Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction, and the Drama, Vol. 4: A Revised American Edition of the Reader's HandbookBrewer, Ebenezer Cobham
General
Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction, and the Drama, Vol. 4: A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook
Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham
Allusions; Fiction -- Dictionaries; Literature -- Dictionaries
The following are recognized primers:--Hill’s Logic; Spencer’s _First
Principles_; Maine’s _Ancient Law_; Lessing’s _Laocoon_; Ritter and
Preller’s _Fragmenta_; Wheaton’s _International Law_.
=Tip-tilted.= Tennyson says that Lynette had “her slender nose
tip-tilted like the petal of a flower.”--Tennyson, _Gareth and
Lynette_ (1858).
=Tiptoe=, footman to Random and Scruple. He had seen better days, but,
being found out in certain dishonest transactions, had lost grade, and
“Tiptoe, who once stood above the world,” came into a position in
which “all the world stood on Tiptoe.” He was a shrewd, lazy, knowing
rascal, better adapted to dubious adventure, but always sighing for a
snug berth in some wealthy, sober, old-fashioned, homely, county
family, with good wages, liberal diet, and little work to do.--G.
Colman, _Ways and Means_ (1788).
=Tiran´te the White=, the hero and title of a romance of chivalry.
“Let me see that book,” said the curé; “we shall find in it a fund of
amusement. Here we shall find that famous knight, Don Kyrie Elyson, of
Montalban, and Thomas, his brother, with the Knight Fonseca, the
battle which Detriantê fought with Alano, the stratagems of the Widow
Tranquil, the amour of the empress with her squire, and the witticisms
of Lady Brillianta. This is one of the most amusing books ever
written.”--Cervantes, _Don Quixote_, I. i. 6 (1605).
=Tiresias=, a Theban soothsayer, blind from boyhood. It is said that
Athêna deprived him of sight, but gave him the power of understanding
the language of birds, and a staff as good as eyesight to direct his
way. Ovid says that Tiresias met two huge serpents in the wood and
struck them with his staff, when he found himself turned into a woman,
in which shape he remained for seven years. In the eighth year,
meeting them again, he again struck them, and was changed back to a
man. Dante places Tiresias in the Eighth Chasm of the Fourth Circle of
the Lower Hell among the sorcerers, and other dealers in magic arts.
Behold Tiresias, who changed his aspect
When of male he was made female,
Altogether transforming his members.
And afterward he had again to strike
The two involved serpents with his rod
Before he could resume his manly plumes.
Dante, _Inferno_, xx. 40.
Meeting two mighty serpents in the green wood he struck their
intertwined bodies with his staff, and, oh, wonderful! he found
himself changed into a woman, and so remained for seven years. Again
he sees them, in the eighth year. “And if,” he cried, “so powerful was
the effect of my former blow, once more will I strike you!” And, the
serpents struck with the same blows, his former shape returned, and
his original nature.--Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, iii.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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