"Portal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... each by separate doors; Baba led Juan onward room by room Through glittering galleries and o'er marble floors, Till a gigantic portal through the gloom, Haughty and huge, along the distance lowers; And wafted far arose a rich perfume: It seem'd as though they came upon a shrine, For all was ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... boulevard there was a gravelled driveway with a stone portal. The iron gates were thrown wide, and at his entrance Ford stood aside to let an outgoing auto-car have the right of way. Being full of his errand, and of the abstraction of a depressed soul, Ford merely remarked that there were two persons ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... accompanied these words with a gesture, beckoning the young ladies to follow her, and led the way through the second room, to the heavy wooden portal of ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... I was at River Hall. Looking up at its cheerless portal, I was amazed at first to see the outside lamp flaring away in the darkness. Then I remembered that all the other gas being out, of course this, which I had not turned off, would blaze ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... awakened terrific images in her mind, and she almost expected to see banditti start up from under the trees. At length, the carriages emerged upon a heathy rock, and, soon after, reached the castle gates, where the deep tone of the portal bell, which was struck upon to give notice of their arrival, increased the fearful emotions, that had assailed Emily. While they waited till the servant within should come to open the gates, she anxiously ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... must have been a wonder in its day. It has been restored after the original model by Quercia, who was often called Jacopo della Fonte on account of this work. He executed some sculptures in Lucca, but his masterpiece was the decoration of the great portal of the Basilica of San ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... essence, passing through death's portal, Put on nobler presence in a life immortal? Or is man but matter, that a touch ungentle, Back again may ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... insignificant reptile; Half lawyer, half actor, pert, dull, and inglorious, Obscure, and unheard of—but now I'm notorious: Fame has but two gates, a white and a black one; The worst they can say is, I got in at the back one: If the end be obtained 'tis equal what portal I enter, since I'm to be render'd immortal: So clysters applied to the anus, 'tis said, By skilful physicians, give ease to the head— Though my title be spurious, why should I be dastard, A man is a man though ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... a hill sweeping down to the Tweed; and was as yet but a snug gentleman's cottage, with something rural and picturesque in its appearance. The whole front was overrun with evergreens, and immediately above the portal was a great pair of elk horns, branching out from beneath the foliage, and giving the cottage the look of a hunting lodge. The huge baronial pile, to which this modest mansion in a manner gave birth was just emerging into existence; ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... with terraces of yellow limestone full of vines and fruit-trees; through the oak-groves of Carine and the dark Gates of Zagros, walled in by precipices; into the ancient city of Chala, where the people of Samaria had been kept in captivity long ago; and out again by the mighty portal, riven through the encircling hills, where he saw the image of the High Priest of the Magi sculptured on the wall of rock, with hand uplifted as if to bless the centuries of pilgrims; past the entrance of the narrow defile, ...
— The Story of the Other Wise Man • Henry Van Dyke
... with few exceptions, they are entirely wanting in beauty. They are built after what may be styled a Mexican mode of architecture, and consist of a series of rooms which encircle an open square or court, the access to which is through a large portal. These buildings are usually huddled together towards the centre or plaza, while, in the outskirts of the town, they are greatly scattered. The arrangement of the streets appears as if they were mere matters of accident rather than matters ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... vast and lovely cavern of the human soul, and was clothed in stately and in shining robes. It was a spirit that could not readily build itself out into the world, so large and simple it was, and had to wait long before it could find a worthy portal. It managed only to express itself partially, fragmentarily, in various transformations, till, by change, it found in the idea of the Mass for the Dead its fitting opportunity. Still, it was never entirely absent from the art of Berlioz, and in the great clear ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... night, and when I attempted to follow him thither, a knot of anxious idlers, who knew that I had just returned from the battle-fields, attempted to detain me by sheer force. I dashed rapidly up the plank walk, reached the portal, and had just vaulted into the area, when the great gates swung to, and the tattoo beat; at the same instant the sergeant of guard ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... step soon brought him to the gilded portal that formed the entrance to the splendid gardens beyond, and through the sentinel who guarded the spot he summoned an officer of the household, to whom he showed the purse, telling him that he had received it from the owner as a token of friendship, and that he had bidden him, when ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... for Wilhelmina Campbell still remembered with regret the days when their ranch had been his goal. No matter where he had been, or what desperate errand took him once more into the hills, he had headed for their ranch like a homing pigeon that longs to join its mates. The portal of her tunnel had been their trysting place, where he had boasted and raged and denounced all his enemies and promised to return with their scalps. But that was just his way, and it was harmless after all, and wonderfully exciting and amusing; but now the ranch was dead, except for ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... separate for the night, and had risen to take a formal leave of each other, when a tap was heard at the hall-door. Albert, the vidette of the party, hastened to open it, enjoining, as he left the room, the rest to remain quiet, until he had ascertained the cause of the knocking. When he gained the portal, he called to know who was there, and what they wanted at so late ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... thou think thy father would relent Because thine illness threatened thee? Ah! no, His stubborn pride would still remain unbent Though thou at Death's dark portal layedst low. His pride is greater than his love for thee, And greater even ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... glory and in good, A goodly work of Him from whom all glory And good arise: the portal pass'd—he stood Before him the young cherubs and saints hoary— (I say young, begging to be understood By looks, not years, and should be very sorry To state, they were not older than St. Peter, But merely that they seem'd a ...
— English Satires • Various
... tall vault unfold: Some vault that oft hath flung its black And winged panels fluttering back, Triumphant, o'er the crested palls Of her grand family funerals; Some sepulchre, remote, alone, Against whose portal she hath thrown, In childhood, many an idle stone; Some tomb from out whose sounding door She ne'er shall force an echo more, Thrilling to think, poor child of sin, It was the dead ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... of the Cafe des Cerises-jumelles. Once, when bound upon a night exploration in this same region, he and Blake had stopped to smile at this odd name and wonder at its origin, and finally they had passed through the portal to find that the twin cherries smiled upon doubtful patrons. The vivid memory of that night smote him now as, drawn by some unquestioned influence, he again entered the cafe, passing through a species of bar to a long, low-ceiled eating-room set with small tables. ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... Carrier, standing in the portal, with his brown face ruddy as a winter berry from the keen night air. ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... They fought on, giving ground no more than rock. Of granite mountains. Rang from side to side Spear-smitten shields. At last the Pelian lance, Sped onward by a mighty thrust, hath passed Clear through Eurypylus' throat. Forth poured the blood Torrent-like; through the portal of the wound The soul from the body flew: darkness of death Dropped o'er his eyes. To earth in clanging arms He fell, like stately pine or silver fir Uprooted by the fury of Boreas; Such space of earth Eurypylus' ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... themselves safely behind the cabin door the Negress's first thought was to barricade the portal from the inside. With this idea in mind she turned to search for some means of putting it into execution; but her first view of the interior of the cabin brought a shriek of terror to her lips, and like a frightened child ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a narrow point called Haverstroo; then comes the Seylmaker's Reach, then Crescent Reach; next Hoge's Reach, and then Vorsen Reach, which extends to Klinkersberg, or Storm King, the northern portal of the Highlands. This is succeeded by Fisher's Reach where, on the east side once dwelt a race of savages called Pachami. "This reach," in the language of De Laet, "extends to another narrow pass, where, on the west, is a point ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... to the porch, and the jasmine had been cleared away altogether. Mr. Brumley could not quite understand what was in progress; Sir Isaac he learnt afterwards had found a wonderful bargain in a real genuine Georgian portal of great dignity and simplicity in Aleham, and he was going to improve Black Strand by transferring it thither—with the utmost precaution and every piece numbered—from its original situation. Mr. Brumley stood among the preparatory debris of this ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... kitchen, and found herself in the rear of the hacienda. A hundred yards distant, she saw Pablo Artelan squatting on his heels beside the portal of his humble residence, his back against the wall. She crossed over to him, ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... wherefore let us now abandon it, and govern only by so much of God's Christian Law as—as may prove quiet and convenient for us. What is the end of Government? To guide men in the way wherein they should go: towards their true good in this life, the portal of infinite good in a life to come? To guide men in such way, and ourselves in such way, as the Maker of men, whose eye is upon us, will sanction at the Great Day?—Or alas, perhaps at bottom is there no ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... on the road to the base of Vesuvius, it appeared to me that I saw a stone which had an ancient Roman inscription upon it, and which occupied the place of a portal in the modern ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... sculptures that adorn these towers! This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers, And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers! But fiends and dragons from the gargoyled eaves Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves, And underneath the traitor Judas ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... general's dirty old hand under what he called his own fin, and led the old fellow, moaning piteously, across the street. He stopped when he came to the ancient gate, ornamented with the armorial bearings of the venerable Shepherd. "Here 'tis," said he, drawing up at the portal, and he made a successful pull at the gatebell, which presently brought out old Mr. Bolton, the porter, scowling fiercely, and grumbling as he was used to do every morning when it became his turn to let ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a Pilgrim, blindfold, When the night and morning meet, Entereth the slumbering city, Stealeth down the silent street; Lingereth round some battered doorway, Leaves unblest some portal grand, And the walls, where sleep the children, Toucheth, with his warm young hand. Love is passing! Love is passing!— Passing while ye lie asleep: In your blessed dreams, O children, Give him all your hearts ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... break open the prisons and set the prisoners at liberty—all, excepting those confined in the prisons of the vicarial court, for the castle of Capuano inspired the rebels with respect, whether because of a very large imperial eagle of Charles V fixed over the portal, or because the garrison of the old fortress, together with the sbirri, stood with lighted matches behind the crossbars, and threatened the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... or West. One wind—a gypsy seeking rest. One prayer within my heart— For all who part Upon Death's dark portal, With no hope of an immortal ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... Paste-board and Wicker, as before; The bottom of the Castle of Light Wood, and the work of Paste-board with Paper, Turrets and Battlements of a foot height, in the Portal of the Castle fasten a Line that it may come level with the Water and therefore some part of the Castle must be under Water; this Line must be fastened to the other side of the Water, or in the Water, if it be broad, and admit not the former on a Pole ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... between Napoleon and the Allies (see NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS). Brewing is carried on in the town. Brienne-la-Vieille, a village 11/2 m. south of Brienne-le-Chateau, has a church of the 12th and 16th centuries with fine stained windows. The portal once belonged to the ancient abbey of Bassefontaine, the ruins of which are situated near ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... kepis, his sword, and the honour of his cheeks. Anger and revenge reigned in his heart. But he could not do anything to gratify these feelings, because he was deprived of all coercive means. Instead, however, of prudently retiring to the portal of the Ecclesiastical Court, like Floren and Pepe le Mota, he remained in the middle of the street contemplating the battle with anxiety, and on seeing that it was going in favour of the institutions that he represented, delight ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... that being very broad, and enjoying a constant shade, it was clothed with grass of a deep and rich verdure, excepting where a footpath, worn by occasional passengers, tracked with a natural sweep the way from the upper to the lower gate. This nether portal, like the former, opened in front of a wall ornamented with some rude sculpture, with battlements on the top, over which were seen, half-hidden by the trees of the avenue, the high steep roofs and narrow gables of the mansion, with lines ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... Incompre |-hensible, Budding im |-mortal, Thrust all a |-mazedly Under life's | portal; Born to a | destiny Clouded in | mystery, Wisdom it |-self cannot Guess ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... A crowded portal this of Literature, accordingly! The haven of expatriated spiritualisms, and alas also of expatriated vanities and prurient imbecilities: here do the windy aspirations, foiled activities, foolish ambitions, ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... Thou thy people's cry, Star of the deep and portal of the sky, Mother of Him who Thee from nothing made, Sinking we strive and call to Thee for aid. Oh, by that joy which Gabriel brought to Thee, Thou Virgin first and last, let us ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... length he stood free in the court-yard, and looking up to the tower, saw a signal made with a handkerchief from the window. Nothing doubting that it was his antagonist, he paused, expecting him. But it was Mary Avenel, who glided like a spirit from under the low and rugged portal. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... occupied the open square lying between the great Cathedral of Ste. Marie and the College of the Jesuits. The latter, a vast edifice, occupied one side of the square. Through its wide portal a glimpse was had of the gardens and broad avenues of ancient trees, sacred to the meditation and quiet exercises of the reverend fathers, who walked about in pairs, according to the rule of their order, which rarely permitted ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... stanza of the "Lay" Scott repeats the line which occurs so often in "Christabel"—"Jesu Maria shield her well!" In the same poem, the passage where the Lady Margaret steals out of Branksome Tower at dawn to meet her lover in the wood, gliding down the secret stair and passing the bloodhound at the portal, will remind all readers of "Christabel." The dialogue between the river and mountain spirits will perhaps remind them of the ghostly antiphonies which the "Mariner" hears in ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... strip of blue sky, but trailing plants reaching far downward from window-sills, one above the other, light up the gloom with many a patch of vivid green. You venture down some dim passage and come suddenly upon a little court where an old Gothic portal with quaint sculptures, or a Renaissance doorway with armorial bearings carved over the lintel, bears testimony to the grandeur and wealth of those who once lived in the now grimy, dilapidated, poverty-stricken mansion. Pretentious dwellings ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... elected officials, from whom there is no escape, outside of whom is no livelihood and to whom all men must bow! Democracy, let us grant it, is the best system of government as yet operative in this world of sin. Beside autocratic kingship it shines with a white light; it is obviously the portal of the future. But we know it now too ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... a series of flashes of colored light from the tube—two red, three green, and two blue. The colors were the combination to the light-activated mechanism of the lock. At the last of the blue flashes there was a whirring of hidden mechanism and the portal swung ...
— The Cavern of the Shining Ones • Hal K. Wells
... this Soul, naturally good in Adolescence, is obedient, but also gentle; which is the other thing necessary in this age to make a good entrance through the portal of Youth. ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... outside, on the reef itself, a heavy swell broke with continuous roar. To get involved in those giant breakers would have been destruction to the raft, and probably death to most of those on board. One narrow opening, marked by a few shrubs and palms on either side, formed the only portal to the calm lagoon. The captain himself took the steering oar, and summoned our ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... before the prophet the walls alone repelled. The terrace was a garden in which were lilies and sentries. For entrance there was a portal of red porphyry, above which was a balcony hemmed by a balustrade ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... had come to be the portal through which I stepped from safety into meddling. Yet I opened it now with laughter peeping from my sleeve. To bait the Englishman in Huron seemed a good-natured enough jest, and full ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... of the final portal I happened to meet a student actually carrying his own portmanteau—and rather tugging at it. I regretted this chance. The spectacle clashed, and ought to have been contrary to etiquette. That student should in propriety ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... which and the Canadians there is no kindness lost. But the looks of the passers-by corroborated him, and as for the little houses, open-doored beside the way, with the pleasant faces at window and portal, they were miracles of picturesqueness and cleanliness. From each the owner's slim domain, narrowing at every successive division among the abundant generations, runs back to hill or river in well-defined ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... in my garth a goodly olive grew; Thick was the noble leafage of its prime, And like a carven column rose the trunk. This tree about I built my chamber walls, Laying great stone on stone, and roofed them well, And in the portal set a comely door, Stout-hinged and tightly closing. Then with axe I lopped the leafy olive's branching head, And hewed the bole to four-square shapeliness, And smoothed it, craftsmanlike, and grooved and pierced, Making the rooted timber, where it grew, A corner of my couch. Labouring on, I fashioned ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... triumphal car, declared your intention to light a fire beneath and have the finest stew in all England? The castle is a stern place, perhaps; but how can I ever think it grim, with such a jolly old flatterer as you stationed at its portal? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... marble stone The court with steel is floored, The portal is of ruddy gold, Twelve bears ...
— Young Swaigder, or The Force of Runes - and Other Ballads • Anonymous
... the sepulchre, his heart was ready to melt into ecstatic pathos as soon as that gallop should have been achieved. But the time for ecstatic pathos had altogether passed away before he rode in at that portal. He was then swearing vehemently at his floundering jade, and giving up to all the fiends of Tartarus the accursed saddle which had been specially contrived with the view of ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... he gathers the prayers as he stands, And they change into flowers in his hands, Into garlands of purple and red; And beneath the great arch of the portal, Through the streets of the City Immortal, Is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... they stood in silence listening for any sound from the chamber beyond, but as nothing occurred to indicate that the apartment was occupied the old man opened the portal a trifle further, and finally far enough to permit his body to pass through. Barney followed him. They found themselves in a large, empty chamber, identical in size and shape with that which they had just ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... match and passed the portal. Jack was at his heels, trying to hold the impetuous William and the equally belligerent Bobolink in check; but unable ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... the natural barrier is a gap, which, when viewed from the French valley of the Gave de Gavernie, appears like a notch made in a jaw by the loss of a single tooth, but which is in reality a magnificent and colossal portal, 134 feet wide ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... foreigner, moving carelessly the while from one shop-window to another that commanded a view of the field. At the end of half an hour, when the Count was beginning to think that the object of his solicitude was a myth, out from the broad portal of the clothing establishment came the Marquis in all his glory—more glorious, in truth, than Solomon, and more melancholy than the melancholy Jaques. And yet for an instant the Count Siccatif de Courtray was possessed by the ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... carriages, intended for the members of the French embassy. Then followed a long line of carriages, occupied by the distinguished members of the Prussian court. Slowly and solemnly this pompous procession moved through the streets, and was received at the portal of the king's palace by the royal guard. Richly-dressed pages, in advance of whom stood the grand master of ceremonies with his golden staff, conducted the French ambassador to the White saloon, where the king, in all his royal pomp, and surrounded by the ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... beautiful or wonderful. Honolulu is six days' steaming from San Francisco; Maui is a night's run on the steamer from Honolulu; and six hours more if he is in a hurry, can bring the traveller to Kolikoli, which is ten thousand and thirty-two feet above the sea and which stands hard by the entrance portal to the House of the Sun. Yet the tourist comes not, and Haleakala sleeps on in lonely ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... Caucasus, or to Hamadan. The temptation to ensure his freedom was irresistible. He clambered up the ruined wall, descended into the intricate windings that led to the Ionic fane, that served him as a beacon, hurried through the silent and starry streets, gained the great portal, and rushed ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... thy regions, World-eternal, Onward, onward, is my face; Resting spot in vain I wish for, Till in thee I find my place: Death's dark portal, Though so ...
— Favourite Welsh Hymns - Translated into English • Joseph Morris
... on January 11, in the "Malta." On the 16th, he notes in his diary,] "I was up just in time see the great portal of the Mediterranean well. It was a lovely morning, and nothing could be grander than Ape Hill on one side and the Rock on the other, looking like great lions or sphinxes on each side ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... us the story of a young girl who was in a convent in France, whose special work it was to attend the portal and keep the altar clean. The war swept over France, the battle raged near the convent, many of the soldiers were killed and a number injured. These were borne into the hospital that they might be nursed back to strength, and one of them was given to this young girl. Her nursing was successful, ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... infants and of women and of men. To me the Master good: 'Thou dost not ask What spirits these may be, which thou beholdest? Now will I have thee know, ere thou go farther, That they sinned not; and if they merit had, 'T is not enough, because they had not baptism, Which is the portal of the Faith thou holdest; And if they were before Christianity, In the right manner they adored not God; And among such as these am I myself. For such defects, and not for other guilt, Lost are we, and are only so far punished, That without ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... to whisper to Tom Hughes, who was next in the merry jumble that followed the first three precise couples, when there was a tremendous rapping at the studio door, and Hannah Ann in her treasured new hat rushed from Miss Jinny's room, where she had been in ambush, to the besieged portal. ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... private office opened and after a moment closed. It was, in fact, the private door of the private office, reserved exclusively for the use of the Managing Director of Schemes Limited. Nevertheless, a certain person had been granted the privilege of ingress and egress through that sacred portal, and Mr. Tibbetts, yclept Bones, crouching over his desk, the ferocity of his countenance intensified by the monocle which was screwed into his eye, and the terrific importance of his correspondence revealed by his disordered hair and the red tongue that followed the movements of his pen, ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... dream, must needs close his eyes that he may dream again, and is upon the portal of sleep when Roger's hand ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... builded for Aladdin, Yonder St. Mark uplifts its sculptured splendor— Intricate fretwork, Byzantine mosaic, Color on color, column upon column, Barbaric, wonderful, a thing to kneel to! Over the portal stand the four gilt horses, Gilt hoof in air, and wide distended nostril, Fiery, untamed, as in the days of Nero. Skyward, a cloud of domes and spires and crosses; Earthward, black shadows flung from jutting stonework. High over all ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... windows, and a roughly painted door to the left of the brown garden gate was the only entrance she could see. She looked for a key but without hope of finding one. She must take her chance, she thought, and a quick run brought her from the cover of the bushes to the brown portal which stood ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... work is then continued by the small intestines, where a large part of the elements of nourishment essential to life are assimilated, taken up and carried to the portal circulation, thence to the lungs and heart, and finally throughout the entire body. It is absolutely impossible for one to enjoy the possession of a high degree of vitality, or of the general good health upon which vitality depends, unless the intestinal ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... remarkable sight in Japan. It is not huge and massive, like the Buddhist temple in Kioto, the old capital of Japan. It is somewhat small, but both outside and inside it displays unusually exquisite artistic skill. Granite steps lead up to it. A torii, or portal, is artistically carved in stone, and another is so perfect that the architect feared the envy of the gods, and therefore placed one of the pillars upside down. We see carved in wood three apes, one holding his hands before his eyes, another over his ears, and the third over his mouth. ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... child! O new-born denizen Of life's great city! on thy head The glory of the morn is shed, Like a celestial benison! Here at the portal thou dost stand, And with thy little hand Thou openest the mysterious gate Into ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... shopkeepers, And Mary, sweet, gay, innocent and poor. Loud did it laugh and long. 'These peaceful folk! What place have they in my great armed world?' Then with its thunderbolts of fire it drove These saints from out their places—breaking roof, Wall, window, portal—and the great grave arch Smoked with the awful funeral smoke ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... uncertain, looking on the conflagration love had wrought. Then something of its purport seemed to frighten her, and she shrank away step by step, passing the portal of her chamber, retreating, yet facing me still, fascinated eyes ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... moonless, Parch'd the pleasant April herbage, and the lark's heart's outbreak tuneless, If you loved me not!' And I who (ah, for words of flame!) adore her, Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her— I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me, And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... home, I assure you. To me home had never been a very pleasant place on account of sister's temper, but Joe had sanctified it, and I believed in it. I had believed in the Best Parlour, as a most elegant place, I had believed in the Front Door as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State, I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment; I had believed in the forge, as the glowing road to manhood and independence. Within a single year all this was changed. Now it was all coarse and common to me, and I would not ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... portal arch he pass'd, Whose ponderous grate and massy bar Had oft roll'd back the ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... inspection served to show him that to open the portal was out of the question. The lock was a heavy one. The door itself was solid, not one with panels, and, after trying it cautiously, for Roy did not want to make a noise, he decided he ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... ventured to glance outside. By the aid of a sort of luminous dusk he distinguished at first a semicircle of walls indented by winding stairs; and opposite to him, at the top of five or six stone steps, a sort of black portal, opening into an immense corridor, whose first arches only were ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... courtly person leaves the talking mostly to his servants; occasionally he answers with much dignity; directly, seeing the Cypriote, he stops and buys some figs. And when the whole party has passed the portal, close after the Pharisee, if we betake ourselves to the dealer in fruits, he will tell, with a wonderful salaam, that the stranger is a Jew, one of the princes of the city, who has travelled, and learned the difference between the common ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... my knock upon the door, so light, And yet the sound seemed rude. My pulses beat So loud they drowned the coming of her feet The arrow of her taper pierced the gloom— The portal closed behind me. She was there— Love on her lips and yielding in her eyes And but the sea to hear our vows and sighs. She took my hand and led me up ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... out the western portal of the Tuileries, a beautiful scene greets us. We look on the palace garden, fragrant with flowers and classic with bronze copies of ancient sculpture. Beyond this, broad gravel walks divide the flower-bordered lawns and ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... close borough, and perhaps the greatest men may be those who perish silently far away from the sacred portal. Perhaps the purest and brightest spirits are those who shrink from the turmoil of the race-course—the tumult and confusion of the struggle. The game of life is something like the game of ecarte, and it may be that the ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... portal of the palace the pope was received by his master of ceremonies, who accompanied him to his cabinet. One glance at his pale countenance had revealed to him the inutility of the condescension of the supreme ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... down, you rascal; I've been trudging on Till now I've reached the portal, where I'm going First to turn in. Boy! Boy! I ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... Francis Ist, as the Roman or Italian style is blended with the Gothic arch. The Chapel of the Sepulchre, is not uncommonly pointed out as an object of admiration. There is certainly some, handsome sculpture round the portal; but it is not this for which your admiration is required: you are told that the chapel was made in 1612, at the expence of a traveller, then just returned from Palestine, and that it offers a faithful representation of the Holy ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... expressed; and candour of spirit shone through the transparency she was, if that mild taper could be said to shine in proof of a vitality rarely notified to the outer world by the opening of her mouth; chiefly then, though not malevolently to command: as the portal of some snow-bound monastery opens to the outcast, bidding it be known that the light across the wolds was not deceptive and a glimmer of light subsists among the silent within. The life sufficed to her. She was like a marble effigy seated upright, requiring but to be ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sylvans. The whole of the building was crowned with a considerable pediment of what seemed at the first glance fanciful open work, but which examined more nearly offered in gigantic letters the motto of the house of Marney. The portal opened to a hall, such as is now rarely found; with the dais, the screen, the gallery, and the buttery-hatch all perfect, and all of carved black oak. Modern luxury, and the refined taste of the lady of the late lord, had made Marney ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... I saw her come forth from a grim portal hard by Allhallowes the Less. I knew not who it was, but I gave chase, and ere she put her foot upon the bridge, I had plucked the hood from off her pretty curls, and had kissed her soundly on both cheeks. And at that she gave me such ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... cant-hook except that it is pointed at the end. Thus it can be used either as a hook or a pike. At the same moment Shearer, similarly attired and equipped, appeared in the doorway. The opening of the portal admitted a roar of sound. The river ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... as a grand portal through which they are to enter into a palace glistening with splendor; but, lo! when they reach that portal, they see only a very low gate-way, while a hedge, thorny and high, shuts out the palace. How ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... piercing issued from Constantia's lips that it rang over the house and terrified all its inmates, who crowded to the portal, the boundary of which they dared ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... Rose who drew the blank that made her "guardian of the portal" for the first twenty minutes. At the end of that time the girls would draw again and let another poor unfortunate take ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... Hactani, which was explained to me as signifying, O God! thou knowest. And as often as they pronounce these words in remembrance of God, they expect a proportional reward[1]. Round the temple, there is always a handsome court, environed by a high wall, on the south side of which is a large portal, in which they sit to confer together; and over this portal they erect a long pole, rising if possible above the whole city, that every one may know where to find the temple. These things are common to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... the Burgundy Gate; and behold it was fast shut. At the portal stood De Gaucourt, a notable warrior, with a grim look about his mouth. The Maid saluted him courteously, and quietly bid him open the gate. But he budged ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Pan-American, architects, landscape-gardeners, sculptors, painters, and electricians, aimed first of all to create a beautiful spectacle. Entering by the Park Gateway you passed from the Forecourt, attractive by its terraces and colonnades, to the Triumphal Bridge, a noble portal, with four monumental piers surmounted by equestrian figures, "The Standard-bearers." This dignified entrance was in striking contrast with the gaudy and barbarous opening to the Paris Exposition. From the gate the whole ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... beautiful in the world; it arrests the vanishing apparitions which haunt the interlunations of life, and veiling them, or in language or in form, sends them forth among mankind, bearing sweet news of kindred joy to those with whom their sisters abide—abide, because there is no portal of expression from the caverns of the spirit which they inhabit into the universe of things. Poetry redeems from decay the visitations ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... reached, and the outmost of its untrodden streets was entered, not through towered gate or guarded rampart, but as a deep inlet between two rocks of coral in the Indian sea; when first upon the traveller's sight opened the long ranges of columned palaces—each with its black boat moored at the portal—each with its image cast down, beneath its feet, upon that green pavement which every breeze broke into new fantasies of rich tessellation; when first, at the extremity of the bright vista, the shadowy Rialto threw its colossal curve ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... took him down to Amiens, with a party of Frenchmen, to see the cathedral. Not until they found themselves actually studying the sculpture of the western portal, did it dawn on Adams's mind that, for his purposes, St. Gaudens on that spot had more interest to him than the cathedral itself. Great men before great monuments express great truths, provided they are not taken too solemnly. Adams never tired of quoting the supreme phrase of his ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... thirty minutes on Saturday night, February 8th, 1690, when the enemy entered, divided their party, waylaid every portal and began the attack with a terrible war-whoop. Maulet attacked a garrison, where the only resistance was made. He soon forced the gate, slew the soldiers and burned the garrison. One of the French officers ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... wall, and was reached by a winding, or rather rambling, stairway leading from the drawbridge, and often running round a considerable part of the wall. One or more gates in the course of this stair could be closed at pleasure. A large and imposing portal admitted the visitor to a small tower occupied by the guards, through which the real entrance was approached. This stood in the thickness of the outer wall, and was protected by another pair of gates and a portcullis, just inside which was the porter's lodge. ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... forth with a proud step from beneath the portal, I perceived, looking down from the square along the street, that there was already some commotion in the town. I saw the flowing robes of many Arabs, with their backs turned towards me, and I thought that I observed the identical gown and turban of my friend ...
— George Walker At Suez • Anthony Trollope
... city on the shore of the salt sea and came to its gate at the last of the day. The gatekeepers allowed him no admission; so he spent his night anhungered, and when he arose in the morning, he sat down hard by the portal. Now the king of the city was dead and had left no son, and the citizens fell out anent who should be ruler over them: and their words and redes differed, so that civil war was like to befal them thereupon. But it came to pass that, after long jangle, they agreed to leave the choice to ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... so before the Graham house, Lee perceived a motor car. He brought his own machine to a stop near it and cut off his engine. At the same instant the door opened in the house, where by the light shining through the portal he saw Louise's and Charlie Menocal's figures. ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd |
