"Impervious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forming a great curve from the sandspit on the north side of the treacherous bar to the blue loom of a headland in shape like the figure of a couchant lion. Back from the shore-line, a narrow littoral of dense scrub, impervious to the rays of the sun, and unbroken in its solitude except by the cries of birds, or the heavy footfall of wild cattle upon the thick carpet of fallen leaves; and then, far to the west, the dimmed, shadowy outline of ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... decompose, leaving no vestige of their form or substance behind. Their decay, in water, although more slow, is as certain and eventually as complete as in the open air. Nor can they be perpetuated for indefinite periods in a fossil state, unless imbedded in some matrix which is impervious to water, or which at least does not allow a free percolation of that fluid, impregnated, as it usually is, with a slight quantity of carbonic or other acid. Such a free percolation may be prevented either by the mineral nature of the matrix itself, or by the superposition of an impermeable stratum; ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... to be both looking at them!" She at once covered this unwary outbreak of jealousy under an impervious surface of compliment. "Miss Carmina is not perhaps exactly pretty, but she is a singularly ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... finding his enemy impervious to direct attack, commenced a flank movement. As he was not allowed to ride inside, he resolved to ride alongside; bought omnibuses and stock and established a line on the car route at reduced rates. The cars were not always on time, and many whites would ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... this simple machine, knots it across with small plaited threads, at the distance of half an inch from each other. Though, by this method, it be not so close or firm as cloth that is woven, the bunches between the knots make it sufficiently impervious to the air, by filling the interstices; and it has the additional advantage of being softer and more pliable. The woollen garments, though probably manufactured in the same manner, have the strongest resemblance to woven cloth. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... week, in your frame of mind, you'd have a hundred fights; there would be time for nothing else but knocking out the men who insulted you. You'll collapse over Sunday if you are not absolutely and totally impervious to everything and everybody. The only way you can throw the world over is to ignore it; while you appear to have the idea that it should put a rose in ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... his side. An open manuscript was in front of him. He took up his pen. Very soon he would be absorbed by the strong fascination of his studies; the door into another world would open and shut him in. He would be impervious then to this present century, to his present life, to his children, to the ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... road; and by the time I had enveloped myself in a pair of long Hungarian gaiters, and a kurtcha of sheep's wool, with a brown bear-skin outside, with a Welsh wig, and a pair of large dark glass goggles to defend the eyes from the snow, I was not only perfectly impervious to all effects of the weather, but so thoroughly defended from any influence of sight or sound, that a volcano might be hissing and thundering within ten yards of me, without attracting my slightest attention. Now, I thought, instead of remaining here, I'll just step down to the coach, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... characteristically English. It sometimes conceals a robust good sense and even kindliness; but it is a base thing at best, and seems to be the shadow of commercial prosperity. Yet it at least implies a certain sturdiness of character, and a stubborn belief in one's own merits which is quite impervious to the lessons of experience. On sensitive and imaginative people the result of the professional struggle with life, the essence of which is often social pretentiousness, is different. It ends in a mournful and distracted kind of fatigue, a tired sort ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... eager plaintive expression of a child looking for some precious treasure it has lost. She strove to calm her throbbing pulses,—to quiet the hurrying blood in her veins,—to brace herself up to her usual impervious height of composure ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... principles as well as warm feelings, and a fine and resolute sense of honour utterly impervious to attack. It was impossible to be in his company an hour, and not see that he was a man to be respected. It was equally impossible to live with him a week, and not see that he was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 533, Saturday, February 11, 1832. • Various
... what he wanted—to assert his will against this cool and impervious girl, to obtain with one magnificent effort a ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... could see troops of them marching up and down in rows between the crevices of the walls. Then there were the mosquitoes, who hummed and buzzed about us, and with whom, alas! we were doomed to make a closer acquaintance. Our bed was fitted with the very thickest calico mosquito curtains, impervious to the air, but not to the venomous little insects, who found their way in through every tiny opening in spite of all ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... into a palpably useless argument with judges whose minds were so rooted in the idea of dualism as to be impervious to any other conception; but with a mixed multitude, who were not officially committed to a system, the case was different. Among them there might be some still open to conviction, and the appeal was, therefore, ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... He is always characterized as tricky, treacherous, and at the same time affable and charming, being not without the gifts of wit, prophecy, and eloquence. He is an adroit magician, able to assume almost any form at will, and impervious to any amount of ridicule and insult. Here we have, it appears, the elements of the story in Genesis; the primal Eden, the tempter in animal form, and the bringing of sorrow and death upon earth through the elemental sins of ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... was called upon to design a palace of fine arts at the Exposition, one fact enabled him to exemplify his theory in the finest way. The old Harbor View bog was found to have a bottom impervious enough to hold water, and the trees of the demolished resort were still standing. When the mud was scooped out, a lake was left. That gave not only growing trees, in addition to the resources of the Exposition's forestry, but also a real sheet of water, ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... curiosity existed; but not a syllable was to be learned from the official mystery of the aide-de-camp. He made his advance to the minister, deposited the despatch in his hands, and then drew up his stately figure, impervious to all questioning. Carnot retired to an alcove to read the missive, and in the mean time the general anxiety was an absolute fever. The dance ceased, the tables of loto and faro were deserted, the whole business of life was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... in town that he is the Devil, because he has killed seven men in duels since he came, and has never been wounded. People don't know the great American invention, worn next the skin, which makes the body impervious to bullets." ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... died, his end being hastened by fear of poverty coming like an armed man, and his guinea a week going. Matthews met with an accident, and, being impervious to pain, but subject to death, was laid beside his poor mistress in St. Anne's churchyard. Julia buried him, and had a headstone put to his grave; and, when this was done, she took her husband to see it. On that ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... change in me, for a kind of respect, with a slight touch of awe in it, mingled with their joy, and made me ashamed. They had been in great distress about me. On the morning of my disappearance, they had found the floor of my room flooded; and, all that day, a wondrous and nearly impervious mist had hung about the castle and grounds. I had been gone, they told me, twenty-one days. To me it seemed twenty-one years. Nor could I yet feel quite secure in my new experiences. When, at night, I lay down once more in my own bed, I did not ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... existence of the Mahatmas is looked upon with incredulity and distrust, to give it no harder name. The position of the Europeans is easily intelligible, for these things are so far removed from their intellectual horizon, and their self-sufficiency is so great, that they are almost impervious to these new ideas. But it is much more difficult to conceive why the people of India, who are born and brought up in an atmosphere redolent with the traditions of these things, should affect such scepticism. It would ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... barred window the three could see the furious efforts of the beetles to force an entrance. But the very tensile strength of the beetle-shells, which rendered them impervious to bullets, required a laminate construction which rendered them powerless against ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... qualities by the fancy—the soldiers as well as people had become possessed with a strange belief— that was, that the cibolero was under the protection of his mother— under the protection of the "diablo"—in other words, that he was bewitched, and therefore invincible! Some asserted that he was impervious to shot, spear, or sabre. Those who had fired their carbines at him while on the bridge fully believed this. They were ready to swear—each one of them—that they had hit the cibolero, and must have killed him had he ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... outlet, for the yard was enclosed on three sides by a fence of palings the height of a man, and rendered impervious to damp by a coating of tar; on the fourth side by the house itself. Only over the fence—which was no insuperable obstacle—could a stranger have gained access to the yard; and towards the fence ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... none, not even in quarrelling, for Rashe was in a sleepy state, only roused by interludes of gloomy tea and greasy broth; and outside, the clouds had closed down, such clouds as she had never seen, blotting out lake and mountain with an impervious gray curtain, seeming to bathe rather than to rain on the place. She longed to dash out into it, but Ratia's example warned her against drenching her only garments, though indoors the dryness was only ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Homogeneous sandstone preserves its perpendicularity better than other rocks, one reason being that it does not invite percolation, and usually offers, for a considerable distance on each side of the canyon, barren and impervious surfaces to the rains. Where strata rest on exposed softer beds, these are undermined from the front, and in this ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... indifference. This tone of impartiality and indifference, however, did not at all suit those who profited or existed by abuses, who breathed the very air of corruption. They know well enough that "those who are not for them are against them." They wanted a publication impervious alike to truth and candour; that, hood-winked itself, should lead public opinion blindfold; that should stick at nothing to serve the turn of a party; that should be the exclusive organ of prejudice, the sordid tool of power; that should go the whole length of want of principle in ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... not less historic dungeons, into which a terribly imperative little cicerone intro- duced us, with the aid of downward ladders, ropes, torches, warnings, extended hands; and, many, fearful anecdotes, - all in impervious darkness. These horrible prisons of Loches, at an incredible distance below the daylight, were a favorite resource of Louis XI., and were for the most part, I believe, constructed by him. One of ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... to watch its front. True, they might be a general and his staff. Crowning this rise we found a level field, a quarter of a mile in width; beyond it a gentle acclivity, covered with an undergrowth of young oaks, impervious to sight. We pushed on into the open, but the division halted at the edge. Having orders to conform to its movements, we halted too; but that did not suit; we received an intimation to proceed. I had performed this sort of service before, and in the exercise of my discretion deployed my ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... cover his face he might be able to leap part way through the opening and knock the burning logs apart. He tried to open his smarting eyes, but the lids were wracked with pain and would not at once respond. He made it at last, but the dense smoke was impervious to his vision. The firelight gave it a ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... called a cupel(fig. 5), should absorb the slag (oxide of lead, etc.) just as a sponge absorbs water, but must be sufficiently fine-grained to be impervious to the molten metal. At first sight it appears difficult to filter, as it were, a fluid slag from a fluid metal; but an ordinary filter-paper damped with oil will allow oils to run through and yet retain the water; but damped with water it will allow water to run through and retain oils. Similarly, ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... order; it is assured that, however closely the body may be imprisoned, no bolts and no bars can shut in a spirit; that before it is a fair and favored land, far off but ever open; and, best of all, that within its own being, impervious to all influences from without, is a guide which may be implicitly trusted and which will never betray. Why not follow its suggestions at once and press on toward that fair land of truth and beauty which so earnestly invites? Ah! why not? Here we are face ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... pouches of leather impervious to rain, sealed, and strapped to the rider's saddle before and behind. The pouches were never to contain over twenty pounds in weight. Inside the pouches, to further protect their contents from the weather, the letters and despatches were wrapped in oil-silk, then sealed. The pockets ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... could only be produced, in ordinary parlance, by the passage of light. No light could come from the tube, because the shield which covered it was impervious to any light known, even ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... near them at all, for fear he had wandered where she considered there might be infection. His dogs had come under the same ban, and one way and another she had gone the right way to sicken Nicky of his little sisters if he had not been both sweet-natured and rather impervious. Ishmael had sometimes resented all this on Nicky's behalf, and then Georgie had accused him of loving his son the most. Of course, she knew the others were "only girls," and therefore she supposed of no interest to a farmer.... Scenes such as this would end in penitence on her part and a weary ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... her resolute expression well, and he took his course, to tell her the truth. She was, to borrow the words Barbara had used to her brother with regard to him, true as steel. Confide to Miss Carlyle a secret, and she was trustworthy and impervious as he could be; but let her come to suspect that there was a secret which was being kept from her, and she would set to work like a ferret, and never ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... long-run satisfactoriness, coincide. If, in short, we compare concrete with concrete and abstract with abstract, the true and the satisfactory do mean the same thing. I suspect that a certain muddling of matters hereabouts is what makes the general philosophic public so impervious ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... whole subject, and the results were published in a Blue-book. Profiting by these aids, an improved type of cable was designed. The core consisted of a strand of seven very pure copper wires weighing 300 lbs. a knot, coated with Chatterton's compound, which is impervious to water, then covered with four layers of gutta-percha alternating with four thin layers of the compound cementing the whole, and bringing the weight of the insulator to 400 lbs. per knot. This core was served with hemp saturated ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... for that murderous fight at Luetzen! For this we threw the naked breast against The halbert, made for this the frozen earth Our bed, and the hard stone our pillow! never stream Too rapid for us, nor wood too impervious; With cheerful spirit we pursued that Mansfeldt Through all the turns and windings of his flight: Yea, our whole life was but one restless march: And homeless, as the stirring wind, we travelled O'er the war-wasted earth. And now, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... mortals who shared in some of their highest characteristics. Before the Magian dared to call them, he must purify his soul from all sensual taint, and sanctify his body by long and severe fasting. When the Magian succeeded, as he had done in these days, in rendering himself impervious to the allurements of the senses, and in making his soul, as far as was humanly possible, independent of the body, only then had he attained to that degree of godliness which entitled him to have intercourse with the heavenly ones ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... numbed and aching with snow-balling and skating, to be tenderly rubbed before the fire, or fondly folded in the motherly apron. Thither brought I an extensive and various assortment of splinters and fresh cuts; thither my impervious nose, to be lubricated with goose-grease, or my swollen angry tonsils ("waxen kernels," Aunt Judy called them), to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... natures—sensitive as they are called—offer many a curious spectacle to those whom a cooler temperament has secured from participation in their vagaries." When Polly, charming Polly, waits on her father at the tea-table, Lucy is impervious to her tiny charm. "Candidly speaking, I thought her a little busy-body." When Graham Bretton repulses Polly, Lucy has some thoughts of "improving the occasion by inculcating some of those maxims of philosophy whereof I had ever a ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... 'The day was hot, my feet were blistered—I was but a weary boy—and I thought I should have dropped under the weight of the flint musket which galled my shoulder. But I managed to keep up with my companion, a grim old soldier, who seemed impervious to fatigue.' ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... were described as being four feet deep. In Young's Tours through England (1768) the Essex roads are spoken of as having ruts of inconceivable depth, and the roads so overgrown with trees as to be impervious to the sun. Some of the turnpikes were spoken of as being rocky lanes, with stones "as big as a horse, and abominable holes!" He adds that "it is a prostitution of language to call them turnpikes—ponds of ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... nevertheless took place; and this unorganised mass of passions called Vittorio Alfieri, this chaotic thing without a higher life or a purpose in the world, only partially sensitive, and seemingly quite impervious to external influence, suddenly obeyed some inner impulse (perhaps some accumulation of unnoticed effects from without), and organised itself into a man, a ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... tan, the other white, were fighting desperately, near the exits. In between human legs, under chairs, this way and that, snarling, snapping, dragging. Men called out, kicked, tried to use canes and umbrellas, and some burned matches. The dogs were impervious. Now the white dog was atop, now the tan. So many interfered that ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... who further demonstrated the existence and operation of the tricuspid valves in the right ventricle, and of the sigmoid valves at the beginning of the pulmonary artery and aorta, and that there were only two ventricles separated by a solid impervious septum. These were afterwards described in greater detail by Vesalius, who nevertheless appears not to have been aware of the important use which might be made ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... idea,—that is, who have one idea at a time,—men who accomplish great results, men of action, reformers, saints, martyrs, are inevitably destitute of humor; and if the idea that inspires them be great and noble, they are impervious to it. But through the perversity of human affairs it not infrequently happens that men are possessed by a single idea, and that a small and rickety one—some seven months' child of thought—that maintains ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... spruce and pine and cypress, in all the riot of dank spring growth, a dense tangle of windfall and underbrush and great vines below, festooned with the light green stringy mosses of cloud line overhead and almost impervious to sunlight. Myriad wild fowl covered the sea. The coast became beetling precipice, that rolled inland forest-clad to mountains jagging ragged peaks through the clouds. This was the Olympus Range, first noticed by Meares, and to-day seen for miles ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... the greater resistance to solubility of this metal than most of the others, renders the phenomena of migration to depth less marked. Further than this, migration is often interfered with by the more impervious quartz matrix of many gold deposits. Where gold is associated with large quantities of base metals, however, the leaching of the latter in the oxidized zone leaves the ore differentially richer, and as gold is also slightly soluble, in such cases the migration of the base metals does carry ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover
... studied he had thrown into dim corners of his library shelves when he left the Fathers' school. "I should have left them in Paris," he told himself, as he turned out some books which were particularly insufferable: those of the Abbe Lamennais and that impervious sectarian so magisterially, so pompously dull and empty, ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... was after Elizabeth had suffered from an attack of rheumatism and ague, when she longed to escape from the lovely, damp screens of the Forest to fresh Wold breezes. She died, and Geoffry took another wife. Then he died of what was called in the district marsh-fever. Mr. Fairfax was not impervious to regret, but no regret would bring ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... period room: Louis Quinze. The furniture looked as if made of solid gold and Madame Du Barry herself might have sat on the dainty brocades. The general effect was airy and graceful, gay, frivolous, and subtly vicious. (An emanation to which the chaste Victorian had been impervious.) He understood why Madame Zattiany did not use it. She might be subtly anything, but assuredly she was neither airy ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... home there yet, and probably was more sensitive to outside sights and noises than I would ever again be in that place. Generally speaking, when a reporter settles down to his knitting, which in his case is his writing, he becomes impervious to all disturbances excepting those that occur inside his own brainpan. If he couldn't, he wouldn't amount to shucks in his trade. Give him a good, live-action story to write for an edition going to ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... knew it. The preachers, moreover, were less than human. They preached interminable sermons. Discourses lasting an hour and a half were common, and even lengthier ones were not unusual. The parsons were hopelessly thick-skinned, moreover, and impervious to hints. When on one occasion, at which Sylvane was present, the congregation began to consult their watches, the preacher, instead of bringing his sermon to a close, exclaimed, "See here, you don't want to be lookin' at your watches. You ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... —— was impervious to pressure. He refused either to go with the car himself or to let us go. He said we were too late and it was too far and there wouldn't be light enough. He said that for two Belgians, or two French, or two British, it would be worth while taking risks. But for two Germans under German ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... Washington Street mansion was built chiefly of bamboo and nipa palm, with a few heavier timbers in the framework. Upon the main timbers of the frame was built a sort of lattice of split bamboo, upon which in turn was sewed, shinglewise, close layers of nipa palm that are quite impervious to rain, are fairly durable, and are very inflammable. The people's floor was elevated four or five feet above the ground, thereby securing not only air and dryness for the people above, but also providing a very convenient ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... abruptly after numerous efforts to penetrate the quicksand. In normally developed trees of the same age, the taproot would have been three or four feet long. The same objections hold against soils underlaid with a hard, impervious layer. ...
— The Pecan and its Culture • H. Harold Hume
... cocked his rifle and awaited the charge. He knew that it was of no use to fire at the head of the advancing foe, as the thickness of the skull, together with the matted hair on the forehead, rendered it impervious ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... did exactly as he pleased, and nothing else, being as capricious as the breeze that blows only as it chooses. For beginning with his parents, nobody ever crossed him, or placed any obstacle whatever in the path of his desires, which grew up accordingly like a very rank jungle impervious to the light, in which his will wandered like a wild young tiger-cub, wayward, and passionate, and absolutely uncontrolled. And he gave in to others, and was guided by them, in one point only, and that ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... and commanded a wide field of fire over the plains of Gaza. It was defended in its several tiers by machine-guns cunningly placed, concealed rifle pits, trenches protected by rows of cactus and prickly pear, the broad leaves of which are almost impervious to rifle-bullets and even shrapnel, and heavy guns hidden in ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... of holding slaves is not a crime. This is the point, however, to which the abolitionist directs his attention. He examines their arguments, and becomes convinced of their inconclusiveness, and is not only thus rendered impervious to their attacks, but is exasperated by what he considers their unmerited abuse. In the mean time his attention is withdrawn from far more important points;—the manner in which he treats his slaves, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... convey an idea of the noble energetic feeling animating these two dramas, for adequate language is wanting; impervious to words, the sentiment they contain is like a spirit pervading, or a ray of light ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... resembling violets. This is the finest salt; that which falls to the bottom of the salt-pan is of a greyish cast. The salt when formed is then scraped off, drained, and the women collect it and stack it on the "bossis" into conical heaps, which they cover with a coating of clay, to render them impervious to weather. In the salting season, the salt marshes with their innumerable hillocks of white salt have the appearance of a vast tent-covered camp. Each "oeillet" produces about 150 lbs. of salt. The same salt-pans are worked from century to century by the same ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... on my nerves, but I concealed the irritation it caused, for it was useless to be angry with Meg. She must have had a heart, for she was a woman, but the avenue to it was impervious. It was still an untravelled wilderness, and bold must be the explorer who dared ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... German gentleman of the period, they degraded him to the third. No doubt there were protests: one cannot believe that Wagner the boy any more than Wagner the man could refrain from declamation under a grievance; but with such impervious skulls and thick hides protests would be unavailing. The mischief was done: he was numbered amongst the rebels, the lost souls, the unhappy beings who dared to have notions of their own. He neglected ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... He views, and wonders that they please no more; Now pall the tastless Meats, and joyless Wines, And Luxury with Sighs her Slave resigns. Approach, ye Minstrels, try the soothing Strain, And yield the tuneful Lenitives of Pain: No Sounds alas would touch th' impervious Ear, Though dancing Mountains witness'd Orpheus near; Nor Lute nor Lyre his feeble Pow'rs attend, Nor sweeter Musick of a virtuous Friend, But everlasting Dictates croud his Tongue, Perversely grave, or positively wrong. The still returning Tale, and ling'ring ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... unreflecting people to whom real life means nothing. I have pointed out again and again that the influence of the theatre in England is growing so great that whilst private conduct, religion, law, science, politics, and morals are becoming more and more theatrical, the theatre itself remains impervious to common sense, religion, science, politics, and morals. That is why I fight the theatre, not with pamphlets and sermons and treatises, but with plays; and so effective do I find the dramatic method that I have no doubt ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... exhausted animals which chance to perish from fatigue and thirst. Although thus common in these dry and open countries, and likewise on the arid shores of the Pacific, it is nevertheless found inhabiting the damp impervious forests of West Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. The Carranchas, together with the Chimango, constantly attend in numbers the estancias and slaughtering-houses. If an animal dies on the plain the Gallinazo commences the feast, ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... store, and you partake in common of the feast to which both sides contribute. After a good long talk, I got to sleep easily, thinking, as I dozed off, that I should pass a pleasant night. I had become impervious to the mosquitoes, but there was something else which I had forgotten. Was it a dream, an awful nightmare, or had a sudden descent of Bedouins occurred? Gradually I was awakened by a noise as of wild beasts let loose, howls of rage and ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... rose superior to his own dignity he perceived the very individual whom he had long been seeking. The young man who was unabashed by the indignation of a scion of Nugents and Cromies and Pagets must be utterly impervious to the sense of awe; and it was just such an impervious young man that the Captain wanted as his coadjutor. Thus arose the alliance, which grew stronger every day, until Valentine took up his abode under the roof of his employer and patron, and made himself more thoroughly at ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... two sources of loss depends on the precautions taken in the way of providing a proper impervious flooring to the stable. This source of loss is extremely difficult to prevent, inasmuch as nearly all materials used for flooring absorb a certain percentage of urine. The judicious use of litter, however, will minimise this loss to within a ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... country was preceded by accusations intended to prejudice the young Prince, Don Philip, who was regent during the Emperor's absence, against him. Long years of championship of an unpopular cause rendered him impervious to these baseless attacks of his enemies. At a time of life when most men think to rest, Las Casas prepared himself with undiminished vigour to continue the struggle in the cause of freedom. Upon ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... disguises, including large masks; and their war-dress, formed of a thick doubled leathern mantle of elk or buffalo skin, frequently with a cloak over it, on which the hoofs of horses were strung, makes an almost impervious cuirass. Their love for music, general lively dispositions, except from provocation, but determination in avenging insult or wrong, ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... WATER. Seeping through the mantle of waste, ground water soaks into the pores and crevices of the underlying rock. All rocks of the upper crust of the earth are more or less porous, and all drink in water. IMPERVIOUS ROCKS, such as granite, clay, and shale, have pores so minute that the water which they take in is held fast within them by capillary attraction, and none drains through. PERVIOUS ROCKS, on the other hand, such as many sandstones, have pore spaces so large that water filters through ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... spun round as though upon a pivot, and prevented me from taking a most splendid shot. The next instant the tiger had bounded back with several fierce roars, sending the line of elephants flying, and once more securing safety in the almost impervious jungle from ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... hundred miles distant floated a cigar-shaped mangrove-bud, bobbing vertically, through the ocean, until it chanced to touch the new-risen coral reef. The mangrove, alone of all trees, will sprout and grow in salt water. The mangrove's trunk, alone of all trunks, is impervious to the corrosive ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... brought struggling to the light; they must be rendered plain and palpable, (as far as it is in the wit of man to do so) or they are no longer eloquence. That which by its natural impenetrability, and in spite of every effort, remains dark and difficult, which is impervious to every ray, on which the imagination can shed no lustre, which can be clothed with no beauty, is not a subject for the orator or poet. At the same time it cannot be expected that abstract truths ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... beat too quickly; she could not stand her hot bed any longer. Springing up, she went into the bathroom, turned on the cold water, and refreshed herself with a bath. She felt really desperate and quite impervious to all ideas of discipline. She made up her mind to go to the Lewises, knock up Carrie, and demand an account of the property which she had confided to her on the previous day. Even still there was just—just time to save Laurie, for if she could ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... afterwards approaching her in Berlin with a certain degree of familiarity. The curious way in which I was disillusioned about this lady on that occasion will be related in due course. I would only mention here that, through my earlier experiences of the world, I had become fairly impervious to deception, and my desire for closer acquaintance with these circles speedily gave way to a complete hopelessness and an entire lack of ease in their sphere ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... chapter. Then, again, holy men and prophets have always been common in India. They foretell pestilence and famine: the downfall of British rule, or the destruction of the whole world. They are often supposed to be endowed with supernatural powers and to be impervious to bullets; but these phenomena invariably disappear whenever they come in contact with Europeans, especially as all such characters are liable to be treated as vagrants ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... Transparent Bodies, namely, that having expos'd four or five sorts of them to the Sun, and cast the Reflected Beams upon White Paper held near at hand, the Light appear'd not manifestly Ting'd, but as if it had been Reflected from the Impervious parts of a Colourless Glass, only that Reflected from the Yellow was here and there stain'd with the same Colour, as if those Beams were not all Reflected from the Superficial, but some from the Internal parts of the Glass; upon which Occasion you may take notice, that a Skilfull ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... constant and regular current of air is blowing at all times from west to east, with a velocity of from twenty to forty and even sixty miles per hour, according to its height from the earth, and having discovered a composition which renders silk or muslin impervious to hydrogen gas, so that a balloon may be kept afloat for many weeks, I feel confident with these advantages that a trip across the Atlantic will not be attended with as much real danger as by the common mode of transition. The balloon is to be 100 ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... place the transit instrument in the meridian and to ascertain the variation of the compass to be 27 degrees 50 minutes west. The sky becoming cloudy in the afternoon prevented our obtaining the corresponding observations to those gained in the morning; and the next day an impervious fog obscured the sky until noon. On the evening of this day we had the gratification of welcoming our absent companion Mr. Back. His return to our society was hailed with sincere pleasure by everyone and removed a weight of anxiety from my mind. It appears that ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... epoch. After Savoy and Nice had been betrayed to France, and while the Italians waited in angry suspicion for the next demand of their hated ally, which might be the surrender of the island of Sardinia or the sacrifice of the Genoese province, but which no one could guess in the impervious ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... beautiful; and on the whole he was pleased with the result of this interview. He knew that it was destined to come sooner or later—he had known that all along; and it might have been worse. It is characteristic of an untruthful nature to be impervious to the shame of mere detection. In Eastern countries the liar detected smiles in one's face. Detection is to an Oriental no punishment; something more tangible is required to pierce his ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... This time, surely, I should find a change. But no! Another green ride stretched away into the depths of the forest, with hedges of varying shades—here light and there dark, as hazel and elder, or thorn, and yew and box prevailed—but always high and stiff and impervious. Halfway down the ride Madame's figure tripped steadily on, the only moving thing in sight. I wondered, stood, and, when she vanished, followed-only to find that she had entered another track, a little narrower but in every other ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... when they talk to me, and who sometimes even offer to go home with me from a tea-party all alone, and after dark too. It is true, one or two of these are "literary" themselves; the others I knew before I was dyed blue; which may account for it. Also I am impervious to anonymous letters, exhorting me to all kinds of mental and moral improvement, or indulging in idle impertinences about my private affairs, the result of a knowledge about me and the aforesaid affairs drawn solely from my ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... see for himself this wonderful Silver Face, who was impervious to bullets, and who could fire them from his chest with no apparent ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... have been made in this way: first of all secure and massive foundations had to be laid, the ground being compressed to make it very solid. Then walls, or dykes, were reared of earth, sand, and mud, so tightly compressed as to be quite impervious to water. The whole was bound with twigs of willows interwoven with wonderful care, and the spaces filled with clay so as to make them almost ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... he replied—'my position in life is one that precludes me in a great measure from the enjoyment of sensual indulgences; and I have heretofore imagined myself impervious to the attacks of Venus; but ah! you have conquered me. My leisure moments have been devoted to study and contemplation; I ventured here to-night to be a spectator of the joys of others, not designing to participate in those joys myself. The graceful ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... the eye are known to be highly impervious to the invisible calorific rays, and the question therefore arises, 'Did the radiation in the foregoing experiment reach the retina at all?' The answer is, that the rays were in part transmitted to the retina, and in part absorbed by the humours. Experiments ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... old but very poor; yet people dreaded her, and would slip away round doors and corners to avoid her tongue. She succeeded, in spite of all drawbacks, in making herself felt; and it was only one or two impervious beings, such is Dicky Browne for example (who knew the Monktons well, and was indeed distantly connected with them through his mother), who could endure her manners ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... end of the garden of my Father's house at Cockermouth was a high terrace that commanded a fine view of the river Derwent and Cockermouth Castle. This was our favourite play-ground. The terrace wall, a low one, was covered with closely-clipt privet and roses, which gave an almost impervious shelter to birds that built their nests there. The latter of these stanzas alludes ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the front door, drove him into black obscurity and again sandwiched his host between the door and the wall. Then there was a lull, and in the midst of it Yuba Bill, driver of the "Pioneer" coach, quietly and coolly, impervious in waterproof, walked into the hall, entered the bar-room, took a candle, and, going behind the bar, selected a bottle, critically examined it, and, returning, poured out a quantity of whiskey in a glass and gulped it ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... tanks it was. A score of them, great lumbering giants, impervious to everything save heavy guns, on they crawled, smashing concrete machine-gun nests as though they were but collections of vipers' eggs in ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... throughout the country. We travelled, after leaving the main road, at the distance of a league, through a country scarcely appearing to be inhabited. Here and there a lone cot, a mere speck, met the eye amidst a landscape composed of nothing but barren wastes and thick forests, nearly impervious to the light. We had penetrated about half a mile through one of the latter, my attention occupied with the romantic wildness of the scene, when we were alarmed by the howling of a wolf. My guide crossed himself, and began cracking his whip with the noise and singular ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes
... tolerably sharp at each end, and as nearly as possible resembling a keel at the bottom. I covered this on both sides with pieces of strong cloth saturated with grease from the carcases of birds, and then covered the whole with well-dried seal skins, which I had made impervious to wet. The inside of the boat nearest the water I neatly covered with pieces of dry bark, over which I fixed some boards, which had floated to the island from wrecked ships. Finally I put in some benches to sit on, and then fancied I had ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... in 4 oz. distilled water each, and mix when ready to use. But by putting mixture in dark bottle, and that in a tight box impervious to light, it can be kept ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... drew the rather cynical conclusion that he could count on a breathing space, and he wondered if Isabel too were glad of it. She was in a brown cotton dress, her right sleeve still tucked up high on her bare arm: a rounded slender arm not much tanned even at the wrist, for her skin was almost impervious to sunburn. Above the elbow it was milk-white with a faint bloom on it, in texture not like ivory, which is a dead, cold, and polished material, but like a flower petal, one of those flowers that have a downy sheen ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... be said that Christians are impervious to Islam, and genuine Mussulmans impervious to Christianity; but between the two there are certain tribes, or fractions of tribes, which present a promising field for missionary enterprise. In this field the Tartars show much more zeal than the Russians, and possess ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... both. It may be, of course, that some other force, such, for instance, as that emanating from radium, is to be employed. I have experimented with the latter, but only in such small quantity as I could obtain; but so far as I can ascertain the stone of the Coffer is absolutely impervious to its influence. There must be some such unsusceptible substances in nature. Radium does not seemingly manifest itself when distributed through pitchblende; and there are doubtless other such substances in ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... cruising line gave her a freeboard of ten feet. Above the sinking-tanks her vitals were protected by ten-inch armour. In short, as regards armour, she was an entire reversal of the ordinary type of warship, and she had the advantage of being impervious to torpedo attack. Loaded torpedoes had been fired at her and had burst like eggs against a wall, with no more effect than to make her heel over a few degrees to the other side. Submarines had attacked her and got their noses badly bruised in the process. It was, ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... scarcely affected even by the vigorous and mercantile activity of this large city. A large and busy city, and yet I feel that I am among a people who are, ineradically, provincial peasants, men and women of a temper impervious to civilisation. Here too are those symbols of peasantry, the white caps of endless shape and fashion which seem to exert such an attraction on the sentimental English mind. Yet they are not by any means beautiful. And what terrible faces ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... let the light of your eyes shine on me for the last time; after that I shall depart—I shall fly far away for ever. But if perchance, in spite of every effort, I fail, if the commander's jealousy should make him impervious to my entreaties—to my tears, if he whom you love should come and overwhelm you with reproaches and then abandon you, would you drive me from your presence if I should then say, 'I love you'? Answer me, I ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Hampshire was mentioned, for it turned out that he knew the county well, being one of the Wyses of Whitchurch. You couldn't say he talked about it, but he made other people talk about it.... He was quite impervious to satire on such points, for when, goaded to madness, Miss Mapp had once said that she was one of the Mapps of Maidstone, he had merely bowed and said: "A very old family, I believe," and when the conversation branched off on to old families he ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... over the country some years ago, had broken and uprooted the larger trees, which lay all to the west and north-west. Since then, saplings had sprung up, and, with the remains of the old trees, formed a most impervious scrubby thicket, through which we could move but very slowly. About a mile from our camp, we crossed a salt-water creek nine or ten yards broad. There was some vine brush, with plenty of Flagellarias, growing along its banks. A little farther, we crossed a freshwater creek, which was larger than ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... blue-ribboned head angrily toward the riders as if indignant that anything except him should absorb attention; a gallant horse, with another floating blue streamer, bearing himself as becometh a king's son; the chase comes near to crushing sundry grunting porkers impervious to pride and glory in any worldly distinctions of cerulean decorations, and at last is fain to draw up and wait until a flock of silly over-dressed sheep, running in frantic fear every way but the right way, can be gathered together and guided ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... facing her. She made a charming picture. But Inspector Fay had been taken in by charming women several times during the early part of his career, and at this stage of it was as impervious as an oyster. ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... hunters clothed themselves in habiliments suitable to the climate—leathern coats and trousers which were impervious to the wind; cloth leggings to keep the snow from the trousers; leather mocassins, or shoes with three pairs of blanket socks inside of them; fur-caps with ear-pieces; leather mittens with an apartment for the fingers and a separate chamber for the thumb, powder-horns, shot-pouches, guns, ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... a romantic evening, and although Lord Reggie prided himself on being altogether impervious to the influences of Nature, he was not unaware that a warm and fantastic twilight may incline the average woman favourably to a suit that she might not be disposed to heed in the early morning, or during the garish sunshine of a summer afternoon. He presumed that Lady Locke was an ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... meets floor with a gentle curve, and the apartment could be swept out effectually by a few strokes of a mechanical sweeper [sucked out by the now-used cleaning-machine.—Author]. The door-frames and window-frames are of metal, rounded and impervious to draft. You are politely requested to turn a handle at the foot of your bed before leaving the room, and forthwith the frame turns up into a vertical position, and the bedclothes hang airing. You stand in the doorway and realize that ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... perceived the whole tribe running away, as if a plan had been suddenly frustrated. Piper and his gin, who had been watching them attentively, now came up and explained to me these movements. It appeared that the natives entertained the idea that our clothes were impervious to spears, and had therefore determined on a trial of strength by suddenly overpowering us, for which purpose they had planted (i.e. hidden) their spears and all encumbrances, and had told off for each of us ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... the knoll, surveying their new property. A portion of about thirty acres, running along the shore of the lake, was what is termed natural prairie, or meadow of short fine grass; the land immediately behind the meadow was covered with brushwood for about three hundred yards, and then rose a dark and impervious front of high timber which completely confined the landscape. The allotment belonging to the old hunter, on the opposite side of the brook, contained about the same portion of natural meadow, and was in other respects but a continuation of the ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... toughened his skin, or he had become expert in wriggling from the full force of the blow, or else, as many believed, the elfish nature was impervious; for he was as ready as ever for a trick the moment he was released, like, as his brother said, the dog Keeper, who, with a slaughtered chick hung round his neck in penance, rushed murderously upon the ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... layer or two of gauze saturated with methyl-salicylate is wrapped around the painful joints and covered with paraffin paper, or other impervious dressing, held in place by a bandage. This is renewed once or twice daily until the pain in all the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... or Paper-barked Tea-tree, n. Called also Milk-wood (q.v.). Name given to the species Melaleuca leucodendron, Linn. Its bark is impervious to water. ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... camp-fires on a distant plain, before them wound a road ploughed by the passage of an army, strewn with the relics of a rout. On the right, a sluggish river glided, like a serpent, stealthy, sinuous, and dark, into a seemingly impervious jungle; on the left, a Southern swamp filled the air with malarial damps, swarms of noisome life, and discordant sounds that robbed the hour of its repose. The men were friends as well as comrades, for though gathered from the four quarters of the Union, and ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... had trained himself to be impervious to interruptions, the editorializer turned in his chair. Instantly he sprang to his feet, and caught Miss Van Arsdale ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... had been sinking steadily during the journey. He had mixed freely with the emigrants, and had done his best to make friends; yet there was something not only in their attitude to him—for though they were respectful enough, they were absolutely impervious to any advances, seeming to regard him as independent but rather timid children might look upon a strange schoolmaster—but in their whole atmosphere and outlook that was a very depressing change from the curious, impassive, but alert and ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... reflection from the cliff, forced her to suspend her gardening, and stroll along the beach to the extreme limit of her domain. Here she looked after the cow that had also strayed away through the tangled bush for coolness. The goats, impervious to temperature, were basking in inaccessible fastnesses on the cliff itself that made her eyes ache to climb. Over an hour passed, she was returning, and had neared her house, when she was suddenly startled to see the figure of a man between her and the cliff. ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... speaking fiercely, impervious to the man's coarse sarcasm, her eyes, which had deepened almost to purple, still fixed piercingly on Gilder, who, for some reason wholly inexplicable to him, felt himself ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... they have a kind of armour something like a coat of mail, which is formed by a great many folds of dressed antelope skins, united by means of a mixture of glue and sand. With this they cover their own bodies and those of their horses, and find it impervious to the arrow. ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... dislike. The shock of him was passing over; he was falling into focus with the rest of it; but she was not becoming in the least fonder of him. I knew all this without the few words; with them he knew none of it. It seems to be a mere accident who chances to be previous to truth, who impervious. ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... Iceland, where at every step sharp stones, or fragments of lava, are encountered. Mocassins are also sometimes worn. The Icelanders, however, do not seem to mind any obstacles, but run and leap on or over them in their 'skin skurs' as though impervious to feeling. Later on we saw a higher class of Icelanders wearing fishermen's boots, but such luxuries were unknown in the little town where we first landed. The men being short of stature, in their curious kit ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... I; as in my tympanum I heard the cannon's roar, "'Twill be a wonder if I come Impervious ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... his time in casting compassionate glances in the direction of the prisoner. In due course the jury retired, but had no sooner reached their room and closed the door than the old Teuton cried, "Dot man iss not guilty!" The other eleven wrestled with him in vain. He remained impervious to argument for seventeen hours, declining to discuss the evidence, and muttering at intervals, "Dot man iss not guilty!" The other eleven stood unanimously for murder in the first degree, which was the only logical verdict that could possibly have ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... Mystics he was reserved to the point of coldness. In this man's presence Chandrapal felt that he was being regarded as an "interesting case" for analysis. So he wrapped himself in a mantle impervious to professional scrutiny, and gave answers which could not be worked up into a chapter for any book. The Writer was disappointed in Chandrapal, and Chandrapal had no satisfaction in the Writer. "This man," he thought, "has studied the ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... reads of groves, but it is impossible for those who never felt it, to conceive the effect of such a situation in a warm climate. In this island the woods which are naturally so interwoven with vines as to be impervious to a human being, are in some places, cleared and converted into nurseries for the young coffee-trees which remain sheltered from the sun and wind till sufficiently grown to transplant. To enter one of these "semilleros," as they are here called, at noon day, produces an effect like that anciently ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks
... judgment can pervade? The scenery is so dark, we fear to look forward. Experience offers no direction, observation no clue; the mystery is as impervious, the obscurity as tremendous, as that we would vainly penetrate for our destinies in the world to come. Ah! might the veil but drop to clearness ...
— Brief Reflections relative to the Emigrant French Clergy (1793) • Frances Burney
... ordinary rays of light, but sensitive to the vibrations concerned in electric and magnetic phenomena. Glass and crystal would be among the most opaque of bodies. Metals would be more or less transparent, and a telegraph wire through the air would look like a long narrow hole drilled through an impervious solid body. A dynamo in active work would resemble a conflagration, whilst a permanent magnet would realise the dream of mediaeval mystics, and become an everlasting lamp with no expenditure of energy or ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... cottage hearths alone, And shades impervious to the proud world's glare, Such witness yield; a monarch from his throne Springs to his Cross and ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... ancient grandeur, having been superior to all its neighbours. These are Luziva, Parimunda, Lamon, Jaca, Oja, and others. This country is watered by the river Gulimanja, up which George Alfonso sailed for the space of five days, finding the banks every where covered with impervious woods, and the river inhabited by a prodigious number of sea horses ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... suture or joint. The living timbers had been put in place and then grown together by an art which we have lost to-day, but which the Ancients knew with much perfection; and afterwards some treatment, which is also a secret of those forgotten builders, had made the wood as hard as metal and impervious to all attacks of ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... through steeper banks which were overgrown with alders and pollard willows. Along the left of the Spanish army, as they moved in the direction of Herenthals, was a continuous fringe of scrub-oaks, intermixed with tall beeches, skirting the heath, and forming a leafless but almost impervious screen for the movements of small detachments of troops. Quite at the termination of the open apace, these thickets becoming closely crowded, overhung another extremely narrow passage, which formed the only outlet from the plain. Thus the heath ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... but cannot lay hold of smooth stones, and Mr. Gould himself does not solve the problem. "Some assert that it is done by clinging to the pebbles with its strong claws; others, by considerable exertion and a rapid movement of the wings. Its silky plumage is impervious to wet; and hence when the bird returns to the surface, the pearly drops which roll off into the stream are the only evidence of its recent submersion. It is, indeed, very interesting to observe this pretty bird walk down a stone, quietly descend into the water, rise again perhaps at a ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... balance of taste in Europe. I do not know that Lord Cromer had pursued these impressions very far, or that he had formed any conscious theory with regard to them. But he was very "eighteenth century" in his suspicion of enthusiasm, and I always found him amusingly impervious to ideas of a visionary or mystical order. It was impossible that so intelligent and omnivorous a reader as he should not be drawn to the pathetic figure of Pascal, but he was puzzled by him. He described him as "manifestly a man full of contrasts, difficult ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... brought a book of poems for Timothy Derby, who solemnly loaned her one of his in exchange. This odd pair remained impervious to all criticisms, and certainly many of those voiced were frank to ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... previously been disposed of on the surface. All this had to seek an outlet somewhere, except in those rare instances where it maintains its downward course until, below the level of any open stream it can reach, it encounters an impervious stratum and must lose itself in the deep rocks. Usually, however, it emerges in the face of a bluff or on the side of a hill; and the opening becomes "the mouth of a cave." Occasionally, in such situations, the water continues ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... fishing-rod, and thus equipped they proceeded to the lake shore, Hector and Louis carrying the crippled Catharine by turns. When there, they selected a sheltered spot beneath a grove of over-hanging cedars and birches, festooned with wild vines, which, closely woven, formed a natural bower, quite impervious to the rays of the sun. A clear spring flowing from the upper part of the bank among the hanging network of loose fibres and twisted roots, fell tinkling over a mossy log at her feet, and quietly spread ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... so that not one single shot was fired during this first storm. And a storm it was; the air seemed perfectly alive with the rush of bullets, all aimed high. Whether it did not occur to the Arabs that the bushes of the enclosure were not impervious, or the watch-tower offered a more tempting mark, or the Remington rifle stocks did not suit their arms and shoulders, and came up high I don't know, but certainly all the bullets which hit anything struck the wooden erection ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... Chancellorsville. But Lee, his brilliant and vigilant opponent, rarely lost an advantage; and Graham's experienced eye, as with the cavalry he was in the extreme advance, clearly saw that their position would give their foes enormous advantages. Lee's movements would be completely masked by the almost impervious growth, He and his lieutenants could approach within striking distance, whenever they chose, without being seen, and had little to fear from the Union artillery, which the past had given them much cause to dread. It was a region also to disgust the very soul of a cavalryman; for the low, ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... this apparatus, which is invaluable in locating bullets and pieces of shell or shrapnel. Under the X-ray, too, extraction frequently takes place, the operators using long-handled instruments and gloves that are soaked in a solution of lead and thus become impervious to the rays so destructive to ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... pathos of some look or pose grips the heart harder than any spoken word and so it was that this unstudied trick of expression found the vulnerable spot in Burt's armor—the spot which might have remained impervious indefinitely to any plea. It went straight to his one weakness, his single point of susceptibility, and that was his unsuspected but excessive fondness ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... like the way they hover about Inez Mendoza," he remarked. "Perhaps the Senora is after Whitney, while her son is after Inez. Lockwood seems to be impervious to her. Yes, I'll undertake that commission for you, only I can't promise what success ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... who claimed that their skin was impervious to ordinary puncture, and from time to time these individuals have appeared in some of the larger medical clinics of the world for inspection. According to a recent number of the London Graphic, there is in Berlin a Singhalese who baffles all investigations ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... his meagre hand, Scared, yet rejoiced, rouleaus of gold. How many a vault upblown must be, Into what clefts, what shafts, must he Who doth of hidden treasure know, Descend, to reach the world below! In cellars vast, impervious made, Goblets of gold he sees displayed, Dishes and plates, row after row; There beakers, rich with rubies, stand; And would he use them, close at hand Well stored the ancient moisture lies; Yet—would ye him who knoweth, trust?— The staves ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the etheric elemental essence also that the remarkable feat of handling fire unharmed is generally performed, though there are as usual other ways in which it can be done. The thinnest layer of etheric substance can be so manipulated as to be absolutely impervious to heat, and when the hand of a medium or sitter is covered with this he may pick up burning coal or ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... better, after a full summary of life, were we to be created utterly devoid of feeling, equally impervious to joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain. We should be manifestly benefited, for the greater part of our life is now full of sorrow, anxiety, fear, pain, ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis
... consisting of highly crystalline gneiss, granite and syenite, are almost impervious, while the overlying Potsdam sandstone is very porous, and capable of holding large quantities of water. In this rock the mineral springs of Saratoga probably have their origin. The surface waters of the Laurentian ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn
... whole, she wandered like a blind man surrounded by torments. After she once had her "revelation," after she got the idea that to her—not always to him—explained everything, then she went forward rapidly. But she was not always easy to help. She was sometimes impervious to suggestion; she would stare at him as if she were deaf and ignore everything he told her to do. Then, all at once, something would happen in her brain and she would begin to do all that he had been for weeks telling her to ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... once, is not that the best of all reasons why the rod should be laid aside? You talk to me of a very valuable hedge running across your fields which you would not part with on any account. I go down, expecting to find a limit impervious to cattle, and highly useful for the preservation of property; but, to my utter astonishment, I find that the hedge was cut down half a century ago, and that every year the shoots are clipped the moment they appear above ground: ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... supreme effort, and again sprang forward, but was driven back with ease. The knowledge that he was continuing a futile struggle smote him to the soul. Gladly would he have welcomed the fatal thrust, if first he could have sent his blade through that breast which so far had been impervious to his efforts. Now the scene went round and round; the golden day became crimson, scarlet; then gray, leaden, somber. Incautiously he bent his arm to counter an imaginary lunge, and his antagonist thrust out his rapier like a thing of life, transfixing Mauville's sword arm. He stood his ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... to lavish worship upon him, and Paul talked and was polite, but all their sweetness touched him no more than summer ripples stir the bottom of a lake. He seemed impervious to any human influence, though when the look of a mountain or the colour of beech-trees would remind him of the Buergenstock anguish as fresh as ever stabbed his heart. Yet all this while, unknown to himself, his faculties were developing. ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... mother kept house unmolested. Why not let sleeping dogs lie? For the rest, the school absorbed most of her thoughts, and paid back interest in cheerfulness. The children were beginning to show signs of loyalty, and a teacher who has won loyalty has won everything. Myra alone stood aloof, sullen, impervious to kindness. ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to his lot, and Bertuccio in his own way was almost as happy as the lovers. In the soft grass near San Pietro Martire nibbled peacefully, now and then lifting his eyes to see what was going on. Once he brayed. He alone, of all nature, seemed impervious to the joy that ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... etched, is ready for printing. An impression is then made in the usual manner from this key-transfer, which impression is coated with a solution of shellac. This is done for the purpose of rendering it impervious to the effect of the atmosphere, thus insuring against its stretching or shrinking. Upon this varnished key-sheet all subsequent transfer impressions of the ten colors are "stuck up," to use the technical ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... is similarly adapted to motor-car operations, one type being especially powerful. The whole of the vehicle is encased in armour-plating impervious to rifle and machine-gun fire. The driver is provided with a small orifice through which he is able to obtain a clear uninterrupted view of the road ahead, while the armouring over the tonneau is carried to a sufficient height to allow head-room to the gun crew when standing at the gun. All ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... Dicky, but appeared greatly to amuse Mr. Underwood. He took delight in paying her the most elaborate attentions, laying fresh nosegays of flowers at her plate at each meal. If he had been a lover besieging a beautiful girl's heart he could not have been more attentive, while he was absolutely impervious to all the ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... bedight in sable armour? O'Bloom, the son of Rory: it is he. Impervious to fear is Rory's son: he ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... immense importance of the skin, as in the first place "a tissue which is silk to the touch, the most exquisitely beautiful surface in the universe to the eye, and yet a wall of adamant against hostile attack. Impervious alike, by virtue of its wonderful responsive vitality, to moisture and drought, cold and heat, electrical changes, hostile bacteria, the most virulent of poisons and the deadliest of gases, it is one of the real Wonders of the World. More beautiful ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... repelled all consolation. Taking his rope and axe he went up into the mountain by himself. All through the winter he haunted the track by which she must have travelled, indifferent to the danger that he ran, impervious apparently to cold, or hunger, or fatigue, undeterred by storm, or mist, or avalanche. At the beginning of the spring he returned to the village, purchased building utensils, and day after day carried them back with him up into the mountain. He hired no labour, ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... his habit was to lead his troops in compact battle order ready to confront emergencies, with soft, slow step, advancing, as it were, with maidenly demureness, (8) for in such procedure, as he believed, lay the secret of true calm, engendering a dauntless self-assurance, imperturbable, unerring, impervious to treacherous assault. Therefore by such behaviour he was a terror to the enemy, whilst he infused courage and strength in the hearts of his friends, so that throughout his life he continued to be a man whom his foes dared not despise, whom his fellow-citizens ...
— Agesilaus • Xenophon
... persistent readjustment of our parapets, and putting things back again. Each morning the Boches would knock things down, and each evening we would put them up again. Our soldiers are only amused by this procedure. Their humorously cynical outlook at the Boche temper renders them impervious to anything the Germans can ever do or think of. Their outlook towards a venomous German attempt to do something "frightfully" nasty, is very similar to a large and powerful nurse dealing with a fractious child—sort of: "Now, then, Master Frankie, you ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... swimmer, and then he knew and felt that all was lost. Upon that last chance he had staked every thing, and that last chance had failed utterly. This man who had insulted him, bullied him, and overpowered him—this man who had been impervious to his shots on the road and on the river-bank—this man who had gained on him steadily in that desperate race for life which he had run—this demon of a man was now gaining on him in the water also! If his pursuer ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... summer meditations. But she did not want to appear unamiable and uninterested, so she had brought forth newspapers, which she spread upon the floor of the gallery, and under Madame Ratignolle's directions she had cut a pattern of the impervious garment. ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... one's gooseberries and strawberries. Strange that a strawberry should appear more delightful to anyone than the song of a blackbird! I know, I may say, the feeling of helpless rage that wells up in the human breast at the sight of a blackbird stealing one's strawberries. Thank God, I am not impervious to moral indignation. If shouting "Stop thief!" could save the strawberries, my voice would be for saving them. But I do not believe in capital punishment for petty theft, and, anyhow, if I must lose either a song or a strawberry, I ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... only ensure them against defeat, but would materially contribute to the victory of the Entente Powers: even the ideal of a lasting Balkan Federation might be realized by a racial readjustment through an interchange of populations. Should Bulgarian greed prove impervious, Greece must secure the co-operation of Rumania, without which it would be too ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... remained in the old apartment; sentiment as much as anything. She had been born in it and her happiest days had been spent there. She lived alone, without help, being one of that singular type of womanhood that is impervious to the rust of loneliness. Her daily activities sufficed the gregarious instincts, and it was often a relief to move ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath |
