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Imitation   Listen
noun
Imitation  n.  
1.
The act of imitating. "Poesy is an art of imitation,... that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth."
2.
That which is made or produced as a copy; that which is made to resemble something else, whether for laudable or for fraudulent purposes; likeness; resemblance. "Both these arts are not only true imitations of nature, but of the best nature."
3.
(Mus.) One of the principal means of securing unity and consistency in polyphonic composition; the repetition of essentially the same melodic theme, phrase, or motive, on different degrees of pitch, by one or more of the other parts of voises. Cf. Canon.
4.
(Biol.) The act of condition of imitating another species of animal, or a plant, or unanimate object. See Imitate, v. t., 3. Note: Imitation is often used adjectively to characterize things which have a deceptive appearance, simulating the qualities of a superior article; opposed to real or genuine; as, imitation lace; imitation bronze; imitation modesty, etc.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Imitation" Quotes from Famous Books



... parts of the adornment of the women whom he knew. There in the mountains young girls did not wear them, save of the "circular" variety, designed to hold back "shingled" tresses. But from underneath a box of faded gum-drops and the store's one carton of cigars, came some of imitation tortoise-shell, gilt ornamented, of the sort old ladies sometimes stuck into their hirsute knots for mountain "doings" of great elegance, and the best of these Madge bought. Also she bought lace—great ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... in any capacity, and especially for an education, be of sober, blameless and religious behavior, that neither Indian children nor others may be in danger of infection by examples which are not suitable for their imitation. And accordingly I think it proper to let the world know there is no encouragement given that such as are vain, idle, trifling, flesh-pleasing, or such as are on any account vicious or immoral, will be admitted ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... similitude of those passages which exhibit the same thought, on the same occasion, proceeded from accident or imitation, is not easy to determine. Tickell might have been impressed with his expectation by Swift's Proposal for ascertaining the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... for he has had few opportunities for imitation—many of the characteristics of the regular soldier. He is quick to discover himself aggrieved, but is readily appeased if he feels that his officer is really doing his best for him, and that both of them are the victims of a higher power. On the other hand, he is often ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... nymphs are constantly engaged in weaving garlands there, and the swains keep such a piping on those familiar notes,—Amore, dolore, crudele, and miele. Poor little poets! they knew no other tunes. Do not now weak voices twitter from a hundred books, in unconscious imitation of the hour's ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... of the ideal—help us to see how deeply rooted this ideal is in man's mind, and afford us a standard by which to measure his approaches to the rational perfection of which he dreams. For the Life of Reason, being the sphere of all human art, is man's imitation of divinity. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... a somewhat later date still further illustrates the dependence of the work of art upon the model in Renaissance Florence. Jacopo Sansovino made the statue of a youthful "Bacchus" in close imitation of a lad called Pippo Fabro. Posing for hours together naked in a cold studio, Pippo fell into ill health, and finally went mad. In his madness he frequently assumed the attitude of the "Bacchus" to which his life had been sacrificed, and which is now his portrait. ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... air. It had two windows opening upon the garden, the walls were decorated with a paper resembling brocatelle, and cupids were painted on the ceiling. The grotesquely carved furniture was upholstered with crimson silk striped with gold. A cream-colored rug in imitation of antique Italian covered the floor. A set of Shakespeare, bound in gilded morocco lay on a lacquered table ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... in all things; he owed to nature the convenient genius of imitation without mimicry; he imitated seriously. Thus without any taste of his own, he knew how to be the first to adopt and the first to abandon a new fashion. Accused of nothing worse than spending too much time at his toilet and wearing a corset, he presented the type of those persons who displease ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... once that a swarthy-skinned man in European dress, who wore a scarlet flower in his coat, and was so perfect a type of the Asiatic that he would have passed muster for one even among a gathering of Cingalese, kept appearing and disappearing at irregular intervals, it spoke well for the powers of imitation and self-effacement possessed by Dollops that she never once thought of associating that young man with the dawdling messenger boy who strolled leisurely along with a package under his arm and patronized every bun-shop, winkle stall, and pork-pie ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... used to be called the "Attic," in imitation of the Classical nomenclature; but surely this term is incorrect, since there is a clerestory above, and the vaulting springs from it as well. On the other hand, "Triforium" pure and simple implies arcading, and the above term is adopted from ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock

... removed from the highest office in this nation when he had but just crossed its threshold was, if we may believe various and positive testimony, an example of moral and religious character worthy of universal imitation. By the consent of all parties, the late President Harrison was a good man; and now that he has gone to the judgment where there is no respect of persons, who does not feel that this is a better title than he could have won ...
— The Religion of Politics • Ezra S. Gannett

... heads and feet were made into glue, and another where bones were made into fertilizer. No tiniest particle of organic matter was wasted in Durham's. Out of the horns of the cattle they made combs, buttons, hairpins, and imitation ivory; out of the shinbones and other big bones they cut knife and toothbrush handles, and mouthpieces for pipes; out of the hoofs they cut hairpins and buttons, before they made the rest into glue. From such things as feet, knuckles, hide clippings, and sinews came such strange and unlikely ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... artist. But the book is fairly certain to be misunderstood of the people. The publishers' own announcement describes it as "perhaps chiefly for youth," a description with which I disagree. The obtuse are capable of seeing in it nothing save a bread-and-butter imitation of "The Jungle Book." The woodland and sedgy lore in it is discreet and attractive. Names of animals abound in it. But it is nevertheless a book of humanity. The author may call his chief characters the ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett

... of which was made on the spot from the club's "props" and was complete even to a practical bagpipe, which was composed of three tin horns, a penny whistle, a piece of burlap, and a rubber tobacco pouch. Both in tone and looks it was an exceedingly good imitation of the genuine article. ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 1, No. 10, October 1895. - French Farmhouses. • Various

... size, colour, and marking, invariably resemble those of the birds in whose nests she lays. Sylvia ruja, for example, lays a white egg with violet spots; Sylvia hippolais, a red one with black spots; Regulus ignicapellus, a cloudy red; but the cuckoo's egg is in each case so deceptive an imitation of its model, that it can hardly be distinguished except by the structure of ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler

... goad in beckoning fashion after he had rapped it against the post in imitation of knocking on an ox's nose to summon attention. His efforts to vault lingually over the first "double-u" excited much mirth. Even the corners ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day

... and the arrivals were astonished to see a lot of Indian toggery piled up on tables and chairs, imitation buckskin suits, feathered headdresses, bows, arrows, tomahawks, and so forth. On Merriwell's table was a full supply of Indian ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish

... "It is true"—and then he paused. Captain Blaise refilled their glasses. In courtly imitation of the Captain, Rimmle raised his and ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly

... clumsy trick, Mildred! This post-office stamp, 'New York,' is not genuine. Just look! it is a palpable cheat, an imitation made with a pen. The color did not spread, you see, as ink mixed with oil does. This letter never left this village. I never saw it before,—could not have seen it. Do you ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various

... enter the cheerful, if not elegant mausoleum, though all it contains can be seen through the windows. All the memorials of Burns, by the way, seem to be of the same tasteless style—the same wearisome imitation of the antique. The monument at Ayr, and that on Calton Hill, Edinburgh, are ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various

... personal sacrifices for the benefit of our Christian brethren. We are directed to love one another as Christ loved us. And how did Christ love us? So strong was his love that he laid down his life for us? And the apostle John says, we ought, in imitation of him, "to lay down our lives for the brethren;" that is, if occasion require it. Such is the strength of that love which we are required to exercise for our Christian brethren. But, how can this exist in the heart, when we feel unwilling to make the least sacrifice ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb

... beautiful damsels, skilled in music, singing and dancing, and in all imaginable sports and diversions. These damsels were dressed in silk and gold, and were seen continually sporting in the garden and its palaces. He made this garden with all its palaces and pleasures, in imitation of that sensual paradise, which Mahomet had promised to his followers. No man could enter into this garden, as the mouth of the valley was closed up by a strong castle, from which there was a secret entrance into the garden, which was called ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... great and small states should have equal weight in Congress. Their steadfast opposition threatened to ruin everything, when fortunately a method of compromise was discovered. It was intended that the national legislature, in imitation of the state legislatures, should have an upper house or senate; and at first the advocates of a strong national government proposed that the senate also should represent population, thus differing from the lower house only in the way in which we have seen that it ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... yet after all we are at it pretty late) are making maps for the hike in imitation of those which the officers have posted for us to study. At the Exchange can be bought contour maps of all this region, covering the whole area of the hike. These we are cutting out in squares and pasting on linen, cheese-cloth, ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French

... various things that resemble articles of food. Thus you can get excellent coffee from sorrel, and capital little bundles of rhubarb can be made by taking a rhubarb leaf and cutting the ribs into stalks. Small stones make very good imitation potatoes, and the heads of marguerite daisies on a plate will easily ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... and plunged away into the trees. The sound of the song followed him. It came to him, the last refrain, sung loudly to the laughter of the crowd, in imitation of his own voice as it used to be —it had been a different voice during this past year. He turned with headlong intention, and, as the last notes of the song and the applause that followed it, died away, threw back his head and sang out ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... her part, Christie closed with the sleep-walking scene, using the table-cloth again, while a towel composed the tragic nightcap of her ladyship. This was an imitation, and having a fine model and being a good mimic, she did well; for the children sat staring with round eyes, the gentlemen watched the woful face and gestures intently, and Mrs. Wilkins took a long breath at the end, exclaiming: "I never did see the beat of that for gastliness! ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... goblins marched to and fro persistently by half a score of Parson Wheelers in their time. Those were monstrosities, palpably of human creation and yet in the likeness of no mortal thing. The toys he offered to his people were at least shaped and coloured into dainty imitation of existing facts. So far as he helped on the substitution, he was a benefactor to all mankind. And yet, it would have been good to bare his hands and arms, and with them grasp and wrestle with the naked facts, elusive facts, despite their ruggedness. Nevertheless, he bravely ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... you know my address?' she asked, with an involuntary imitation of hauteur, made pathetic by the flush on her face and ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... understands it. There is only one great miracle, and that is the miracle of life. It is said that men adulterate coffee, even to the extent of making the bean or berry so nearly like the natural that it requires an expert to detect the fraud; but do you think an imitation ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins

... of your committing the extravagance of a lace gown! Why, you couldn't even tell the difference between imitation and real. And that pound of tea! You know you'd never have gone out and spent your last dollar and a quarter on ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... arts, for style in writing is what color is in painting; both are innate endowments, and equally magical hi their effects. Certain graces and harmonies of both may be acquired by diligent study and imitation, but only in a limited degree; whereas by their natural possessors they are exercised spontaneously, almost unconsciously, and with ever-varying fascination. Reynolds soon understood and appreciated the merits of Goldsmith, and a sincere and lasting ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... merely as the Mind which eternally contemplates Nature, without having any power whatever of determining what sort of Nature it is to be, supplies no ground for hope or aspiration—still less for worship, adoration, imitation. I suggested the possibility that from such a point of view God might be thought of as good, and the world as bad. But that is really to concede too much. A being without a will could as little be bad as he could be good: he would be simply a being ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall

... shreds, then through a sort of fanning-mill which blows away the bits of lining. Tiny pieces of iron may be present from nails or rivets; but these are easily removed by magnets. This "reclaimed" rubber is powdered and mixed with the new, and for some purposes the mixture answers very well. Imitation rubber has been made by heating oil of linseed, hemp, maize, etc., with sulphur; but no substitute for rubber is ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan

... made in imitation of the more costly gingham or other goods in which the color design is made in the weaving. It is easy to detect the imitation as the design of printed fabrics does not penetrate to the back ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson

... Rural Life. Modern Demand for Standardization. The Apartment House and the Family. New Uses of Electric Power. Certain Duties the Mother Cannot Delegate. The Mother's Compensation for Personal Service. Early Drill in Personal Habits. Early Practice in Talking, Walking, Obedience, and Imitation. Special Responsibility of the Average Mother. Women's Relation to More Formal Education. Women's Relation to Educational Agencies. The Social Value of Parental Affection. What ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... compliment, when Montcalm, turning to his guard, which in imitation of that of their enemies, pressed ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... banks of Italy, where the name began, were finance companies. The Bank of St. George, at Genoa, and other banks founded in imitation of it, were at first only companies to make loans to, and float loans for, the Governments of the cities in which they were formed. The want of money is an urgent want of Governments at most periods, and seldom more urgent than it was in the tumultuous Italian ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot

... Temples and Altars to 'em; build Golden Palaces of Love, and Castles—in the Air (interrupted her Majesty, Lucy I. smiling.) 'Gad take me (cry'd King Wou'd-be) thou dear Partner of my Greatness, and shalt be, of all my Pleasures! thy pretty satirical Observation has oblig'd me beyond Imitation.' I think your Majesty is got into a Vein of Rhiming to-night, (said Philadelphia.) Ay! Pox of that young insipid Fop, we could else have been as great as an Emperor of China, and as witty as Horace in his Wine; but let him go, like a pragmatical, captious, giddy ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... to the monkey. "He no understand your lingo, Massa Guy," observed Kallolo. "Talkee as I do, and he know what you say." On this he uttered what seemed to me to be nothing but gibberish; but Quacko, in great delight, replied in what was evidently an imitation of his master's voice. Suddenly I saw the creature gaze into the water, and then, chattering louder than ever, it threw its arms around ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston

... an ardent disciple of Voltaire and Rousseau. It was very seldom that he entered his father's house, where his opinions on religious subjects shocked and horrified his mother and sister. He lived with an entirely different set, and spent most of his time at the clubs which, in imitation of those of Paris, had sprung ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty

... became intensified a hundred-fold, "they aren't real. I'd be glad enough if they were, and would willingly sell them to cancel my indebtedness, but they are only paste, although an excellent imitation." ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... days among them he had seen one or two such gatherings. His quick wit prompted a close imitation of ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... great minuteness and detail, the weeds and blades of grass in the foreground being as distinct as if they were growing in a natural soil. A partly decayed stick of wood with the bark is likewise given in close imitation of nature. The reflection of a foot of one of the apostles is seen in a pool of water at the verge of the picture. One or two heads and arms seem almost to project from the canvas. There is great lifelikeness and reality, as well as higher ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... driven out of them by the charm of sleep, had taken refuge here among the boiling waters, and prepared to hold a frantic revel. The mad sea was a fitting field for such a guest, and the fierce sport they made together seemed designed for a mocking imitation of the stormy human passions, which convulsed the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... varnished. A light-brown linen vest, stamped with innumerable interlocked horseshoes, covered his protuberant stomach, upon which a heavy watch chain of hollow links rose and fell with his difficult breathing, clinking against the vest buttons of imitation mother-of-pearl. ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... her uncle's death, had been in receipt of a third of the annual revenues of Monte Alloro. This should have enabled her to pay her debts and put some dignity and order into her establishment; but the first year's income had gone in the building of a villa on the Piana, in imitation of the country-seats along the Brenta; the second was spent in establishing a menagerie of wild animals like that of the French Queen at Versailles; and rumour had it that the Duchess carried her imitation of her royal ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... worth understanding,' Herbert answered in his clear musical voice—'well worth understanding, Selah, especially for you, dearest. If, in imitation of obsolete fashions, you wished to read a few verses of some improving volume every night and morning, as a sort of becoming religious exercise in the elements of self-culture, I don't know that I could recommend you a better book to begin upon than the Poems and Ballads. Don't you see ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... most horrifyingly devastating fury any man there had ever seen, the frightful thing expired and Hilton said: "That was just a kind of a firecracker. Just a feeble imitation of the first-stage detonator for what we'll have to have to crack the Stretts' ground-based screens. If the skipper and I had taken time to take the ship down to the shops and really work it over we could have put on a show. Was this enough so you iron-heads are ready to listen with your ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith

... look down on the fettered and burdened wretches they were passing, as on beings of an inferior rank in the creation. Some of the negroes actually seemed to envy the caparisons of their fellow-brutes, and eyed with jealousy their glittering harness. In imitation of this finery, they were fond of thrums of many-colored threads; and I saw one creature, who supported the squalid rag that wrapped his waist by a suspender of gaudy worsted, which he turned every moment to look at on his naked ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... the coast clear? yes, I think so. Come, Susie, greedy as you are, you must take your part. You alone of all of us can cackle with the exact imitation of an old hen: get behind that tree at once and watch the yard. Don't forget to cackle for your life if you even see the shadow of a footfall. Nora, my pretty birdie, you must be the thrush for the nonce; here, take your post, watch the lawn and the front avenue. Now then, ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade

... semidependent agriculture, the frame has lost something of its stalwart vigor; with the adaptation of the white man's costume and the incomplete assimilation of his hygiene, various weaknesses and disorders have been developed; and through imitation the erstwhile luxuriant hair is cropped, and the beard, made scanty through generations of extirpation, is commonly cultivated. Although the accultural condition of the Siouan survivors ranges from the essentially primitive status of the Asiniboin to the practical civilization of ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee

... pavements. Surely it was difficult to be clean of soul there. Here it would be easy. One would tune one's lyre in accord with Nature and be as a singing palm tree beside a water-spring. She took up a little vellum-bound book which she had laid at night upon her dressing-table. It was Of the Imitation of Christ, and she opened it at haphazard and glanced down on a sunlit page. Her ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... pavements. The exquisite weather had drawn them out. Belles with their ringlets and sun-shades, and beaux with canes and curled moustaches. Irish women in tawdry finery, and ladies of color with every variety of ornament, and ridiculous imitation of fashion. Now and then a respectable-looking negro would pass, turning out of the way, instead ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... second chambers. "When the hereditary House is abolished, the demand which will be made by reactionaries for a representative second chamber must be sternly resisted. True, most nations have second chambers in imitation of our pernicious example; but there is not one of them, however constituted, whose history is not a conclusive argument against such institutions. The second chambers of Europe and America are nothing more than standing ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... compounded of body and instinct. If we were to endeavour to cultivate this instinct, we might make the animal tame and obedient. We might impress his sensitive powers, so that he might stop or go forward at our voice. We might bring him in some instances, to an imitation of outward gestures and sounds. Bat all the years of his life, and centuries of life in his progeny would pass away, and we should never be able so to improve his instinct into intellect, as to make him comprehend the affairs of a man. He would never understand the meaning of his goings in, or ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... ever been on a skunk hunt? But perhaps you have no prejudices. I had. My code of action for a skunk was, if you see a black and white animal, don't stop to admire its beautiful bushy tail, but give a good imitation of a young woman running for her life. This did not suit Nimrod. He assured me that there was no danger if we treated his skunkship respectfully, and, as I was the photographer, I put on my old clothes and meekly ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson

... a ha'p'orth o' brains in my noddle," replied Sedgett, drawling an imitation of his enemy's courteous tone. "I've come for my wife. I'm just down by train, and a bit out of my way, I reckon. I'm come, and I'm in a hurry. She shall get home, and have on her things—boxes packed, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... advantages of a neutrality, notwithstanding the intrigues of the French partisans at the court of Madrid, who endeavoured to alarm his jealousy by the conquests which the English had projected in America. The king of Sardina sagaciously kept aloof, resolving, in imitation of his predecessors, to maintain his power on a respectable footing, and be ready to seize all opportunities to extend and promote the interest of his crown, and the advantage of his country. As for the king of Portugal, he had prudently embraced the same system of forbearance; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... pickles, the dress-maker's sharp swarthy person stood out vividly between the neutral-tinted sisters. Miss Mellins was a small woman with a glossy yellow face and a frizz of black hair bristling with imitation tortoise-shell pins. Her sleeves had a fashionable cut, and half a dozen metal bangles rattled on her wrists. Her voice rattled like her bangles as she poured forth a stream of anecdote and ejaculation; and her round black eyes jumped with acrobatic ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton

... Englishman was intelligible enough, for the Spaniard, by way of reply, grasped his sword by the point and offered it to the sturdy Devonshire seaman who confronted him, and who accepted it with a very fair imitation of the bow with which the Spaniard ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... conduct and the speech will be more Christlike. We may cultivate individual graces at the expense of the harmony and beauty of the whole character. We may grow them artificially and they will be of little worth—by imitation of others, by special efforts after special excellence, rather than by general effort after the central improvement of our nature and therefore of our life. But the true way to influence conduct is to influence the springs of conduct; and to make a man's life better, the true way is ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... poetry is best designated as quaint, Poe's may most properly be characterized as fantastic. The best of it reminds one of Tennyson, not by any direct imitation of particular passages, but by its general air and tone. But he was very far from possessing Tennyson's fine ear for melody. His skill in versification, sometimes striking enough, was evidently artificial; he overstudied metrical expression and ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various

... not confound with these effusions of gratuitous folly an alteration, or imitation, planned and executed by John Dryden; although we may be at a loss to guess the motives by which he was guided in hazarding such an attempt. His reverence for Milton and his high estimation of his poetry, had already called forth the well-known ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... piece did. For it was fashioned with an imitation of an animal's head, with yellow glass eyes. The fur piece was quite long and four little legs were fastened to it. So that it is no wonder a cat, or even a boy or a girl, at first look, would take it for ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the County Fair • Laura Lee Hope

... Derry fair was established, in imitation of those with which they had been familiar in Ireland. Thither annually came all manner of horse-jockeys and pedlers, gentlemen and beggars, fortune- tellers, wrestlers, dancers and fiddlers, gay young farmers and buxom ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... is a fellow with a head like a balloon, not in size, but in contents, yes. Have you ever had a real jag on you, not the big dinner, big bottle, big cigar sort of imitation, but ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... idea that this was all going to be rather solemn if she let it be. But she was going to give her very best imitation of undiluted sunshine, the imitation she could give even when her head was splitting or when her mother had a nervous breakdown or when she was particularly romantic and curious and courageous. This brother of hers undoubtedly needed cheering up, and ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... drop down-stream, floating on the surface of the water. Then he lay down, and began to whine like a puppy in distress. As soon as Mark heard this he knew what his friend meant by playing dog, and he smiled at the capital imitation, which would have certainly deceived even him if he had not known who the ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe

... in a risen Saviour. This day we unite our words of sorrow with those of the good and great throughout Christendom, for his fame is gone over the water; his deeds will be remembered, and when the monument we build shall have crumbled into dust, his virtues will still live, a high model for the imitation of generations ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke

... "or I may go sliding down wrong and pass him," he thought. Then raising his hand, he thrust two fingers into his mouth and produced a long drawn whistle, which was a near imitation of that which would be blown by an officer to bring his men together to rally round him and ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn

... Vautrot was a handsome man and knew it perfectly. He even flattered himself on a certain resemblance to his patron, the Comte de Camors. Partly from nature and partly from continual imitation, this idea had some foundation; for he resembled the Count as much as a vulgar man can resemble one ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... following sentence is a literal imitation of the Latin accusative before the infinitive, and for that reason it is not good English: "But experience teacheth us, both these opinions to be alike ridiculous."—Barclay's Works, Vol. i, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... hand to his mouth, he gave a shrill imitation of the call "Cease fire!" and then lost his balance and fell over the chair ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss

... spent. Through all her sixteen landward gates there had set for many years a double tide of empty-handed soldiers hurrying Francewards, and of enriched and laden bands who brought their spoils home. The prince's court, too, with its swarm of noble barons and wealthy knights, many of whom, in imitation of their master, had brought their ladies and their children from England, all helped to swell the coffers of the burghers. Now, with this fresh influx of noblemen and cavaliers, food and lodging were scarce to be had, and the ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of the Ptolemies was not the nurse of a great literature, though the age was undoubtedly one of considerable literary activity. Scholastic learning and poetic imitation were rife; the rehandling of Greek masterpieces was a fashionable pastime. For serious and original composition, however, the conditions were not favourable. That the age produced no great epic was less due to the disparagement of the form indulged in by Callimachus, chief librarian ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... down at night, after his day's work, and goes out after his coal and kindling-wood, he may take off his robe, roll it up carefully, and stick it under the throne, where it will be out of sight. Nothing looks more untidy than a fat king milking a bobtail cow in a Mother Hubbard robe trimmed with imitation ermine. ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... periscopes, blankets, surgical dressings, boots, aye, and human bones—all, all things which the plow shares of coming generations would be turning up to remind man (should man ever forget) that Humanity had once been outraged by a people who, although made in the imitation of Christ, preferred to assume the ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris

... necessary to the historian he had in large measure. It is not the business of the historian to create new worlds and to people them with new races of beings. He is to Homer and Shakspeare, to Dante and Milton, what Nollekens was to Canova, or Lawrence to Michael Angelo. The object of the historian's imitation is not within him; it is furnished from without. It is not a vision of beauty and grandeur discernible only by the eye of his own mind, but a real model which he did not make, and which he cannot alter. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... prophecies predicted that we shall some day want. If there must be a British Empire, let it be British, and not, in mere panic, American or Prussian. If there ought to be female suffrage, let it be female, and not a mere imitation as coarse as the male blackguard or as dull as the male clerk. If there is to be Socialism, let it be social; that is, as different as possible from all the big commercial departments of to-day. The really good journeyman tailor does not cut his coat according ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton

... Women. Miss Juliet Stuart Poyntz, president of Barnard chapter of the College League, discussed Education and Social Progress. Mrs. Elizabeth M. Gilmer, "Dorothy Dix," in an address on The Real Reason why Women cannot Vote, gave a delightful imitation of the voice and words of a wise old negro, "Mirandy," from which the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... on account of his domestic arrangements. He was indeed a father to his flock. It was a touching sight to see the little ones gathered round the knees of this great and good man, and to note how an unconscious and affectionate imitation reflected his face in theirs. It was true that there was another side to this truly patriarchal picture. In a city of the Far West, wrote an eloquent paragraph writer, a pale face, once divinely beautiful, was often seen at the barred window of a madhouse, and ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... the girl, "here is the decorative instinct untrammeled by imitation. Individuality inherent! Unkind fate, furnishing no models, has produced originality." She walked toward the larger table for closer scrutiny just as Miss Pamela re-entered the room. A faint accent of ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... to be more simple, frugal, and austere than the Americans themselves. Brought up in the lap of luxury, he suddenly changed his whole manner of living, and his constitution bent itself to privation as well as to fatigue. He always took the liberty of freely writing his ideas to congress; or, in imitation of the prudence of the general, he gave his opinion to some members of a corps or state assembly, that, being adopted by them, it might be brought forward ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... but men's invention, but brake down also the brazen serpent (though originally set up at God's own command), when once he saw it abused to idolatry? 2 Kings xviii. 4. This deed of Hezekiah Pope Steven(522) doth greatly praise, and professeth that it is set before us for our imitation, that when our predecessors have wrought some things which might have been without fault in their time, and afterward they are converted into error and superstition, they may be quickly destroyed by us who come after them. Farellus saith,(523) ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... Water-Colour, and Chalk Drawings, Photographed and Coloured in imitation of the Originals. Views of Country Mansions, Churches, &c., taken at ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various

... the patellar reflex or "knee jerk". Let your subject sit with one leg hanging freely from the knee down. With the edge of your hand strike the patellar tendon just below the knee cap. (a) Compare the reflex movement so obtained with a voluntary imitation by the subject. Which is the quicker and briefer? (b) Apply a fairly strong auditory stimulus (a sudden noise) a fraction of a second before the tap on the tendon, and see whether the reflex response is ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... Homer was not a poet who depended upon rules, but was the cause of the rules which serve for those who are more apt at imitation than invention, and they have been used by him who, being no poet, yet knew how to take the rules of Homeric poetry into service, so as to become, not a poet or a Homer, but one who apes ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... am sent to fetch you—and to tell you that you mustn't do it." He was struggling hard to speak in his ordinary tone of voice, but failing. And his imitation of his usual fatherly manner, as he held her arm and led her along, was clumsy and laborious. He stopped moving when they reached the prostrate beech-tree, but continued to talk to her, saying the same things again ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... but Mas'r Hugh done nickname me Muggins, and every folks do that now. You know Mas'r Hugh? He done rared when he read you's comin'; do this way with his boot, 'By George, Ad will sell the old hut yet without 'sultin' me,'" and the little darky's fist came down upon the window sill in apt imitation of her master. ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... and flowers in metal, painted or burnished in the color of the objects represented. The aggregate time consumed in the manufacture of these decorations must be thousands of years. In a suspended vase I saw one boquet which was a clever imitation of nature, with the single exception of odor. The Chinese make artificial roses containing little cups ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... above her pretty arms, she mixed a cocktail in such delightful imitation of the fashionable barkeeper's dexterity that her guests were convulsed with admiration. Even Ira was struck with this revelation of a youthfulness that five years of household care had checked, but never yet subdued. He had forgotten that he had married a child. Only once, when she ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... the man Meir well. Then they could easily possess themselves of the Schem Hamphorasch (which indeed was of no use to the old knave of a rabbi), for the drawer could be known at once by the tapestry which hung before it, in imitation of the veil of the Temple. If they once had the treasure, the angel Metatron would appear to them, the mightiest of all angels, and his Highness could not only obtain his protection against the devil's magic of the sorceress of Marienfliess, but also induce ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... child of twelve years—showed great precocity and played a striking part in the performances. The mania spread to other children; and two or three married women also, seeing the great attention paid to the afflicted, and influenced by that epidemic of morbid imitation which science now recognises in all such cases, soon became similarly afflicted, and in their turn made charges against various persons. The Indian woman was flogged by her master, Mr. Parris, until she confessed relations with Satan; and others were forced or deluded into confession. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... of salvation by that strange means, are all fabulous inventions, dishonourable to the wisdom and power of the Almighty;—that the only true religion is deism, by which I then meant and now mean the belief of one God, and an imitation of his moral character, or the practice of what are called moral virtues;—and that it was upon this only (so far as religion is concerned) that I rested all my hopes of happiness hereafter. So say I now—and so help ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... exhibit, at least) another historical picture. He has mistaken altogether the nature of invention: a fine invention is nothing more than a fine deviation from, or enlargement on, a fine model: imitation, if noble and general, insures the best hope of originality. Above all, let your young friend, if he ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... was like down here two months ago, when the thermometer showed -76deg. F., and the rime hung an inch thick inside the tent, ready to drop on everything and everybody at the slightest movement. Now there is no rime to be seen; the sun clears it away. For now there is a sun; not the feeble imitation of one that stuck its red face above the northern horizon in August, but our good old acquaintance of lower latitudes, with his wealth ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... away the mist of speculation and fancy, which has bedimmed his eyes, and looks about him more hopefully and trustfully than in the days when he walked through Vanity Fair and saw how Mr. Timms, with not a penny in the bank, pinched himself to give a little dinner in imitation of a great lord who gave a great dinner, and had gold beyond his count; snobs, who wore paste jewels and cotton-backed velvet, who cursed a fellow and strutted about in imitation of noble lords, who wore real diamonds and silken velvets! mimicking the follies of ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn

... In imitation of the Astors the Goelets steadily adhered, as they have since, to the policy of seldom or never selling any of their land. On the other hand, they bought constantly. On one occasion they bought eighty lots in the block from Fifth to Sixth avenues, Forty-second ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... of my lady's jesting," said the girl, after a glance at the parchment. "'Twas written in imitation of Master Fitzwalter's hand after we had searched his house last year. Ah, poor man, who would have then imagined so hard a fate for him?" She sighed ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... remains will be deposited, the members of Congress, and all who inhabit the city, with these memorials before them, will retain his virtues in lively recollection, and make his patriotism, morals, and piety models for imitation. And permit us to add, sir, that it is not among the least of our consolations that you, who have been his companion and friend from the dawning of our national existence, and trained in the same school of exertion to effect our independence, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson

... name from the fishing-village of Findhorn, near Aberdeen, in Scotland, where the art has long attained to perfection. The haddocks are there hung up for a day or two in the smoke of peat, when they are ready for cooking, and are esteemed, by the Scotch, a great delicacy. In London, an imitation of them is made by washing the fish over with pyroligneous acid, and hanging it up in a dry place for a ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... attentively observe with what precautions a rose-bud blows and opens in the sun, and closes again at night; and he will find in all these more design, conduct, and industry than in all the works of art. Nay, what is called the art of men is but a faint imitation of the great art called the laws of Nature, and which the impious did not blush to call blind chance. Is it therefore a wonder that poets animated the whole universe, bestowed wings upon the winds, and arrows on the sun, and described great rivers impetuously running to precipitate ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon

... had taken the agency, and the agent had taken his essential twenty-two dollars and turned over to him one hundred of those notable ladders to future greatness and affluence. Lambert had them there in his imitation-leather suit-case—from which the rain had taken the last deceptive gloss—minus seven which he had sold in the course of ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... is by far the larger one. Our imitation of the emotions which we see expressed brings vividness and affective tone into our grasping of the play's action. We sympathize with the sufferer and that means that the pain which he expresses becomes our own pain. We share the joy of the happy lover and the grief of the ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg

... the reflections of light from the bright cylinder and barrel at different angles. He laid it noiselessly back, covered it over with the handkerchiefs, sat with his fingers resting on the edge of the drawer. Presently he moved uneasily, as a man—on the stage or in its amusing imitation called civilized life among the self-conscious classes—moves when he feels that someone is behind him in ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... been flattered by such an association. Scott tells us that in his youth he "devoured rather than perused" Ossian and that he could repeat whole duans "without remorse"; and, as I shall discuss later, Byron paid Macpherson the high compliment of writing an imitation of Ossian, which he published in ...
— Fragments Of Ancient Poetry • James MacPherson

... has a five-light Decorated window at its southern end, with modern tracery in imitation of the old, each light running up through the head of the window. A very fine Early English piscina, with the characteristic dog-tooth moulding, stands in the south wall. An altar occupying a position similar to the one in the north transept used to stand in this transept also, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins

... could spring up and obtain imitation in our army is a striking commentary upon the lack of intelligent supervision over the essential details of its daily operations. It affords ample justification for again calling attention to the fact that in this respect ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson

... commendable bravery, Sheldon," said the Colonel, "and I congratulate you for your spirit. Rescuing those in danger is more commendable than conducting an imitation newspaper." ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh

... had settled upon the forehead, remained there motionless. He stepped up to brush the insect away, and found that it was a part of the picture. This story has, since Holbein's time, been told of many painters,—among others, of Benjamin West. Such a piece of mere imitation should have added nothing to the reputation of a painter of Holbein's powers; but the story was soon told all over Bale, and orders were given to prevent the loss to the city of so great an artist. But Holbein had quietly gone off, furnished with letters of introduction from Erasmus, who ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... means to deceive them. The more such longings are satisfied, the more they must grow and become a craze which sharpens the feeling of dissatisfaction. This desire for superficial joys, for sensual amusements and cheap display is nothing but a suggested habit, which imitation creates in a period of waste. If a time of simplicity were to come, not only the longing for these prizes would become silent, but the prizes themselves would appear worthless. Liberate the workingman from his distrust of the present social order; let him feel deeply that his duties are ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... unsuccessful. When removed from her home and placed on the artificial wallet, the mother Thomisus obstinately refused to settle there. Can she be more clear-sighted than the Lycosa? Perhaps so. Let us not be too extravagant with our praise, however; the imitation of the bag was a ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... principle has given rise to the love tales of the Middle Ages; the Amadises, the Lancelots, the Tristans of ballad literature, whose constancy may justly be called fabulous, are allegories of the national mythology which our imitation of Greek literature nipped in the bud. These fascinating characters, outlined by the imagination of the troubadours, set their seal and ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac

... mind and delights in making herself agreeable. I wish I could describe to you this extraordinary specimen of humanity—a short little old body with an intelligent face—all her wool carefully concealed by an enormous turban, from beneath each side of which hung four black strings, looking like an imitation frisette of false curls, her odd figure enveloped in shawl and cape, rubbing her hands nervously and sinking into the floor, as it seemed, as she curtseyed to us lower than I ever saw anybody go and get up again straight. And then her conversation and ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various

... ugliness of the newborn child had vanished. Its face, which had seemed carved in the imitation of a monkey's face from half a brick, became the face of a happy and healthy baby. It seemed to see things, and sometimes it would laugh and chuckle as though it had been told a good joke. Its black hair all came off and was supplanted by a sort of down. It had no teeth. It would lie on its back ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... come, Mary wife, some time, if my strong arm can earn them. But we'll not have any silly imitation laces at our windows. They're shams, and a sham is a lie. Plain simple muslin, with as many frills and ruffles as you've the patience to keep starched and ironed—they're honest and suitable to our station. Meanwhile, is there a prettier sight at anybody's ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond

... singled him out from the whole body of English writers, because his universally-acknowledged beauties would be most apt to induce imitation; and I have treated rather on his faults than his perfections, because an essay might comprize all the observations I could make upon his faults, while volumes would not be sufficient for a treatise ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... even though his tone in addressing an inferior was elaborately affable and condescending, and theirs was always the frankness of an equal. Where they gave the sense of pure gold, he seemed like some ruder metal gilt and decorated; as if theirs were reality, his the imitation; theirs the truth, his ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Hampton Court. Probably these pictures, representing the Twelve Labours of Hercules, are beyond fresh restoration, otherwise they might presumably be cleaned and glazed to save them from disappearing completely. Laguerre is said also to be responsible for the painting of imitation windows in similar circular spaces on the south front of the Palace—imitations which are frankly hideous. The spaces would look far better if filled with plain brick or stone. Perhaps some of these spaces being occupied with practical ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold

... ne faut que le necessaire." If this speech had been made by a member of the Royal Irish academy, it would have had the honour to be noticed all over England as a bull. The honour to be noticed, we say, in imitation of the exquisitely polite expression of a correspondent of the English Royal Society, who talks of "the earthquake that had the honour to be ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... imaginary one of my own invention; but such as we may suppose a squirrel might relate, if he were endowed with reason and speech. Your good sense will suggest to you that the amiable characters herein depicted are meant as examples for imitation; and that the conduct of the vicious is to be ...
— The Adventures of a Squirrel, Supposed to be Related by Himself • Anonymous

... the cot Fanny seemed to have her suspicions excited, and she pried into everything, and soon told me that the furniture and all the things in the cot were only imitation of the things plain country people use, and were, in reality, of the best materials and wonderfully well made, and that it must have cost a lot of money to buy all these imitations of old-fashioned, poor-folksy things. Then she ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton

... Occasion of such aggravated Distress, that had Aaron or Job behaved just as she did, we must have acknowledged, that they had not sunk beneath the Dignity of their Character, nor appear'd unworthy of our Applause, and our Imitation. ...
— Submission to Divine Providence in the Death of Children • Phillip Doddridge

... repaired thither, setting off immediately after breakfast, to meet the surveyor and builder, who was to be on the spot. The house in question was one of a row just building, or built, whitened outside, in imitation of stone. It was No. 2. No. 1 was finished; but the windows still stained with the drippings of the whitewash and colouring. No. 2, the one in question, was complete; and, as the builder asserted, ready ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... Automatic actions are such as those controlling the heart-beats, digestive and intestinal movements; the contraction of the pupil of the eye from light, sneezing, swallowing, etc., are reflexes; imitation, fighting, and fear, are instincts, which capacities refer to those more subtle traits by means of which an individual becomes a good linguist, or is tactful, or gains skill in handling tools. However, there is no sharp ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion

... rabble in the streets to overawe the Estates of the Realm. William sent for Lovelace, expostulated with him strongly, and ordered the magistrates to act with vigour against all unlawful assemblies. [655] Nothing in the history of our revolution is more deserving of admiration and of imitation than the manner in which the two parties in the Convention, at the very moment at which their disputes ran highest, joined like one man to resist the dictation of the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... single mind, and await the commands of a single will. It comes, no one knows from whom—all blindly follow. In spite of the superficial differences which men find in one another under similar conditions, the powerful effect of unconscious imitation is surprisingly apparent, and under its ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... remnant, an opportunity to launch out on new projects, and to introduce many religious vagaries, which to most men were striking and, to many, were shocking. Under the banner of the "New Dispensation," he practised a varied liturgy and cultivated an unique ceremonial which seemed to be a close imitation, and almost a mockery, of some of the most sacred institutions of Christianity ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... fort. To me, at that time, Tom's fort was a great novelty. I present a photograph of it, as the knoll and rocks now appear; but the walls have mostly fallen down. I believe that the place was stormed once by a party of boys who broke down much of the light stone wall, in imitation of sieges, in ancient warfare. But that evening it was all new to me and made a lasting impression on my boyish fancy. They had a fire burning; and a row of short Pine Knot corn ears stood roasting in front ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... solid application; but I am tempted to distinguish the last eight months of the year 1755, as the period of the most extraordinary diligence and rapid progress. In my French and Latin translations I adopted an excellent method, which, from my own success, I would recommend to the imitation of students. I chose some classic writer, such as Cicero and Vertot, the most approved for purity and elegance of style. I translated, for instance, an epistle of Cicero into French; and after throwing it aside, ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon

... there was a strangeness that attracted and enchanted me. He was, as it were, now awakened from his long, visionary sleep, and he felt some what like one of the seven sleepers, or like Nourjahad,[17] in that sweet imitation of an eastern tale: Diana was gone; his friends were changed or dead, and now on his awakening I was all that he had ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

... trembled still more when he read it. There was a time when poor John had been making Platonic love to Mrs. Emmerson; when he wrote to her scores of letters, very passionate and very ill-spelt; when he called her his Laura, and made verses in imitation of Petrarch; and in the end had the courage to ask for her portrait. Mrs. Emmerson graciously smiled upon the poor lover at her feet, and while employing him to correct her verses, even granted his request for her likeness, and sent him ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... attention to this card, or described it as a new material. It has been supposed that this paper was made in Asia, but it could have been made in Europe. A paper-like fabric, made from the barks of trees, was used for writing by the Longobards in the seventh century, and a coarse imitation of the Egyptian papyrus, in the form of a strong brown paper, had been made by the Romans as early as the third century. The art of compacting in a web the macerated fibres of plants seems to have been known and practised to ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... And whenever I turn my mental telescope hitherward, trust me that one of the first figures it will descry will wear spectacles so like yours that the maker couldn't tell the difference, and shall address a Greek class in such an exact imitation of your voice, that the very students hearing it should cry, "That's he! Three ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... who could amuse himself with a hundred imitation love affairs. In his veins ran the fierce, red blood of a strong race that had ruled by the simple strength of manhood their half-wild mountain wilderness. As the tiny stream, flowing quietly through peaceful meadow, still woodland, and ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... which his hands could touch, of actions which his mind could comprehend from the mere sight of its incidents. He saw the world as the Dutch painters saw it, and he was as great a master of form, of rich and sober color, of the imitation of the outward gestures of life, and of the fashion of external things. He had the same view of humanity, and shows us, with the same indifference, the same violent ferment of life—the life of full-blooded people who have to elbow their way through the world. His sense of desire, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... our northern forests we may sometimes find growing in abundance the tiny white dwarf cornel, or bunch-berry, as its later cluster of scarlet fruit makes the more appropriate name. These miniature dogwood blossoms (or imitation blossoms, as the white divisions are not real petals) are very conspicuous against the dark moss, and many insects seem to seek them out and to find it worth while to visit them. If we look very carefully we may find that this discovery is not original with us, ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe

... which is a rare gift; for our language has no formal rules of prosody, so that in maladroit hands rhyme becomes an intolerable jingle. At the present day, however, there is a tendency to run into excessive elaboration, largely due to superficial imitation of such masters of the poetic art as Tennyson, and especially Swinburne, so that we have a copious outpouring of ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... than a resume of the eight annual messages; and it might well have been dismissed as the amiable musings of a garrulous old man. But nothing associated with the name of Jackson ever failed to stir controversy. The Whigs ridiculed the egotism which underlay the palpable imitation of Washington. "Happily," said the New York American, "it is the last humbug which the mischievous popularity of this illiterate, violent, vain, and iron-willed soldier can impose upon a confiding and credulous people." The Democrats, ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... leavings and broken meats. No man with a vestige of self-respect could continue to wait at such entertainments. And this amid the gilding and the plush and the marble-topped tables, which sickened one with their surface imitation of ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing

... new Lord Montbarry—the eldest son of his sister, Lady Barrville. Lady Montbarry could not resist telling the story of the first (and last) attack made on the virtue of Mrs. Rolland, with a comically-exact imitation of Mrs. Rolland's deep and dismal voice. Being asked by her husband what was the object which had brought that formidable person to the house, she naturally mentioned the expected visit of Miss Haldane. Arthur Barville, unusually silent and pre-occupied so far, ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... Much less ought our written language to comply with the corruptions of oral utterance, or copy that which every variation of time or place makes different from itself, and imitate those changes, which will again be changed, while imitation is employed in ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson

... the other, so that some days the number of them was quite annoying; but, though they could all produce magnificent pearls, not one of them could perform even the simplest of the tasks set them. Some turned up, too, who were mere adventurers, and tried to deceive the old king with imitation pearls; but he was not to be taken in so easily, and they were soon sent about their business. At the end of several weeks the stream of suitors began to fall off, and still there was no prospect of a ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various

... Haye with his pupil Calvi, a handsome young man, but the very copy of his master in everything. He walked, spoke, laughed exactly like him; it was the same language as that of the Jesuits correct but rather harsh French. I thought that excess of imitation perfectly scandalous, and I could not help telling De la Haye that he ought to change his pupil's deportment, because such servile mimicry would only expose him to bitter raillery. As I was giving him my opinion ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... diffuse an agreeable perfume. Their hair (which both sexes wear long) is jet black; it is badly combed, but parted in the middle, as is the custom of the sex everywhere, and kept shining by the fish-oil before-mentioned. Sometimes, in imitation of the men, they paint the whole body with a red earth mixed with fish-oil. Their ornaments consist of bracelets of brass, which they wear indifferently on the wrists and ankles; of strings of beads of different colors (they give a preference to the blue), and displayed in great profusion ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere

... She fooled us, sure, Malcolm," called back Keith, who had run on ahead to look. "It is only painted to look like a pie. But isn't it a splendid imitation?" ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston

... rare combination of mirth and prudence, such as human conduct seldom offers for our imitation. He retained his gaiete de coeur to the last; so that, with equal ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous

... sociology. The latest chapter both in sociology and in psychology to be developed in a manner that approaches adequacy is the chapter on the imitative impulse. First Bagehot, then Tarde, then Royce and Baldwin here, have shown that invention and imitation, taken together, form, one may say, the entire warp and woof of human life, in so far as it is social. The American over-tension and jerkiness and breathlessness and intensity and agony of expression are primarily social, and ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent

... in the business of money-making which Miss Anthony has expended in benefiting the race, have become millionaires, and have been held up to the rising generation as examples of energy and industry worthy of imitation. Bronzes have been erected and numerous biographies written to do them honor. Had Miss Anthony labored for herself as devotedly as she has for others, she would no doubt have received the usual reward in greenbacks; and but for the fact of her being a woman, might have had a ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... red lumps that an unshaven butcher offered, and already in the corner public there was a confused noise, with a tossing of voices that rose and fell like a Jewish chant, with the senseless stir of marionettes jerked into an imitation of gaiety. Then, in crossing a side street that seemed like grey mid-winter in stone, he trespassed from one world to another, for an old decayed house amidst its garden held the opposite corner. The laurels ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... gold," said Susanna. "A title improvised yesterday—and a title dating from 1104! The real thing, and a tawdry imitation. Go to Sampaolo, make her acquaintance, fall in love with her, persuade her to fall in love with you, marry her,—and there will be the grand old House ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... that Painting and Sculpture are concerned only with the "imitation of Nature,"—that is, with copying the forms and colors of existing things,—though so often expelled, as it were, with a pitchfork, persistently recurs, not only in popular talk, but in deliberate criticism, and in the practice of artists. There are periods when this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... collected into one Lock, and bound and plaited with Ribbons; and being thus adorned, were tied close together above the Lock, the several corners of a Kerchief, made of thin flexible plates of Gold, cut through, and engraved in imitation of Lace. In one hand she held a great Fan, of Peacock's Feathers, with a Mirror in the midst; and a handle of Gold, Emeralds, and Agate, that would have driven a Duke's-Place Jew crazy to look at; and in the other,—well, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... thrown away at sacred portals, is the sacristan, an aged gentleman in a velvet cap who has a fuller and truer pride in his fane than any of his brothers in Venice yonder. With reason too, for this basilica is so old as to make many Venetian churches mere mushrooms, and even S. Mark's itself an imitation in the matter of inlaid pavement. Speaking slowly, with the perfection of enunciation, and burgeoning with satisfaction, the old fellow moves about the floor as he has done so many thousand times, pointing out this beauty and that, above and below, without ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... he draws all the birds, so that I can recognise them; but you must know that all the Bushmen have that talent, and that their caves are full of the sketches of all sorts of animals, remarkably characteristic. The organ of imitation is very strongly developed in the Bushmen, which accounts for their talents as draftsmen, and Omrah's ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

... drawn between the Negro of 1861 and the Negro of 1961. The Civil War corresponded to the Revolution in France. It broke the fetters of the slave, and made his future a possibility. If, now, the Negro will fill out the beautiful picture in imitation of the French peasant, he must imitate him in rigid economy and in the ambition to own his own land and his own home. We do not of course advise the penuriousness of the miser, but the Negro is in little danger ...
— The American Missionary — Vol. 44, No. 4, April, 1890 • Various

... appear from, this, and from his message, that the Ex-Governor is a man of pure republican principles? He seems to consider the Marshpees as strangers, and thinks they ought to be driven to the wilds of the far West; in humble imitation of that wise, learned, and humane ...
— Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts - Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, The Pretended Riot Explained • William Apes

... of Africa near Cape Guardafui 600 years before the fleets of Solomon, and returning laden with foreign woods, rare trees, gums, perfumes and strange beasts. Here we have 1. Queen Hatasu's throne, made of wood foreign to Egypt, the legs most elegantly carved in imitation of the legs of an animal, covered with gold down to the hoof, finishing with a silver band. Each leg has carved in relief two Uroei, the sacred cobra serpent of Egypt, symbolic of a goddess. These are plated with gold. Each arm is ornamented ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird

... explore this interesting church fail to see the silver-gilt reliquary of the twelfth century that is shown to visitors who make the necessary inquiries. The richness of its enamels and the elaborate ornamentation studded with imitation gems that have replaced the real ones, makes ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home



Words linked to "Imitation" :   sham, mock-heroic, wit, charade, humour, put-on, school of thought, sendup, postiche, travesty, impersonation, philosophical system, spoof, false, mimesis, formalism, doctrine, simulated, takeoff, counterfeit, wittiness, humor, faux, echo, ism, parody, artificial, emulation, copy, pasquinade, lampoon, mockery, burlesque, fake, caricature, witticism, mimicry



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