spoil her next run; honestly, that is. She knows I wouldn't blow on her for worlds. Oh, we understand ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... will be saying 'thank you' presently, when you are washed and dressed; it makes such a difference when one's hair is tidy! If you will go into your room again I will bring you some hot water in a minute. But I can hear my brother Phil coming, and he is such a dreadful mimic that he will be taking you off for the benefit of Seal Cove to-morrow, in spite of all that I ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... Person, and expose the Mind, Who rails at others, to his own Faults blind. Sly Sancho's Paunch, meagre Don Quixot's Love, The Satyr and the Ridicule improve. So when fam'd Butler wou'd Rebellion paint, He lasht the Traitor and the Mimic Saint. Sir Hudibras he sung; the crumpled Wight, Contempt ...
— Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast • Leonard Welsted

... no burdensome care, get a notion that this, and this only, is artistic gardening and hence that a home garden for oneself would be too expensive and troublesome to be thought of. On the other hand, a few are tempted to mimic them on a petty scale, and so spoil their little grass-plots and amuse, without entertaining, their not more tasteful but only less aspiring neighbors. In Northampton, in our Carnegie prize contest—so called for a very sufficient ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable

... change has come over the trees. Their tops have a less naked look. If the weather continues warm, a single day will work wonders. Presently each tree will be one vast plume of gray, downy tassels, while not the least speck of green foliage is visible. The first week of April these long mimic caterpillars lie all about the ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... committed to memory Fisher Ames's noble speech on the British Treaty, and had probably read some of Burke's great pamphlets on the French Revolution. The stripling statesman aimed to talk in their high tone and in their richly ornamented language, before he had earned the right even to mimic their style of expression. There is a certain swell in some of his long sentences, and a kind of good sense in some of his short ones, which suggest that the writer is a youth endowed with elevation as well as strength of nature, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... Which the five watchful Senses represent, She forms Imaginations, Aerie shapes, Which Reason joyning or disjoyning, frames All what we affirm or what deny, and call Our knowledge or opinion; then retires Into her private Cell when Nature rests. Oft in her absence mimic Fansie wakes 110 To imitate her; but misjoyning shapes, Wilde work produces oft, and most in dreams, Ill matching words and deeds long past or late. Som such resemblances methinks I find Of our last Eevnings talk, in ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... another not closely related animal, living in the same locality; often loosely used to denote also resemblance to plants and inanimate objects: Batesian mimicry is where one of two similar species is distasteful (so-called model), the other not distasteful (so-called mimic); ...
— Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology • John. B. Smith

... himself as well as its scriptural folk, we must go on to later episodes. The Deluge in the Chester pageant, that opens the present volume, has among its many Noah's Ark sensations, some of them difficult enough to mimic on the pageant-wagon, a typical recall of the shipwright and ark-builder. God says ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous

... as no two of the leaders are alike, so do the rank and file fail to resemble one another. Writers and journalists, poets and novelists and merchants, professors and men of professions—types that once sought to slough their Jewish skins, and mimic, on Darwinian principles, the colors of the environment, but that now, with some tardy sense of futility or stir of pride, proclaim their brotherhood in Zion—they are come from many places; from far lands and from near, from ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... back her loosened tresses with an inarticulate cry of almost superhuman love and woe—the horror of the catastrophe was all swallowed up in a sympathy whose pain was wellnigh too great to be aroused by mimic despair. The fall of the curtain was greeted with a tempest of applause. Men sprang to their feet and wildly waved their hats in the air. Shouts of "Bravo, Rossi!" and "Vive Rossi!" arose on all sides. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... to swim almost as soon as he could walk; in running it is said that he could easily out-distance his companions; while his skill with the bow excited their admiration and envy. His greatest delight, however, was to muster his playmates into rival bands for mimic warfare. ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond

... been suggested for the name Grano Turco [Turkish grain], in the antics of boys when bearded and moustached with maize silk, they mimic the fierce looks of Turks in the high 'corn.' We cannot think that the Italian lad does not smoke the mock tobacco that must tempt him upon each ear. If he does, he apes a habit no less American in its origin than the maize itself. ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... observed that Mr Seagrove had a great deal of comic talent; he was an excellent mimic, and could alter his voice almost as he pleased. It was a custom of his to act a scene as between other people, and he performed it remarkably well. Whenever he said that anything he was going to narrate was "as good as a comedy," it was generally ...
— The Three Cutters • Captain Frederick Marryat

... the gallery, preparatory scrapings of violins from the orchestra, were mingled together; and amidst the universal din there stood the unconscious cause of it, sheltering me, 'the poor, distressed young woman,' and breathing defiance and destruction against my mimic persecutor. He was only persuaded to relinquish his care of me by the manager pretending to arrive and rescue me, with a ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various

... amusements with which the ladies of the Mikado's court while away their monotonous existence. As here shown, it is a private performance, of which the Empress and her principal attendants are the only spectators. The insects are personated by two of her ladies, who mimic their motions and sing praises of the different flowers they pretend to alight upon, to the accompaniment of a band of fair musicians. But the most interesting part of the affair is a spirited dialogue, ...
— Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs • J. M. W. Silver

... heaven. Look in the crystal! See how he hastens on To the place where his path comes up to the path Of a child of Plutarch and Shakespeare. O Lincoln, actor indeed, playing well your part, And Booth, who strode in a mimic play within the play, Often and often I saw you, As the cawing crows winged their way to the wood Over my house-top at solemn sunsets, ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... black tile a mimic fire's aglow, And in the hearthlight old mahogany, Ripe with stored sunshine that in Mexico Poured like gold wine into the living tree Summer on summer through a century, Burns like a crater in the heart of night: And all ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... yellows a-morn * Florid, vivid and likest the nugget-ore; And bless the fair sprays that displayed such fowers * And mimic suns gold-begilded bore." ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... them. They crept up, close under the shore, the oars almost touching the rocks; but always, as if a spirit of divination were in her, the little boat turned its head from the threatened danger, edged in and out of the mimic bays and hollows in the shores, and kept its steady onward way. The scene was a fairy-land scene now. Earth, water, and air, were sparkling with freshness and light. The sunlight lay joyously in the nest of the southern mountains, and looked over the East, ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... produced a chess-board, ingeniously arranged for sea-service, and the two gentlemen spent the evening in a mimic warfare that ended in a ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... night, has nothing in it but what is painful and disgusting. We want to take him into shelter and relieve him. That is all the feeling which the acting of Lear ever produced in me. But the Lear of Shakspeare cannot be acted. The contemptible machinery by which they mimic the storm which he goes out in, is not more inadequate to represent the horrors of the real elements, than any actor can be to represent Lear; they might more easily propose to personate the Satan of Milton upon a stage, or one of Michael Angelo's terrible figures. The ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... Polish Jew, is a poor creature; and scarce anything can exceed the complacency with which the "Pullack" looks down upon the "Litvok" or Lithuanian, the degraded being whose Shibboleth is literally Sibboleth, and who says "ee" where rightly constituted persons say "oo." To mimic the mincing pronunciation of the "Litvok" affords the "Pullack" a sense of superiority almost equalling that possessed by the English Jew, whose mispronunciation of the Holy Tongue is his title to rank far above all foreign ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... one little boy in that community—not a bad boy, but a precocious and very ambitious boy— who chanced not to hear the orders given. Whether he was partially deaf, or purposely did not hear the orders, we cannot say. This little boy's chief weakness was a desire to mimic. Having admired the wooden leg on Anteek's head, and having observed where Anteek had stowed the leg away before setting off with the hunters, he possessed himself of it, put it on his head, and strutted about the camp to the admiration and envy of all ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... word," he said. "The mimic doesn't interpret. He's a mere thief of expression. You can always see him behind his stolen mask. The actress takes a different rank. This one ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... gathered, weird gleams of phosphorus broke from the steamer's bows and streamed away behind us in long lines of flashing spangles. Where the swell caused by the passage of the ship rose in curling waves, these, as they splashed into mimic breakers, burst into showers of flamboyant light. The water from the discharge-pipe poured down in a cascade, that shone like silver. Every turn of the screw dashed a thousand flashes on either side, and the heaving of the lead was like the flight of ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie

... piece of ground, where many of the young nobles were engaged in shooting, and in practice with arms. Roger had often been there before, but had carefully abstained from taking any part in the mimic contests; for he knew that men who are beaten sometimes feel malice, and he was anxious to keep on the best terms with all. Cuitcatl had often urged him to try a bout with himself, or others, with the sword; ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... it! To wood and glen, hamlet and town, it is A laughing holiday! Not a hill-top But's then alive! Footmen with horsemen vie, All earth's astir, roused with the revelry Of vigour, health, and joy! Cheer awakes cheer, While Echo's mimic tongue, that never tires, Keeps up the hearty din! Each face is then Its neighbour's glass—where Gladness sees itself, And at the bright reflection grows more glad! Breaks into tenfold mirth!—laughs like a child! Would make a gift of ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles

... admirable an essay on matrimonial felicity! Then his alternate uxoriousness to the lady, and his fondlings of that pretty "kretur" with the family countenance; his chivalrous exploits on horseback, and mimic capering round the lists of his chequered tilt-yard; his unhappy differences with the partner of his bosom, and her lamentable catastrophe; the fracas with the sheriff's substitute; and his interview with that incomprehensible personage, 65the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... party that night. Mrs. Mershon went to sleep as usual in the easy-chair in the corner, but Hilyard was gayer than I had seen him for weeks. A capital mimic, he gave us some of his afternoon's experiences in the little country town, occasionally rousing Mrs. Mershon with a start by saying, "Isn't that so, Aunt?" and she, with a corroborative nod and smile, would doze off again. Cards were suggested, ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich

... unselfish, humorous—and often ridiculous. If anything, Dick Mattingly was funniest by nature, and made her laugh more. Maryland Joe, his brother, told better stories (sometimes of Dick), though not so good a mimic as the other Kearney, who had a fairly sympathetic voice in singing. They were all good-looking enough; perhaps they set store on ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte

... "drink deep" of the art of confectionery, we shall find it to be a perfect Microcosm—a little creation; for our artist talks familiarly of "producing picturesque scenery, with trees, lakes, rocks, &c.; gum paste, and modelling flowers, animals, figures, &c." with astonishing mimic strife. We must abridge one of these receipts for a "Rock Piece Montee ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 371, May 23, 1829 • Various

... in the history of the Revolutionary War. A town meeting would be called, at which a company of men would be detailed as British, and a company as Americans—two leading citizens being selected to represent Washington and Cornwallis in mimic surrender. ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 2 • Charles Farrar Browne

... And tenfold talent, as I'm told, in Bow-street, Where kindlier nurtured souls do congregate, And, though there are who deem that same a low street Yet, I'm assured, for frolicsome debate And genuine humor it's surpassed by no street, When the "Chief Baron" enters, and assumes To "rule" o'er mimic "Thesigers" and "Broughams." ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... more, to float the walnut- shell boats, with their burning candles fixed in each. As the girls took their pairs of shells, one with a pink, the other with a blue candle placed in the middle like a mast, it was curious to see the difference in their ways of launching them on this mimic ocean of life. Jean and Jessie dropped theirs in thoughtlessly, only intent on the fun of the moment. Florence put hers in daintily and with care not to wet her fingers, and Molly and Katharine launched theirs out boldly, following ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray

... with a native lady here, the first I have met with who has been able to express her ideas in English. She is extremely shrewd and intelligent, very satirical, and a great mimic. She very cleverly burlesques the way in which white people express their admiration of scenery, and, in fact, ridicules admiration of scenery for itself. She evidently thinks us a sour, morose, worrying, forlorn race. "We," she said, "are always happy; we never ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... Methodist preacher and a daring officer). The latter told me he could hardly understand how I could be an Englishman, as I pronounced my h's all right. General Scurry himself is very amusing, and is an admirable mimic. His numerous anecdotes of the war were very interesting. In peace times he is a lawyer. He was a volunteer major in the Mexican war, and distinguished himself very much in the late campaigns in New Mexico and Arizona, and ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle

... Sudden prosperity had turned Garrick's head. Continued adversity had soured Johnson's temper. Johnson saw with more envy than became so great a man the villa, the plate, the china, the Brussels carpet, which the little mimic had got by repeating, with grimaces and gesticulations, what wiser men had written; and the exquisitely sensitive vanity of Garrick was galled by the thought that, while all the rest of the world was applauding him, he could obtain from one morose cynic, whose opinion it was ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... impassioned manner in which these duties are recommended and inforced in the writings of our old divines, we are mortified beyond measure at the absolute poverty, crudeness, and meanness of the present attempt to mimic them. As a composition, it is very imperfect: it has nearly the same merits, and rather more than the same defects, which characterise his former publications. Mr. Smith never writes but in a loose declamatory ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... First, they had a mimic wedding-procession. Then they made believe that the bridegroom was killed by a robber, and they had a mock funeral. The Boy took always the lowest part. He was the hired mourner who followed the body, wailing; he was ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke

... and drink the fresh sweet air: Each draught a future bud of Spring; Each glance of blue a birth of green; I will not mimic yonder oak That dallies with dead leaves ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... with himself on account of her fortune! how prettily she passed notes to and fro, the Lieutenant never suspecting that she was the Bandit's child, and at last got the king's soldier on her side, as the event proved! And oh, how gayly, and with what mimic art, she stole into the Baron's castle, disguised as a witch, startled his conscience with revelations and predictions, frightened all the vassals with blue lights and chemical illusions, and venturing even into the usurper's own private chamber, while the tyrant was tossing ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... as Mr. Pickwick, interfering between the belligerent rival editors, only brought upon his own head the united concussion of their carpet-bags. And as Dickens declares that the warriors engaged far more eagerly in that mimic strife, on discovering that all blows were to be received by deputy, so there is evidently an increased willingness to deal hard knocks on both sides, in the present case, so long as it is clear that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... actor? So, to see Lear acted, to see an old man tottering about the stage with a walking-stick, turned out of doors by his daughters in a rainy night, has nothing in it but what is painful and disgusting. The contemptible machinery by which they mimic the storm in which he goes out is not more inadequate to represent the horrors of the real elements than any actor can be to represent Lear. In the acted Othello, the black visage of the Moor is obtruded upon you; in the written Othello, his color disappears ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... their perches, looking melancholy and disconsolate, but well protected from cold. The kangaroos have removed into their new house, and their park has been relaid, although they still look unsettled. A very pretty beaver-house has been built of mimic rocks. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various

... the most enjoyable things in these mimic emulations is this absolute genuineness in their gradations of success. In the great world outside, there is no immediate and absolute test for merit. There are cliques and puffings and jealousies, quarrels of authors, tricks of trade, caucusing in politics, hypocrisy among the deacons. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... bridegroom proceeds with a large party of his friends, male and female, to the bride's house. Most of the males have warlike weapons, real or sham, and as they approach the village of the bride's family the young men from thence emerge, also armed, as if to repel the invasion, and a mimic fight ensues, which like a dissolving view blends pleasantly into a dance. In this the bride and bridegroom join, each riding on the hips of one of their friends. After this they have a feast till late in the night. Next morning bread cooked by the bride's ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... sounded; and at the same instant, as if seized by one common thought, the Hungarian Hussars clattered their heavy sabres back into the scabbard, and with a fearful imprecation, such as no German tongue could echo, charged weaponless and at full speed their mimic caricatures whom fate had thrown in their way. The shock was so irresistible, that the poor Croats could make no use of their sabers against the furious onset of their unarmed foe: they were beaten down from their saddles with the fist, and dragged off their horses by their dolmanys; those ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various

... however, pursued, brought home, carried to London, and bound prentice to an apothecary in Hatton Garden. He escaped again, wandered about England, went to Ireland, and there obtained credit as an actor; then returned to London, and appeared at Drury Lane, where his skill as a mimic enabled him to perform each part in the manner of the actor who had obtained chief credit by it. His power of mimicry made him very diverting in society, and as he had natural politeness with a sprightly wit, his company was sought and paid for at the entertainments ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... haul them, perhaps, two hours later, and await the approach of morning for their second cast. Towards midnight, then, we sailed boldly up to the outermost boat and spoke her through Marc'antonio, who (fas est ab hoste doceri) had in old campaigns picked up enough of the Genoese patois to mimic it very passably. He announced us as sent by certain Genoese fishmongers—a new and enterprising firm whose name he invented on the spur of the moment—to trade for the first catch of fish and carry them early ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... water—river, sea, lake, or canal—he never learned to swim. Peacock also notices his habit of floating paper boats, and gives an amusing description of the boredom suffered by Hogg on occasions when Shelley would stop by the side of a pond or mere to float a mimic navy. The not altogether apocryphal story of his having once constructed a boat out of a bank-post-bill, and launched it on the lake in Kensington Gardens, deserves to be alluded to ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... together, and bestowed upon them decent interment,—while Osiris, thus restored, became the chief deity of his subjects, and his worship was united with that of Isis, as the fecundating and fertilizing powers of nature. The candidate in these initiations was made to pass through a mimic repetition of the conflict and destruction of Osiris, and his eventual recovery; and the explanations made to him, after he had received the full share of light to which the painful and solemn ceremonies through ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... part of Brutus like a Roscius, perfect in its histrionic details. And it doubtless gave to this skilful actor a supreme satisfaction—salving over many wounds of vanity, quenching the poignant thirst for things impossible and draughts of fame—that he could play it on no mimic stage, but on the theatre of Europe. The weakness of his conduct was the central weakness of his age and country. Italy herself lacked moral purpose, sense of righteous necessity, that consecration of self to a noble cause, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... morning of the dance. On that morning she is placed on the ground in a sitting position, while the dancers form a ring around her. Several songs are then sung with reference to the genital organs. The girl is then stripped and made to go through the mimic performance of sexual intercourse, and if the movements are not enacted properly, as is often the case when the girl is timid and bashful, one of the older women will take her place and show her how she is to perform. Many songs about the relation between men and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... he answer'd, "hadst remember'd thee, How Meleager with the wasting brand Wasted alike, by equal fires consum'd, This would not trouble thee: and hadst thou thought, How in the mirror your reflected form With mimic motion vibrates, what now seems Hard, had appear'd no harder than the pulp Of summer fruit mature. But that thy will In certainty may find its full repose, Lo Statius here! on him I call, and pray That he would now be healer of ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... guardian god surround; So with his battening flocks the careful swain Abides pavilion'd on the grassy plain. With powers united, obstinately bold, Invade him, couch'd amid the scaly fold; Instant he wears, elusive of the rape, The mimic force of every savage shape; Or glides with liquid lapse a murmuring stream, Or, wrapp'd in flame, he glows at every limb. Yet, still retentive, with redoubled might, Through each vain passive form constrain his flight But when, his native shape renamed, he stands Patient of conquest, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... of lovers, had gained for her an ill-repute, that combined with the watch set upon her movements by the British to render men chary of dealings with the little court at Feragpore, where she held mimic state. ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer

... declares: "It is a more common than convenient saying that nine tailors make a man; it were well if nineteen could make a woman to her mind. If tailors were men indeed well furnished, but with more moral principles, they would disdain to be led about like apes by such mimic marmosets. It is a most unworthy thing for men that have bones in them to spend their lives in making fiddle-cases for futilous women's fancies; which are the very pettitoes of infirmity, the giblets of perquisquilian toys.... It is no little labor to be ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... Music! Sphere-descended maid, Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid! Why, goddess, why, to us denied, Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside? As in that loved Athenian bower You learn'd an all-commanding power, Thy mimic soul, O nymph endear'd! Can well recall what then it heard. Where is thy native simple heart Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art? Arise, as in that elder time, Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime! Thy wonders, in that god-like age, Fill thy recording ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... Bard, a native scene displays, And claims your candour for his daring lays: Daring, so soon, in mimic scenes to shew, What each remembers as a real woe. Who has forgot when gallant ANDRE died? A name by Fate to Sorrow's self allied. Who has forgot, when o'er the untimely bier, Contending armies paus'd, to drop ...
— Andre • William Dunlap

... fountains play. Cool vales descend and sunny hills arise, And groves and caves and grottos strike the eyes. Art showed her utmost power; but art concealed With greater charm the pleased attention held. It seemed as Nature played a sportive part And strove to mock the mimic works of art: By powerful magic breathes the vernal air, And fragrant trees eternal blossoms bear: Eternal fruits on every branch endure, Those swelling from their buds, and these mature: The joyous birds, concealed in every grove, With gentle strife prolong the ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... shoot out the deadly venom of their treason." A general rising was fixed for Candlemas Day, but so well was the secret kept, that not a whisper reached the vigilant ears of Trivulzio, and all remained quiet until the last few days of January. On the 24th, a band of children at play, engaged in a mimic fight between the supposed French and Milanese armies, ending with the rout of the French and a procession in which the effigy of King Louis was dragged through the streets tied to a donkey's tail. Some French soldiers, who ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright

... consternation to discover in the voice of the speaker that of Aster's father, the man who was the cause of all the woe and mischief. When his emotion passed he could have smitten the misguided man to the earth. Disguising his voice thoroughly, for he was an accomplished mimic, he replied: ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... and the guard suffered him to pass. A friend furnished him with a small boat to pass Cooper river; but now the difficulty was to get through the British guard ships which lined the river. Being a pretty good mimic, he bethought himself of assuming the character of a drunken sailor going on board his own ship, and acted his part so admirably well, that he was suffered, though often threatened, to pass through the whole fleet. Capt. Capers ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James

... 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 ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... always clever and often excellent dialogue, and, above all, a broad and fresh humour, which produces an irresistible comic effect with its happy jokes, its rich vocabulary of nicknames, its whimsical coinage of words, its pungent, often mimic, descriptions and situations—excellences, in which we seem to recognize the former actor. Undoubtedly the editor even in these respects retained what was successful in the originals rather than furnished ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... degenerated. At the commencement of the present century, its mimic scenes afforded a species of consolation for the sad realities of life, and formed the Lethe in whose waters oblivion was gladly sought. The public afterward became so practical in its tastes, so sober in its desires, that neither the spirit of the actor nor the coquetry of the actress ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... want to ask a question. When female butterflies are more brilliant than their males, you believe that they have in most cases, or in all cases, been rendered brilliant so as to mimic some other species and thus escape danger. But can you account for the males not having been rendered equally brilliant and equally protected? Although it may be most for the welfare of the species that the female should be protected, yet it would be some advantage, certainly no disadvantage, ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant

... treachery, the lawyer's indifference, and her rival's contempt. At that dreadful moment her beauty shone out again with a gleam of its old glory. The grand woman, who in the old stage days had held thousands breathless over the mimic woes of the scene, stood there grander than ever, in her own woe, and held the three people who looked at her breathless till she ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... in the world instead of real coin, so, is the place of true esteem and genuine friendship, you have the outward appearance of it—a mimic show made to look as much like the real ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... of rain has led to various quasi-scientific and magical devices for securing it, and to the rise of professional rain makers. The methods commonly employed are mimic representations of rainfall or of a storm.[274] The Australian Arunta have a rain clan whose function is to bring the desired supply by nonsacred dancing festivals and sacred ceremonies. A more advanced method is to dip a ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... her what I could, but I think most of the credit belongs to Mike O'Hara and the birds in the woods. He set her to imitating them; and she is an apt mimic, you will find. ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown

... cheap cooking. We saw some small Renaissance closets, still with their ceilings and fire-places, where tradition says a last Savelli was stabbed. A feudal fortress this, and, like those of the hills round Rome which these ruins mimic, raising its gardens and pompous rooms above the squalor of the mediaeval village. Immediately below, the corridors of the theatre; below that, the shops, where pack-saddles, ploughs, scythes, wooden pails—the things of a village—are for sale in ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee

... inclined to attribute your restless impatience to nervous disease were I not assured by your appearance that you are in perfect health. Remember, that quietude of manner constitutes a woman's greatest charm; and, unfortunately, you seem almost a mimic maelstrom. But, pardon me, I did not intend to lecture you; and, hoping all things, I will patiently wait for the future that you seem to have dedicated to some special object. I will try to have faith in my perverse little ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... be exhibited by noise. The whole neighborhood had congregated to meet us; crowds of women raised the wild, shrill cry that is sounded alike for joy or sorrow; drums were beat; men dashed about with drawn swords and engaged in mimic fight, and in the midst of din and confusion we halted and dismounted. With peculiar grace of manner the old sheik assisted my wife to dismount, and led her to an open shed arranged with angareps (stretchers) covered with Persian carpets ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... hooted, and the detective was on the alert in a moment. It was a well-known signal. Was the owl a feathered one or a human mimic? ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer

... duly posted in a certain belt of trees through which the coach-route ran, about half-way between the town and the first stage south. It was not his first nocturnal visit to the spot; often, as his prototype divined, had the mimic would-be desperado sat trembling on his hoary screw, revolvers ready, while the red eyes of the coach dilated down the road; and as often had the cumbrous ship pitched past unscathed. The week-kneed and weak-minded youth was too vain to feel much ashamed. He was biding his ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... I never have seen," rejoined the hermit; "but, when he was quite a youth, I heard of his graceful victories in the mimic war of the jousts at Berwick, when Edward first marched into this country under the mask of friendship. From what you have said, I do not doubt his being a worthy supporter of Bruce. However, dear daughter, as it is only a suspicion of mine that this knight is that ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... to go, and they believed him. The new fashion brought with it a new affectation, perhaps the most offensive of all, the affectation of simplicity. The garden, as truly a product of man's hand and brain as the house or the picture-gallery, was made to mimic the forest, losing, in too many cases, its own peculiar beauty, without gaining the true charm of wild nature. On the other hand, the eyes of Rousseau's admirers were opened to many things not noticed before. The real woods received their appropriate worship. ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... that had taken place since he had left Belleview a couple of hours before, and as he proceeded, step by step, every word carried conviction to Carteret. Tom Delamere's skill as a mimic and a negro impersonator was well known; he had himself laughed at more than one of his performances. There had been a powerful motive, and Mr. Delamere's discoveries had made clear the means. Tom's ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... and his band armed with fire-forks. They fling about ashes, by way of prolonging the reign of Winter; while another band, whose captain is called Florro, represents Spring, with green boughs such as the season affords. These parties skirmish in sport, and the mimic contest concludes with ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... it is applied to the interpretation of the soul of matter, or of the soul of the whole universe, obviously yields a view of the irresponsible and subjective sort; for it is not based on any close similarity between the observed and the observer: man and the ether, man and cosmic evolution, cannot mimic one another, to discover mutually how they feel. But just because merely human, such an interpretation may remain always plausible to man; and it would be an admirable entertainment if there were no danger that it should be taken seriously. The idea Paul has of Peter, Spinoza observes, expresses ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... the dog "Ah, you thing you!" said she, and she gave it her finger to bite. The delighted puppy chewed her bony finger, and then instituted a mimic warfare against a piece of rag that fluttered from her breast, barking and growling in joyous excitement, while the old woman ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens

... taken to the lunatic asylum of the district. In general he was a very manageable patient, and it was only if a woman approached him that he began to rave. His greatest delight was to play with some wooden toys that were given him,—mimic guns and mounted soldiers ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... Berthold, what men's hopes are like: A silly child that, quivering with joy, Would cast its little mimic fishing-line Baited with loadstone for a bowl of toys In the ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... little older, and lessons and play alternated with each other, she was taught to attend to the thing in hand, and finish what she had begun, both in her studies and games. One day she was amusing herself making a little haycock when some other mimic occupation caught her volatile fancy, and she flung down her small rake ready to rush off to the fresh attraction. "No, no, Princess; you must always complete what you have commenced," said her governess, and the small haymaker had to conclude ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... the Place de l'Opera he ran into the crowd pouring from the big gray opera house, an eager, voluble crowd that jostled him about as if he were an intruder. They had been warmed by fine music and stirred by the great passions of this mimic world, so that the women clung more tightly to the arms ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... called the Old Fronde, which lasted from 1648 till 1649, and then a war on the part of the nobles, called the New Fronde, which lasted till 1652, when the revolt was crushed by Turenne to the triumph of the royal power. The name is derived from the mimic fights with slings in which the boys of Paris indulged themselves, and which even went so far as to beat back at times the civic guard ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... chrysalis cases,[156] just as the actors do in the similar commemorative ceremony which I have described; and again in a magical ceremony for the multiplication of emus the performers wear head-dresses to represent the long neck and small head of the bird, and they mimic its gait,[157] exactly as the actors do in the commemorative ceremony. It seems reasonable, therefore, to conjecture that the ceremonies which now are, or seem to be, purely commemorative or historical were originally magical in intention, being observed for the practical purpose ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... declared their hostess. "They mimic as for the deaf, they emphasise as for the blind. Mrs. Delamere is doubtless an epitome of all the virtues, but I never heard of her. You travel too much," Madame Carre went on; "that's very amusing, but the way to study is to stay at home, to shut yourself up and hammer ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... object or physical stimulus, and if it be designated by the letter e; then the process of reproduction will take place in the following order: e, the physical stimulus; d-b, perceptions of physical facts (sounds, tones, mimic, combinations of lines and colours, etc.), which form together the aesthetic synthesis, already produced; c, the hedonistic ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... with tones in it which range from the deepest bass to the shrillest treble. It ends in a long sigh, and then follows a scene, a tumult, a melee, which hardly admits of a description in words. The warriors engage in a mimic combat, once more they charge, retreat, conquer, and are defeated, all in turns. In front of them, exciting them to new exertions, with word and gesture, undulate in a graceful dance of their own the "intombis," the young beauties of the tribe, with green branches in their hands, and all ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... back. The fact that this Arab usually takes up a strong position near a 'tazia' suggests the idea that he must originally have represented a guardian or scapegoat, designed to break by means of his abuse, buffoonery and laughter the spell of the spirits who long for quarters within the rich mimic tomb; and the fact that the crowds who come to gaze in admiration on the 'tazia' never retort or round upon him for the sudden fright or anger that he evokes gives one the impression that the crack of the bamboo is in their belief a potent ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.

... their continuous dressing, we provide for our little girls tea sets and kitchen sets, doll's houses, little work-boxes—the imitation tools of their narrow trades. For the boy there is a larger choice. We make for them not only the essentially masculine toys of combat—all the enginery of mimic war; but also the models of human things, like boats, railroads, wagons. For them, too, are the comprehensive toys of the centuries, the kite, the top, the ball. As the boy gets old enough to play the games ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... other 'Palamon and Arcite,' both of which were acted before Queen Elizabeth. He also contrived masques and wrote verses for pageants, and is said to have been the first fiddler, the most elegant sonnetteer, and the most amusing mimic of the Court. He is the author of a pleasing poem, entitled 'Amantium irae,' and of some lines under the title, 'He requesteth some friendly comfort, affirming his constancy.' We quote ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... is often associated with intense repressed feeling; and his words were accompanied by his best possible counterfeit of the burning, piercing, distraught gaze of passion. Though he acted a part, it was not with the cold-blooded art of a mimic who simulates by rule; it was with the animation due to imagining himself actually swayed by the feeling he would feign. While he knew his emotion to be fictitious, he felt it as if it were real, and his consequent actions were the same ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens

... the Countess sitting on his prostrate body. She was nibbling her bit of sugar, giving expression to her enjoyment by little grimaces and gestures that would have been thought clever in a woman in full possession of her senses if she tried to mimic her paroquet or ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac

... lived in Paris in the eighteenth century! ineffective, sardonic, verbose, sociable, intellectual, elegant, immoral—grand gentlemen and ladies, with tears for mimic woes and none for actual ones, praise for wit, rewards for cleverness, and absolute ignorance of the destinies they were preparing for themselves;" such is the story of women and society of the eighteenth century. Among these women the salon leaders will be found the most attractive, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... deserted by all save a few mechanics. Glancing through this orifice, John Wilkes Booth espied in a moment the precise position of the President; he wore upon his wrinkling face the pleasant embryo of an honest smile, forgetting in the mimic scene the splendid successes of our arms for which he was responsible, and the history he had filled ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... distasteful to her. She was not enough of a fine lady to be dismayed or humiliated by its straits and shifts of poverty, by its isolation and ostracism; while there was something in its alternations of want and profusion, in its piquant contrasts of real and mimic life, in its excitement, action, and change, which had a peculiar charm for her wild and restless spirit. But from many of the associations of the stage, from nearly all actors and actresses, and from all green-room loungers, she instinctively recoiled, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... the general public, was a man of great learning and keen intelligence, unimaginative as he says himself, but richly endowed with "a certain broad humor and drollery." His son tells us that he was "an inimitable mimic and story-teller. No small proportion of Mrs. Stowe's success as a literary woman is to be attributed to him." The Sam Lawson stories are said to be a little more his than hers, being "told as they came from Mr. Stowe's lips with little or no ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach

... offences. From November, 1830, to his death, with brief intervals, he was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in the administrations of Lord Grey and of Lord Melbourne. Outside the House he kept the party together by his great social gifts. An admirable talker, 'raconteur', and mimic, with a wit's relish for wit, the charm of his good ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... various kinds of marble and stone. A beautiful table that I saw made out of artificial ivory, had a painting upon the top of it. A deep border, composed of delicate, convoluted shells, extended round the top of the table and formed the shores of a mimic ocean, with coral reefs and tiny islands, and tangled sea-weeds and shining fishes sporting about in the pellucid water. The surface was of highly polished smoothness, and I was informed that the picture was not a painting but was formed of colored particles ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley

... Scylla arrived at the ranch; but when she did come there was great rejoicing. After she was comfortably ensconced in her wheeled chair on the porch, she held a mimic reception. John and Martha did the honors, and every human being within call was introduced to the little invalid. In the store there were a dozen leather-decked cow-boys, and Scylla felt quite like a queen as each one scrambled up to her, and with his broad sombrero ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various

... night! I'd say the griefs, the joys, Just hinted in this mimic page, The triumphs and defeats of boys, Are but repeated in our age. I'd say, your woes were not less keen, Your hopes more vain, than those of men, Your pangs or pleasures of fifteen, At forty-five played ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray

... play always. Children in their sports like nothing better than to counterfeit what is to be the earnest work of their after-lives. The little girl plays with her dolls, and the boy plays he is a soldier and goes to mimic wars. ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz

... displayed plenty of eagerness. The sight of the cutter-rigged smack lying with her bowsprit pointing to the wind, and her white mainsail flapping and quivering in the breeze, which seemed to send mimic waves chasing each other along it from mast to edge, while the jib lay all of a heap waiting to be hoisted, being one that would have roused the most phlegmatic to a desire to have a cruise, and see some of the wonders ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... birth, And God himself has said, He shall not find it here. For this inferior world is but Heaven's dusky shade, By dark reverted rays from its reflection made; Whence the weak shapes wild and imperfect pass, Like sunbeams shot at too far distance from a glass; Which all the mimic forms express, Though in strange uncouth postures, and uncomely dress; So when Cartesian artists try To solve appearances of sight In its reception to the eye, And catch the living landscape through a scanty light, The figures all inverted ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... belongs to all natural objects, and which shames the fine things to which we foppishly compare them. I remarked, especially, the mimetic habit, with which Nature, on new instruments, hums her old tunes, making night to mimic day, and chemistry to ape vegetation. But I then took notice, and still chiefly remember, that the best thing which the cave had to offer was an illusion. On arriving at what is called the "Star-Chamber," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... smart frigate, "Queen," while the "Bounding Betsey," laden with lumber, safely sailed from Kennebunkport to Massachusetts Bay. Thorny, from his chair, was chief-engineer, and directed his gang of one how to dig the basin, throw up the embankment, and finally let in the water till the mimic ocean was full; then regulate the little water-gate, lest it should overflow and wreck the pretty squadron of ships, boats, canoes, and rafts, which soon ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... girls draw near, to view The slaughter of a stricken plain, In mimic battle, at this cue, The boys now ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll

... neither a novelist's characters nor their environment shall be in entire agreement with all observable facts. There may be arrangements, eliminations, additions, which, though pleasing to the reader, may remove the mimic world to a plane above that of the so-called real one. Thus removed, Balzac judged George Sand's production to be. And we must confess that, even in Little Fadette, The Devil's Pool, and Francois le Champi, it deals with human experience in a mode differing widely from that ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... although he cannot explain them. This we perceive exemplified in his ingenious contrivances in cutting his sticks, wrenching with forks, hammering with stones, kicking with his toes, and afterwards more powerfully with his heels; in trundling his hoop, in sailing his mimic fleets by the force of his breath, and in adapting to the requisite moving powers his wind and water mills. He even learns to know something of the composition of forces, as we perceive by his contrivances in the flying of his kite, the shooting of his marbles, and the rebounding of his ball. Now, ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... coast was no less novel than that of Suma, the only difference being that there were more people there. The building was grand, and there was also a grand Buddha-hall adjoining for the service of the priest. The plantations of trees, the shrubberies, the rock-work, and the mimic lakes in the garden were so beautifully arranged as to exceed the power of an artist to depict, while the style of the dwelling was so tasteful that it was in no way inferior to any ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various

... gaze my eyes swept in the details of this mimic Eden, and, in another moment, my hand turned the knob of the ground-glass door near the window, and I found ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... be artists. There are born actors, as there are born authors. To an observant eye such men reveal their native endowments. Even in conversation they spontaneously throw themselves into the characters they speak of. They mimic, often quite unconsciously the speech and gesture of the person. They dramatise when they narrate. Other men with little of this faculty, but with only so much of it as will enable them to imitate the tones and gestures of some admired actor, are misled ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes

... give it up," she hurriedly said. "You know, it's in her blood. Off she goes! And they make a fuss of her. She mimics everybody, and they laugh at it—they think it's funny to mimic people who can't help themselves—if they are a bit comic. So she goes; and when she does come home Pa's so glad to see a fresh face that he makes a fuss of her, too. And she stuffs him up with all sorts of tales—things that never happened—to keep him quiet. She says it gives him ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton

... criminal, the incomparable. Her dress for the ball. Kitty raised eyes and hands to heaven—it would be a marvel, a miracle. Unless, indeed, she were lying cold and quiet in her little grave before the time came to wear it. But Fanchette's tempers—Fanchette's caprices—no! Kitty began to mimic the great dressmaker torn to pieces by the crowd of fashionable ladies, stopping abruptly in the middle to ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Captain Christian, of the Intelligence Bureau," said the waiter, with proud alacrity. "A famous officer, brave as a rabbit,—un fier lapin,—and one of our best clients. So drole, too, such a farceur and mimic. M'sieur would be ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... turbulent, as disobedient, and as wicked as himself. He taught both by precept and example, that towards masters neither honour was to be recognised, nor respect to be considered due. To cheat them, to lie to them, to annoy them in every possible way—to misrepresent their motives, mimic their defects, and calumniate their actions—was the conduct which he inaugurated towards them; and for the time that he continued at Roslyn the whole lower-school was a Pandemonium of evil passions ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar

... when they are pictured in the films. More than that, the absence of the words brings the movements which we see to still greater prominence in our mind. Our whole attention can now be focused on the play of the face and of the hands. Every gesture and every mimic excitement stirs us now much more than if it were only the accompaniment of speech. Moreover, the technical conditions of the kinematograph show favor the importance of the movement. First the play on the screen is acted more rapidly than that on the stage. By ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg

... dramatic talent himself, and was an admirable mimic. When a boy it had been said of him that he was born to be a great actor. His capacity for facial expressions was something extraordinary; he often amused his friends by imitations of fellow-musicians, reproducing their manner and gestures to the life; so well as actually on ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... celebrated antiquary of Warwick, at the close of the fifteenth century; and a tournament roll of Henry VIII., in which that stalwart monarch is depicted in regal state, with all the "pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious (mimic) war." In the gallery over the library are to be seen the sword and dagger which belonged to the unfortunate James of Scotland, that chivalrous king who died fighting to the last on the hill at Flodden. The sword-hilt ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... raiding through Neufchateau one night, and by the light of our burning roof-thatch I saw all that were dear to me in this world (save an elder brother, your ancestor, left behind with the court) butchered while they begged for mercy, and heard the butchers laugh at their prayers and mimic their pleadings. I was overlooked, and escaped without hurt. When the savages were gone I crept out and cried the night away watching the burning houses; and I was all alone, except for the company of the dead and the wounded, for the rest had ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... leaped at this proposal, and then sank again. It seemed easier to paint a Meissonier on the spot than to win ten thousand dollars on that mimic stock exchange. Nor could I help reflecting on the singularity of such a test for a man's capacity to be a painter. I ventured even ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... in any other manner. This was the first gift he communicated to his disciples. These aped very sincerely their master's several grimaces, and shook in every limb the instant the fit of inspiration came upon them, whence they were called Quakers. The vulgar attempted to mimic them; they trembled, they spake through the nose, they quaked and fancied themselves inspired by the Holy Ghost. The only thing now wanting was a few miracles, and accordingly they ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire

... easy task, for Smiles took to "manners" as readily as a chameleon adapts its exterior to suit the color of its surroundings. In the woods she had learned to mimic the note of the birds or the chattering of the squirrels; in the hotel dining-room she copied the behavior of her companion just as faithfully, and if, on occasion, she found herself perplexed as to the proper use ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson

... away along our larboard beam and slightly away from us to the southward for about half-a-mile, where it terminated in a sandy beach bordered by a broad patch of smooth water, athwart which marched an endless line of mimic breakers from the wall of flashing white surf that thundered upon the outer edge of the protecting shoal three-quarters of a mile to seaward. The point was pretty thickly covered with bush and trees, chiefly cocoa-nut ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... as a novice in the mimic art, and had entreated my lame friend to be kind enough to instruct me. I therefore went to her in the morning, but she could only flatter herself that hers was a reflected light, as I had opportunities for paying my court to my charmer in her house, and however great ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... the same hand. The forgery of a signature is one of the simplest businesses in the world, but the truly deceptive forgery of a document of any length is an absolute impossibility—an impossibility as complete as would attend the continued personification of a dual character by the most skilful mimic under the observation of one who was able to maintain a sustained and microscopic examination ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... inventor Edward West, who said with excitement that if they would but step across the common to the town branch, he would demonstrate by his own model that some day navigation would be by steam: whereat they all laughed kindly at him for a dreamer, and went to laugh at the action of his mimic boat, moving hither and thither over the dammed water of the stream. Sitting on a stump apart from every one, his dog at his feet, his rifle across his lap, an aged backwoodsman surveyed in sorrow the civilization ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen

... mingled with songs, shouts, and savage howls. They throw stones at him, fling mud upon him, blindfold him; if he flies into a rage, they double their insults; if he weeps or begs for pity, they repeat his cries and mimic his sobs and supplications without respite and ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... lies that mimic truth... Censored truth as pale as fear... My heart is like a rousing bell— And ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge

... Hemingway's house three young girls were gathered in conversation. Below them a garden ran to the water's edge and gave access to a wooden pier projecting some thirty or forty feet beyond. Here, in a mimic harbor formed by a sharp turn of the shore and a line of piles on which the pier was supported, rode the Hemingway fleet at its moorings: a big half-decked catboat, a gasoline launch, an Indian canoe and two trim gigs. Here, too, under the kindly lee of a small boat-house, the Hemingway crew lay ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne

... effect I should not have been able to tell this story. But I had been too much with my friend Jimmy not to be well upon the alert. We had often played together—he like a big boy—in mimic fight, when he had pretended to spear me, and taught me how to catch the spear on a shield, and to avoid blows made with waddies. Jimmy's lessons were not thrown away. I could avoid a thrown spear, though helpless, like the black, against bullets, which he said ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn

... humility. The harmony is preserved, a trial goes on with an appearance of deference and respect each to the other, highly, most highly, commendable, and producing law and order where otherwise we might find strife, hatred, and warfare. Although this may be a mimic humility, although the compliments may be judged insincere, they are still the shadows of the very highest virtues. The man who is guarding his speech is ruling his spirit; he is keeping his temper, that furnace of all affliction, and the lofty chambers of his ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... itself a soothing, not to say an absorbing one. To push the thick, yellow ripples, piling themselves upon the skimmer, across the pan; to see it drop, like melted ivory, into the cream-bowl; to pursue floating cream islands round and round the pale and mimic sea,—who can do this long, and not be comforted in some small degree, even in the midst of heavy sorrow? Also there is joy and a never-failing sense of achievement when the butter first splashes in the churn. So Nurse Lucy took heart, and churned and ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... room of so sweet a young creature, and which might have probably had no good effect on a cooler lover. However, he groped out the bed with difficulty, for there was not a glimpse of light, and, opening the curtains, he whispered in Joseph's voice (for he was an excellent mimic), "Fanny, my angel! I am come to inform thee that I have discovered the falsehood of the story we last night heard. I am no longer thy brother, but the lover; nor will I be delayed the enjoyment of thee one moment longer. You ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding

... in vain, I seem to have lived my childhood o'er again; To have renewed the joys that once were mine, Without the sin of violating thine; And, while the wings of Fancy still are free, And I can view this mimic show of thee, Time has but half succeeded in his theft,— Thyself removed, thy ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... his work he might be; callous to the tragedy in Jean's eyes at what might have happened; unfeeling in his greedy seizure of her horror as good "stuff" for Muriel Gay to mimic. Yet the man's energy was dynamic; his callousness was born of his passion for the making of good pictures. He swept even Jean out of the emotional whirlpool and into the calm, steady current of the ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower

... worm had wriggled itself realistically into a cocoon it went to sleep; and after a moment of dramatic silence, the little one chosen for the butterfly would separate herself from the still cocoon and fly about the circle, sipping mimic honey ...
— The Story of Patsy • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... returned from the opera with her daughters, coffee was ordered; during which H.R.H. took me outside and talked exclusively about music near half an hour, and as long with your brother concerning Greek literature. He is a most excellent mimic of well-known characters: had we been in the dark any one would have sworn that Dr. Parr and Kemble were in the room. Besides being possessed of a great fund of original humour, and good humour, he may with truth be said ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... made a mistake and lost more than she had gained in those three years. Others might lead that life of alternate excitement and hard work unharmed, but she could not. The very ardor and insight which gave power to the actress made that mimic life unsatisfactory to the woman, for hers was an earnest nature that took fast hold of whatever task she gave herself to do, and lived in it heartily while duty made it right, or novelty lent it charms. But when she saw the error of a step, the emptiness of a belief, with a like earnestness ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... Mr. Feldt she failed to understand. Of course he wanted to marry them—the comprehensive phrase was his own—but that didn't include him in whatever they did. Principally it made a joke for their private entertainment. Mrs. Condon would mimic his eager manner, "Stella, let me take you both home where you'll have the best in the land," And, "Ladies like you ought to have a loving protection." Linda would laugh in her cool bell-like manner, and her mother add a ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer

... tile a mimic fire's aglow, And in the hearthlight old mahogany, Ripe with stored sunshine that in Mexico Poured like gold wine into the living tree Summer on summer through a century, Burns like a crater in the heart of night: And all familiar things in the ingle-light ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... and several other of his best papers for magazines. By way of whim and pastime he occupied himself, to his own and his stepson's delight, with a little set of woodcuts and verses printed by the latter at his toy press—"The Davos Press," as they called it—as well as with mimic campaigns carried on between the man and boy with armies of lead soldiers in the spacious loft which filled the upper floor of the chalet. For the first and almost the only time in his life there awoke in him during ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... proximity. When alone with me they are kind, and all I could wish them to be. Others have not only strenuously avoided me when with their companions, but have even at times shown a low disposition, a desire to wound my feelings or to chill me with their coldness. But alone, behold they know how to mimic gentlemen. The kind of treatment which I was to receive, and have received at the hands of the cadets, has been a matter of little moment to me. True, it has at times been galling, but its severest effects have been but temporary and have caused me no considerable trouble ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... Skimmer—set golden hopes before his imagination; set gold itself before his eyes, and you will prosper. I will pledge my expected earldom that he yields! Sir, these distant situations are like so many half-authorized mints, in which money is to be coined; and the only counterfeit is your mimic representative of Majesty. Ply him with golden hopes; ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... WAS having quite a time of it with the mistress of the house. In his new-found enthusiasm, he went to her at once with the word that he had decided to make a subrosa invasion of the mimic world to help out poor Flanders and to lay his hand against the prejudice and ignorance that seemed to be ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... pebbles on many a bare, tree-shaded slope along the road. "Left there from some game!" they say to one another, and drive on, satisfied. But these are no mere discarded playthings, dear ignorant travellers! They are tokens of the mimic earnest with which child-life is ever seeking to sober itself, and rushing unsummoned into the workaday fields of an aimlessly frantic world. They are houses, and the stone boundaries are walls. This tree stump is an armchair, this board a velvet sofa. Not more truly ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown

... in the winters left behind, Again our ancient games had place, The mimic picture's breathing grace, And dance ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris

... are the most common: [414] the former two begging only from the castes from which they take their name. In Gujarat they appear to be principally Muhammadans. Sir D. Ibbetson says of them: [415] "The name is derived from the Sanskrit bahu, many, and rupa, form, and denotes an actor, a mimic or one who assumes many forms or characters. One of their favourite devices is to ask for money, and when it is refused to ask that it may be given if the Bahrupia succeeds in deceiving the person who refused it. Some days later the Bahrupia will again visit the house in the disguise ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... as old and young looked silently at this little picture of a great and noble struggle in one of its dark hours. The crust, the wounded feet, the rags, the snow, the loneliness, the indomitable courage and endurance of these men touched the hearts of all, for the mimic scene grew real for a moment; and, when a child's voice broke the silence, asking pitifully, "Oh, mamma, was it truly as dreadful as that?" a general outburst answered, as if every one wanted to cheer up the brave fellows and bid them fight on, ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... campaign of Bonaparte, no such vast forces had been under arms. To command these required not only the divine military spark, but hardly-acquired experience. And the mimic war which the elements of European army life always affords had been wanting to educate our generals. It is not wonderful, then, that two years of fruitless campaigning was needed to teach our leaders how to utilize on such difficult terrain material equally vast in extent and ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... attention to Pantomime was the bringing over of a German, named Swartz, who had two performing dogs that could dance. They were engaged at L10 a night; and brought full houses. However, be this as it may, in the "Daily Courant," of December 20, 1717, we find him, advertising for his "Italian Mimic Scenes"—as he, for long enough, ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent



Words linked to "Mimic" :   imitate, simulate, copy, mimicker



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