"Imperceptible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... supernatural was like a dim and diffused light, brighter in some places, and darker in others, but focalised and concentrated nowhere. Christianity has focalised it, united into one the scattered points of brightness, and collected other rays that were before altogether imperceptible. That vague 'idea of the good,' of which Plato said most men dimly augured the existence, but could not express their augury, has been given a definite shape to by Christianity in the form of its Deity. That Deity, from an external point of view, may be said ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... imperceptible means, Madame Dravikine saw to it that her nephew came in contact with those people who could be useful to him; and she was satisfied, if slightly surprised, to see the ease with which he talked. Ivan himself wondered that he felt so little embarrassment in entering into the mood of the hour, and, ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... delivered herself of an almost imperceptible wink in the direction of Violet, the third of the party. Sir Thomas's diplomacies were thoroughly appreciated by his offspring. "It's time some of you were cleared out from under my feet!" he told ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... over-abundant imitation jewelry, set off magnificently the brilliancy of a sunny complexion, the velvety shades of the thick hair growing low on the forehead, which seemed to be united by an almost imperceptible down to the superb and straight line of the eyebrows. How could such an exuberance of life and beauty have deteriorated and become such a mass of vulgarity? And curiously while the Transteverina talked, I interrogated her lovely ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... about her throat, a pretty dress, an elegant coiffure, and Mme. d'Espard's advice. As they came up the staircase even now, the Marquise told her cousin not to hold her handkerchief unfolded in her hand. Good or bad taste turns upon hundreds of such almost imperceptible shades, which a quick-witted woman discerns at once, while others will never grasp them. Mme. de Bargeton, plentifully apt, was more than clever enough to discover her shortcomings. Mme. d'Espard, sure that her pupil would do her credit, did not decline to form her. In short, ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... leaves, would he swathe his rosy and contented face, if his mother suspected him of a toothache! What botanical blotches would he cheerfully stick upon his cheek, or forehead, if the dear old lady convicted him of an imperceptible pimple there! Into this herbaceous penitentiary, situated on an upper staircase-landing: a low and narrow whitewashed cell, where bunches of dried leaves hung from rusty hooks in the ceiling, and were spread out upon shelves, in company with portentous ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... of the Yankee's face moved; he preserved the grave and solemn appearance of a man to whom a sacred trust has been confided, and who is fully penetrated with the importance of his mission. Once or twice, however, I observed him give a keen but almost imperceptible glance around him, as if to observe the effect of his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... followed the finding of this treasure, he only displayed himself at the Luxembourg in the act of kissing the handkerchief and laying it on his heart. The beautiful child understood nothing of all this, and signified it to him by imperceptible signs. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... and waited, meditating upon the probable occupations of gentlemen who habitually slept till ten o'clock in the morning and sometimes till twelve. From time to time he brushed an almost imperceptible particle of dust from his very smart blue cloth knees, and settled the in-turned collar of the perfectly new blue guernsey about his neck. It was new, and it scratched him disagreeably, but it ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... o'clock the temperature had changed, and in the cooler air the almost imperceptible melting of the ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... through a 12-inch pipe, laid on the same inclination, forms a rapid stream, carrying away the heavy silt which was deposited in the broad sewer. As a consequence of this, it has been found, where pipe sewers are used, even on almost imperceptible inclinations, that silt is very rarely deposited, and the waste matters of house and street drainage are carried immediately to the outlet, instead of remaining to ferment and poison the atmosphere of the streets through which they pass. In the rare cases of obstruction which occur, ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... thumb. One is therefore justified in assuming that, where these raps are not produced by conscious fraud, they are the involuntary result of the same motions that produced them voluntarily. Even wood has a certain elasticity, and an imperceptible increase followed by an imperceptible relaxation of pressure on the surface of the table will alter the tension of the wood, the molecules of which in springing back to their prior position will emit a creak or a tap, just as a piece of extended elastic will when let go again. Both ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... force in ventilation is the motion of air or winds. This is the most powerful agent of ventilation, for even a slight, imperceptible wind, traveling about two miles an hour, is capable, when the windows and doors of a room are open, of changing the air of a room 528 times in one hour. Air passes also through brick and stone walls. The objections to winds as a sole mode of ventilation ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... material and sinful belief, the 314:24 spiritual Jesus was imperceptible to them. The higher his demonstration of divine Science carried the problem of being, and the more dis- 314:27 tinctly he uttered the demands of its divine Principle, Truth and Love, the more odious he became to sinners ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... audacious highway captains. On calm, sunshiny winter mornings the people would often go running down to the beach, looking anxiously over the lonely sea. The veterans who were toasting themselves in the sun near the overturned boats, on scanning the broad horizon, would finally discern an almost imperceptible point, a grain of sand dancing capriciously on ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... mother was like your aunt,' he continued. It was an observation which was not heard without some emotion by his companion, though it was imperceptible. 'Venetia,' said Cadurcis, 'when I recollect old days, how strange it seems that we now never should be alone, but by some mere accident, like ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... from the inbred kindliness of his nature, which was manifest in the expression of his noble old countenance. Age is such a different thing in different natures! One man seems to grow more and more selfish as he grows older; and in another the slow fire of time seems only to consume, with fine, imperceptible gradations, the yet lingering selfishness in him, letting the light of the kingdom, which the Lord says is within, shine out more and more, as the husk grows thin and is ready to fall off, that the man, like the ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... fact had been gradual. She wasn't fully conscious of it, even on this March morning. But something had happened this morning that made a difference. If she'd been ascending an imperceptible gradient for the last three months, to-day she had come to a recognizable step up and taken it. Oddly enough, the thing had happened back there in the class-room as she stood before the professor's desk and caught his eye wavering between herself and the scrawny girl who wanted to ask a question ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... carriage; only in this latter case the rattling and shaking of the carriage helps the mind to grasp the real fact that the motion belongs to the train itself; whereas it is otherwise with a balloon, whose motion is so perfectly smooth as to be quite imperceptible. ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... grave bow with an almost imperceptible movement of the head, and for a moment they looked hard at ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... the coroner looked suddenly up from writing the depositions, regarding him with covert glances. Though he had all the appearance of a gentleman, yet there was about him a strange, almost imperceptible air of the adventurer. A close observer would have noticed that his clothes bore the cut of a foreign tailor—French or Italian—and his boots were too long and pointed to be English. His well-kept, white hands were the hands of a foreigner, long and pointed, with nails trimmed ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... peculiar ideas of delight originating in the bodily senses. But what are the delights of the bodily senses without those of the soul? The former are animated by the latter. The delights of the soul in themselves are imperceptible beatitudes; but, as they descend into the thoughts of the mind, and thence into the sensations of the body, they become more and more perceptible: in the thoughts of the mind they are perceived as satisfactions, in the sensations of the ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... happy family of curios, the whole of which you are quite prepared to purchase en bloc. While a little farther on stands a flower show which seems to be coyly beckoning to you as the blossoms nod their heads to an imperceptible breeze. So one attraction fairly jostles its neighbor for recognition from the gay thousands that like yourself stroll past in holiday delight. Chattering children in brilliant colors, voluble women and talkative men in quieter but no less picturesque costumes, stream ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... twenty seven minutes past two o'clock yesterday afternoon. The chaste white mystery of Shigo Mountain was already taking on a faint, almost imperceptible, hint of pink, like the warm cheek of a girl who hears a voice and anticipates a blush. Yet the rays of the afternoon sun rested with undiminished radiance on the empty pork-barrel in front of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... a phrase, which established no position, but which in the strained state of feeling might have had serious results. The condition calls to mind the description of the summit of the Alleghany Ridge, where the impulses given by almost imperceptible inequalities in the surface of the rock have for their ultimate result the dispatching of mighty rivers either through the Atlantic slope to the ocean, or down the Mississippi valley to the Gulf of Mexico. A few adjectives, two or three ever so little sentences, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... and Donna Tullia blushed slightly. Both of them bowed as they passed the carriage. Don Giovanni looked straight into Corona's face as he took off his hat. He might very well have made her a little sign, the smallest gesture, imperceptible to Donna Tullia, whereby he could have given her the idea that his position was involuntary. But Don Giovanni was a gentleman, and he did nothing of the kind; he bowed and looked calmly at the woman he loved as he passed by. Astrardente ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... slight tensing of the other's face. After a moment Alan dropped the paper, rose to his feet, and went to the window. There was no longer a light in the cabin where Mary Standish had been accepted as a guest. Stampede, too, had risen from his seat. He saw the sudden and almost imperceptible shrug ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... words. Hence, converse between individuals on our planet is not altogether a series of vocal ejaculations. On the contrary, among the older members of the race, communication between individuals is in some cases audibly imperceptible. ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... construction involved the expenditure of $400,000. Reader, if you have not experienced the charm of this circular ride through a circumference of about 785 feet, you hardly can convey to your mind the conception of the fascination it afforded. Since the motion of the coaches was almost imperceptible, we could enjoy the trip—(viz)—two complete revolutions of the wheel—without the least excitement naturally aroused by rapid movement. Imagine the sensation of being carried up 250 feet on one side—and of being slowly lowered on the other; fancy the enjoyment and delight when gradually gaining ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... the summit of one movement seems always to spring erect from the trough of its predecessor. The upward stroke is vertical, the downward an inclined plane. For instance, from Duccio to Giotto is a step up, sharp and shallow. From Giotto to Lionardo is a long and, at times, almost imperceptible fall. Duccio is a fine decadent of that Basilian movement which half survived the Latin conquest and came to an exquisite end under the earlier Palaeologi. The peak of that movement rises high above Giotto, though Duccio near its base is below him. Giotto's art is ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... next day, however, for a final visit, and the day after to see them away, without any apparent breach in the confidence and friendship with which they regarded each other. There might be, perhaps, a faint almost imperceptible difference in Chatty, a little dignity like that which her mother had discovered in her, something that was not altogether the simple girl, younger than her years, whom Mrs. Warrender had brought to town. ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... with pauses in between, as if her voice were the halting echo of some other voice imperceptible to the senses, imparting to her words a singular accent, a tone of mystery, revealing that they proceeded from the innermost depths of her heart; they were no longer the ordinary imperfect symbols of thoughts, they were transformed into ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... in the adjoining apartment on a mat that was spread over the hard ground, and with no pillow beneath her cheek. One arm was by her side—the other above her head—and she slept so quietly, and drew such imperceptible breath, that I scarcely thought her alive. With some little difficulty she was roused, and awoke with a frightened cry—a strange and broken murmur—as if she were looking dimly out of her sleep, and knew not whether our figures were real, or only the phantasies of a ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... for supernatural operation; but the ordinary course of things appears sufficiently armed, and made capable of all the effects that Heaven usually directs by a contagion. Among these causes and effects, this of the secret conveyance of infection, imperceptible and unavoidable, is more than sufficient to execute the fierceness of divine vengeance, without putting it ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... down. {150b} Il y a un reste de vie dans le cadavre, says Diderot, {150c} speaking of the more gradual decay of the body after an easy natural death, than after a sudden and violent one; and so Buffon begins his first volume by saying that "we can descend, by almost imperceptible degrees, from the most perfect creature to the most formless matter—from the most highly organised matter to the most entirely inorganic ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... ages, reach unimagined dimensions. Suppose, for instance, that the earth experienced a fall of temperature in its interior which amounted to only one-thousandth of a degree in a year. So minute a quantity as this is imperceptible. Even in a century, the loss of heat at this rate would be only the tenth of a degree. There would be no possible way of detecting it; the most careful thermometer could not be relied on to tell us for a certainty ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball
... model DF Lewistons, none requisitioned, on hand eighteen thous...." The droning voice broke off short in the middle of a word and the private stood rigid, in the act of reaching for another slip, every faculty concentrated upon something, imperceptible to his companion. ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... madman! Heaven help me!" was Dexie's thought. Her heart beat wildly. She dared not take her eyes from his face. But there was something in her glance that had power to subdue him, and, feeling this, she met his gaze unflinchingly. The oar still lay across her lap. Gently, with an almost imperceptible motion, its blade reached the water, and slowly, very slowly, the distance between the boat and vessel was shortened. She sat back in her seat so still that the slight movement of her wrists was not observed, ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... was a sign of some kind, almost imperceptible, between Kane and Reddie. As Wehying half turned in his swing to pitch, Reddie Ray bounded homeward. It was not so much the boldness of his action as the amazing swiftness of it that held the audience spellbound. Like a thunderbolt ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... back. She leaped not only because of her own boldness, but because he seemed to stir. It was as if this kiss, so light, so imperceptible, had sent a galvanic throbbing through his frame. She herself felt it, as now and then in winter she had felt an ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... seem to pass through one another—the exquisite duchess, the grotesque clown. No one has seen the look, save PHEDRO, who wipes his lips with an expression of intense amusement. Suddenly from behind GWYMPLANE steps DEA, and he returns with an almost imperceptible start to his act. Seeing this lovely apparition, he throws himself at her feet, and she, apparently perceiving him, does not repel him but puts her slim hands in his wild hair, and they go through some ...
— Clair de Lune - A Play in Two Acts and Six Scenes • Michael Strange
... confidences" (this she questioned with an all but imperceptible lifting of the eyebrows), "I don't mind telling you my own name ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... moments she raised her head again. "John, will you mind attending to me one moment, and answering these questions as quickly as you can?" The emphasis on the last word was so faint as to be almost as imperceptible as the touch of exasperated contempt which she could not absolutely ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... far in a short time by the calendar, every metamorphosis was slow and painful and imperceptible. She wept her eyes dry; then moped until her gloom grew intolerable. The first diversion she sought was really an effort of her grief to renew itself by a little repose. Her first amusement was for her ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... imperceptible vestige of his ancient spirit of intrigue, shot across the pale face ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... after her excursion into Berkshire. On that day she called upon me in Somers Town, she having, since her return, taken a lodging in Cumming-street, Pentonville, at no great distance from the place of my habitation. From that time our intimacy increased, by regular, but almost imperceptible degrees. ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... the lists of mine-laborers, and was called by that name. The file moved on; at every step the ascent grew more rugged. Red and black fragments of stone, broken as small as if by the hand of man, lay in great heaps, or strewed the path which led up the almost perpendicular cliff by imperceptible degrees. Here another gorge opened before them, and this time there seemed to be ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to its value, I've no doubt," said Bart. "Well, with increased strength and vigor, we shall begin by imperceptible degrees, to modify and change the whole, and the whole will ultimately become Americanized, till the English of this continent, partaking of its color and character, imparts its tone and flavor finally to the ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... all her doubts with it,—hoped she had silenced them for ever,—but the perception would return that it was only the beauty that he praised, because it was beauty, and struck him as such. Shade upon shade, imperceptible in itself, but each tint adding to its depth, the cloud of misgiving darkened, and though she tried to fight it off,—though she told herself it was too late,—though she was very angry with herself for it, there it still hung; and the ever-present consciousness of ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... has impressed its image on those faultless productions, whose very fragments are the despair of modern art, and has propagated impulses which cannot cease, through a thousand channels of manifest or imperceptible operation, to ennoble and delight mankind until ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... made it what it was; because in every room, in every corner, was the product of her taste and design. It had been home because it was associated with her. But of late ever since his five months' visit to South Africa without her the year before—there had come a change, at first almost imperceptible, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... grating. They pick themselves up and begin again. The sky is superb; the weather is hot, calm and propitious for those in search of the Lizard crushed beside the footpath. Perhaps the effluvia of the gamy tit-bit have reached them, coming from afar, imperceptible to any other sense than that of the Sexton-beetles. So my Necrophori are fain to go ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... powers were measureless, being thus requested by the great sages, whose thoughts were profound, saluted them all with reverence and gave them a comprehensive answer, saying: Be it heard! This universe existed only in the first divine idea yet unexpanded, as if involved in darkness, imperceptible, undefinable, undiscoverable by reason, and undiscovered by revelation, as if it were wholly immersed in sleep; then the sole, self-existing power, himself undiscovered, but making this world discernible, with five elements and other principles of nature, appeared with ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... diplomatists using a common tongue native to neither of them. Perhaps Alicia drew the conventions round her with the greater fluency; Hilda had more to cover, but was less particular about it. The only thing she was bent upon making imperceptible was her sense of the comedy of Miss Livingstone's effort to receive her as if she had been anybody else. Alicia was hardly aware of what she wanted to conceal, unless it was her impression that Miss Howe's dress was cut a trifle too low in the ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... was," the mountain-man went on; and an imperceptible pause followed the words. "We rid down to Garyville to be wed, an' we went from the jestice's office to the office of this here Dickert. He had a cuss with him that was no better'n him; an' when it come to the time in the signin' ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... in nothing except the life of the bird, and this life must needs be supplied from that of man. The life which resides in the bird's members will, without doubt, better conform to their needs than will that of a man which is separated from them, and especially in the almost imperceptible movements which produce equilibrium. But since we see that the bird is equipped for many apparent varieties of movement, we are able from this experience to deduce that the most rudimentary of these movements ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... Acts constitute the seed that is placed in that soil. Desire is the water that causes that seed to grow, in this way they explain rebirth. They maintain that that ignorance being ingrained in an imperceptible way, one mortal body being destroyed, another starts up immediately from it; and that when it is burnt by the aid of knowledge, the destruction of existence itself follows or the person attains to what is called Nirvana. This opinion also is erroneous. [This is the doctrine of Buddhists]. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... completely taken in by appearances under certain conditions of light, and the novelty has worn off. Sastrugi are the hard waves formed by wind on a snow surface; these are seldom more than a foot or so in height, and often so obscured as to be imperceptible irregularities. On this occasion they often appeared like immense ridges until you walked over them. After going about 10 miles we spotted a tiny black triangle in the dead white void ahead, it was over a mile away and was the lunch camp of the dogs. We were fairly close before they broke camp ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... Mr Fustian, the plot, which has hitherto been only carried on by hints, and opened itself like the infant spring by small and imperceptible degrees to the audience, will display itself like a ripe matron, in its full summer's bloom; and cannot, I think, fail with its attractive charms, like a loadstone, to catch the admiration of every one like a trap, and raise an applause ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... I have seen him but once these twenty years. The tide of life has driven us different ways.' I was sorry at the time to hear this; but whoever quits the creeks of private connections, and fairly gets into the great ocean of London, will, by imperceptible degrees, unavoidably experience such cessations ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... latent, secret, unknown, covert, impenetrable, obscure, undiscovered, unseen, dark, imperceptible, occult, unimagined, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... There was an almost imperceptible shake of the head from the sick woman, making his heart melt swiftly again. Then, dragging his limbs, he got out of the room and down ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... sank into insignificance beside it. Its color was of softest gray just touched with the flush that deepens the inmost chamber of a shell, or blushes in the unfolded petals of a wind flower. With majestic yet almost imperceptible motion this cloud mounted the blue background of the sky. The spectre of a faded moon hung motionless above it an instant only, and then was swiftly drawn within its soft eclipse. Changing from moment to moment, the great mass took on all semblances ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... hard gravelly plain intersected by limestone ridges, and raised considerably above the sea level, the Desert of El-Tin, or of "the Wanderings;" then the long, broad, low valley of the Arabah, which rises gradually from the Dead Sea to an imperceptible watershed, and then falls gently to the head of the Gulf of Akabah, a region of hard sand thickly dotted with bushes, and intersected by numerous torrent courses; finally a long narrow region of mountains and hills parallel with the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... part of a whale's vertebrae, and the blades of sword-fish. Drawn up on the beach of a little cove before the house lay a canoe. As the night thickened and the fog grew more dense, these details grew imperceptible, and only the windows of the pilot-house, lit up by a roaring fire within the hut, ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of the hill, every spar, brick and beam, carried its bristle of gold. At her own head's imperceptible movement flashes came and went between the ribs of the Bishop's Palace. The sentry by the tunnel stood between the upper and the underground:—with his left eye he could watch the lights that strung back into the hollow hill, with his ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... cunning a hand, that it needs less than a breath to put it out of tune; and an invisible touch, known only to its own consciousness, may set all its silvery bells to ringing out a joyous chime. Happy he, thrice blessed she, who is striving to hush its discords and to awaken its harmonies by never so imperceptible a motion!" Surely, the triple benediction belonged to her. Already tens of thousands, both young and old, who never saw her face, but have been aided and cheered by her writings, gladly call her "thrice blessed." May this ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... was Baby; but certainly not the awkward child of a month, of a week, of a day, or even an hour ago. It was Baby transformed, nay transfigured, as if by magic. Whether the change had been gradual and imperceptible, or as sudden as Cleopatra imagined it to have been, the elder girl did not stop to think; she simply allowed her eyes to dwell almost spellbound upon the startling apparition facing her, and as quickly as a dart, before she was able to arrest it, a pang, a pain, or a convulsion of ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... which he would guess, though hidden in the depths of my conscience. Oh! on the day when I should read a trace of involuntary, even of suppressed reproach in a furrow on his brow, in a saddened look, in some imperceptible gesture, nothing could hold me: I should be lying with a fractured skull on the pavement, and find that less hard than my husband. It might be my own over-susceptibility that would lead me to this horrible but welcome death; I might die the victim of an ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... imperceptible. The first officer did not apparently realize that the great ship had received her death wound, and none of the passengers had the slightest suspicion that anything more than a usual minor sea accident had happened. ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... aimless turns; on closer examination, however, it may be seen that this irregularity is not to be attributed to ignorance or caprice. Experience had taught the Egyptians the art of picking out, upon the almost imperceptible relief of the soil, the easiest lines to use against the inundation: of these they have followed carefully the sinuosities, and if the course of the dykes appears singular, it is to be ascribed to the natural ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Rhamda glanced, then back again; and a quick satisfied smile came to his mouth. He gave an almost imperceptible nod. And, keeping his gaze fixed upon her eyes, he ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... bush to bush; we moved by imperceptible inches across the numerous open spaces. About half-way down we were arrested by a violent snort ahead. Fifteen or twenty zebras nooning in the brush where no zebras were supposed to be, clattered down the hill like ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... Japan to-day is evidently exceptional. Normal religious and political change does not proceed in that manner; it proceeds by imperceptible degrees. But exceptions to general rules occur from time to time in every field of activity. Are they really exceptions, using that term in its current sense—to denote something arbitrary, and therefore unaccountable? ...
— The Invention of a New Religion • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... unite. Both hasten now; their garments round them girt, Their skilful hands they ply: their toil forgot In anxious wish for conquest. There appear'd, The wool of Tyrian dye, and softening teints Lost imperceptible. So seems the arch Coloring a spacious portion of the sky; Struck by the rays of Phoebus, when the showers Recede, a thousand varying tinges shine; The soft transition mocks the straining eye, So like the shades which join, though far distinct Their distant teints. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... over the affairs of all the Provinces. In his tune, moreover, the English interest, under the auspices of an undisturbed dynasty, and a cautious, politic Prince (Henry VII.), began by slow and almost imperceptible degrees to recover the unity and compactness it had lost ever since ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... again. He had been sure his position would be revealed when, drifting with almost imperceptible motion into the tree, the bird had pecked at him, then flapped away in alarm. A long, painfully cautious approach from tree to tree to the selected one had been necessary to the daring scheme ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... at him, while the other workmen—all of whom were of the old regime—were also enjoying his discomfort; but Daly, catching his eye, nodded significantly toward the side-door which led upon the street. It was an almost imperceptible nod, but it was enough for Biff, and he dashed out of that door. Half a block ahead of him he saw Ripley hurrying, and took after him with that light, cat-like run which is the height of effortless and noiseless speed. Ripley, ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... resembles that of navigable rivers, avoiding immovable obstacles with noble bends of concession, seeking the broad levels of opinion on which men soonest settle and longest dwell, following and marking the almost imperceptible slope of national tendency, yet forever recruited from sources nearer heaven, from summits where the gathered purity of ages lies encamped, and sometimes bursting open paths of progress and civilisation through what seem the eternal barriers of both. It is a loyalty to great ends, an anchored ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... his disappointment the moon, swimming on through the still circle of the hours, passed slowly over him. The lights and shadows about him changed by imperceptible gradations and a long pale alley where the native cart track drove into the forest, opened slowly out of the darkness, slowly broadened, slowly lengthened. It opened out to him with a ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... aspects of one and the same world. These perfectly interpenetrate the one the other, if we may help ourselves with the language of space. Each is everywhere present. Furthermore, these actions of reason and aspects of world shade into one another by imperceptible degrees. Almost all functionings of reason have something of the qualities of both. However, when all is said, it was of greatest worth to have had these two opposite poles of thought brought clearly to mind. The dogmatists, ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... to meet him. The dim outline of her in her filmy dress and the elusive scent of her presence stirred him again. Her voice was gentle as she laughed a greeting and she gave his hand an imperceptible squeeze as he came up the steps. His stiffness vanished, but the sound of voices from back in the shadow disturbed him. An absurd personality crowded to his lips as she led him forward, ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... intoxication. His general simplicity of life was changed; he perfumed his apartments by burning the wood of the most aromatick fir, and commanded his helmet to be ornamented with beautiful rows of the teeth of the raindeer. Indolence and effeminacy stole upon him by pleasing and imperceptible gradations, relaxed the sinews of his resolution, and extinguished ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... humidity, and the dew point. And I have noticed that the best scenting days have been those when the thermometer has given readings from 38 up to 46 Fahrenheit in the shade. A high and steady glass, an almost imperceptible east or north-east wind, with the ground soaked with moisture and no frost during the previous night, is the only combination of conditions under which scent on the grass is a moral certainty. On the other hand, a low ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... Augusta's attention to the hothouses Mervyn beckoned to Robert, rather injudiciously, for his patient was still tremulous from the first greeting. Her face had still the strangely old appearance, her complexion was nearly white, her hair thin and scanty, the almost imperceptible cast of the eye which had formerly only served to give character to her arch expression, had increased to a decided blemish; and her figure which had shot up to woman's height, seemed to bend like a reed as Mervyn supported her to the sofa in the school-room. With nervous ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... slowly pursued his course round the palisades. As he approached the moccasin, having now nearly completed the circuit of the building, he threw the ominous article into the canoe, by a dexterous and almost imperceptible movement of his paddle. He was now ready to depart, but retreat was even more dangerous than the approach, as the eye could no longer be riveted on the loops. If there was really any one in the castle, the motive of the Delaware in reconnoitering must be understood, and it was ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... that 'to admit the existence of any such rights is not only impossible, but inexpedient, even were it possible. Knowledge advances by slow and almost imperceptible steps, and each is but the precursor of a new and more important one. Were each discoverer of a new truth to be authorized to monopolize the teaching of it millions of men, to whom, by our aid, it is communicated, ...
— Letters on International Copyright; Second Edition • Henry C. Carey
... difference is to be observed between the sperm whale and the right. While the ear of the former has an external opening, that of the latter is entirely and evenly covered over with a membrane, so as to be quite imperceptible from without. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the answer, with an almost imperceptible change of manner— a change as of gradual petrifaction, "I am not Mrs. Gregory." And with that the lady, who was not Mrs. Gregory, quietly ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... education of a family, of a community, or of a state is slower still. The education of a nation or of a race is so slow that its progress is difficult of measurement. Indeed, the movement of the race as a whole is so imperceptible that it leaves room for debate as to whether humanity ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... keenness, which underlies the skill of the money-changer in detecting a counterfeit among a thousand bank-notes, notwithstanding its deceptive similarity; of the jeweler who marks the slightest, apparently imperceptible, flaw in an ornament; of the physicist who perceives distinctly the overtones of a vibrating string. According to this we see and hear not only with the eye and ear, but quite as much with the help of our present knowledge, with the apperceiving content of the mind." (Apperception, ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... social intercourse of the family, and of the family with their friends, is enjoyed. There the story is told; by its side toilets are made and household duties are performed, not necessarily on account of the warmth the fire gives, for it is often so small that its heat is almost imperceptible, but because of its central position in the household economy. This fire is somewhat singularly constructed; the logs used for it are of considerable length, and are laid, with some regularity, around a center, like the radii of a circle. These logs are pushed directly inward ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... and formed the bed of one of those wild, dark, and thickly wooded ravines so common in America. As it neared the Detroit, however, the abruptness of its banks was so considerably lessened, as to render the approach to it on the town side over an almost imperceptible slope. Within a few yards of its mouth, as we have already observed in our introductory chapter, a rude but strong wooden bridge, over which lay the high road, had been constructed by the French; and from the centre of this, all the circuit of intermediate ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... is in the morning-room, your Grace," the man answered, with an almost imperceptible glance towards Virginia. "Shall I ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... respiration scarcely perceptible; he now fell on his side: twelve minutes, several severe general convulsions came on, and at the end of another minute he was quite dead, the pulsation being for the last minute quite imperceptible. The chest was instantly opened, but there was no movement ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... In his slim boating-attire his figure looked heroic. His hair, rising from the parting to the right of his forehead, in what his admiring Lady Blandish called his plume, fell away slanting silkily to the temples across the nearly imperceptible upward curve of his brows there—felt more than seen, so slight it was—and gave to his profile a bold beauty, to which his bashful, breathless air was a flattering charm. An arrow drawn to the head, capable of flying fast and far with her! ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... everybody connected with her pictured, at a word of her name, the crowd pressing and the London world acting audience. Livia spoke the name when they had reached their house and were alone. Henrietta responded with the imperceptible shrug which is more eloquent than a cry to tell of the most monstrous of loads. My lord, it was thought by the ladies, had directed his man to convey her safely to her chosen home, whence she might be expected very soon to be issuing and striking ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the road for seven miles extends over somewhat undulated ground, generally good; but here and there stony, with a gradual but almost imperceptible ascent, until the top of the pass is reached; from this, the view of Tazeen valley, and the summit of the Sofaid-Koh ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... Deerslayer had got abreast of the point, and turned the bows of his own boat to the land; first casting loose his tow, that his movements might be unencumbered. The canoe hung an instant to the rock; then it rose a hair's breadth on an almost imperceptible swell of the water, swung round, floated clear, and reached the strand. All this the young man noted, but it neither quickened his pulses, nor hastened his hand. If any one had been lying in wait for ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... case be so trifling, at the distance at which the bullet and the thermometer are from each other, that it would be almost imperceptible. The mirrors, you know, greatly increase the effect, by collecting a large quantity of rays into a focus; place your hand in the focus of the mirror, and you will find it much hotter there than when you remove it nearer ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... particular reproach. To Lucy, indeed, brought up in seclusion, and seeing at Warlock none calculated to refine her taste in the fashion of an air or phrase to a very fastidious standard of perfection, this want was perfectly imperceptible; she remarked in her lover only a figure everywhere unequalled, an eye always eloquent with admiration, a step from which grace could never be divorced, a voice that spoke in a silver key, and uttered flatteries delicate in thought and poetical ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a noiseless step, through the apartments: Count Metternich followed him quickly, and an imperceptible sneer played over his fine youthful face as he was walking through these sumptuous rooms, whose deserted appearance was the best proof of the precarious situation ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... as a famous Physician[56] observes, is, as it were, a continual growing dry; but yet this kind of natural Consumption is imperceptible to an advanced Age: when the radical Moisture is consumed more sensibly, then the more balmy and volatile Parts of the Blood are dissipated by little and little, the Salts disengaging from the Sulphurs, manifest themselves, the Acid ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus
... indication that the rough and uncouth nature of the man was susceptible to the impulses of a refined revenge, or of an exalted ambition. But when, on closer inspection, the duchesse perceived the small piercingly black eyes, the longitudinal wrinkles of his high and massive forehead, the imperceptible twitching of the lips, on which were apparent traces of rough good humor, Madame de Chevreuse altered her opinion of him, and felt she could say to herself: "I have ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... the attempt to get his little stories published. He had written eight or nine, and hoped they would make up a book, and that the book might be called "Pan Pipes." He was very energetic over this; he liked to work, for some imperceptible bloom had passed from the world, and he no longer found such acute pleasure in people. Mrs. Failing's old publishers, to whom the book was submitted, replied that, greatly as they found themselves interested, they did not see their way to making an offer at present. They ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... always moved to strike out this one. Year after year his motion was voted down, but year after year he renewed it with invincible perseverance. The majorities against him began to dwindle till they became almost imperceptible; in 1842 it was a majority of four; in 1843, of three; in 1844 the struggle was protracted for weeks, and Mr. Adams all but carried the day. It was evident that victory was not far off, and a kind fate ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... Who would have thought of meeting you here?" she exclaimed; and she added in an almost imperceptible, ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... absorbed the two others, the memory and understanding into itself, and concentrated them in LOVE;—not but that they still subsisted, but their operations were in a manner imperceptible and passive. They were no longer stopped or retarded by the multiplicity, but collected and united in one. So the rising of the sun does not extinguish the stars, but overpowers and absorbs them in the luster ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... jocund sound, a mere thread of music, as from the pipe of some hidden faun, penetrated the room. The notes trembled, paused, and fell to the minor. Felicity, feet bare, toes touched with scarlet, wafted into the room. Her dancing was incredibly light; she looked like some exotic poppy swaying to an imperceptible breeze. The dance was languorously sad, palely gay, a thing half asleep, veiled. It seemed always about to break into fierce life, yet did not. The scent of mandragora hung over it—it was as if the dancer, drugged, were ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... ground we now stood at the foot of the hills, are Wa-Khutu, and their possessions consequently are U-Khutu, which is by far the best producing land hitherto alluded to since leaving the sea-coast line. Our ascent by the river, though quite imperceptible to the eye, has been 500 feet. From this level the range before us rises in some places to 5000 to 6000 feet, not as one grand mountain, but in two detached lines, lying at an angle of 45 degrees from N.E. to S.W., and separated one from the other by elevated valleys, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... yes, I spoke to her, and she answered me; but I must not tell you things in this desultory fashion, or you will never understand. I have told you that I do not know when my attachment to Miss Hamilton commenced. It was gradual and imperceptible at first,—very real, no doubt, but it had not mastered my reason. I always admired her: how could I help it?' with some emotion. 'Even you, who are not her lover, have owned to me that she is a beautiful creature. ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... fathoms; and the ship being found to drift to leeward with the tide, a stream anchor was dropped. There seemed to be two tides here in the day, setting nearly east and west, but the rise and fall were so imperceptible by the lead, that it could not be known ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... towns of the older West moves slowly-almost as slowly as in the seaport villages or little towns of the East. Towns like Tyre and Bluff Siding have grown during the last twenty years, but very slowly, by almost imperceptible degrees. Lying too far away from the Mississippi to be affected by the lumber interest, they are merely trading points for the farmers, with no perceivable germs of boom in ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... withdrawn into the house. Down went the paddle always on the same side, noiselessly, in front; on darted the canoe; backward stretched the submerged paddle and came out of the water edgewise at full reach behind, with an almost imperceptible swerving motion that kept the slender craft true to its course. No rocking; no rush of water before or behind; only the one constant glassy ripple gliding on either side as silently as a beam of light. Suddenly, without any apparent change of movement in the sinewy wrists, the narrow ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... I might live until six o'clock, the pulse should be stronger. I have still some hope, however, but the second movement is almost imperceptible, the heart will ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... his generous birth and temper visible in it, playing at cards with a creature of a black and horrid countenance, wherein were plainly delineated the arts of his mind, cozenage and falsehood. They were marking their game with counters, on which we could see inscriptions, imperceptible to any but us. My lord had scored with pieces of ivory, on which were writ, Good Fame, Glory, Riches, Honour, and Posterity. The spectre over against him had on his counters the inscriptions of, Dishonour, Impudence, Poverty, Ignorance, and Want of Shame. "Bless me!" said I, "sure ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... to find, surviving all their best efforts to destroy them—good sense, honesty, self-denial, and all the qualities, mental and moral, that make one man worthy to be trusted by another. From the imperceptible, but inevitable effect of the sympathies and influences of human creatures towards and over each other, Frank's intelligence has become uncommonly developed by intimate communion in the discharge of his duty with the former overseer, a very ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... Sinclair had been opening the door of her mother's room at intervals of five minutes and closing the same noiselessly, after a brief survey of the figure on the bed. As the tenantry of field and forest apprehend the approach of some natural cataclysm, by means of signs imperceptible to man's grosser senses, so to Diantha the curve of her mother's shoulder under the sheet, presaged a storm. Her uneasiness was due to a horrid uncertainty as to which would anger her mother the more, to be wakened too ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... mankind agree in opinion, that there ever has been an elect, or good class of society; and a reprobate, or worthless and bad class; varying in turpitude or in goodness to a great extent and in almost imperceptible degrees. All must unite in ascribing to God that divine foreknowledge that renders ten thousand years but as one day, or hour, or moment in his sight. All ascribe to his omnipotence the power to ordain or decree what shall come to pass—and where is the spirit that can demonstrate ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... than those of the invisible and intangible fluid produced by a voltaic pile, and applied to the nervous system of a dead man? Whether the formation of Ideas and their constant diffusion was less incomprehensible than evaporation of the atoms, imperceptible indeed, but so violent in their effects, that are given off from a grain of musk without any loss of weight. Whether, granting that the function of the skin is purely protective, absorbent, excretive, and tactile, the circulation of the blood and all ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... come the last morning: when the light no more scares away the Night and Love, when sleep shall be without waking, and but one continuous dream. I feel in me a celestial exhaustion. Long and weariful was my pilgrimage to the holy grave, and crushing was the cross. The crystal wave, which, imperceptible to the ordinary sense, springs in the dark bosom of the hillock against whoose foot breaks the flood of the world, he who has tasted it, he who has stood on the mountain frontier of the world, and looked across into the new land, into ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... An almost imperceptible smile went round the table, and every listener but one breathed more freely. The candor and boldness of the guard won the respect and confidence of all except Marlanx. The Iron Count was white with anger. He took the examination out of Lorry's hands, and plied the stranger with insulting ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... roundabout circuits we took; the dreams of a patient in delirium are not more incongruous. Still, just as there is nothing absolutely unconnected in the head either of a man who dreams, or of a lunatic, so all hangs together in conversation; but it would often be extremely hard to find the imperceptible links that have brought so many disparate ideas together. A man lets fall a word which he detaches from what has gone before, and what has followed in his head; another does the same, and then let him catch the thread who can. A single physical quality may lead the mind ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... boy, peering at him sideways, clung to his great parent's side. For perhaps ten seconds there was this interchange of staring, intimate staring, between the three of them ... and then the Irishman, confused, more than a little agitated, ended the silent introduction with an imperceptible bow and passed on slowly, knocking absent-mindedly through the crowd, down to his cabin on ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... obviously plausible reason for assigning it to the creator of so realistic a witch and so singular a succubus. But such a dramatic poem as this would be a conspicuous jewel in the crown of any but a supremely great dramatist and poet. And the musical or metrical harmony of the verse, imperceptible as it may be or rather must always be to the long-eared dunces who can only think to hear through their clumsy fingers, is so like Fletcher's as to suggest that if any part of Shakespeare's "King Henry VIII." is attributable ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... over. The writing signed "Thurston" on sheet number one was faint, almost imperceptible, but on paper number two, in black letters, appeared what Kennedy had written: " Dear Harris: Since we agreed to disagree we have ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve |
