"Imperious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ring into his hand and rose, her face tense, her eyes wonderfully big and luminous. She seemed at the moment to renew her health and to recover the imperious grace of her radiant youth as she exaltedly said: "Now I am free! You must ask me all over again—and when you do, I ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... and made such an imperious gesture that Madame Desroches moved from the door, and made way for her; Helene then, slowly and with dignity, descended the staircase herself, followed by Madame Desroches, who was petrified to find such a will in a young girl just ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... to Moggie's lips, to die unformed under an imperious glance from Rene who, with shining eyes and set mouth, had stood apart to watch the ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... self are not equally imperious and to fail in them all is not equally evil. Then again, not all sins are committed through pure malice, that is, with complete knowledge and full consent. Ignorance and weakness are factors to be considered in our guilt, and detract from the malice of our sins. Hence two kinds of sin, mortal ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... being under those imperious obligations which, as a native Chileno, rendered it incumbent on you to rescue your country from the mischiefs with which it was assailed by the scandalous measures of some of those who were unhappily in the confidence of the late Supreme Director, ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... have long since discovered that it is a much easier task to lead than force the young into right ways. Those who would truly govern children, must first learn to govern themselves. Let a parent break his own imperious will before he tries to break the will of his child; and he will be far more successful in the work he essays. to perform. But not so had Mr. Howland learned his duty in life. Without being, aware of the fact, he was a domestic tyrant, and sought to establish a family despotism. And the ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur
... no halt there, and I soon dropped the very queer small boy and went on. Over the road where the old Romans used to march, over the road where the old Canterbury pilgrims used to go, over the road where the travelling trains of the old imperious priests and princes used to jingle on horseback between the continent and this Island through the mud and water, over the road where Shakespeare hummed to himself, 'Blow, blow, thou winter wind,' as he sat in the saddle at the gate of the ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... this go, what then will remain?" It seems as though consciousness itself would cease with this surrender, for it must loose its hold on all it realises, and it sees nothing to grasp on the other side. An over-mastering conviction, an imperious voice, call on him to surrender his very life. If he shrinks back, he must go on in the life of sensation, the life of the intellect, the life of the world, and as he has the joys he dared not resign, he finds a constant dissatisfaction, a constant ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... friends with me?" she said to the robin just as if she was speaking to a person. "Would you?" And she did not say it either in her hard little voice or in her imperious Indian voice, but in a tone so soft and eager and coaxing that Ben Weatherstaff was as surprised as she had been when she ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... by this time, and as we drew up before the portico the Colonel stood on the top step waiting to welcome me. He was looking much as I remembered him except that his hair had turned from black to white, and his former imperious bearing had become a trifle querulous. I jumped out ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... requested a private and confidential interview with that lawyer. So violent, he observed, was the discontent of the army, so imperious the conduct of the parliament, that it would be impossible to prevent a collision of interests, and the subsequent ruin of the good cause, unless there were established "some authority so full and so high" as to ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... our bodies, the swiftness of our minds, and the delights of our limbs. Others of us are born with the thousand years binding us down to blindness and hobbling, holding us back to disease, but all with the same Imperious Timepiece held above us, to run the same race, to overtake the same truth—before the iron curtain and the dark. Some of us—a few men in every generation—have two or three hundred years given to us outright the day we are born. Then we are given seventy more. Others of us have ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... the whole misunderstanding arose. I've caused you a great deal of suffering, Rodion Romanovitch. I am not a monster. I understand what it must mean for a man who has been unfortunate, but who is proud, imperious and above all, impatient, to have to bear such treatment! I regard you in any case as a man of noble character and not without elements of magnanimity, though I don't agree with all your convictions. I wanted to tell you this first, frankly and quite sincerely, for above all I don't ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... road, and entered by the Casbin gate. I was happy to remark that I was not recognized by the guards, who, when I was in office, were accustomed to show themselves on the alert at my approach. But indeed it was not surprising that the active, bustling, imperious nasakchi should not be known under the garb of the would-be humble and insignificant priest; so for the present I felt secure in my disguise, and I boldly took my way through the bazaars and the most public places of the city, where formerly nothing but my ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... thought of doing so was horrible to him. Reason about it as he might, he drew near their silent forms with an uncontrollable repugnance. He almost gave up his purpose, and took a few hasty steps away, but a thorn pierced his foot and taught him his folly. Then his imperious will asserted itself, and with an imprecation on his weakness he returned to the nearest silent form, and took from it a limp felt hat, a coat, and a pair of boots, all much the worse for wear; and having arrayed himself in these, started on ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... private with a tailor's dummy." Daniel Culser's face grew noticeably pinker. "I'm going," Myrtilla continued, rising. "Mr. Penny, I'd be happy to meet you under more social conditions. Here I cannot remain for—for reasons. I might be tempted to—" Mr. Babb caught her arm under his, and, at an imperious gesture from Essie, piloted her ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... his father; "and if any accident, or any imperious necessity, should lead to your setting out for Paris without any escort, I have no doubt that you would get through safely. But it is one thing for a boy to be put into such a situation by some unforeseen and unexpected contingency, and quite another thing for his father deliberately ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott
... versus Powers that Be!" Ah, yes! Imperious Norman, that's a modern trial That's always being argued more or less; The Press keeps now such vigilant espial On every grasping would-be public plunderer. You, Sire, had not to reckon ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 27, 1892 • Various
... imperious man, with theories that a woman is happiest when she finds a master; but when the details of the wedding came up for decision I was astounded to find myself not only flouted but actually forced to humiliating surrender. Since then I have learned ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... coarse and imperious nature of the hardy and able ruffian who had now become openly her master should no less openly have shown itself even in the first moments of their inauspicious union is what any bystander of common insight must inevitably have foreseen. Tears, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... brow, like to a title-leaf, Foretells the nature of a tragic volume: So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood Hath left a witness'd usurpation. Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury? MORTON. I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord; Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask To fright ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... pleasure, such as we read of in Vespasiano's famous book. Everything he did was done in the service of St. Epicurus, it was done to darsi buon tempo, as the Tuscans used to say. But this was only the superficial direction taken by his energy; if he was imperious in his pleasures, he was earnest in his pursuit of learning; there was a singular harmony in the exercise of the physical, intellectual, and emotional faculties at his disposal. Julian Grenfell was a master of the body and of the mind, an unrivalled boxer, a pertinacious ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... jumped in beside the occupant, refastened the apron, and coolly taking the reins from his companion's hand, started the horse forward. The action was that of an habitually imperious man; and the only recognition he made of the other's ownership ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... am received with scorn, and denied my birthright, not only by those to whom I apply for work, but by the Arabs of the street and the public press. I am not complaining; I am merely stating the facts of the case. They even cast Ike in my teeth,—Ike the imperious, beautifully ugly Ike," he added, stooping down to pat the bull-terrier, who showed his teeth and growled affectionately. "Now, Mr. Chelm, you have my story. I am in ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... bowl of cream, covered by a muffin, knocked the muffin off with my paw, and lapped the cream. Then in joy, and perhaps also on account of the weakness of my young organs, I delivered myself on the waxed floor to the imperious need which young Cats feel. Perceiving the proofs of what she called my intemperance and my faults of education, the old woman seized me and whipped me vigorously with a birchrod, protesting that she would make me a lady or she ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... shine, less indifference whether she shocked. Persons who had not met her before, wondered why she was dreaded in society. But at times a great natural irritability of temper—a quick suspicion of the motives of those around her—an imperious and obstinate vehemence of will, were visible to Maltravers, and served, perhaps, to keep him heart-whole. He regarded her through the eyes of the intellect, not those of the passions—he thought not of her as a woman—her ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the miracles of sight, of hearing, of the projection of sound, things that bridge space; the miracles of memory and reason, by which the present is conceived, and when it is gone, its image kept living in the brains of man and brute; the miracle of reproduction, with its imperious desires and staggering consequences. And to put the last touch upon this mountain mass of the revolting and the inconceivable, all these prey upon each other, lives tearing other lives in pieces, cramming them inside themselves, and by that ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... only make matters worse; and more especially did he avoid interfering in the everlasting squabbles of Major and Mrs Molony—which were indeed rather amusing than otherwise, the object of the little lady being apparently to bring her lord and master under the complete subjection of her imperious will, to which he, good-tempered as he was, had no intention ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... ties of relationship or personal friendship. The public character of Mr. Canning is clearly unfolded in the altered policy of our government, both foreign and domestic, during his connexion with the Liverpool administration. His ambition was lofty and imperious, but it was coupled with noble ends—the glory of his own country, and the advancement, through her greatness, of the surrounding nations. He was anxious that all should benefit by her commercial prosperity and the blessings of her ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... How imperious, then, is the obligation imposed upon every citizen, in his own sphere of action, whether limited or extended, to exert himself in perpetuating a condition of things so singularly happy! All the lessons of history and experience ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... the bedchamber to our late Duchess," replied the lady in cold, imperious tones; "therefore I demand the right ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... page of my pocket-book a scheme of all female virtues and vices, with the vices which border upon every virtue, and the virtues which are allied to every vice. I considered that wit was sarcastick, and magnanimity imperious; that avarice was economical, and ignorance obsequious; and having estimated the good and evil of every quality, employed my own diligence, and that of my friends, to find the lady in whom nature and reason had reached that happy mediocrity which ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... that time was sixty-five years old. His countenance was dark, harsh, and imperious, and his language brutal. He indulged in frightful outbursts of temper, but he paid so well for service that there was no lack of it, as there has been since the ghost appeared some years ago. He was very tall, and of commanding appearance, but had a deformity in the shape ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... were continually flickering in front of him in violent and expressive pantomime. As for Tabary, a broad, complacent, admiring imbecility breathed from his squash nose and slobbering lips: he had become a thief, just as he might have become the most decent of burgesses, by the imperious chance that rules the lives of ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... castle near Sarnen, in Unterwalden, where his imperious temper, his exactions, his cruelties, and his debaucheries aroused a universal feeling of hatred among the peasants, that culminated in his expulsion and the destruction of his stronghold. The latter is popularly believed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... to be one of the most brilliant leaders of the last aristocratic generation that was destined to sport on the slopes of the volcano. The former seems to have been a loyal and homely soul; the latter, restless, imperious, penetrating, unamiable. Their dealings with Rousseau were marked by perfect sincerity and straightforward friendship. They gave him a convenient apartment in a small summer lodge in the park, to which he retreated when he cared for a change from his narrow cottage. He was ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... the direction where Madame de Bergenheim was dancing with Marillac, and met her gaze fixed full upon him. The glance which he received was rapid, displeased, and imperious. It signified clearly: "I forbid you to speak ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... Warsaw, without any exact knowledge of their situation. The men who guarded him at last became so afraid of their prisoner's taking advantage of these circumstances to escape, that they repeatedly called on Kosinski for orders to put him to death. Kosinski refused; but their demands growing more imperious, as the intricacies of the forest involved them completely, the king expected every moment to find their bayonets ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... well. It was the first time she had ever spoken to him in such a manner, and he stood silently watching the girl as she settled herself in the canoe, and dipped her paddle into the water. Then he wended his way slowly homeward, wondering what had come over his young imperious mistress. ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... and distressed, refraining from speech till she should be more nearly mistress of herself, and lightly holding her arm, because she was so evidently in need of support. She tightened her lips and mastered an imperious impulse to free herself from his touch. His unspoken solicitude unnerved her; and a sigh of pure relief escaped her when he set her down upon a chair, and went over to the ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... has to give are bestowed on Clifford. Sir Thomas, he says, 'had greatly distinguished himself in the House of Commons. Of the members of the Cabal, he was the most respectable. For, with a fiery, imperious temper, he had a strong though a lamentably perverted sense of duty and honour.' Farther on he adds that Clifford 'alone of the five had any claim to be regarded as an honest man.' Sir Thomas started a scheme which was practically the ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... and obstinate war followed between Rollo and Charles, Rollo being almost uniformly victorious in the combats that took place. Rollo became more and more proud and imperious in proportion to his success. He drove the French king from port to port, and from field to field, until he made himself master of a large part of the north of France, over which he gradually established a regular government of his own. Charles ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... instantly after him, in another walk, my Lady Castlemaine, led by Bab. May: at which I was surprised, having but newly heard the stories of the King and her being parted for ever. So I took Mr. Povy, who was there, aside, and he told me all,—how imperious this woman is, and hectors the King to whatever she will. It seems she is with child, and the King says he did not get it: with that she made a slighting puh with her mouth, and went out of the house, and never came in ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... and grey, and a high imperious wind off the sea. I see nothing particularly couleur de rose this morning: but I am trying to be faithful to my creed and hope. O yes, one can do something to make things happier and better; and to give a good example before men and show them how goodness and fortitude ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dreaming of the apparently fair fortune of Amanda; of the ingenuous Claude, and of his father, the importunate and imperious Seigneur, when the clang rung through the mansion, and rudely dispelled his visions. At first he was doubtful as to the reality of the alarm, and was dropping again to sleep, when once more the riding-whip sent the startling summons, and leaping from ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... heard her voice, imperious and clear, and the mumble of Mr. Waters's unavailing if never-ending excuses. He laughed softly to himself, and touched the strings of the guitar that she had struck. "I shall save the worthy Thomas much," he murmured to himself, "and of course I do it to reform her—I ...
— A Philanthropist • Josephine Daskam
... a slow, solemn smile on her haughtily curved lips, she extended one hand and arm, snow-white and glittering with jewels, and made an imperious gesture to command silence. Instantly a profound hush ensued. Lifting a long, slender, white wand, at the end of which could be plainly seen the gleaming silver head of a Serpent, she described three circles in the air with a perfectly even, majestic motion, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... already knew what a miserable pittance hers had been at the best. Mrs. Kelland gave her up at once, and protested that she was following her mother, and that there was death in her face. Rachel made an imperious gesture of silence, and was obeyed so far as voice went, but long-drawn sighs and shakes of the head continued to impress on her the aunt's hopelessness, throughout the endeavours to change the position, the moistening of the lips, the attempts at relief in answer to the choked ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sixteen years. At fourteen and fifteen I often thought that the time was come when I should commence my pilgrimage, which I had cheated my own mind into believing was my imperious duty: but a reluctance to quit my Aunt; a remorse for the grief which, I could not conceal from myself, I should occasion her for ever withheld me. Sometimes when I had planned the next morning for my escape ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... either of the women could utter a word, and they heard his stern and imperious voice addressing the man who had so rudely assaulted ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... his prisoners. His sword blade was waved aloft; his bawl rudely interrupted the ceremony. The chant stopped, and silence fell as the priests whirled around. The worshippers, too, turned and stared at the man who had broken the service with his imperious command. ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... brilliant, untrammeled breasts, the sparkling splendor of her flesh, with her golden hair unfastened, as she used to appear lying on a pillow of fair silk, almost faint and between her kisses, that were as fierce as bites, uttering: "I love you—you—I adore you—" And the lovely, imperious girl again became, almost without a word having been exchanged, the submissive woman carried away by lascivious ardor; and Guy, confused and speechless, no longer reasoning, was unable to say whether Marianne belonged to him, or he to ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... home he would console his parents for the loss of her, his aunt, by delivering to them a faithful statement of his having left her in the bosom of that family, with which, as his aforesaid parents well knew, her best affections were incorporated; that he would remind them that nothing less than her imperious sense of duty, and devoted attachment to her old master and missis, likewise Miss Dolly and young Mr Joe, should ever have induced her to decline that pressing invitation which they, his parents, had, as he could testify, given her, to lodge and ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... large, calm eyes searched his countenance with a look of offended dignity, which caused his tongue to cleave to the roof of his mouth. Speechless for the moment, but not blinded, Plutarch withdrew his optics from the imperious dame, and took an instantaneous brain-picture of her companion, a light-footed, quick-glancing girl about eighteen years of age, whose arrival put little Harman into an ecstasy, and gave manifest delight to the servants. Her blithe ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... in a loud, imperious tone by a well-dressed boy—at least if it is being well-dressed at the sea-side to be wearing a very tight Eton jacket and vest, an uncomfortably stiff lie-down collar, and a tall glossy black hat, of the kind called by some people ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... to disputes with S. Carolina, the sweeping away of the United States Bank, the wiping out of the national debt in 1835, and the vigorous enforcement of claims against the French for damage done during the Napoleonic wars; his imperious yet honest nature led him to make a more frequent use of the President's veto than any of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... officer told me that I could continue on my way; that they would certainly take care of me in Aerschot, as I had been firing at Germans, and they would shoot me when I arrived. I would have liked better to return to Louvain, but with an imperious gesture he pointed out my road to Aerschot, and I continued. On arriving within a few hundred meters of the town ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... splendid: A profusion of diamonds blazed upon her robes, and her hair was confined by a coronet of Roses. In her right hand She held a small Book: A lively expression of pleasure beamed upon her countenance; But still it was mingled with a wild imperious majesty which inspired the Monk with awe, and represt in some measure ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... imperious brisk way, like the little embodiment of will she was: "Oh! what does it matter? Phil never ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that declared their ignorance. Men, he averred, would always insist on assuming that their laws were right at all times, and, furthermore, were always applicable to dogs, forgetting that, more often even than themselves, dogs were moved by laws imperious. ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... courageous plot. Gritzko desired Tamara with the extreme of amorous passion, and in order to win her entirely he allowed her to believe that he had raped her. She, being an English widow, moving in the most refined circles, naturally regarded the outrage as an imperious reason for accepting his hand. That is a summary of Mrs. Glyn's novel, of which, by the way, I must quote the dedication: "With grateful homage and devotion I dedicate this book to Her Imperial Highness The Grand Duchess Vladimir of Russia. ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... when he met one of the huntsmen of Alcina, bearing a falcon on his wrist, and followed by a dog. The huntsman was mounted on a powerful horse, and came boldly up to the paladin, demanding, in a somewhat imperious manner, whither he was going so rapidly. Rogero disdained to stop or to reply; whereupon the huntsman, not doubting that he was about making his escape, said, "What if I, with my falcon, stop your ride?" So saying, he threw off the bird, which even ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... violin must be of spotless pedigree, even as our Genevese friend, Monsieur—, certified when he reluctantly sold it me. None but a genuine AMATI, a hundred years old, can possess this mysterious quality, that can breathe almost inaudible, like a mornbeam in the parlor, or predominate imperious and intense over orchestra and choir, illuminating with its fire, like chain lightning, the arches of a vast cathedral. Enchanted thing—what nameless spirit impregnates with magnetic ether the ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Imperious, capless, supreme, Do just as you please evermore; And wear what you will, for we shall be And never complain as before. We may put all our money in mines, We may put all our cheese into traps, But we put, it is clear, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various
... the very middle of an extremely severe winter; but she soon perceived that he was in earnest: she knew from the air and manner of her husband that he thought he had sufficient reason to treat her in this imperious style; and finding all her relations serious and cold to her complaint, she had no hope left in this universally abandoned situation but in the tenderness of Hamilton. She imagined she should hear from him ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... opened it, and called out in what seemed to Janet a very imperious tone: "Betty?" And yet no glimmer of the truth came ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... strange phenomena, it is not astonishing that the people of the surrounding district became seriously disquieted. And to the disquiet was joined an imperious need of knowing the true condition of the mountain. The Carolina newspapers had flaring headlines, "The Mystery of Great Eyrie!" They asked if it was not dangerous to dwell in such a region. Their articles aroused curiosity and fear—curiosity among those who being in ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... not fear to bring my own amongst it. What could a mind undertake from which mine would shrink? What application could be demanded to which I was not equal—prepared—eager to submit? Where lay my difficulty? I saw none: or if I did for an instant, it was exterminated before the imperious resolution I had formed to exalt and enrich my beloved and loving benefactor. Tender as a parent to me, this incomparable man was at the same time diligent and attentive as a domestic. He would permit me to do nothing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... up the steps two at a time, and knocked at Gibberts' door. The novelist allowed himself the luxury of a "man," and it was the "man" who answered Shorely's imperious knock. ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... decline working on Sundays. It may here be noticed that throughout the whole of the operations it was observable that the men wrought, if possible, with more keenness upon the Sundays than at other times from an impression that they were engaged in a work of imperious necessity, which required every possible exertion. On returning to the floating light, after finishing the tide's work, the boats were received by the part of the ship's crew left on board with the usual attention of handing ropes to the boats and helping the artificers on ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... newly wedded pair was short. Love soon changed to aversion, at least on the part of the bride. She was not of a tender nature; her temper was imperious, and she had a restless craving for excitement. Frontenac, on his part, was the most wayward and headstrong of men. She bore him a son; but maternal cares were ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... him—begged in vain his wonted smiles. Ap-dta ruled the teepee—all Wanta's smiles were hers; When the lodge was wrapped in sleep a star [c] beheld the mother's tears. Long she strove to do her duty for the black-eyed babe she bore; But the proud, imperious beauty made her sad forevermore. Still she dressed the skins of beaver, bore the burdens, spread the fare; Patient ever, murmuring never, while her cheeks were creased ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... condition to advance. At that place, or at Bedford, my ulterior resolution must be taken, either to advance with the troops into the insurgent counties of this state, or to return to Philadelphia, for the purpose of meeting Congress, the third of next month. Imperious circumstances alone can justify my absence from the seat of government whilst Congress is in session; but if these, from the disposition of the people in the refractory counties and the state of the information I expect to receive at the advanced posts, should appear ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... which he employed in the Declaration of Independence, than the announcement of a general principle, which, in its application to the colonists, was intended most emphatically to assert their equality, before God and the world, with the imperious Englishmen who claimed the divine right of lording it over them. This was undoubtedly the view held by Mr. Jefferson, and the extent to which he expected the language of the Declaration to be applied.[4] Nor could the signers of that instrument, or the people whom they ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... that Antony's pride, his superb mastery of life, the touch of imperious brutality in him, are all traits taken from Plutarch, and are indeed wholly inconsistent with Shakespeare's own character. Had Shakespeare possessed these qualities his portraits of men of action would have been infinitely better than ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... future, to me, was not promising. The opportunities for advancement were much, very much less than now. With me ambition and dejection contended for the mastery, the latter often in the ascendant. To her friendly inquiry I gave reasons for my depression. I shall never forget the response; almost imperious in manner, you could already anticipate the magnitude of an idea that seemed to struggle for utterance. "What! discouraged? Go do some great thing." It was an inspiration, the result of which she ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... was the sweetest blossom of them all. Her fresh vitality is of the contagious kind, and even plants seem to revive and get new life from the touch of her small fingers, as though feeling the necessity of growing like her. Her beauty may not last. It is not of the imperious kind, nor even quite classic, but it has a wonderful fineness and delicacy. Her soft brown hair coils closely on her small, well-shaped head; her gentle, serious blue eyes look tenderly on all that lives and has being within the circle of ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... household utensil, how greatly was life simplified! What a door for expenditure was there, as yet securely closed, and which no one had thought of opening! No milliner's or dressmaker's bills, no evening parties, no Protean fashions, no elegant furniture, no imperious necessity for Kleanthes to outshine Kleon, no coaches, no Chateau Margaux, no journeys to Arkadia in the summer! In such a state of society, as one may easily see, the labour of one man would support half a dozen. It cost the Athenian but a few cents ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... answered, "I might say I dropped in as it were." Lisbeth brushed the hair from her temples, and turned to me with an imperious gesture. ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... days the greatest care was taken to keep Benny out of Dr. Johnson's way. When the imperious mew was heard at the dining-room door after dinner, the child was hurried through with the last spoonfuls of his pudding, and whisked away to the parlor before the cat was let in. Nor would Miss Wealthy herself go into the parlor when the Doctor had finished ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... an anecdote which is related of the Emperor Nicholas I., tending to show that he was not so devoid of kindly human feelings as his imperial and imperious exterior suggested. On coming out of his cabinet one Easter morning he addressed to the soldier who was mounting guard at the door the ordinary words of salutation, "Christ hath risen!" and received instead ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... inborn proclivity, innate proclivity; native tendency, natural tendency; natural impulse, predetermination. necessity, necessitation; obligation; compulsion &c 744; subjection &c 749; stern necessity, hard necessity, dire necessity, imperious necessity, inexorable necessity, iron necessity, adverse necessity; fate; what must be. destiny, destination; fatality, fate, kismet, doom, foredoom, election, predestination; preordination, foreordination; lot fortune; fatalism; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... for bearing the orator's sceptre were a voice of singular fulness, depth, and variety of tone; a falcon's eye with strange imperious flash; features mobile, expressive, and with lively play; a great actor's command of gesture, bold, sweeping, natural, unforced, without exaggeration or a trace of melodrama. His pose was easy, alert, erect. To these endowments of external mien was joined the gift and the glory of words. They were ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... Rambouillet, and her son, the popular young Marquis de Pisani, formed a nucleus of youth and gaiety. To these we may add the beautiful Angelique Paulet, who at seventeen had turned the head of Henri IV, and escaped the fatal influence of that imperious sovereign's infatuation by his timely, or untimely, death. Fair and brilliant, the best singer of her time, skilled also in playing the lute, and gifted with a special dramatic talent, she was always a favorite, ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... not here represented him, as usual, carrying his head, but had shown him standing with his crozier and mitre. And he was not humble and pitiable, like his neighbour, the Spanish Deacon, but upright and imperious, with his hand uplifted, in the attitude rather of admonishing the faithful than of blessing them, and Durtal stood lost in thought before this writer, whose brief book holds so important a place in the series of ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... Spencer (Clothworker)—"rich Spencer," as he was called—kept his mayoralty at Crosby Place, Bishopsgate. His only daughter married Lord Compton, who, tradition says, smuggled her away from her father's house in a large flap-topped baker's basket. A curious letter from this imperious lady is extant, in which she only requests an annuity of L2,200, a like sum for her privy purse, L10,000 for jewels, her debts to be paid, horses, coach, and female attendants, and closes by praying her husband, when he becomes ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... handkerchief protected her head, its edge drawn straight across her brow in a fashion that would have disfigured ninety-nine women in a hundred. But no head-dress availed to disfigure that brow or the young imperious ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... the British forces on Rhode Island in 1777, was a petty tyrant, imperious, irascible, and cruel. He would command citizens of Newport who met him on the streets to take off their hats in deference to him, and if not obeyed, he would knock them off with his cane. If he saw a group of citizens talking together, he would shake his cane at them, and shout, "Disperse, you ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... buying something," said the little boy addressed, looking up very quietly at the imperious intruder. ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away: O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe, Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw! Hamlet, Act v. Sc. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... fingers rub the powder off a butterfly's wings.... If he and Archelaus had been more truly brothers it would have been a very nice arrangement ... little Phoebe would make a sweeter sister in some ways than the imperious Vassie.... ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... years we have been gentlemen, and you are not a gentleman; we have not been thieves, and you have proved yourself a thief; we have spoken the truth, and you are, what you are so fond of calling your cousin, who is worth two of you, a liar. Now listen. However imperious I may have grown in my old age, I can still respect the man who thwarts me even though I hate him; but I despise the man who deceives me, as I despise you, my dear son Philip—and I tell you this, and I beg you to lay it to heart, that if ever ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... Without him the struggle would not then have continued. Sooner or later America would have broken free from England, but he was indispensable to the liberty and independence of the Colonies then. This thought brooded over him at all times, not to make him boastful or imperious, but to impress him with a deeper awe, and to impress also his men with the supreme importance of his life to them all. They grew restive when, at Princeton, forgetful of self, he faced a volley of muskets only thirty feet away. One of ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... thou upon the high and giddy mast Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains In cradle of the rude imperious surge . ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... drake belonging to a chemist having drunk water out of a copper vessel which had contained phosphorus, ceased not gallanting his females till he died. An old man to whom a few drops only of phosphoric ether had been administered, experienced repeated and imperious venereal wants which he was compelled to satisfy. Leroy and Battatz, two celebrated French physicians of the last century, tried the effects of phosphorus upon themselves, with similar results. Sensations of the ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... Kuryong homestead caused great excitement among the inhabitants. Mrs. Gordon received her in a motherly way, trying hard not to feel that a new mistress had come into the house; she was anxious to see whether the girl exhibited any signs of her father's fiery temper and imperious disposition. The two servant-girls at the homestead—great herculean, good-natured bush-girls, daughters of a boundary-rider, whose highest ideal of style and refinement was Kuryong drawing-room—breathed hard and stared round-eyed, like wild fillies, at the unconscious intruder. ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... you stop!" It was the old imperious Susan back again. "You stop right where you be. An' don't you never let me hear you say another word about your bein' a disappointment. Jerry an' Ned, indeed! I wonder if you think a dozen Jerrys an' Neds could do what you've done! An' no matter ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... on the eastern side, has almost disappeared. But the other stands out entire and white, with the whiteness of marble, against the brown-coloured background of the enormous stretch of wall covered with hieroglyphs. His face alone has been mutilated; and he preserves still his imperious chin, his ears, his Sphinx's headgear, one might almost say his meditative expression, before this deployment of the vast solitude which seems to ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... necessary for the lovers to resort surreptitiously to the little Church of St. Pierre aux Boeufs, which had the privilege of uniting couples without the consent of their parents. But Frontenac and his bride were ill-mated. Both were possessed of imperious tempers and wayward minds. For a time they held together, then suddenly they separated—Frontenac to find a soothing excitement in the clash of arms, and the precocious Comtesse to divert herself in the brilliant salons ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... determining what was best to be done in small things and great. It is only fair to say, in addition, that this submission was not by any means exacted; it was the deference of early habit and feebler will, for she was neither officious nor imperious. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... after they all met in the dining-room. My father was much surprised at the appearance of Mrs. P. He had heard that his friend married abroad, but nothing further, and he was not prepared to see the calm, dignified P. with a woman on his arm, still handsome, indeed, but whose coarse and imperious expression showed as low habits of mind as her exaggerated dress and gesture did of education. Nor could there be a greater contrast to my mother, who, though understanding her claims and place with the certainty of a lady, was soft and retiring in ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... do just as I bid you," replied Gertie, in her imperious, scornful anger. "It really seems to me you forget your position here, Miss Brooks. How dare ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... if it hadn't been for Ellaline—Madame's richest and most important girl—persisting as she did, in her imperious, spoiled-child way, Madame wouldn't have dreamed of engaging a young girl like me, without any experience as a teacher, no matter how much she liked my voice and my (or rather Larese's) method. I suppose no one would else have risked me; so I certainly do owe to Ellaline, and nobody but Ellaline, ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... when she heard herself called by an imperious voice. Shuddering, she pretended not to hear, and continued on her way. They called her again, this time with a yell and an insulting epithet. She turned toward them, pale and trembling in spite of herself. ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... knowledge of life and of himself. Such as it was at least, his home and school training was now complete; and you are to conceive the lad as being formed in a household of meagre revenue, among foreign surroundings, and under the influence of an imperious drawing-room queen; from whom he learned a great refinement of morals, a strong sense of duty, much forwardness of bearing, all manner of studious and artistic interests, and many ready-made opinions which he embraced with a son's ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was always imperious, always obstinate. There must have been some exciting conversation between you, sir (turning to me), and the lady; did you say anything ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard |
