"Imminence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me not that tell me so. I do not speak of flight, of fear of death, But dare all imminence that gods and men Address their dangers in. Hector is gone. Who shall tell Priam so, or Hecuba? Let him that will a screech-owl aye be call'd Go in to Troy, and say there 'Hector's dead.' There is a ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... from Justice Black's opinion in Bridges v. California[173] is pertinent: "What finally emerges from the 'clear and present danger' cases is a working principle that the substantive evil must be extremely serious and the degree of imminence extremely high before utterances can be punished. Those cases do not purport to mark the furthermost constitutional boundaries of protected expression, nor do we here. They do no more than recognize a minimum compulsion of the Bill of Rights. ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... doubt concerning the imminence of the danger. The usually red face of the outlaw was mottled purple, congested by the stimuli of liquor and passion. The thick under-lip hung slackly, quivering from time to time in the convulsive tremors of desire that ran over him. A high light ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... alike consumed with an overpowering sense of excitement. It was the thought of the battle about to be waged that filled the minds of both—the imminence of the coming struggle. As for the result, that was less a matter of concern to them. The crisis was the overwhelming consideration ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Seamen would tell us how they had left London and been engaged ere nightfall, or sailed out of Portsmouth and been yard-arm to yard-arm before they had lost sight of St. Helen's light. It was this imminence of the danger which warmed our hearts to our sailors, and made us talk, round the winter fires, of our little Nelson, and Cuddie Collingwood, and Johnnie Jarvis, and the rest of them, not as being great High Admirals with titles and dignities, but ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... blood chilled, and for a moment stopped its circulation. Then it flowed in its wonted tide, but he understood. Yahnundasis was seeing red. Like the Malay he was amuck. At any moment he might throw the glittering hatchet at the prisoner. Henry recognized the imminence of his danger, but he steeled his nerves. He saw, too, that much depended upon himself, upon the power of the spirit that radiated from his eyes. Hence, he, too, looked steadily into the eyes of Yahnundasis. He poured all his nervous strength ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... It is true that for several weeks the government had been aware that the West was agitated and that Rouerie was probably conspiring among the Royalists and nonjuring priests, but they did not appreciate the imminence of the danger. On September 3, at latest, Danton certainly heard the details of the plot from a spy, and it was then, while others quailed, that he incited Paris to audacity. This ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... views, though they deeply affected my own, I shall speak only very shortly. He was, above all, a devout man. Pure in heart, he earned the promised blessing and saw God throughout his days on earth. The fatherhood of God and the imminence of the Kingdom of Heaven were no empty words for him. But, though he was so single-minded a follower of Christ and His teachings, he was no Pharisee of the New Dispensation; the sacerdotalism of the Christian Churches was as hateful to him as the sacerdotalism ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... character, and in position, into absolute prominence in the private vision of each. There was no bond of conviction, of common idea; they were merely two adventurers pursuing each his own adventure, involved in the same imminence of deadly peril. Therefore they had nothing to say to each other. But this peril, this only incontrovertible truth in which they shared, seemed to act as an inspiration to their mental and ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... by land and sea had been his ever since he could remember; there was no hazard that he had not run, no peril which he had not dared. But now even he, the veteran of far more than one hundred fights, was grave and preoccupied when he considered the greatness, the imminence of his peril. The "Clerigo Francese" had put him in possession of the fact that Carlos Quinto was exerting all his strength for the combat which was to come; and Barbarossa was far too old a fighter, far ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... however, no Iroquois appeared, and the inhabitants began to breathe freely again. The more courageous returned to their deserted homes and farms, but the timid still clung to the blockhouse. The panic had also spread to Ville Marie,[5] and the imminence of this danger produced one of the most brilliant exploits which Canadian history records—a feat of daring closely resembling, and not surpassed by, the achievement of Leonidas in the ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... peril, insecurity, risk, exposure, imminence, impediment. Antonyms: safety, immunity, security, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... desire to dispute the assumption, nor had Diane. They stood there as people might in the imminence of the supernatural, awaiting they ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... close, glossy foliage and broken facade—it appeared unreal, portentous. The odors of the flowers, of the orange blossoms, uncoiled in heavy, palpable waves across the water, accompanied by the owl's fluctuating cry. The sense of imminence increased, of a genius loci unguessed and troublous, vaguely threatening in the ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... as she could—"What question then?"—everything in her, from head to foot, crowded it upon Charlotte that she knew. She knew too well—that she was showing; so that successful vagueness, to save some scrap of her dignity from the imminence of her defeat, was already a lost cause, and the one thing left was if possible, at any cost, even that of stupid inconsequence, to try to look as if she weren't afraid. If she could but appear at all not afraid she might appear a little ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... I have ever seen. Reform, economy, echoed backwards and forwards, the doubts, the hopes and the fears of those who have anything to lose, the uncertainty of everybody's future condition, the immense interests at stake, the magnitude and imminence of the danger, all contribute to produce a nervous excitement, which extends to all classes—to almost every individual. Until the Ministers are re-elected nobody can tell what will be done in Parliament, and Lord Grey himself ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... the hideous and repulsive stranger in her dwelling, A-ya, as was natural, raised warm objection. But when Grom had explained his purpose to her, and the imminence of the peril that threatened, she yielded readily enough, the dread of Mawg being yet vivid in her imagination. She lent herself cheerfully to the duty of caring for the captive's wounds and of helping Grom to teach him the simple speech ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... anxiously looking out for me. I started hastily from my kneeling position, but Edward still kept his arm round me; and turning to my uncle he gave him, in a few words, an account of what had occurred, of my danger, of his agony, when, from the fishing-house, he saw the imminence of that danger, of my escape through his means, of the bite which he had received as he seized on the dog, and of the manner in which I had drawn the poison from the wound. "She has done by me," he said with a voice which trembled with emotion; "she has done by me what Queen Eleanor ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... once more of his emotions, and not that agitated, pompous, and slightly ridiculous person who lately stamped over Oxford Street and stormed the Alhambra Theatre. And in order to help the excellent father of my hero back into your esteem, let me point out that the imminence and the actuality of fatherhood constitute a somewhat disturbing experience, which does not occur ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... I love you so, Virginia," he hastened to urge in extenuation of his suggested disloyalty. "I cannot see you sacrificed to his horrible mania. You do not realize the imminence of your peril. Tomorrow Number Thirteen was to have come to live beneath the same roof with you. You recall Number One whom the stranger killed as the thing was bearing you away through the jungle? Can you imagine sleeping in the same house with such a soulless thing? ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... died January 20, 1895. He never recovered from the severe shock caused by hemorrhage, after receiving the second message from his father and recorded above. He appreciated the imminence of death acutely, and struggled to complete, as he has, the narrative of his life. My daughter was not again seen by Mr. Dodd, though he received several letters from her, which were found beneath his pillow after ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... "Antony and Cleopatra," it might superficially appear that there is a glorification of lawless love; but in the action of the story their lawlessness ruins Antony's and Cleopatra's fortunes; then, with the imminence of death, their passion, escaping from the thralldom of flesh, soars into a sublimation that redeems Antony's ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... ordeal by British N.C.O.'s and officers. They had swamped their hatred and inherited bitterness in admiration. Their highest hope was that they might do as well as the British. "They're men if you like," they said. In the imminence of death, their feeling for these old-timers, who had faced death so often, amounted to hero-worship. It was good to hear them deriding the caricature of the typical Briton, which had served in their mental galleries as an exact likeness for so many years. It was proof to me that men who have endured ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... the horrors of this terrific scene, the agonised Clara preserved her consciousness. The very imminence of the danger endued her with strength to embrace it under all its most disheartening aspects; and she, whose mind had been wrought up to the highest pitch of powerful excitement by the mere preliminary threatenings, was comparatively collected under the catastrophe itself. Death, certain ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... far-sighted of the people; for they well knew that when a foreign power was called in, in such a manner, as a temporary friend and ally, it almost always became, in the end, a permanent master. The mass of the people of the city, however, were so excited by the imminence of the immediate peril, that it was impossible to impress them with any concern for so remote and uncertain a danger, and it was determined that Pyrrhus should ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Cobb, with an ability and decision that seemed to increase with the imminence of the danger, resorted to the only alternative now left him, of ordering the lower decks to be scuttled, the combings of the hatches to be cut, and the lower ports to be opened, for the free admission of ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... persons; and we all know that crises are much more apt to have a definite beginning than a definite end. We can almost always put our finger upon the moment—not, indeed, when the crisis began—but when we clearly realized its presence or its imminence. A chance meeting, the receipt of a letter or a telegram, a particular turn given to a certain conversation, even the mere emergence into consciousness of a previously latent feeling or thought, may mark quite definitely the moment of germination, so ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... asleep. The evening had been extremely sensational. The sudden departure, the rapid march, whither and for what we knew not, yet full of momentary expectation; the orders and preparations indicating the imminence of grim, perhaps ghastly work, in the night hours; the line of men, stretching beyond sight in the darkness, far from home, and, it might be, near to death, sleeping yet waiting:—the total ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... when, on their seasonal migration, the Nishinam camp for the night in the grove. They still live, and the war formula for life seems vindicated, despite the imminence of the superior life-makers, the whites, who are flooding into California from north, south, east, and west—the English, the Americans, the Spaniards, and the Russians. The massacre by the white men follows, and Red Cloud, dying, recognizes the white men as ...
— The Acorn-Planter - A California Forest Play (1916) • Jack London
... subject preoccupying both Mr. Parcher and William, their two views, though again founded upon one thought, had no real congeniality. The preoccupying subject was the imminence of Miss Pratt's departure;—neither Mr. Parcher nor William forgot it for an instant. No matter what else played upon the surface of their attention, each kept saying to himself, underneath: "This ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... taking the greatest care that they should be obeyed willingly and not through fear, being specially induced to adopt this course by the obstinate nature of the Jews, who would not have submitted to be ruled solely by constraint; and also by the imminence of war, for it is always better to inspire soldiers with a thirst for glory than to terrify them with threats; each man will then strive to distinguish himself by valour and courage, instead of merely trying to escape punishment. (55) Moses, therefore, by his virtue and the Divine command, ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... the angry-browed? The lowering imminence—the bloody eyed? Fled, as the threat of midnight, fled away, Gone, after four dark timeless ages, ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... the realm under the command of any one of lower rank than an earl. Wolsey replied that Sandys would be cheaper than an earl,[364] but the command was entrusted to the Earl of Surrey. Henry thought it unsafe, considering the imminence of a breach with France, for English wine ships to resort to Bordeaux; Wolsey thought otherwise, and they disputed the point for a month. Honours were divided; the question was settled for the time by twenty ships sailing while ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... relating to diplomacy ever before made so great a stir in the world. Its unexpectedness enhanced its effect, even in the United States, for the public had not been sufficiently aware of the shaping of this international episode to be psychologically prepared for the imminence of war. Unlike most Anglo-American diplomacy, this had been a long-range negotiation, with notes exchanged between the home offices instead of personal conferences. People blenched at the thought of war; stocks fell; ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... sank to nadir with the knowledge that he had failed ... failed the Secret Service and the Corps, failed his father, failed the Guddus, failed himself. Curiously, perhaps, at that moment the thought of failure was far more important to him than the imminence ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... through our veins. In another moment we should be dashed to a thousand fragments among the wild rocks over which they so fiercely broke. To attempt to haul off in such a sea would have consigned us to an equally certain fate. The imminence of the danger seemed to sharpen our vision. A mass of foam, which seemed to leap high up into the dark sky, lay before us. Not a moment could a boat live attempting to pass through it. On both sides we turned our ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... to the archway leading to the Dragon stables, and there he saw an ostler or oddman. Edwin, feeling the imminence of an ordeal, surreptitiously explored a pocket to be sure that the proof of the ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... there was no internal anarchy, such as prevailed in England; there was also no illusion about the imminence of war. Our politicians ought to have read the signs of the times better; but they were too intent on feeling the pulse of the electorate at home to attend to disturbing and unwelcome symptoms abroad. The causes of the war are not difficult to determine. ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... all who will in future pretend to govern men. But our first preliminary stage of it, How to deal with the Actual Labouring Millions of England? this is the imperatively pressing Problem of the Present, pressing with a truly fearful intensity and imminence in these very years and days. No Government can longer neglect it: once more, what can our Government do ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... out before the freeze-up or be compelled to abandon the steamboat and tramp out over the ice. There were irritating delays. Twice the engines broke down and had to be tinkered up, and each time there were snow flurries to warn them of the imminence of winter. Nine times the W. H. Willis essayed to ascend the Five-Finger Rapids with her impaired machinery, and when she succeeded, she was four days behind her very liberal schedule. The question that then arose was whether or not the steamboat Flora would wait for her above the Box ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... to live in co-operation and in peace.) The provision as to the fisheries had settled for the time difficult questions leading, in past days, and over and over again, to dispute, collision, and sometimes the imminence of war. The free navigation of the St. Lawrence and of Lake Michigan had removed jealousies and fostered the idea of common interests in the great waterways to the ocean, while the results of trade had been so happy that a total annual interchange of commodities of a value of nearly ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... The imminence of the peril inspired the Uzcoques with unwonted courage and energy. Jurissa Caiduch himself, forgetting any cause of dislike he might have to Dansowich, joined heart and hand in the plans formed by the pirates for the deliverance of their leader. Every man in Segna, whether young or old, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... suffered the penalty of my crime—if you had not generously given me the life that I accepted without gratitude you would not be again in the shadow and imminence of death." ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... in its languor-compelling potency. Already had Constans stopped twice to listen, and upon each occasion he had been obliged to exercise all his failing strength of body and mind to resume his forward march. If he halted again it would be forever; of that he felt perfectly assured, but neither the imminence nor the character of the peril in which he stood seemed sufficient to arouse him from his lethargy. Yet he kept on, walking with the shuffling stride of a mechanical doll; now he wavered and hesitated, as though the propelling spring had wellnigh run ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... three hundred yards the pair walked in silence; and now that terror had passed with the imminence of danger, and that no strange eyes surrounded her for which she must play a part not learned nor rehearsed, the terrible pressure which had brought Amaryllis so close to her companion was relaxed—not annihilated, but withdrawn ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... preparations, which recalled the imminence of the Sacrifice, Durtal stiffened himself and succeeded by an effort in keeping back his anxieties and overthrowing his troubles, and escaping from himself he ardently implored Our Lady to intervene so that he might, for this hour at least, ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... have to go somewhere to get work of some kind, for the little that she would get for her farm now would not keep her any time. But that was a little matter, or at least it seemed little and vague beside the imminence of Jeffrey's failure and what he would consider his disgrace. She did not know how he would take it, for during the summer she had seen him in vicious moods when he seemed capable ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... was personally directing the battle in the presence of King Victor Emmanuel and the Duke of Aosta. A Milan dispatch to The London Daily News on July 25 reported the evacuation of Goritz by the Austrian General Staff in view of the imminence of its fall. Below appears a prospective account of Italy's formidable task, written on July 1 by an Italian correspondent of The London ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... Even in the West one felt its imminence. The Republican victory had been like a slap in the face to slave-holding democracy. Its strongholds were secretly arming, mobilizing, drilling. And though Lincoln wisely held his peace—warned all the States which hummed ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... and such was the power of her love, that his, which had been put out of mind in the terror of that hour, reawoke and took the colour of her own. He too forgot the imminence of death in the warm presence of his down-trodden passion. She was in his arms as he had taken her during the firing, and he bent his head to look at her. The moonlight played upon her pallid, quivering face, and showed that in her eyes which no man could look upon and turn away. Once more—yes, ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... secretary, who had been sent for, arrived. The minister at once set before him the startling character of the papers on the table, and my story was briefly retold. Upon this there was a long consultation concerning the imminence of the crisis they suggested, and in regard to the necessity of the originals being placed as soon as possible in the hands of Mr. Adams, our able representative at the court of St. James. No one for a moment seemed to consider the documents as ...
— A Diplomatic Adventure • S. Weir Mitchell
... struggle which had there taken place had passed unnoticed; and it was not until the fugitives, rushing out into the courtyard, shouted that the keep had been captured, that the besieged became aware of the imminence ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... preserving discipline in fleets and armies;" but it was in truth his own failure to use such timely remedies, owing to the lethargy of increasing years, acting upon a temperament naturally indulgent and unapprehensive, that was largely responsible for disorders of whose imminence he had warning. From the military standpoint, the process of settlement had much the air of opera bouffe,—a consummation probably inevitable when just grievances and undeniable hardships get no attention until the sufferers break through all rules, and seek redress by force. ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... do in a new and romantic country, where the imminence of a sordid, dreary future, when the soil will raise its own people and the crop will be poor, is mercifully veiled. The future then counts little in the face of the Past—the Past with its bearded strong men of other lands, bringing their power and vigour here to be moulded and directed ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... furious assault. They found more resistance than they expected: the garrison, and the inhabitants, whom the shouts and artillery of the barbarians had at first affrighted, recovering courage through the imminence of danger, and the necessity of conquering or dying, ran upon the rampart, and vigorously repulsed the assailants; overthrowing their ladders, or tumbling their enemies headlong from them, insomuch that not a man of them entered the town, and great numbers ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... discomposed at my statement of the imminence of our danger, but never for a moment did they flinch. On the contrary, the women appeared to be a good deal more calm and composed than I was. They asked what they were to do, and when I told them, set to work quietly but expeditiously collecting ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... shivering to pieces upon her protecting armour. But there is something in having a crew of old man-of-war's men, disciplined and trained to obey orders in emergencies, and thinking of nothing else. The skipper had given his commands to his two look-out men, and in the imminence of the danger they were obeyed, for as Fitz Burnett gripped his companion's arm, involuntarily drawing him sideways in the direction of the bulwark, to make a leap for life, a sharp clear pipe, like the cry of some sea-bird, rang out twice, while ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... the very imminence of the danger restoring me to the use of my faculties. I changed ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... bow in order to watch the imminence of the great structure over their heads; to see the smokestack dip back on its hinges as they passed beneath; and to gloat over the smash of their waves against the piling of the bridge's foundation. Here Bobby was ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... individuals of all descriptions are. The only remedy is the revival of Bonaparte's system of war and plunder; and it is evident that cannot be adopted during the reign of the Bourbons."[514] Neither he nor Castlereagh doubted the imminence of the danger. "It sounds incredible," wrote the latter, "that Talleyrand should treat the notion of any agitation at Paris as wholly unfounded."[515] A plot was believed to exist, which embraced as one of its features the seizing of the Duke, and holding him ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... decline of his wife's powers very philosophically. He had been so accustomed to her prognostications of evil, and harangues on her difficulties, that he was case-hardened, and did not realize that there was actual imminence of a separation ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... or articles of war, as they might be called, to be drawn up and promulgated to the troops. One of the rules was that no body of troops were ever to retreat without first fighting, whatever the imminence of the danger might be. He also ordered that where a body of men were engaged, if any subordinate division of them, as one company in a regiment, or one regiment in a battalion, should break ranks and fly before the order for a retreat should have been given ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... heard when he stole of the fruit which was forbidden, God walking in the garden in the cool of the day—the accusing footsteps of God. His brain is staggered by an unchartered immensity in which he has no portion, which he can only watch. His individual worth to the universe is dwarfed by the imminence of the All: so nothing seems very serious which is only personal and, since all things which we apprehend must become in some sense personal, nothing is very important. The procession of human effort becomes a spectacle at ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... the populous provinces of northern China, where are many of our citizens, and of the imminence of disorder near the capital and toward the seaboard, a guard of marines was landed from the Boston and stationed during last winter in the legation compound at Peking. With the restoration of order this ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... hoped that as the years passed on he would outgrow not only his conviction of the imminence of a disastrous deluge by which the world would be overwhelmed, and the predilection for nautical construction that the belief had bred in him, but alas for all human expectation, it grew upon him, instead of waning, as I had hoped. Our prosperous farm ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... light was strong and long-continued, the water uncomfortably warm, and the crowd about him denser—so much so as to prevent him from attending properly to a social inferior who had crossed his bow. But just as his mind grasped the full imminence of the danger, there came a sudden darkness, a crash and vibration of the water, then a terrible, rattling roar of sound. The social inferior slipped from his mouth, and with his crowding neighbors ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... therefore, the head of the boat was directed, and the crew, seeing the imminence of the danger, rowed with all their might; and by dint of strenuous exertions, we made good our landing ere the ice closed in around us. A few minutes after not a speck ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... deluged the smoking ruins of their temple with the carnage of the remnant of their host. But it is more common, both in the case of nations and in that of individuals, to find extraordinary virtues arising from the very imminence of the danger. Great characters are then thrown into relief, as edifices which are concealed by the gloom of night are illuminated by the glare of a conflagration. At those dangerous times genius ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... and it is impossible to discover his whereabouts. This afternoon General McKinstry designed to make a reconnaissance in force with his whole division towards Wilson's Creek; but yielding to the solicitations of the chief officers, and in view of the imminence of battle, to-day General Fremont resumed the command, and ordered McKinstry not to make his reconnoissance,—not wishing to bring on a general engagement during the absence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... had been on to Washington and was possessed of all the material facts, but nobody was interested any more in the Salagua Forest Reserve; he had consulted with the Chief Forester and even with the President himself, laying before them the imminence of the danger, and they had assured him that everything possible would be done to relieve the situation. Did it not, then, he demanded, behoove the law-abiding residents of prospective forest reserves to cooperate with such an enlightened administration, even at the risk of ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... be clouds, and the sea roaring, and men's hearts failing, we believe there is light behind the cloud, and that the imminence of our danger is intended, under the guidance of Heaven, to call forth and apply a holy, fraternal fellowship between the East and the West, which shall secure our preservation, and make the prosperity of our nation durable ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Of the imminence of the danger he was perfectly aware. He had known from the first that Mr. Parker's concluding words were not an empty threat. His experience as a reporter had given him the knowledge that is only given in its entirety to police ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... bath water induced doubts as to the imminence of the thaw. Indeed, the air was bitterly cold as yet. The snow lay closely on roads and meadow land. It had the texture of fine powder. Passing traffic left shallow, well defined marks. A couple of stablemen swung their arms to restore circulation. The ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... The imminence of the danger indicated by the young Englishman appealed so powerfully to Don Sebastian that he acted upon the suggestion which accompanied it without further delay, excusing himself to George for temporarily withdrawing himself, and assuring ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... them in water; no servant should have this pleasing task. Was it the thought of the imminence of separation which had altered John into so dear a lover? She went over his words there in the library. She relived the joy of his sudden fierce kiss, when he had said that he must teach her as ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... aside into that place of torments, and one of them drew down the ropes from the pulley overhead, until the ends fell on a level with my wrists. And this was torture of the second degree—to see its imminence. ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... in their dread, as the monster opened its huge jaws for a second bite, this time close to where the two boys and the king were seated, the latter seeming paralysed at the imminence of ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... some one in the carriage James discovered by seeing a shawl fluttering from the side, and by hearing a piercing shriek, uttered apparently as if then, for the first time, the lady had discovered the imminence of her danger. In a few seconds the carriage would have been dragged over the quay and ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston
... young couple, the girl, in her perfect faith and entire self-sacrifice, may have been less aghast than her lover at the imminence of discovery, reprobation, and scorn. When no other course was left open, she eloped willingly enough with the man she had trusted—shutting her eyes to consequences, in that recklessness of devotion which, lead though it may to much unhappiness in life, constitutes not the ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... indeed bear the almost breathless urgency of one who has been sent on in advance to announce the imminence of some awful peril. No matter what the peril might be; simply through the Chapel there passed the breath of some coming danger. Impossible to watch him and not realise that here was a man who had seen something with his own eyes that had changed in a moment the very fabric of his life. ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... passed the last house and itself ceased where began the first steep slopes of the open hills. The air was damp with the on-coming of rain, for the storm had not yet burst, though the rising wind proclaimed its imminence. As far as he could see, there was no sign of Dede on the smooth, grassy hills. To the right, dipping down into a hollow and rising again, was a large, full-grown eucalyptus grove. Here all was noise and movement, the lofty, slender trunked ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... few of the pulpit arts of the minister, but he had the soul of a great preacher. His life, to him, was a mission to the unconverted to point out the imminence of death and its meaning. His belief had carried him beyond and above the pleading of the uncertainty of death to arouse fear in the hearts of his congregation. Instead, to him, the great clock ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... The omission of the conjunction that would naturally join this clause with the preceding, and the repetition of iam, which thus in a way connects the two clauses, reflect the imminence of the danger and heighten our anxiety for the hero. Observe too how the tenses of the verbs contribute to the vividness of the picture. We see Hercules at the altar and the priest, knife in hand, about ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.
... been said. The understanding between Mr. Gilman and Audrey was that Mrs. Moncreiff should continue to exist, and that not a word as to the arrival of Jane Foley should escape either of them until the deed was accomplished. It is true that Madame Piriac knew of the probable imminence of the affair, but Madame Piriac was discretion elegantly attired, and from the moment they had left Flank Hall together she had been wise enough not even to mention Jane Foley to Audrey. Madame Piriac appreciated the value of ignorance in a questionable crisis. Mr. Gilman had ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... minutes, but, inspired by the imminence of the danger, Gypsy darted into the study, and rapidly extracted the balls from ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... constant repetition of such haemorrhage may lead to uterine congestions, or even to amenorrhea, i.e., entire absence of menstruation. But it originates in functional disturbance, in exhaustion of the nervous system by intellectual exertion. On account of the imminence of this danger, the period of real incapacity for mental effort lasts much longer than conscious discomfort is likely to do—lasts, indeed, as long as the physiological afflux of blood to the uterus—which, by the means described, may ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... Greece, it was the eponym of the city, Megaros, son of Zeus and one of the nymphs, Sithnides, who, warned by the cry of cranes of the imminence of the danger of the coming flood, took refuge on Mount Geranien. Again, there was the Thessalian Cerambos, who was said to have escaped the flood by rising into the air on wings given him by the nymphs; and ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... be reminded of death; but even in its imminence, so far as Mrs. Acton was concerned, she preserved her good manners. "Ah, madame, you are too charming an invalid," ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... Tuesday.—Imminence of change in Ministry brings into prominence and close proximity what is likely to happen in Ireland when Home Rule is established. Irish Members of all sections on the alert. SAUNDERSON in his war-paint, which assumes shape of luminous white waistcoat. Always know, when the Colonel puts that on, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... sense history, but rather a preparatory effort to mark broadly the outlines of any future peace settlement that would have even a fighting chance of permanency. Only in perusing a critical study of this character can the vast problems of post-bellum imminence ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... the fleeting impulse to enter. But even the anger expired before Merlier's impassivity—he must as well curse a figure carved from granite, cast in lead. He grew, in turn, uneasy at the other's supernatural detachment; it chilled his blood like the grip of an unexpected, icy hand, like the imminence of inevitable death. The priest resembled a dead man, a dead man who had remained quick in the mere physical operations of the body, while all the machinery of his thoughts, his feelings, ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... forward, and, twisting his trunk round the top of the young tree, bent it down across the loins of the tiger, thus forcing the tortured animal to quit his hold, and affording Slingsby an opportunity of crawling beyond the reach of its teeth and claws. Forgetting my own fears in the imminence of my friend's danger, I only waited till I could get a shot at the tiger without running the risk of hurting Slingsby, and then fired both barrels at his head, and was lucky enough to wound it mortally. The other sportsmen coming ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... of the Coloured Infants' Betterment Society. And if any flavour of sweetness remained in the nature of Penrod Schofield after the dismal trials of the school-week just past, that problematic, infinitesimal remnant was made pungent acid by the imminence of his destiny to form a prominent feature of the spectacle, and to declaim the loathsome sentiments of a character named upon the programme the ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... difficulty, and therefore few arrive at old age. Did not this happen so we should live better and more wisely, for intelligence, and reflection, and judgment reside in old men, and if there had been none of them, no states could exist at all. But I return to the imminence of death. What charge is that against old age, since you see it to be common to youth also? I experienced not only in the case of my own excellent son, but also in that of your brothers, Scipio, men plainly marked out for the highest distinction, that ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... The imminence of working-class action was an ever present and disturbing menace to the capitalists. To give one of many instances of how the workers were beginning to realize the necessity of this action, and how the capitalists met it, let us instance the resolutions of the New England Workingmen's ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... all this day of her home-coming, the rising conviction that life at home might turn out to be something very different indeed from the thing that it had, down in New York, looked like, the blend of foreboding with anticipation that accompanied it, and finally a sense of the imminence of something important, not quite to be accounted for by the quarrel between her father and his wife,—all this emotional reaction found its outlet during the long dinner in a quite unusual vivacity. Her sphere of influence spread down ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... but neither did he pause for her answer. The imminence of the peril, the thought that the man whom he had so deeply wronged, and who knew him for the perjured thing he was, might in another minute be free—free to take what steps he pleased, free to avenge himself and punish his foes, rose up before him, and he thrust her roughly from the door. ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... they saw was enough to startle them, showing as it did the imminence of their danger, and that the blacks were probably coming in search of them, under the belief that they were in hiding. For one, evidently the leader, was in advance, with bow and arrow in hand ready to shoot, and his companions held their spears prepared for action as they came ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... look in her face. The imminence of the danger threatening both forced his anger into the background for the moment. She never changed her attitude except occasionally to swing the paddle to the other side of ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... Fitz Hugh tried to think of his injury, and to steel himself against his chief. But the roar of battle on the right, and the suspense and imminence of battle on the left, absorbed the attention of even this wounded and angry spirit, as, indeed, they might have absorbed that of any being not more or less than human. A private wrong, insupportable though it might be, seemed ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... male relatives with whom she is on a footing of intimacy. Perhaps the main cause of her displeasure in the first instance had been the fact that things should have got to such a pass without her having as much as suspected the imminence of danger; she regarded Emily as one that had outwitted her. Dearly would she have liked to be able to meet her brother with the assertion that she had suspected it all along; the impossibility of doing so—not from conscientious scruples, but because in that case it would clearly have ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... his family from his own house on the beach, the very site of the prospective struggle, and giving note of preparation to the few militia which, with the 49th flank companies, were all the immediate disposable force for the defence of Queenstown. Aware of the imminence and magnitude of the danger, the lateness of the hour, after three p.m., and distance from Fort George, Headquarters more than six miles, I hesitated not assuming the responsibility of liberating all the 49th prisoners, on the specious ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... There was bustling in the communication trenches, pack-mules bringing up ammunition, and men shouldering cases of bombs. At ten o'clock the C.O. came round the line. Now that the imminence of the attack had made unpleasantly real his duty of sending us over the top, he had grown quite fatherly. "Don't get killed," he said. "I can't spare any of you—battalion dam-depleted already.... Is there anything you wish ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond |
