"Portly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we caught a glimpse of a white beard and a portly black suit, of a black bonnet and a dolman that glittered with jet, of yet ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... Englishman from Crewe, who had been brought from the great London and Northwestern Railway, locally known as "The Ell-nen-doubleyou." In these remote railway circles the talk is as exclusively of matters of the four-foot way as in Crewe or Derby. There is an inspector of traffic, whose portly presence now graces Carlisle Station, who left the P.P.R. in these sad days of amalgamation, because he could not endure to see so many "Sou'west" waggons passing over the sacred metals of the P.P.R. permanent way. ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... in speech or mood, He will pass in, one traveller more; And portly Ben will smile to see The ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... the 'squire or Lady Caroline. He was a portly young man, pinched in by tight light-coloured garments. She was a lady rather past her first youth, but very handsome still, who floated about, leaving a general impression of pseudo-Greek draperies, gleaming arms and shoulders, sparkling jewellery, and equally ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... the ludicrous sometimes led to faults in his tragedies (which was not often the case), he has made us amends by the character of Falstaff. This is perhaps the most substantial comic character that ever was invented. Sir John carries a most portly presence in the mind's eye; and in him, not to speak it profanely, 'we behold the fullness of the spirit of wit and humour bodily'. We are as well acquainted with his person as his mind, and his jokes come upon us with double ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... portly abbot Murmured, "Why this waste of food? Be it changed to loaves henceforward For our ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... once, economy prevailed. Costumiers had ransacked their stock for discovery of garments not unpardonably inappropriate. The result showed a fine superiority to details of time and place. One Spanish bandit, a portly basso, figured in a surprising variety of Highland dress designed, and that locally, for a chieftain in the opera of Lucia di Lammermoor. His acquaintance with the eccentricities of a kilt being of the slightest, consequences ensued broadly humorous.—Again Dickie experienced great ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... a little circle round him, in the further drawing-room, and certainly I never saw a nobler specimen of humanity. I felt myself at once before a hero—not of war and bloodshed, but of peace and civilization; his portly and ample figure, fair hair and delicate complexion, and, above all, the benignant calm of his countenance, told of a character gentle and genial—at peace with himself and all the world; while the exquisite proportion of his chiselled and classic features, the ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... figures—Maisonneuve praying for his mission; D'Ailleboust, asking Heaven's blessing on the new shrine down at St. Anne de Beaupre near Quebec, which he had built for the miraculous {121} healing of physical ills; Dollier de Casson, priest of the wilds, manly and portly and strong, wilderness fighter for the Cross. Then the organ swells, and the chant rolls out, and till the next Fur Fair Montreal is ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... moment Tomlinson himself, imperturbable and portly, announced that dinner was served. The three descended the stairs, chatting lightly about the musical comedy witnessed overnight. It was no new revelation to Theydon that truth should prove stranger than fiction, but the trite phrase was fast assuming ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... arrived at a field where Humfrey's portly shorthorns were coming forth after their milking, under the pilotage of an old white-headed man, bent nearly double, uncovering his head as the squire touched his hat in response, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the gallery. People were standing in their seats half frightened and amused, their attention attracted by the unusual scene. A portly negress totally unconscious of the sensation she was causing, her feet keeping time to the lively strains of music, was frantically waving a red and yellow bandanna handkerchief. It was Aunt Fanny, and in a voice that could be heard all ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... corner is giving his note to an usurer. The lean and hungry appearance of this cent. per cent. worshipper of the golden calf, is well contrasted by the sleek, contented vacancy of so well-employed a legislator of this great empire. Seated at the table, a portly gentleman, of whom we see very little, is coolly sweeping off ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... visitors to the old room and its furniture. Mr Rothwell was a tall and rather portly man with a pleasant countenance, a little flushed, indicating a somewhat free indulgence in what is certainly miscalled "good living." The cast of his features was that of a person easy-going, good-tempered, ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... wrote a contemporary, "William Tuke hardly reached the middle size, but was erect, portly, and of a firm step. He had a noble forehead, an eagle eye, a commanding voice, and his ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... giving orders to his ministers; in another, he is at his devotions; on the third, at his sports, shooting hogs and deer; and on the fourth, at war, with some French officers of distinction figuring before him. He is distinguished by his portly person in all, and by his favourite light-brown dress in three places. At his devotions he is standing all in white before the tutelary god of his house, Hardeo.[15] In various parts, Krishna is represented at his sports with the milkmaids. The colours are gaudy, and apparently ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... and motherly as she was tall and portly, treated me like her own son from the moment I ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... when the American public was at liberty to file past their President and shake his hand in their might as free men and free women. Miss Willis had not been able to obtain a location near enough to the inauguration proceedings to distinguish more than the portly figure of a man, or to hear anything except the roar of the multitude. But now she was to have the chance to meet Jimmy face to face and overwhelm him with her secret. Little by little the file of visitors advanced on its passage toward the nation's representative, ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... coming, all the Boers were gathered. They are not a particularly humorous people, but this spectacle of the advance of Pereira seated on the pack-ox, a steed that is becoming to few riders, with the furious and portly Vrouw Prinsloo striding at his side and shrieking abuse at him, caused them to burst into laughter. Then Pereira's temper gave out, and he became even more ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... and stepmother to these two highly respectable dames, who would perforce have to live in her shadow. But then, of course, the Countess was a woman, and it is to be feared that even good women love to triumph over others. She, of course, could have no love for this portly old gentleman of seventy. But it is pitiful to think he was madly infatuated. The poor old man, in spite of his unromantic appearance, had warm blood in his veins and plenty of romance in his heart. At last, in spite of ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... citizens, who had been led away by the Rougons' intrigues. Their eyes ought to be opened to it. Ought not Monsieur Isidore Granoux to be seated in the mayor's arm-chair, in the place of that big portly beggar who had not a copper to bless himself with? Thus launched, the envious folks began to reproach Rougon for all the acts of his administration, which only dated from the previous evening. He had no right to retain the services of the former Municipal Council; he had been guilty ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... land to end my days." Fowler was quite an elderly man, and remarkably distinguished in appearance, clean-featured and white-haired—indeed, he had cut quite a considerable figure in certain circles on the other side. He was even taller than Carroll, and portly in spite of the sharpness of ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... his astounded charge d'affaires, reached the Commercial Bank before the messenger boys. While waiting in the balm of the spring morning for the doors to open he circumnavigated the block nine times—he counted them. Coming in on the last tack he sighted the portly form of the banker careening with dignified speed around the corner. Another instant he had crossed the mat and disappeared into his financial harbor. Mr. Strumley steered rapidly ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... lordly domain is Frank Meriwether. He is now in the meridian of life—somewhere about forty-five. Good cheer and an easy temper tell well upon him. The first has given him a comfortable, portly figure, and the latter a contemplative turn of mind, which inclines him to be lazy ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... but the wine merchant's, or, had we not better say at once, the grocer's, for our lovers could afford no rarer vintages than Tintara or the golden burgundy of Australia; and it is wonderful to think what a sense of festivity one of those portly colonial flagons lent to their little dining-table. Sometimes, I may confide, when they wanted to feel very dissipated, and were very rich, they would allow themselves a small bottle of Benedictine—and ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... to where they should dine that night, there was a knock at the door, and, Von Barwig hastened to open it. A somewhat portly, rather well-dressed, middle-aged individual entered. He was followed by another person, a tall, lantern-jawed man of the artisan type, who looked around defiantly as he ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... later, some portly persons, passing beneath the lofty window, espied the parrot perched upon the sill and heard it speak the poet's line. Breathless with amazement, they stopped and cried out: "What a ...
— A Book Without A Title • George Jean Nathan
... southward Gaelic or the lowlands of Air. The world was no longer dreaming but stark awake, all but the sea and the lapsing bays and the brown floating hills. Town Inneraora bustled to its marge. Here was merchandise, here the pack and the bale; snuffy men in perukes, knee-breeched and portly, came and piped in high English, managing the ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... he saw that it was a covered wagon with four wheels, such as is often to be met in New England towns. The man who held the reins was of large frame and portly, with dark hair and whiskers. He might be ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... hammock," as he called it, in the Corner Room. I have always regarded Jack as the finest-looking sailor that ever sailed. He is gray now, but as handsome as he was a quarter of a century ago—nay, handsomer. A portly, cheery, well-built figure of a broad-shouldered man, with a frank smile, a brilliant dark eye, and a rich dark eyebrow. I remember those under darker hair, and they look all the better for their silver setting. He has been wherever his Union namesake flies, has Jack, and I have met old shipmates ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... who was assigned to the command of the Third brigade, was active in encouraging his men to provide good quarters, and in furnishing every facility in his power to make them comfortable. The general was a portly gentleman, with light red hair and whiskers, and a small blue eye, ceremonious in his style, and a perfect pattern of courtliness. He had, at West Point, won the appellation of "Beau Neill," a title ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... well-groomed Englishman; Franz Josef of Austria—I've not met him since 1903, when our carriage wheels locked and he, a lovable old man, gallantly saluted my companion—he is everything but kingly; the late King Edward when at Marienbad was very much the portly type of middle-aged man you meet in Wall Street at three o'clock in the afternoon; while William II of Wuertemberg is a pleasant gentleman, with "merchant" written over him. It is true he is an excellent man of affairs, harder working than any of his countrymen. ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... the horn and the shouts of the children, he clambered forward to the platform, bobbing to right and left, and tweaking the ears of those he passed. Long, yellow rope hair hung down from under a round, scarlet cap, and a rope beard reached to his portly waist. Cotton snow and another kind that melted promptly in the warm room covered his shoulders and sleeves. In a gruff though merry voice that sounded above all the others, he sang out the names pinned to an armful ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... turn round, she was alarmed by hearing steps rapidly nearing her in pursuit; and, from the heaviness of the sound, concluded at once that there was more than one person close behind. It turned out, however, to be nobody but her portly, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... portraits of Falstaff: the Prince gives a picture of the "old fat man,..." that trunk of humours "... that old white-bearded Satan"; the Chief Justice gives us another of his "moist eye, white beard, increasing belly and double chin." Falstaff himself has another: "a goodly portly man, i' faith and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage." Such physical portraiture alone would convince me that there was a living model for Falstaff. But there are more obvious arguments: the other humorous characters ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... authority, who the stout gentleman was; and will never forgive himself for not having made a more resolute effort to get a full sight of him. He has anxiously endeavored to call up a recollection of what he saw of that portly personage; and has ever since kept a curious eye on all gentlemen of more than ordinary dimensions, whom he has seen getting into stage coaches. All in vain! The features he had caught a glimpse of seem common to the whole race of stout ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... cannot help thinking how well it would suit the block. These cursed executions! One cannot get them out of one's head. When the lads are swimming, and I chance to see a naked back, I think forthwith of the dozens I have seen beaten with rods. If I meet a portly gentleman, I fancy I already see him roasting at the stake. At night, in my dreams, I am tortured in every limb; one cannot have a single hour's enjoyment; all merriment and fun have long been forgotten. These terrible images seem burnt in ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... herself beyond question by allusion to family matters and by displaying the scar of a burn upon her left arm, received while making tomato catsup upon earth. Then came successively a child whom none present recognized, a French Canadian who could not talk English, and a portly gentleman who introduced himself as William King, first Governor of Maine. These in turn reentered the cabinet and were seen ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... Flood clasping his hands in rest across his portly person. "I guess squaw is same as any other woman in one respect. I guess she had same reason for shootin' MacDonal' as any other woman in her place would o' had," and he looked up well pleased with himself at the roomful. For a moment, there was deadly heavy silence; ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... greatly awed, and he found many suggestions of supernatural presence about the familiar room. As the fire alternately flared and faded, the warping-bars looked as if they were dancing a clumsy measure. The handle of a portly jug resembled an arm stuck akimbo, and its cork, tilted askew, was like a hat set on one side; Si fancied there was a most unpleasant grimace below that hat. The churn-dasher, left upon a shelf to dry, was sardonically ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... at the sudden winning intonations which had crept into her voice, dodged around the portly back of Mrs. Stanley and followed Beatrix out of the room. For the moment, the haughty woman had changed to a jovial, friendly girl, no more awe-inspiring than Katarina, in spite of her wonderful gown and the fluffy white thing in ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... the better," replied Camille. "I do love him—far too much for my own peace of mind. He may, perhaps, have had a passing fancy for you; for you are, you know, enchantingly fair, while I am as black as a crow; you are slim and willowy, while I have a portly dignity; in short, you are young!—that's the final word, and you have not spared it to me. You have abused your advantages as a woman against me. I have done my best to prevent what has now happened. However little of a woman you may think me, I am woman enough, my dear, not to allow a rival ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... would take sugar out of my pockets like trained horses. But they proved to be decidedly too small; they would have answered as saddle horses for English children eight years of age, or as coach horses for Tom Thumb, but I was already in the enjoyment of that athletic and portly frame for which I am famed, and which has enabled me to bear up, without bending too much under the burden, under forty consecutive years of supplying of copy. The difference between the owner and the animals was unquestionably too striking, even though the little ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... you that when I'm near a magistrate, and particularly when he's fat, and the moon's low over the hills, why, my pistols leap from my belt of their own accord, and I must snatch them with both hands lest they go flying off like rockets and explode to do a harm to that same portly magistrate." ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... smile of resignation to his will, she followed him through the vestibule into the dining-car. As they went in they met a portly man who stood aside for ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... by the appearance of the said Mr. John Morgeson, who darkened the threshold of the kitchen door, but advanced no further. I looked at him with curiosity; if he were mad, he might be interesting. He was a large, portly man, over sixty, with splendid black hair slightly grizzled, a prominent nose, and fair complexion. I did not like him, and determined not ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... Rensellaer was a nine day's wonder in New Amsterdam, for he carried a high head, looked down upon the portly, short-legged burgomasters, and owned no allegiance to the governor himself; boasting that he held his patroonship directly ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... Berenice. That portly handmaid went to Coralie's dressing-room and brought back a box of tumbled artificial flowers. The more incapable members of the party were grotesquely tricked out in these blossoms, and a crown of roses was soon woven. Finot, as high priest, sprinkled ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... carriages, holding high their aristocratic skirts as they threaded their way through the rooms where piles of carpeting and furniture of various kinds lay awaiting the shrill voice and hammer of the auctioneer, a portly little man, who felt more for the family than ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... held high in the air; he was an honest fellow, with a pleasant face, lips a trifle protruding, soft-mannered and serviceable, with a good round head, such as one likes to see on the shoulders of a friend. His eyes were blue, his complexion rubicund, his figure almost portly and well-built, his body muscular, and his physical powers fully developed by the exercises of his younger days. His brown hair was somewhat tumbled; for, while the ancient sculptors are said to have known eighteen methods of arranging Minerva's tresses, Passepartout ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... The portly man of genial aspect sitting in the corner of the bow window of the Maiden Head Inn at the High Street end of Dyott Street in the very heart of St. Giles, clapped his sleeping friend on the shoulder and shook him. The sleeper, a young man whose finely drawn features were clouded with the dregs ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... shop-worn, soiled, or with broken bindings, or some other defect. A pure, clean copy, in handsome condition without and within, commands invariably an extra price. Thus the noted Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493, a huge portly folio, with 2,250 wood-cuts in the text, many of them by Albert Duerer or other early artists, is priced in London catalogues all the way from L7.15 up to L35, for identically the same edition. The difference is ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... thing now and then, under cover of the proprieties, if only to test one's sanity. Edith and Claire, as he had suggested to Curran, might be the same person. What if Claire appeared tall, portly, resonant, youthful, abounding in life, while Edith seemed mute, old, thin, feeble? The art of the actor can work miracles in personal appearance. A dual life provided perfect security in carrying out Claire's plans, and it matched the daring ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... had been ready to "chaff" Dick Lee, or even Dab Kinzer, he knew enough to speak respectfully to the portly and business-like lady ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... perceived it slightly open, and the visage of a man peering through. In an instant afterward, this man came forth, accosted my companion by name, shook him cordially by the hand, and begged him to alight. It was Monsieur Maillard himself. He was a portly, fine-looking gentleman of the old school, with a polished manner, and a certain air of gravity, dignity, and authority which was ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... view them all—from the ornately garbed young man who came among us purveying windmills to the portly, broadclothed, gray-whiskered and forbiddingly respectable colporteur of the American Bible Society. Some day would his keen gray eye penetrate the cunning disguise; some day would he step quietly up to his man and say in low but deadly tones: "Come with me, now. Make no trouble ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... and returned him so little. Now and then, at regular periodical intervals, the head of the family would go down to Blackheath to dine and spend the night with his son Joe, the second and the favourite, where there were romping children and a portly, rosy young matron, and loud talk about City dinners, contracts, and estimates. This refreshed him, and he came home with many chuckles over the imperfections of ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... help smiling, vexed as he was. His aunt was stout and portly, and he certainly could not imagine her exerting herself sufficiently to undertake a ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... a fine spring morning," said old Humphrey, as he saw the portly form of Franklin enter the door. "I have been thinking of you much of late. I do not seem to be able to have put you out of my mind; and why should I, a fine gentleman like you, and uncommonly civil. I have something that ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... were abruptly dispelled by a gentle knock at the door; and her "Come in," was answered by a tall, portly, handsome old lady, who sailed into the room in all the conscious dignity of ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... Tallantire Sahib another, and that whosoever went a-raiding into British territory would be flayed alive. On this occasion he found the Deputy Commissioner's tents looking much as usual. Regarding himself as privileged he strode through the open door to confont a suave, portly Bengali in English costume writing at a table. Unversed in the elevating influence of education, and not in the least caring for university degrees, Khoda Dad Khan promptly set the man down for a Babu—the native ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... all the widows in the country-side!" said the Abbot. "Ho! ho! ho!" and he shook his portly sides at his ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... Father Mathew was that of a man of portly figure, rather under than above the middle height, with a handsome, pleasant face. He had a fine powerful voice, which could be heard at the furthest extremity of his gatherings, which often numbered several thousands. As he gave out the words of the pledge ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... been drinking. The threefold flush in her cheeks was compounded of youth and wine and fine cosmetic—that he could tell. She was making great amusement for the young man on her left and the portly person on her right, and even for the old fellow opposite her, for the latter from time to time uttered the shocked and mildly reproachful cackles of another generation. Merlin caught the words of a song she was ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Caledonian Railway is situated. The head of the department was styled Stores Superintendent. I thought him the most impressive looking man I had ever seen. He overpowered me; in his presence I never felt at ease. He was a big man, and looked bigger than he was; good-looking too; ruddy, portly, well-dressed and formal. An embodiment of commercial energy and dignity. In his face gravity, keenness, and good health were blended. Soon after I joined his staff he left the Caledonian to become General Manager of Young's Paraffin Oil Company, and subsequently ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... on the slopes of a range of hills. It was a wild, secluded spot, with water and good pasturage for the horses and pleasant shade for ourselves; so, after unsaddling and turning loose our horses to feed, we sat down to rest under a large tree with our backs against its portly trunk. From our shady retreat we commanded a splendid view of the country over which we had been riding all the morning, extending for many leagues behind us, and while I smoked my cigar I talked to my companion, ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... big, immobile, surly. It lined the sidewalks in the vicinity of the station and stared with curious, half-closed eyes at the portly capitalist and his party, which, by the way, was rendered somewhat imposing in size by augmentation in the shape of lawyers from Paris and London, clerks and stenographers from the Paris office, and four plain ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... river—the soil, the produce of the soil, the species of animals it bears, the birds which it feeds—and hence it was the Egyptians placed the river among their gods. They personified it as a man with regular features, and a vigorous but portly body, such as befits the rich of high lineage. Sometimes water springs from his breast; sometimes he presents a frog, or libation of vases, or bears a tray full of offerings of flowers, corn, fish, or geese. The inscriptions ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... punctilious politeness and nothing more. That is why he got out his fishing-tackle and announced that he thought he would have a try at some trout himself, and so left the ranch not much behind Baumberger. That is why he patiently whipped the Malad riffles until he came up with the portly lawyer from Shoshone, and found him gleeful over a full basket and bubbling with innocent details of this gamy one and that one still gamier. They rode home together, and together they spent the hot afternoon in the ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... was no one very near them, though in the one broad street there was a certain gentle animation, of townspeople promenading up and down in Sunday array, spectacled young officers, with slender waists and neat uniforms, swaggering about; a portly and gorgeous crier in a green uniform, ringing his bell over a departed purse; little old walnut-faced women, sitting patiently by their fruitstalls, and a band of local firemen in very baggy tunics, the smallest ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... street lamps were crosses of pale fire. The whole world was abnormal. While he brooded, Verona and Ted came in and went up to bed. Silence thickened in the sleeping house. He put on his hat, his respectable derby, lighted a cigar, and walked up and down before the house, a portly, worthy, unimaginative figure, humming "Silver Threads among the Gold." He casually considered, "Might call up Paul." Then he remembered. He saw Paul in a jailbird's uniform, but while he agonized he didn't believe the tale. It was part of the ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... life was not agreeable to his social soul; and he had got into extravagant and luxurious habits, too, having a servant at his command to run his errands, to arrange his toilets, and to cook his meal. It was rather a grand and touching sight now to see the portly and handsome gentleman painting his own boots, and broiling his own mutton chop. It has been before stated that the Chevalier had a wife, a Spanish lady of Vittoria, who had gone back to her friends, after a few months' union with the Captain, whose head she broke ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "The Cobbler" would officiate at the tea-table, those two worthies taking that duty in turn; but this evening, strange to say, whether in honour of my arrival or on account of some other weighty motive, the seat of honour at the end of the table was filled by the portly form of the ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... looking very like the moss-grown horns of the "dear departed." Roosting here, Sam began to shout for aid in every key possible to the human voice. Such hoots and howls, whistles and roars, never woke the echoes of the lonely marsh before, or scared the portly frog who resided there in ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... medium-sized, slightly portly gentleman of fifty-eight, though he did not look his age, thanks to the correct life he led. He had a military carriage, a rubicund face, a heavy mustache, keen, twinkling eyes, and a head of iron-gray hair. He ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... and portly form of Mycroft Holmes was ushered into the room. Heavily built and massive, there was a suggestion of uncouth physical inertia in the figure, but above this unwieldy frame there was perched a head so masterful ...
— The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans • Arthur Conan Doyle
... described the widow for us. He says she was "lively in disposition," and he also uses the words "buxom" and "portly." I do not like these expressions—they suggest too much, so I will none of them. I would rather refer to her as lissome and willowy, and tell how her sorrow for the dead wrapped her 'round with weeds ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... what were the books that were offered for sale? We find among the early prints of the fifteenth century religious, theological, and classical works in great abundance, and we know that the respectable and wealthy burghers of Augsburg and Strassburg were proud to fill their shelves with these portly volumes. But then German aldermen had wives, and daughters, and sons, and what were they to read during the long winter evenings? The poetry of the thirteenth century was no longer intelligible, and the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries had produced very little ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... overlooker don' let dem git married. I 'splains it dis way. He am used for to father de chillun. Him picks de portly, and de healthy women dat am to rear de portly chillen. De overlooker, he am portly man. Dem dat him picks he overlooks, and not 'low dem to marry or to go round with other nigger men. If dey do, its whippin' sho.' De massa raises some fine, portly chillen, and dey sel' some, ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... so often dim, that, even with the aid of spectacles, she failed to recognise, in the portly and mature personage who entered their cottage, the tight well-made lass, who, presuming on her good looks and flippant tongue, had so often provoked her by insubordination; and her former lover, the redoubted Lance, not being conscious that ale had given rotundity to his own figure, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... helm of the petala looked eagerly ahead at the last sloop of the line. He could see the subahdar on deck, a somewhat portly figure in resplendent costume. A small dinghy was passing between his vessel and the shore. It contained a number of servants, who had brought him his breakfast from the fort. The crews of the other vessels had prepared their ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... were mustered into one herd; no racing or hastening now, but with the gentle consideration one should extend to the dignified and portly. They moved lazily, as if conscious of their own value. Cecil, hurrying a red-and-white bullock across a little flat, was met by a glare from Murty O'Toole, and a muttered injunction to "go aisy wid 'em," followed by a remark that "clo'es like thim was only fit to go ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... superfluous yet easy means of proving the entire unreality of such a story; but Lucy, for the life of her, could not help fancying there was something in it, and at all events thought it was very pretty make-believe. So now the desire to know the history of a very portly toad, added to her habitual affectionateness, made her run to Maggie and say, "Oh, there is such a big, funny toad, Maggie! Do ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... features of that gallant cynic, Bolivar, the man who had stamped his beauty upon threegenerations, and his gaze lingered with a gentle ridicule on the blithe candour in the eyes and the characteristic touch of brutality about the mouth. Then he passed to his father, portly, impressive, a high liver, a generous young blood, and then to the classic Saint—Memin profile of Aunt Susannah, limned delicately against a background of faded pink. And from her he went on to his mother's ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... Astley's Amphitheatre, and remained amongst other lumber in the property-room, until the late destructive fire which occurred there. On that night, the wife of one of the stage-assistants—a woman of portly dimensions—was aroused from her bed by the alarm of fire, and in her confusion, being unable to find her proper habiliments, laid hold of one of these scrolls, and wrapping it around her, hastily rushed into the street, and presented to the astonished spectators an extensive back view, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various
... modest carriage attended by a guard of mounted policemen. His Honour is invariably dressed in black cloth, with the usual tall silk hat. Six feet high, with a slight stoop, broad shouldered, deep-chested, with well-developed limbs, arms rather long, the President presents a stately, burly figure, portly without obesity. When younger he was noted, as something like a Ulysses, for personal strength and prowess as well as for sagacity. Although seventy-five years old now, Mr. Krueger has still a remarkably hale bearing and an intellect of undiminished quality. His ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... of good humour who sat beside me in the person of a French Courier—best of servants and most beaming of men! Truth to say, he looked a great deal more patriarchal than I, who, in the shadow of his portly presence, dwindled down to no ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... O'Calligan's door, sitting upon the railing, he perceives the portly figure of Mr. O'Brallaghan, who is singing a song of his own composition; not the ditty which has come down to modern times connected with this gentleman's name—but another and more original madrigal. The popular ditty, we have every reason to believe, was afterwards ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... with me the influence of the system of thought called Theosophy upon one's view of all the things which are included in the term Life, I have to preface my remarks by the confession that I have not extracted my ideas from portly volumes, or indeed, engaged in any great research; and I have further to ask you to believe that what you will hear is the most unbiased statement, as far as possible, on the subjects which ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... alone: a portly genial-looking old man stood by her side, and accompanied her to the church-porch when the hymn was over. Here they both lingered a moment to shake hands with Mrs. Lister, very much to Gilbert Fenton's satisfaction. They walked along the churchyard-path ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... we could see around the furnace, and, sure enough, some one WAS asleep there. Only, it was not one of the servants; it was a portly policeman, with a newspaper and an empty plate on the floor on one side, and a champagne bottle on the other. He had slid down in his chair, with his chin on his brass buttons, and his helmet had rolled a dozen feet away. Bella had to clap her ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to visit, having heard from the Tuttle person that we were here. Cousin Egbert took her horse and she entered the hut, where to my utter amazement she at once did a feminine thing. Though from her garb one at a little distance might have thought her a man, a portly, florid, carelessly attired man, she made at once for the wrinkled mirror where, after anxiously scanning her burned face for an instant, she produced powder and puff from a pocket of her shirt and daintily powdered her generous blob ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... in danger of having his head turned by premature success, instead of being heart-sickened by long neglect and coarse rebuffs, and smothering his aspirations in a convent. In striking contrast with this pale figure is the portly and imposing one of Robert William Elliston, type of theatrical charlatans, embodiment of bombast and puffery, monarch over the realm of pasteboard, immortalized by Lamb, and surely not undeserving ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... visited in the bustling haunts of the city; and to old Van Quintem's house the bachelor Bank President made monthly pilgrimages of friendship. He was a handsome man of fifty, with long white hair, which matched beautifully with his yet ruddy cheeks, and a figure portly and full of strength. Nobody but himself knew why so eligible a man remained ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... in a portly volume on the parables, addressed "to the impartial reader," and sent "from my house in Horsley Down, Southwark, August 20. 1701," indicates with clearness and simplicity his own judgment; but, overawed by authority, seems afraid at the sound of ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... at his noblest; and the man from Honolulu had himself been drinking—drinking, we may charitably fancy, to excess. It was to your "Dear Brother, the Reverend H. B. Gage," that you chose to communicate the sickening story; and the blue ribbon which adorns your portly bosom forbids me to allow you the extenuating plea that you were drunk when it was done. Your "dear brother"—a brother indeed—made haste to deliver up your letter (as a means of grace, perhaps) to the religious papers; where, after many months, I found and read ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... honour of a presentation to the bishop, a fat and portly prelate, with good manners, and well besuiting his priestly garments. I amused myself, while we waited for the carriages, by looking over a pamphlet which lay on the table, containing the ceremonial of the veil-taking. When we rose to go, all the ladies of the highest ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... fine, portly looking jantleman, and has a vice (voice) as big as twenty; 'twould do your heart good to hear the cry of him on a stag hunt day, making the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 352, January 17, 1829 • Various
... showed Will a silhouette of his father, old Mr Groome of Earl Soham, a portly gentleman, dressed in the old-fashioned style. "Ruffles, who is this?" he asked, knowing that Will had known his father well, and thinking he would recognise it. After looking at it carefully for some time, Will said, "That's yar son, the sailor." My eldest brother at that time might be ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... a gentleman, two ladies, and a boy stepped down from the express train at a station just above the Highlands on the Hudson. A double sleigh, overflowing with luxurious robes, stood near, and a portly coachman with difficulty restrained his spirited horses while the little party arranged themselves for a winter ride. Both the ladies were young, and the gentleman's anxious and almost tender solicitude for one of them seemed hardly warranted by her blooming ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... very noble person Lord Minchampstead did look; one to whom hats went off almost without their owners' will; tall and portly, with a soldier-like air of dignity and command, which was relieved by the good-nature of the countenance. Yet it was a good-nature which would stand no trifling. The jaw was deep and broad, though finely shaped; the mouth firm set; the nose slightly aquiline; the brow of great depth and height, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... across the front lawn in a moment and round the corner of the house, the Colonel leading, Silence and I at his heels, and the portly butler puffing some distance in the rear, getting more and more mixed in his addresses to God and the devil; and the moment we passed the stables and came into view of the laundry building, we saw a wicked-looking volume of smoke pouring out of the narrow windows, and the frightened women-servants ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... cit, with taste so dead, Who never to himself hath said, "This haunch surpasses all the rest;" Whose mouth hath ne'er within him burn'd, Whene'er his footsteps he hath turn'd From home, to Guildhall's civic feast? If such there breathe, go mark him well— For him no portly paunch can swell; Large though his shop, his trade the same, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, Despite his shop, his trade, his cash, The wretch who knows not ven'son hash, Living, shall forfeit civic fame, And dying, shall descend with shame, In double death, to Lethe's pools, Despis'd ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various
... fustians for habiliments more suitable for the day and our destination— New York, to-wit, and Sunday—when forth came Tom, bedizened from top to toe in his most new and knowing rig, and looking now, to do him justice, a most respectable and portly yeoman. ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... famous Bargello relief by Donatello, of the head of the infant St. John the Baptist; and a portrait ascribed to Cornelius Jansen, which, owing to the fleurs-de-lis on the chair, passed by the name of 'the Duchess,' a portly lady of some dignity, with beautiful white hands and tapering fingers. Lady Dilke's researches, however, placed the lady as Anne Dujardin, an innkeeper of Lyons. The painter, young Karl Dujardin, unable to pay his reckoning, had settled it by marrying ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... around the relaxed, portly body he felt for the hip pocket and drew out the small revolver, then sprang ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... instant accuse portly old Imam Din of wanting to play with polo-balls. He carried out the battered thing into the veranda; and there followed a hurricane of joyful squeaks, a patter of small feet, and the thud-thud-thud of the ball rolling along the ground. Evidently the little son had been waiting outside ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... mornings, before going to my work, on the front steps, watching the baby playing on the sidewalk. This pleasantest half-hour of the day I divided between the little one and my pipe. One morning, as I sat there smoking and as the little one was toddling to and fro on the sidewalk, a portly, nice-looking old gentleman came down the street, and, as luck would have it, the baby got right in his path, and before I could get to her she tangled herself all up with the old gentleman's legs and cane. The old gentleman seemed ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... begins he had never seen them move, seemed almost to live. They had big, round, good-natured faces, that shone like so much gold. Their necks were slight and graceful, but as they developed downward toward their handsome feet the Andirons grew more portly, until finally they came to look very much like a pair of amiable sea serpents without much length. Tom's uncle said they looked like cats, with sunflowers for heads, swan necks for bodies, and very little of the cat about them save the claws. This description ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... her filial love. "I wish I could have seen him," she said; and, starting to her feet, Rose answered: "Strange I did not think of it before. We have his portrait. Come this way," and she led the half-unwilling Maggie into an adjoining room, where from the wall a portly, good-humored-looking man gazed down upon the sisters, his eyes seeming to rest with mournful tenderness on the face of her whom in life they had not looked upon. He seemed older than Maggie had supposed, ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... half afraid of wrong, Shall walk our streets, and mark the passing throng; The brawny oaf in mould herculean cast, The pigmy statesman trembling in his blast, The cumb'rous citizen of portly paunch, Unwont to soar beyond the smoaking haunch; The meagre bard behind the moving tun, His shadow seeming lengthen'd by the sun; Who forms scarce visible shall thus descry, Like flitting clouds athwart the mental ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... arrival was! Easter had been very late, so it was the last week of the vacation, and dear old Friar John's handsome face was the first thing they saw at the station, and then his father's portly form, with a tall pretty creature on each side of him, causing Babie to fall back with a cry of glad amazement, "Oh! Essie and Ellie! ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... from the next house; Dr. Crealock, rubicund and portly, leaning on his cane, to pass the word of seasonable cheer with his old friend and pastor; and with him his tiny niece to greet the grandchildren of his friend. The Doctor went with his host to the study on the second floor, where, as a Christmas custom, they would drink some Madeira, ancient of ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... who is giving the pwe and has sent us the message about it comes forward and leads us to the front courteously. He is a portly man with a dress of rich silk so stiff it would stand by itself, and a large fur cape, like those worn by coachmen in England, over his shoulders, for the evenings are sharp. In following him through the crowd ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... wished a seat. A portly, handsome gentleman brought one and seated her. "Oh, you're a jewel," said she. "Oh, no," replied he, "I'm a jeweller—I have just set the jewel." Could there have been anything ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... sideways with intent to nudge his brother Isaiah in the ribs, to call his attention to this incident as a confirmation of the history he had told the night before. He miscalculated his distance, and landed on Isaiah's portly waistcoat with such force that the milder brother grunted aloud, and, arising, demanded with indignation to know why he was thus assaulted. For a mere second Sennacherib was disconcerted, but recovering himself, he drew Isaiah on one side ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... sounded behind Jack on the creaking boards. It startled him. He had not heard a door open. But now he was confronted by a portly Italian. The man grabbed him ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... the parlour, and Grace found him standing with his back to the fire when she entered. A portly and handsome man, florid and genial, with profuse fair hair, mustache and side-whiskers. He placed a chair for her, courteously, and ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... also prepared for the struggle. But Hasdrubal, who was placed at the head of their army, was one of the usual army-destroyers whom the Carthaginians were in the habit of employing as generals; strutting about in his general's purple like a theatrical king, and pampering his portly person even in the camp, that vain and unwieldy man was little fitted to render help in an exigency which perhaps even the genius of Hamilcar and the arm of Hannibal could have no longer averted. Before ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... track of Burgess was most expedient. It would, however, endanger his friend. He determined, therefore, to venture boldly forward and, if discovered, to secure his own safety by the rapidity of his flight. On leaving a small thicket in which he had sought refuge, he discovered a tall, portly savage near by, and two others in the direction between ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... portly M.P., striking the table with his fist until the cups rattled; "that's true Yankee cleverness. You're a good sort, my child. Are they all like you ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... instant a skirt fluttered on the horizon that soft something inside of him appeared, as he expressed it, "to give way." Apart from their afflictions, he had an eye, he used to boast, for but one woman in the world, and she, thank God, was his wife. Handsome, portly, full-blooded, and slightly overfed, he had let Pussy twine him about her little finger ever since the afternoon when he had first seen her, small, trim, and with "a way with her," at the ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... panting and wide open, seemed consumed with infatuation for their persons. There were pert, gay little things that filed off, cockade in cap; there were huge ones, bursting with sensuous charms, like portly, fattened-up sultanas; there were impudent hussies, too, in coquettish disarray, on whose petals the white traces of the powder-puff could be espied; there were virtuous maids who had donned low-necked garb like demure bourgeoises; and aristocratic ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... green turf at the head of it, and on its heart a stone; but it lives, it breathes, it lurks, it will up and out when 'tis looked for least. That stockbroker, some brief summers gone, who was missed from his wonted place one settling-day! a goodly portly man, i' faith: and had a villa and a steam launch at Surbiton: and was versed in the esoteric humours of the House. Who could have thought that the Hunter lay hid in him? Yet, after many weeks, they found him in a wild ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... Bill." This joke one of kind whose exquisite flavour evaporates on paper. But House enjoyed it immensely, none more than OLD MORALITY. For an hour after, as he sat on Treasury Bench, his face from time to time suddenly suffused with genial smile, and his portly body gently shook ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... they should hear A good-night strain as well as I can dress it. Give heed! And hear a bran-new song! Join in the chorus loud and strong! [He sings.] A rat in the cellar had built his nest, He daily grew sleeker and smoother, He lined his paunch from larder and chest, And was portly as Doctor Luther. The cook had set him poison one day; From that time forward he pined away As if he had love in ...
— Faust • Goethe
... now moving up to the place of conference the slow artillery of his fair round belly and portly calves. "Butler, no—I know nothing of such a name—no Mr. Butler lives here. Go along with ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... business at his Bank till the hour of three in the afternoon, when his carriage conveyed him to a mews near the park of Fashion, where he mounted horse and obeyed the bidding of his doctor for a space, by cantering in a pleasant, portly, cock-horsey style, up ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... chair, from which as Coningsby was announced by the valet, the Lord of the house slowly rose, for he was suffering slightly from the gout, his left hand resting on an ivory stick. Lord Monmouth was in height above the middle size, but somewhat portly and corpulent. His countenance was strongly marked; sagacity on the brow, sensuality in the mouth and jaw. His head was bald, but there were remains of the rich brown locks on which he once prided himself. ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... of portly and robust figure; and it was easily seen that one leg of his ample pantaloons would have been sufficient to have made a pair for the thin limbs and meagre body ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... and the rank and file were naturally relieved by their departure. We were now among equals; the bottle passed, the conversation sped. I think I can still hear the Stennis brothers pour forth their copious tirades; Dijon, my portly French fellow-student, drop witticisms well-conditioned like himself; and another (who was weak in foreign languages) dash hotly into the current of talk with some "Je trove que pore oon sontimong de delicacy, Corot ...," or some "Pour moi Corot est le plou ...," and then, his little raft of French ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... numbed and paralyzed all sensation. Don Marzio, in form an athlete, in heart a lion, but a man of sudden, sanguine temperament, bustled up and darted out of the room with the ease of a man never burdened with a wife, with kith or kin. Donna Betta, a portly matron, also rose instinctively; but I—I never could account for the odd freak—laid hold of her arm, bidding her stay. The roar of eight hundred houses—or how many more can there be in Aquila?—all reeling and quaking, the yells of ten thousand voices in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... "Nay," said the portly wife of a merchant, "begging your pardon, this may be a fat instead of a lean sorrow. Leaves the ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... too portly woman had been in her youth a slender and elegant girl; a graceful creature though her calm and expressionless features had never been strikingly beautiful. Age had altered them but little; her face was now that of a good-looking, plump, easy-going matron, which had lost its freshness through long ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... his name. However, she did not, though Mr. Flight unfolded his rough plans for the frescoes, which were to be of virgin and child martyrs, Magdalen hesitating a little over those that seemed too legendary; while old Lady Flight, portly and sentimental, declared them so sweet and touching. After tea, they went on to the church. Just at the entrance of the porch, Vera clutched at Paula, with the whisper, "Wasn't that Wilfred Merrifield? ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... I thank you, I am as haste ordain'd me, a thing slubber'd, my sister is a goodly portly Lady, a woman of a presence, she spreads sattens, as the Kings ships do canvas every where, she may spare me her misen, and her bonnets, strike her main Petticoat, and yet outsail me, I am a Carvel ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... marble floor of the vestibule with a warlike rattle which reminded me of the Austrian officers whom I used to see, yes, and hear, stalking about the cafe's of Florence. Half a dozen surrounded him to look at and talk about the weapon. A portly, middle-aged legislator must draw it and cut and thrust, with a smile of boyish satisfaction between his grizzled whiskers, bringing the point so near my nose, in his careless eagerness, that I had to fall back upon a stronger, that is, a more distant position. Then half a dozen others ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... over wearing her favorite colors, and she could no more help getting them on becomingly than a bird can help looking graceful in its plumage. (Why should either of them try to help it?) But Flossy was not alone; there was a tall portly form, and a splendidly balanced head, resting on firm shoulders, that followed her down to the seat where the girls ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... distinctly than ever before what a beautiful thing it is to have a home—a home with which one is identified by birth, memory, and love. The sun shone bright on the stately houses of the villagers, and their portly inmates in long coats and the gayly dressed women in short skirts gave me a much more friendly greeting than usual; on every face there seemed to be a wish for my happiness, which I invariably converted into thanks to you. Gray-haired Bellin's[5] fat face wore a broad smile, and the trusty ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... and you would have been deceived, like all at the Cafe David, where no one had ever remarked the studious brow, the sardonic mouth, and the cold eyes of this old man, petted by his vices, and as calm as Vitellius, whose imperial and portly stomach reappeared in him ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... conversation with the blithe and mustachioed Earl of Belfast. To the right of them is the Marquess of Anglesey, in marine metamorphose; his face bespeaking the polished noble, whilst his dress betokens the gallant sea captain. There is the fine portly figure of Lord Grantham, bowing to George Ward, Esq.; who, in quakerlike coat and homely gaiters, with an umbrella beneath his arm, presents a fine picture of a speculator "on 'Change." To the left is Richard Stephens, Esq., Secretary to the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... at his study window from morning to night, the pair of Dutch mirrors fixed slantingly outside the window enabling him to see all the street life without being seen. After three days, his patience was rewarded by the reflected image of the portly pillar of the synagogue, and with him his little boy of six. He ran downstairs and into the street and caught up the boy in ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... story of two cousins, Dicky and Emmeline Lestrange, stranded on a remote island with a beautiful lagoon. As children, they are cared for by Paddy Button, a portly sailor who drinks himself to death after only two and a half years in paradise. Frightened and confused by the man's gruesome corpse, the children flee to another part of Palm Tree Island. Over a period of five years, they grow up and eventually fall in love. Sex ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... not at home, it seemed. Her father, Mr. Daniel Churchill, rather portly and now just a trifle red of face, met me instead. It was not an encounter for which I devoutly wished, but one which I knew it was the right of both of us to expect ere long. Seeing the occasion propitious, I plunged at once ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... powerful train, was generally assigned the missionary, who was a large, portly man; to Alec, with his beautiful fleet train, was assigned the pleasure of bringing Mrs Hurlburt, and at first Sam had the exquisite delight of tucking the robes of rich beaver around the fair young daughters from ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... is John Brown, Esq., Director of the Deptford Direct, the Stag Assurance, and Churchwarden of this parish—St. Stiff the Martyr,—a portly upright man; for had he not been so erect, to balance a "fair round belly," he would have toppled on his nose. Everybody said that he was clever, too—and, moreover, always thought so; for luck had ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... drawing a deep breath, we walked in together through the door Mr Rebble threw open, and closed behind us, when, as if through a mist, I saw the Doctor sitting at a writing-table, looking very stern and portly, the General, grey, fierce, and rather red-faced, seated a little way to the Doctor's right, with his malacca cane between his legs, and his hands, in their bright brown gloves, resting on the ivory handle, so that his arms and elbows stood ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... behind his counter one drizzling, melancholy day. Mr. Roger Morton, alderman, and twice mayor of his native town, was a thriving man. He had grown portly and corpulent. The nightly potations of brandy and water, continued year after year with mechanical perseverance, had deepened the roses on his cheek. Mr. Roger Morton was never intoxicated—he "only made himself comfortable." His constitution was ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ear to the door, he presently heard a rattling, creaking noise, as if a beam of timber, with pulley and chain, was being raised from behind the entrance. When the sound ceased the door yielded to the padre's sturdy shoulder, and there was just room to admit his portly body. Here the passage was wider, the rock evidently chiseled away by the hands of man, and on one side was an artificial chamber, blasted out of the solid rock, with a narrow door with heavy iron bolts on the outside. ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... the talk in the dining room fell flat, and looking up William Wetherell perceived a portly, rubicund man of middle age being shown to his seat by the headwaiter. The gentleman wore a great, glittering diamond in his shirt, and a watch chain that contained much fine gold. But the real cause of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... suffer the monks and civil guards, because of their want of manners," a portly lady was saying, "but now that I see of what service they are, I could almost marry one of them. I ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... principal man, was a tall, not portly, red-mouthed, and pucker-mouthed man,[61] with an unusual amount of cunning and sagacity, and exercising an unlimited popularity by his skill and reputation as a jossakeed, or seer. He had three wives, and, so far as observation went, I should judge that most of the men present ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... waited upon by a personage of imposing appearance. His broad and dignified face is ornamented with grey, well-trimmed whiskers. There is no lack of gold thread on his turban, an ample cumberbund envelopes his portly figure, and he wears canvas shoes. He left his walking-cane at the door. His testimonials are unexceptionable, mostly signed by mess secretaries; and he talks familiarly, in good English, of Members of Council. Everything is most satisfactory, and you inquire, timidly, what salary he would expect. ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA |
