"Imperiousness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exerted over every one who came within her daily influence. It would have been the same had she occupied a dependent position instead of being the wealthy autocrat she was. In her cold nature dwelt an imperiousness which no one could withstand. You know how her friends, some of them as rich and influential as herself, bowed to her will and submitted to her interference. What, then, could you expect from two poor girls entirely dependent upon her for ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... bow. Returning to the General, whom he found 'lost and perplexed,' he was told to follow his own judgment as to what quantity of tools he should take. The Adjutant-General came in, and 'this officer, after abusing the Envoy, spoke to the General with an imperiousness and disrespect, and to me, a stranger, with an insolence it was painful to see the influence of on the General. His advice to his chief was to have nothing to say to Macnaghten, to me, or to the sappers, ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... by the imperiousness with which the Brother so roughly sought to dominate him, looked up ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... with that soft ring of determination which gave her the one touch of imperiousness she possessed, my heart fell. It was as if she had warned me that she had dedicated ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... Demorest might have been amused at his guest's audacity, or have combated it with his old imperiousness, but he only remained looking at him in a dull sort of way as if yielding to his influence. It was part of the phenomenon that the two men seemed to have changed character since they last met, and when Ezekiel said confidentially: "I reckon you're goin' to show me what room I ken ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... and friendly affection. His counsel is not to fire at every provocation, not to return evil for evil, not to cherish any fires of revenge, burning to be even with the injurious person. His counsel is to curb our imperiousness, to repress our impatience, to pause in the burst of another's feeling, to pour water upon the kindling flames, or, at the very least, to abstain from ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... free hand on her arm with a touch of his customary imperiousness. "That won't do. You're to go to bed properly—and sleep till you can't sleep any longer. Yes, that's an order, see?" He smiled again at her, his sudden transforming smile. "Be a good child and do as I tell you! Cox is within call. We'll ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... said. Her face was pale, but her lips were smiling. "Get down there where you were!" she continued, with tender imperiousness. He obeyed her, hardly daring to trust his senses. "Now put your hands between my hands," she said, still with that pale, singular smile, which filled him with unquiet transports, "and tell me the truth, ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... stood before her, girlishly slender in her long dress, though there was an indefinite suggestion of imperiousness in ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... her accident, for in the evening of that disastrous day she issued to Captain Hume Vidall a commission which he could never—wished never—to resign. Since then she had been at her best,—we are all more or less selfish creatures,— and had grown gentler, curbing the delicate imperiousness of her nature, and frankly, and without the least pique, taken a secondary position of interest in the household, occasioned by Lali's popularity. She looked Lali up and down with a glance in which ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... mountain on a desert shore. The prince first began to rave against the doctor for this piece of treachery and witchcraft. Perceiving however that all his rage was vain, and submitting himself to the imperiousness of his situation, he began to seek for some habitable tract. By and by he discovered people cutting down wood in a forest, and, having no remedy, he was glad to have recourse to the same employment. In process of time he was brought to a town; and there ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... back watching her with far-away eyes, as she moved lightly about, giving her orders with a childish imperiousness, and setting out the ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... whose pride and imperiousness kept away and scorned away the burgesses from the gates of Trianon, came to Trianon there to rest from the unbending majesty of her sovereignty, and she herself used to say to her ladies, with her own enchanting smile, "To forget ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... ever at Oakford?" she asked, turning her grey eyes on me. She spoke almost abruptly, and with a touch of imperiousness that suddenly recalled to me where I had ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... unbearable affliction which makes Chaucer's patient Griselda almost incomprehensible to modern readers, is in Imogen completely redeemed by her resolution in the face of danger, and by a certain {202} imperiousness which well becomes the ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... be led by a woman; and, his wife dead, he coaxed and dandled and spoiled his daughter; laughing at her caprices, but humouring them; making a joke of her prejudices, but letting them have their way; indulging, and perhaps increasing, her natural imperiousness of character, though it was his maxim that we can't change dispositions by meddling, and only make hypocrites of our children by ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sway. The allegorical serpent of Eden is working upon the feminine portion, symbolized by the heart, and, like a magnetic tractor, the soul's affinities are drawn downward, and, as if in defiance of all responsibilities, consequences, and Karma, the soul, lion-like, "shakes his mane in the imperiousness of deathless courage." ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... our humbler domain, who—Pagan that she is!—indiscriminately accepts all things beautiful simply for their beauty. Having arrived, Miss Holland proceeded to organize us with all the energy of high-blooded sweet-and-twenty and all the imperiousness of confident wealth and beauty. She organized an evening sewing-circle for women whose eyelids would not stay open after their long day's work. She formed cultural improvement classes for such as Leon Coventry, the printer, who knows half the literatures of the world, and MacLachan, the tailor, ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... she panted, "for we got along capitally. Dr. Cardington gave me this candle, but declined to come with us. I thought he quite resented our intrusion, and was anxious to pass us up without delay." Then, turning to her companions with whimsical imperiousness, "Stand in a row, the whole class, till I introduce ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... an authority which he would not venture to assume under a system of perfect freedom; it emboldens the latter to display an insolence which he would not have dreamed of in a state of slavery, and thus begetting in the one, the imperiousness of the slaveholder without his power, and in the other, the independence of the freeman without his immunities, it perpetuates a scene of angry collision, jealousy ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... such imperiousness that Bunny judged it best to comply. He showed her a door in the eastern wall that was draped ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... watched contentedly the contests between the older of his knights who played chess under the shade of the fruit trees, and the fencing bouts of the younger warriors. Very dear to him were all his Douzeperes, yet dearest of all was his own nephew, Roland. In him he saw his own youth again, his own imperiousness, his reckless gallantry, his utter fearlessness—all those qualities which endeared him to the hearts of other men. Roland was his sister's son, and it was an evil day for the fair Bertha when she told her brother that, in spite of his anger and scorn, she had disobeyed ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... replied gently. It was Colonel's Esmond's nature always to be led by a woman, and he spoiled his daughter; laughing at her caprices, but humouring them; making a joke of her prejudices, but letting them have their way; indulging, and perhaps increasing, her natural imperiousness of character, which asserted itself to an unusual ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... of the bowknot she had just tied, and turned away not wholly dissatisfied. Indeed, as the acknowledged belle of Canada City and the daughter of its principal banker, small wonder that a certain frank vanity and childlike imperiousness were among ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... perfect health, and the music of her voice and laugh was nothing short of a revelation to me. I could see that, being an only child, she had not wholly escaped being spoiled; but the slight touch of hauteur and imperiousness which was noticeable in her manner was only just sufficient to add to it another piquant charm. Like her foster-sister she was attired in white, the bodice being fastened with a white silken lace or cord, and having no sleeves, a couple of shoulder-straps trimmed with lace taking ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... positive and determined, and her manner so irresistible, that Hemstead had no thought, save that of compliance. She had that piquant imperiousness to which men are willing slaves when it is manifested graciously, and by a pretty woman. He was like a ship caught in a gale, and there was nothing to do but scud before it. At the same time, it seemed that she was driving him swiftly ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... the stories of the time. Friends and foes agree in attributing the schism, at least the immediate schism, to the imprudent zeal, the imperiousness, the ungovernable temper of Pope Urban. The cardinals among themselves talked of him as mad; they began to murmur that it was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... whatever animal or vegetable life can manage here and there to survive under such circumstances is very peculiar. Deserts are the most exacting of all known environments, and they compel their inhabitants with profound imperiousness to knuckle under to their prejudices and preconceptions in ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... pictured? The fruit-bearing branch cannot say to the strength-giving vine, "I have no need of thee." The vine cannot say, "I have no need of thee." Man in his imperious folly has pictured the relationship as that of oak and vine which have no organic union; but, despite imperiousness and folly, both men and women, through mutual obedience to God, have thus far worked out, and are still working out, the ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... and if you come off without a savour of the air which his soul is infected with you have great fortune. The fardel of all this ware that is in him you shall commonly see carried upon the back of these two beasts that live within him, Ignorance and Imperiousness, and they may well serve to carry other vices, for of themselves they are insupportable. His Ignorance acquits him of all science, human or divine, and of all language but his mother's; holding nothing pure, holy, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... a serf who spoke no word of any language but his own. Although of a brutal, almost idiotic type, he was loudly eulogized by his master as the model of fidelity and usefulness. Bourgonef treated him with gentleness, though with a certain imperiousness; much as one might treat a savage mastiff which it was necessary to dominate without exasperating. He more than once spoke of Ivan as a living satire on physiognomists and phrenologists; and as I am a phrenologist, I listened ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... "I'll take something different from what I got last time. No imperiousness this trip." He smiled grimly. "There was a time when I used to take orders. Suppose ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... indeed days of triumph for Vesalius; of triumph deserved, because earned by patient and accurate toil in a good cause: but Vesalius, being but a mortal man, may have contracted in those same days a temper of imperiousness and self-conceit, such as he showed afterwards when his pupil Fallopius dared to add fresh discoveries to those of his master. And yet, in spite of all Vesalius knew, how little he knew! How humbling to his pride it would have ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... girl laughed. "They call me Peg," she said, and with sudden impulse she held out her work-roughened hand. "Come on," she said again, with an unconscious note of imperiousness in her voice, and ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... rejoined quickly. "You must. It's an order, see?" His dark eyes laughed at her, but there was more than a tinge of imperiousness in his manner. "Well, Crowther, how are you? Getting ready to scatter the Philistines? Don't give me milk, Avery! You know I hate it at ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... Stand right back!" said he with the sharp imperiousness which I had associated only with moments of crisis. "If you approach me, Watson, I shall order you ...
— The Adventure of the Dying Detective • Arthur Conan Doyle
... made Bonaparte the most gentle and conciliatory of men in some directions; in others they developed and hardened his imperiousness. His correspondence mirrors both his mildness and his arbitrariness. His letters to the Directory abound in praise of his officers and men, accompanied by demands for the promotion of those who had ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... you say me nay already," she said with arch imperiousness, and a charming little pout of the lips, a woman's way of laughing ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... it because I wanted you, because I am tired of lying to my heart, because I have a right to be happy, because—because I love you! Take me, and oh! be good and kind to me, for I have been very lonely and unhappy.... Kiss me!" with a touch of the old imperiousness. ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... fancied what bee I thus helped to keep buzzing in her pretty head, which she now carried with all the alternate imperiousness and graciousness of confident and proven beauty. Little I divined of feminine dreams of conquest in larger fields; or foresaw of dangerous fruit to grow from seed planted with thoughtlessness. To my mind, nothing of harm or evil could ensue from anything done, or ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... habitually affects a style of arrogance, and dictates rather than persuades. This authoritative and magisterial language he expected to be received as his peculiar mode of jocularity: but he apparently flattered his own arrogance by an assumed imperiousness, in which he was ironical only to the resentful, and to the submissive sufficiently serious. He told stories with great felicity, and delighted in doing what he knew himself to do well; he was therefore captivated by the respectful silence of a steady listener, ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... down here," replied the Moro, not without some haste and a new tone of imperiousness not at all ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... leave; and if they were married, the children should never cry, nor the servants commit a fault: they'd set the house to rights; they would do every thing. But the lion-like talkers abroad are mere baa-lambs at home, being generally dupes and slaves to some termagant mistress, against whose imperiousness they dare not open their lips, {50}but are frightened even if she frowns. Old bachelors, in this, resemble your pretenders to atheism, who make a mock in public of what in private they tremble at and fall down to. When they become superannuated, they set up for suitors, they ogle through ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... was, would, possibly, after no more than a few entreaties, make them a present of her person as well as the purchase money. In the second place, never had they in the Chia mansion ill-used any of those below; there being always plenty of grace and little of imperiousness. Besides, the servant-girls, who acted as personal attendants in the apartments of the old as well as of the young, were treated so far unlike the whole body of domestics in the household that the daughters even of an ordinary ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... said, with his easy imperiousness. "I can't spare you yet. I must have one more dance just to soothe my nerves. I've been dancing with a faultless automaton who didn't understand me in the least. Now I want the ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... rage against her, but instead he could think of nothing but her sweet imperiousness, her dazzling beauty, her cheerfulness under all circumstances, and her ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... quickly: that was Vivian's way. He did not wait for either yea or nay. He gave commands, and left you with no choice But just to do the bidding of his voice. His rare, kind smile, low tones, and manly face Lent to his quick imperiousness a grace And winning charm, completely stripping it Of what might otherwise have seemed unfit. Leaving no trace of tyranny, but just That nameless force that seemed to say, "You must." Suiting its pretty ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... power, the contained passion of such a nature are not qualities which touch the world when it finds them in an obscure and homely woman. Even now, very many will not love a heroine so independent of their esteem. They will resent the frank imperiousness, caring not to please, the unyielding strength, the absence of trivial submissive tendernesses, for which she makes amends by such large humane and generous compassion. "In Emily's nature," says her sister, ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... minutes, but soon the damper which that put upon her spirits evaporated, leaving her all pure bliss. It was entrancing to sit here once more—where she had often kept Osborn sitting in the old days of her imperiousness and his humility—and to watch the well-dressed people come in and out, pass to and fro, and enact scenes which suggested the gaudiest stories to her receptive mind. Light and warmth, rich colour and abundant life flowed there like tides, and many servants ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... and now she owned the dingy house over the covered way, and let her own lodgings with her own furniture; nor was she often without friends who would recommend her zeal and honesty, and make excuse for the imperiousness of her ways and the too great fluency of her by ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... There was an imperiousness in the lawyer's tone which was almost irresistible. Nevertheless Cousin Henry made a faint effort at resisting. "I should be dragged into ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... wherein the message of the Senate was written, bad him read those first. When he had read them, he replied he would consider with his friends what was fit to be done; but Popilius drawing a circle about him, bad him answer before he went out of it: Antiochus, astonished at this blunt and unusual imperiousness, made answer he would do what the Romans demanded; and then Popilius gave the King his hand to kiss, and he returned out of Egypt. The same year, An. Nabonass. 580, his captains by his order spoiled and slaughtered ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton
... repressing effect, which increased her impatience. The horse-hoofs again heard behind at some little distance were a growing irritation. She reined in her horse and looked behind her; Grandcourt after a few paces, also paused; but she, waving her whip and nodding sideways with playful imperiousness, said, "Go on! I want to speak to ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... cruelty, an imperiousness, even in his warmth, had characterized Charles Stow. As a lover he had ever been a bit of a tyrant; and it might pretty truly have been said that he had stung her into marriage with him at last. Still more alien from her life did these ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... each new step forward appears as an outrage against a sacred thing, as rebellion against the old, dying, but through custom, sanctified, circumstances, and on the other hand that since the rising of class antagonism, the evil passions of men, greed and imperiousness serve as the levers of historical progress, of which, for example, the history of feudalism and the bourgeoisie affords a conspicuous proof. But Feuerbach does not trouble himself to examine the role of moral evil. History is to him a particularly barren and unwonted field. Even his statement, ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... drive down on Sunday and bring you back in time for tea and to see the sunset on the rhododendrons." Mrs. Farraday further surprised her son and Mr. Vandeford by giving this command the imperiousness with which she was accustomed ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... she lost something of her imperiousness, and yielded herself to his guidance with a delicious return to woman's weakness in the face of practical material details. To Bradley this seemed vastly significant and his spirits rose. He grew quite facetious and talkative ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... not your brother, because of his natural imperiousness and fierce and uncontroulable temper: these say, that the young gentleman's passion was abated on seeing his blood gush plentifully down his arm; and that he received the generous offices of his adversary (who ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... gleamed maliciously as he spoke,—then bowing profoundly he added, addressing both Sah-luma and Theos.. "Noble sirs, to-night out of all men in Al-Kyris shall you be the most envied! Farewell!"—and once more making that curious salutation which had in it so much imperiousness and so little obeisance, he walked backward a few paces in the full lustre of the set sun's after-glow, which intensified the vivid red of his costume and lit up all the ornaments of clear-cut amber that glittered against his swarthy skin,—then turning, he descended ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... group in pacing the platform, the woman whom he had been studying raised her eyes and gazed at him with just a touch of imperiousness. ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... happiness, cost that witness what it may. Paulina had forbidden letters, yet Dr. Bretton wrote; she had resolved against correspondence, yet she answered, were it only to chide. She showed me these letters; with something of the spoiled child's wilfulness, and of the heiress's imperiousness, she made me read them. As I read Graham's, I scarce wondered at her exaction, and understood her pride: they were fine letters—manly and fond—modest and gallant. Hers must have appeared to him beautiful. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... officers who were at the head of it. Perhaps they had their side to it also, which would be worth the finding out. And the spy—she had never seen a spy, a marker-down of men—so she resolved to see this Eben McClure, the most hated man in all Wigtonshire. She would stay, and it was with a certain imperiousness that she ordered ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... aborigines held out in corners, and defied the conquerors. The latter ground them down, confiscated the property of their half-dozen chiefs, and distributed it among themselves. By way of showing their imperial imperiousness, they built over some ruins left by their devastations a great church, in which they ordered all the islanders to worship. This was at first abomination to the islanders, who fought like devils whenever they could, and ended by accepting the religion of their foes. But the conquerors, afterwards ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... been a woman's. There is a simple intuition of friendship in some lonely, self-abstracted natures that is nearly akin to love at first sight. Even the audacities and insolence of this stranger affected Morse as he might have been touched and captivated by the coquetries or imperiousness of some bucolic virgin. And this reserved and shy frontiersman found himself that night sleepless, and hovering with an abashed timidity and consciousness around the wagon that sheltered his guest, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... could say would dissuade her. The touch of imperiousness with which she silenced their objections made the blundering well- meaning doctor want to shake her. He waited impatiently while Margot made Felicia ready for the hasty journey. He saw nothing absurd about the slender figure that came down the stairway toward him wrapped in the very ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... the causes of the present war.... 'Tis the character of Englishmen to be haughty, proud, and overbearing. If this conduct meets with no resistance, their treatment becomes more imperious, and the more submissive and conciliating is the object of their imperiousness, the more tyrannical are they towards it. This has been their uniform treatment towards us, and this character pervades all ranks of society, whether in public ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... that appeared very much out of place in that aisle of tremendous forest, but there was a difference between her and her companion. The latter knew the bush, and was dressed simply in a close-fitting robe of gray. She held herself well, and there was something that suggested quiet imperiousness in her attitude and expression. This was, perhaps, not altogether unnatural, for hitherto when Ida Stirling desired anything that her father's money could obtain her wish was gratified. She laid her hand warningly ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... friends can see too plainly how much you spoil me. Tell me,"—and she turned with a sudden pretty imperiousness to Lorimer, who started at her voice as a racehorse starts at its rider's touch,—"what person ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... beside a little table in the centre of the room, one hand resting upon it for support. She was so agitated, and so fearful lest Calvert should notice it and guess its true cause, that she summoned all her pride and old imperiousness to her aid. Looking at her so, he wondered how it was that Mr. Morris had found her so softened. Looking at him so, weak and ill and hurt for one she loved, she could have thrown herself at his feet and kissed his wounded arm. ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... of his love for science, DeWitt Clinton was a born politician, with all the characteristic incongruities incident to such a life. He had the selfishness of Livingston, the inconsistency of Spencer, the imperiousness of Root, and the ability of a statesman. Unlike most other men of his party, he did not rely wholly upon discipline and organisation, or upon party fealty and courtesy. Hamilton had cherished the hope that Clinton might ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... horseback. While he was still at a distance, the young consul observed it, and bade one of his lictors command his father to alight, and tell him that, if he had any business with the consul, he should come on foot. The bystanders seemed offended at the imperiousness of the son towards a father so venerable for his age and his authority, and turned their eyes in silence towards Fabius. He, however, instantly alighted from his horse, and with open arms came up, almost running, and embracing him said, "Yes, my son, you do well, and understand what authority ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... "The Charles" upon the Tuesday, to the Duke of Albemarle; but I see the House is mighty favourable to the Duke of Albemarle, and would give little weight to it. And something of want of armes he spoke, which Sir J. Duncomb answered with great imperiousness and earnestness; but, for all that, I do see the House is resolved to be better satisfied in the business of the unreadiness of Sherenesse, and want of armes and ammunition there and every where: and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... tolerance and good humor, there was a great deal of the arbitrary and despotic in Mr. Jefferson's nature. Stern principle alone enabled him to keep his native imperiousness within proper bounds. ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... she felt she could now, for the first time, voice all these terrible memories of the past which had come back to her last night when her husband had left her. She concealed nothing, she veiled nothing; there were intervals when her tears no longer flowed, and a cruel hardness and return of her old imperiousness of voice and manner took their place, as if she was doing a rigid penance and took a bitter satisfaction in laying bare her whole soul to him. "I never had a friend," she whispered; "there were women who persecuted me with their ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... imperiousness and strength of determination served him well. This delicate-looking man, himself nervously perturbed, found the needed stimulus in his strenuous circumstances, and through that difficult night and morning, while he had the air of an animated corpse returned to movement ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... mischievous geniality. It was an enterprising, swashbuckling sort of mouth, the mouth of one who would lead forlorn hopes with a jest or plot whimsically lawless conspiracies against convention. In its corners and in the firm line of the chin beneath it there lurked, too, more than a hint of imperiousness. A physiognomist would have gathered, correctly, that Ann Chester liked having her own way and ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... it. She smiled and let him condescend. Certainly she neither feared nor even admired him. To tell the truth, she rather disliked him: the great, red-faced bachelor of fifty-three, with his bald spot and his stomach as weak as a baby's, and his mouthing imperiousness and his good heart which was as selfish as it could be. Nothing can be more cocksuredly selfish than a good heart which believes in its own beneficence. He was a little too much the teetotaller on the one hand to ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... all about that." The sudden note of imperiousness in his manner reminded Colwyn of the way in which he had snubbed Sir Henry Durwood in his bedroom at the Durrington hotel three mornings before. But it was in his previous indifferent tone that the young man added: "Have either of you ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... imperiousness quite foreign to her usual manner, Miss Dorothy cut in sharply. "If you don't promise to speak only to Mr. Daniel Burton about this matter I ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... knockers and be introduced into the boudoirs of all the houses, villas, seats, chateaus, and palaces in Christendom without seeing such another. She belonged distinctly to the Northern races,—the "brave and true and tender" women. There was, indeed, a trace of hauteur and imperiousness in her look and manner; but it did not ill become her distinguished figure and face. Wade, however, remembered her sweet earnestness when she was playing leech to his wound, and chose to take that mood as her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... imperiousness of the tone to wonder how the secret of his identity could be known by this man ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... Miss Mott, with a sort of girlish imperiousness which became her very well. "I can't have a statue put up unless it is ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates |
