"Imposing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forks had belonged to Robert Louis Stevenson, who, said Tati, had given them to him when he was departing from Tahiti. Tati's sister, a widow, was of the party, and together we went to the Protestant churchyard to her husband's tomb. It was imposing and ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... his desk he stopped, and, adjusting his glasses, said, "I trust, Marquis, that you will forgive this long preliminary address, which would really make a good sensational novel; but we have now arrived at the really practical part of the business." As he said these words, he took up an imposing attitude, with his ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... this imposing array of facts revealing the non-esthetic character of primitive personal "decorations," what have the advocates of the sexual selection theory to say? Taking Westermarck as their most erudite and ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Florentine colony with much affection. There he painted some pictures, which were afterwards placed in the Gallery at Fontainebleau; and these he then presented to King Francis, who took infinite pleasure in them, but much more in the presence, speech, and manner of Rosso, who was imposing in person, with red hair in accordance with his name, and serious, deliberate, and most judicious in his every action. The King, then, after straightway granting him an allowance of four hundred crowns, and giving him a house in Paris, which he occupied but seldom, because he lived ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... good-for-nothing, cockered menials imposing upon incompetent mistresses. There were pampered slaves in Rome. But these others. These poor little helpless sluts. There were thousands such in every city, over-worked and under-fed, living lonely, pleasureless lives. They must be taught to speak in other voices ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... crew raced back and forth like disturbed ants. From the snatches of conversation that reached him, Winford learned that Teutoberg had succeeded in getting the range of the freighter and was holding her helpless under the imposing muzzles of his ...
— The Space Rover • Edwin K. Sloat
... first families of Maryland, and talked a good deal of her birth. Her leading characteristic was a determination never, even in the slightest particular, to allow herself to be imposed upon, and she gloried in stories of her own success in imposing ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... Moroccan administration of Western Sahara; Algeria's border with Morocco remains an irritant to bilateral relations; each nation has accused the other of harboring militants and arms smuggling; in an attempt to improve relations afer unilaterally imposing a visa requirement on Algerians in the early 1990s, Morocco lifted the requirement in mid-2004 - a gesture not reciprocated by Algeria; Algeria remains concerned about armed bandits operating throughout the Sahel who sometimes destabilize ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... honour of the generous patrician. Gradually and carefully the illustrious travellers moved through the crowd around them to the city gate; and thence, amid incessant shouts of applause, raised with imposing unanimity of lung, and wrought up to the most distracting discordancy of noise, Vetranio and his lively companion departed ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... with them from the old-land,—their Catholic Faith. Presbyterian ministers were seen to celebrate among them "bogus masses"; schismatic emissaries tried to bribe them with "Moscovite money"; fake bishops were imposing sacrilegious hands on out-laws and perverts; traitors from among their ranks, like Judas, bartered away their faith for a few pieces of silver; a subsidized press,—"The Canadian Farmer" and "The Ranok"—was ever at work, ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... office. As they were the sole custodians of the Scriptures, they made do change in their verbiage, but, adding the doctrine of future rewards and punishments to that written and openly taught system of faith known as the Exoteric creed, they made it the more impressive by instituting a system of imposing rites and ceremonies, which they designated as Mysteries, into which they initiated the neophytes, and in which were portrayed, in the most vivid manner, the rewards and punishments of the imaginary future life, which they taught were the awards of ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill
... her husband's aunt, made no immediate reply to her small remark. Evelyn Danvers was not a little afraid of that lady, and, in truth, Lady Mary, with her thin face and commanding manner, was a very imposing person. Though past seventy, she sat erect in her chair, her stick by her side, some elaborate embroidery in her delicate old ringed hands. Her pale, colorless eyes were as keen as ever. Her white hair was covered by a ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... needless to say, many churches, but nothing which can be compared to the magnificent Cathedral of Antwerp, to the imposing front of Ste. Gudule at Brussels, or to the huge mass which forms such a conspicuous landmark for several leagues round Malines. Still, some of the churches are not without interest: the Cathedral of ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... and the Lord Mayor of London, who really made much more effect than the King. He was dressed in his official robes, had two sheriffs and a macebearer, and when he stood at the top of the grand staircase he was an imposing figure and the public was delighted with him. He was surrounded by an admiring crowd when he walked in the foyer. Everybody was there and W. pointed out to me the celebrities of all the coteries. We had a box at the opera and went very regularly. ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... you are, unprincipled and villainous, you have gone into Kentucky, taken upon yourself "holy orders," and married a wife, imposing most shamefully upon the family into which you married. The woman you have thus imposed upon, would be justifiable now, in the eyes of both God and man, in forsaking you and applying for a divorce. ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... its problems—and, chatting, agreed that, in spite of, or perhaps BECAUSE of, its many acknowledged disadvantages, the simple, primitive bush-life is the sweetest and best of all—sure that although there may have been more imposing or less unconventional feasts elsewhere that Christmas day, yet nowhere in all this old round world of ours could there have been a happier, merrier, healthier-hearted gathering. No one was bored. No one wished himself elsewhere. All were sure of their ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... event, and forty more had elapsed at the time of Mr. Hira Lal's investigation. [383] Of the Chamar Reformer himself Mr. Chisholm writes: [384] "Ghasi Das, like the rest of his community, was unlettered. He was a man of unusually fair complexion and rather imposing appearance, sensitive, silent, given to seeing visions, and deeply resenting the harsh treatment of his brotherhood by the Hindus. He was well known to the whole community, having travelled much among them; had the reputation ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... at large would support the government in strong measures, the tendency to disturbance would have been still more decidedly manifested. The anti-freetraders were still a large and powerful party, and, led by Mr. Disraeli, formed an imposing array both in and out of parliament. The freetraders were also active and resolute, giving to the government a very general support. The agitations in the country assumed no new phases, and almost all political questions assumed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... thought New York City a most friendly and neighborly place, and was greeted with howls of derision. I suppose I said it because that morning a dear old lady in an oculist's office had patted me, saying, "My dear, it would be a pity to put glasses on you," and an imposing blonde in a smart Fifth Avenue shop had sold me a hat that I couldn't afford either to miss or to buy, for half price, because she said I'd talked to her like a human being, the year before—all of which had warmed my heart. I think perhaps my statement ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... of sand. The other canoes followed. The natives, perceiving the intention of the strangers, uttered a wild shout, and made for the same place along the shore, but before they reached it Karlsefin had landed with all his men, and, with their stalwart figures and strange arms, presented such an imposing front that ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... Under some imposing cliff, That, with bush and tree and boulder, Thrusts a gray, gigantic shoulder O'er the stream, I've oared a skiff, While great clouds of berg-white hue ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... been an unfaithful wife? Must she endure the anguish of seeing him turn coldly from her in some future day? Must she now meet him and have all her joy marred by that hateful secret? Must she take part in deceiving him, in imposing upon him—him, the noble, magnanimous, pure-minded husband? Oh, wretched one! was ever ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... Lois Caruthers deserved neither insinuation. Possibly too small in build, she was yet graceful, and there was a lithe, elastic energy in her movements which drew attention to her even among more imposing figures. Possibly, also, she was too dark for the English ideal. Her black hair and large brown eyes, together with the unrelieved pallor of her complexion, gave her appearance something that was exotic but not unpleasing. Enfin, ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... an ancient straw-bottomed chair in front of the fire backwards, placed himself astride on it, laid his arms on the top and his forehead on them, and in this imposing Mentorial attitude began, 'After all, Clem, I don't see that you need be so desperately broken- hearted. It was mere innocence and ignorance. Water-drinkers at home are really not on a level with other people. I always have to be very guarded when I ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Auguste. He was not an imposing figure in his nightrail, and by the light of the carefully shaded candle he held in his hand I saw that he had hitherto deceived me in the matter of his calves. He stood peering at me as I lay under ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... were destined to become geniuses, the ordinary guests of the cremerie were some poor compatriots of the proprietress, who had all to some extent commanded armies. There was, above all, an imposing and melancholy old fellow with a white beard, whose old befrogged cloak, shabby boots, and old hat, which looked as if snails had crawled over it, presented a poem of misery, and whom the other Poles treated with a marked respect, for he had been a ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... Francis McArdle, another. This younger McArdle, originally intended for the Church, became in after life a brilliant journalist, and was for a time on the staff of the "Nation," the teaching of which he had so early imbibed. The elder McArdle was a big, imposing looking man, with a voice to match, who gave the speeches of O'Connell and the other orators of Conciliation Hall with such effect that the applause was always given exactly in the right places, and with as much heartiness as if greeting the ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... out the defects of the mantel-piece. Bad taste, exhibiting itself on the most costly and splendid scale, was visible in every part of the work. It was nevertheless greatly admired by ignorant travellers of all classes; partly on account of its imposing size, and partly on account of the number of variously-coloured marbles which the sculptor had contrived to introduce into his design. Photographs of the mantel-piece were exhibited in the public rooms, and found a ready sale among English ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... ordinance imposing circumcision on the descendants of Abraham, is in these words. "And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou and thy seed after thee in their generations. This is my covenant which ye shall keep, between me and you, and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... a kind-hearted and imposing lady of mature age who, under favourable atmospheric conditions (in winter-time, for instance, when the powder was not so likely to run down her face), might have passed, so far as profile was concerned, for a faded French beauty of bygone centuries—the ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... as in the case of the king imposing fines on offenders and appropriating them to the uses of the state. Untruth, as that of the loyal servant or follower for protecting the life of his master. Killing, as that of an offender by the king, or in the exercise of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... difficulty of shaking a commercial superiority long established. Scarce a cargo that enters the ports of the kingdom that does not pay tribute to her bankers or merchants. But London is a political capital, and that in a country where the representation of the Government is more imposing, possessing greater influence, than in any other Christian nation. The English aristocracy, which wields the real authority of the state, here makes its annual exhibition of luxury and wealth, such as the world has never beheld anywhere else, ...
— New York • James Fenimore Cooper
... wagons, drawn by mules, made an imposing showing as it followed the dusty cattle trail. The train wound in and out of coulees, through romantic-looking ravines, and finally out upon the flat grass-country where the Indians came first into view ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... this immediate and indisputable success is due to the personal influence and example of the Queen. Had she not seen fit to open the display in person, and with unusual and imposing formalities, there would have been no considerable attendance on that occasion; and nothing less than her repeated and almost daily visits since, reaching the building a little past nine in the morning (sometimes after ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... Jimmy has yielded the chief role—I have been wronging him, I did not believe there was so much modesty in him; I should have expected him to be either Adam or Eve." This crumb of comfort lasted but a very little while; he glanced around and discovered Jimmy standing in an imposing attitude in a corner, with a dark and deadly frown on his face. What that meant was very plain—HE WAS IMPERSONATING THE DEITY! Think of the guileless sublimity ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... I, at the end of a long reverie, "divest chivalry, so called, of its imposing effect, examine well into its nature and the manners of the times, and it must be acknowledged that the modern warfare has a much greater claim than the ancient to the title of chivalry. In former times men were cased in armour of proof, and, before the discovery ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... or Pyncheon Street, as it were now more decorous to call it, was thronged, at the appointed hour, as with a congregation on its way to church. All, as they approached, looked upward at the imposing edifice, which was henceforth to assume its rank among the ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... German nationals who do not desire to be repatriated, all repatriation being conditional on the immediate release of any allied subjects still in Germany. Germany is to accord facilities to commissions of inquiry in collecting information in regard to missing prisoners of war and of imposing penalties on German officials who have concealed allied nationals. Germany is to restore all property belonging to allied prisoners. There is to be a reciprocal exchange of information as to dead prisoners and ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... as I felt how shamefully I was imposing upon my newly-found kinsman's credulity. With scarcely any one but uncle Joe could I have dared to employ ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... enormities. He had repeatedly told it so, pointing for proof to that literal observance of the rule by which man is made mere merchandise. Society had continued in its pedantic folly, disregarding legal rights, imposing no restraints on the holder of human property, violating its spirit and pride by neglecting to enforce the great principles of justice whereby we are bound to protect the lives of those unjustly considered ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... while in Righteousness and Justice that character is expressed in the dealings of God with men. Three things may be said in the consideration of the Righteousness and Justice of God: first, there is the imposing of righteousness laws and demands, which may he called legislative holiness, and may he known as the Righteousness of God; second, there is the executing of the penalties attached to those laws, which may ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... and groups of sailors and girls, talking, and laughing and consuming vast quantities of cake. And in the centre of just such a group sat Gunner Moran, lolling at his ease in a rosy velvet-upholstered chair. His little finger was crookt elegantly over his cup. A large and imposing square of chocolate cake in the other hand did not seem to cramp his gestures as he talked. Neither did the huge bites with which he was rapidly demolishing it seem in the least to stifle his conversation. Four particularly ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... ask him to? That is something fine—a general at the altar. There is nothing more imposing than the military at church. Their gold epaulettes seem to go well with the organ. At the church of the Carmelites there are always one or two officers, but they are little ones, and they do not have the same effect. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... Chinese at their own weighing was experienced this year. Although the governor issued a proclamation ordering all persons who should have the merchandise in their possession to return it immediately, so that it could be sold freely, and imposing severe penalties, they did not comply with it; as has been evident from its results, that edict must have been only to caution or amuse, for they only sold openly those goods that they were unable to sell privately without ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... by St. Fin Barre's cathedral, considered the most noteworthy and imposing building in Cork. "'It is thought probable the poet Spenser was married in the church which formerly stood on the site,'" Lucy read. "'His bride was a Cork lady, but of the country, not of the city. Spenser ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... wedding of Harriet was a brilliant one, and she was the envy of dozens of young girls who had hoped and tried to make a conquest of the man who had chosen to unite his fortunes with hers. Sarah's nuptials were celebrated in a less imposing manner, and created but little sensation. Most of her friends thought she had done but poorly. Whether this were so, will be seen ...
— Married Life; Its Shadows and Sunshine • T. S. Arthur
... given to her Robin built for herself a condition she called happiness. She drew the spiritual substance from which it was made from her pleasure in the books of reference closely fitted into their shelves, in the files for letters and more imposing documents, in the varieties of letter paper and envelopes of different sizes and materials which had been provided for her use in ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... been repealed, and the irritation produced by that act had been allayed. It was a period of quiet and rest. The colonists still regarded themselves as Englishmen and loyal to the crown. Information came that His Majesty George III. was determined to maintain his right to tax the Colonies by imposing an export duty on tea, to be paid by the exporter, who, in turn, would charge it to the consumer. The first resistance to that claim was the agreement of all but six of the merchants of Boston not to import tea from England, ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... method is instanced in the "Popish Kingdom" of Barnabe Googe (1570), actually an English metrical version of a truculent German satire by one Thomas Kirchmeyer, who was scholar enough to Latinize, or Graecize, his homely patronymic into the more imposing correlative "Naogeorgus." The passage is ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... subject of plate thirty-four,) stands upon a steep hill; and, on approaching the town from the sea, has a grand and imposing appearance. Its walls, flanked with towers and bastions, cause it to retain the look of strength, the reality of which has long since departed. The earliest portion of the building is probably a high quadrangular tower, with lofty pointed pannels, ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... Champagne. To be sure the responsibilities were not great, for the Abbey had been burnt down a century and a half ago by the Huguenots, and there had never been any monks in it since, so the only effect was that little Phelim Burke went by the imposing title of Monsieur l'Abbe de St. Eudoce, and his family enjoyed as much of the revenues of the estates of the Abbey as the Intendant thought proper to transmit to them. He was, to a certain degree, ecclesiastically ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... who arrived with so much stir and din, attended by her own retinue, and accompanied by so great a pile of trunks and portmanteaux)—on the topmost tier of the verandah, I say, there was sitting—THE GRANDMOTHER! Yes, it was she—rich, and imposing, and seventy-five years of age—Antonida Vassilievna Tarassevitcha, landowner and grande dame of Moscow—the "La Baboulenka" who had caused so many telegrams to be sent off and received—who had been dying, yet not dying—who had, in her own person, descended upon us even ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... on the river half an hour sooner, we might have saved imposing ourselves upon your hospitality, for a large steamer went up then," said Colonel Hungerford. "She stopped a little while at the crevasse, I am told, but finding she could do no good, she ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... harm at first, because if people's views are sound, about evolution or anything else, it does not make two straws difference whether they call the revealer of their views Tom or Dick. But later on such apparently negligible errors have awkward consequences. Darwin was given an imposing reputation as not only an Evolutionist, but as the Evolutionist, with the immense majority who never read his books. The few who never read any others were led by them to concentrate exclusively on Circumstantial Selection as the explanation of all the transformations and adaptations which ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... extent the demands of the nation, without relying altogether on the precarious resource of foreign commerce. I am satisfied that internal duties and excises, with corresponding imposts on foreign articles of the same kind, would, without imposing any serious burdens on the people, enhance the price of produce, promote our manufactures, and augment the revenue, at the same time that they made it ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... is contemplated from without, the magnificent old building has, especially from its lofty tower and spire, something imposing about it; the interior produces the same, nay, perhaps a greater effect. But as the principal entrance is through the armory, and the lesser one is from the side of the church, its full impression is not felt on entering ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... have prated much of German "Kultur," have boasted of imposing this "Kultur" on the world by force of arms. What is this German "Kultur"? A certain efficiency of government obtained by keeping the majority of the people out of all voice in governmental affairs, a certain low cost of manufactured products or of carrying ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... have been at great pains to send a really representative supply of fowls. There were blue ones, black ones, white, gray, yellow, brown, big, little, Dorkings, Minorcas, Cochin Chinas, Bantams, Orpingtons, Wyandottes, and a host more. It was an imposing spectacle. ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... Aachen on Nov. 8, as Emperor of Germany, Sigismund arrived in Constance on Christmas and seated himself in his imperial robes on his throne in the cathedral during the imposing ...
— John Hus - A brief story of the life of a martyr • William Dallmann
... put the freedom of self-determination, practiced by the great progressive body of American labor, in vivid contrast with the abject slavery which the Socialists of Russia are now imposing upon the labor of that country. Lincoln Eyre's statement of the labor situation in Russia is confirmed by Trotzky himself, as we learn from the "New York World" of February 28, ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... achievements, saw and heard those things that were done in his honour. But as the celebration became greater and more solemn, this feeling would become more strong, and as the tomb, from a small heap of stones or low mound, grew into an enormous and imposing rath, the belief that this was the hero's house, in which he invisibly dwelt, could not be avoided, even before they ceased to regard him as a disembodied hero; and after the hero had mingled with the divine clans, and was numbered amongst the gods, ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady
... support our surmise. Among the great men who were certainly or probably Germans were Agamemnon, Julius Caesar, the Founder of Christianity, Dante, and Shakespeare. The blond Nordic giant is fulfilling his mission by conquering and imposing his culture upon other races. They ought to be grateful to him for the service, especially as it has a sacrificial aspect, the lower types having, at least in their own climates, greater power ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... friendship with one's hostess. The other reason we love to visit a certain house is, on the contrary, entirely personal to the host or hostess. We love the house because we love its owner. Nowhere do we feel so much at home, and though it may have none of the imposing magnificence of the great house, it is often far ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... vestibule at all too large or imposing for the object, as I conceive it, to which it is to open the way; for I am about to ask through you, if you will consent and condescend to be the medium, a very considerable favor of a very distinguished man. Among many letters of introduction which I have received, it so happens, as they say ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... inconsistencies of character, and conduct that would seem to live on in more or less elevated examples up till now. He conducted himself in regal style on his long voyages, dressing in an imposing way for dinner, during which he commanded fine music to be played—for at that day England was the home par excellence of music—and no food was eaten at his table until the blessing of the Almighty had been asked upon it, and "thanks" ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... word for him, but he certainly was an unusually imposing and fluffy-haired and fierce-looking brute of a tarantula. He had rather an owly way about him, as if he had come out from his hole too early and was dazed and half-blinded by the light. Tarantulas are night prowlers; they ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... in spite of himself. "Ah! you mean Miss Arguello," he said hurriedly, his color increasing at his own mention of that name as if he were imposing it upon his honest companion. "She is an old acquaintance ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... must insist, the conception did not dominate and obsess their mind. They may have had their spasms of terror, but these they could easily relieve by the performance of some atoning ceremony; they may have had their thrills of hope, but these they would only indulge at the crisis of some imposing ritual. ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... was full of pity for Euphemia. Thus had she gone a-dreaming. A man of imposing physique and flashing eye, who would fling you oxen here and there, and vault in and out of an arena without catching a breath, for his lady's sake—and here I sat, the sad reality, a lean and slippered literary pretender, ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... interrupted with, "No, no;" but her stern friend imposing silence, with an eagle ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... (salutation) my hands passed through his form, while on the latter occasions they met solid garments and flesh. Here I saw a living man before me, the original of the portraits in Madame Blavatsky's possession and in Mr. Sinnett's, though far more imposing in his general appearance and bearing. I shall not here dwell upon the fact of his having been corporeally seen by both Col. Olcott and Mr. Brown separately for two nights at Lahore, as they can do so better, each for himself, if they so choose. At ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... develops rather than invents. It is from this that his faculty of never boring, except when he has got upon the Scriptures, comes; it is because of this also that he never conceives anything really, simply, absolutely great. His land is never exactly weary, but there is no imposing and sheltering and refreshing rock in it. These romans and contes and nouvelles of his stimulate, but they do not either rest or refresh. They have what is, to some persons at any rate, the theatrical quality, not the poetical or best-prosaic. But as nearly consummate works of art, or at least ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... imposing—sleek, indeed—now that his theory of newspaper publicity as a cure was apparently beginning to work. Hand, more saturnine, more responsive to the uncertainty of things mundane—the shifty undercurrents that are perpetually sapping and mining below—was agreeable, ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... addressed them in a majestic voice. During the pauses of his speech and at its conclusion the paladins all murmured in agreement or shouted "Evviva" which was done by us who were behind and, as there were thirteen of us, it ought to have sounded fairly imposing. Three of the thirteen were regular operators, pretty constantly employed, who took off their coats, waistcoats and shirts, and found it very hot work; of the remainder some were authorized assistants, some were friends and one was the reader—"Lui ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... race is merely natural or physical, whilst our duties to the political nation are ethical. One is a community of affections and instincts infinitely important and powerful in savage life, but pertaining more to the animal than to the civilised man; the other is an authority governing by laws, imposing obligations, and giving a moral sanction and character to the natural relations of society. Patriotism is in political life what faith is in religion, and it stands to the domestic feelings and to home-sickness as faith to fanaticism and to superstition. It has one aspect derived ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... might be postponed or rudely interrupted by an outburst of "straffing" from Achi Baba or Asia. So Captain Simson applied himself to the construction of a dining saloon, at the digging of which the defaulters sweated for several days. The result was imposing, a large rectangular excavation not unlike an empty swimming bath, with a massive table of solid clay, and benches of the same simple design and material round the walls. Though, of course, roofless, it afforded a measure of safety from shells, but one shudders to think what ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... civilized nations." This was in 1775, and the revolution in America had already begun. It was the policy of Lord North to force the colonists to stop their opposition to unjust and offensive laws by imposing upon them other laws more unjust and more offensive still—a sort of homeopathic treatment, not infrequently applied by tyrants, but which seldom proves effective. In this case it aligned the New England fishermen to a man with the ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... and vilely paved, and I remember comparing them very unfavourably with Melbourne or Sydney. However, I soon modified my somewhat hasty judgment. We had seen the town's worst aspects, and later I noticed some attractive-looking shops; the imposing Houses of Parliament, in their enclosed grounds, standing out sharply defined against the hazy background of Table Mountain; and the Standard Bank and Railway-station, which would hold their own in any city. At the same time, as a place of residence in the summer months, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... A hall of noble size leads to a large spiral staircase winding through its center, while the various apartments are of imposing dimensions. It was built some fifteen or twenty years since by Mr. A——, the well-known New York merchant, who five years ago threw the commercial world into convulsions by a stupendous bank fraud. Mr. A——, as everyone knows, escaped to Europe, and died not long after, of a ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... hours, in the vain hope of catching a breath of air, Miss Herbey, Andre Letourneur, and I, sat watching the imposing struggle of the electric vapors. The clouds appeared like embattled turrets crested with flame, and the very sailors, coarse-minded men as they were, seemed struck with the grandeur of the spectacle, and re- garded attentively, though with an anxious eye, the pre- ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... helped take in the things, laughing and crying, and touching them with careful, caressing fingers. They made a most imposing show when arranged on the table, and during the day more modest presents, that came in from well wishing friends, were added to the collection. There came a fancy clock from Mr. Dane, three dozen handsome ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... resistance for the sake of conviction. This uninterrupted life of the spirit, this untiring aspiration for the higher and the better in the domain of religious thought, philosophy, and science, this moral intrepidity in night and storm and in despite of all the blows of fortune—is it not an imposing, soul-stirring spectacle? The inexpressible tragedy of the Jewish historical life is unfailing in its effect upon a susceptible heart.[6] The wonderful exhibition of spirit triumphant, subduing the pangs of the flesh, must move ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... second court the first object that usually attracts attention is the Church of St. Cross, which extends a considerable distance into the court, and destroys its regularity on the east side. The exterior of the church is not altogether imposing. "The windows, with one exception, are seen to disadvantage from without, and the whole building is enveloped in a shroud of yellow gravelly plaister, strangely dissonant with ideas of Norman masonry."[9] The church is built in the cathedral form, with a nave and transept, and a low ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various
... volume of Playhouse Impressions. Some months ago I searched the files of the paper with a similar design, and read my way through an astonishing amount of my own composition. Noble edifice of toil! It stretched away in imposing proportions and vanishing perspective—week upon week—two columns to the week! The mischief was, it did not appear to lead to anything: and for the first mile or two even the casual graces of the colonnade were hopelessly marred through that besetting fault of the young journalist, who ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of John Marshall, the Supreme Court handed down an imposing series of decisions restricting the powers of the States and throwing open the floodgates for the expansion of national functions and activities. Statesmen of all sections put the nation first in their plans ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... and performed a feat of the utmost importance in our history; and, moreover, it happened that at the moment the accession of Texas was warmly favored by the party of the slave-holders. Burr had been Vice-President of the United States, and was a brilliant and able man, of imposing personality, whose intrigues in the West attracted an attention altogether disproportionate to their real weight. In consequence each event is often treated as if it were isolated and stood apart from the general current of western ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... Estimates. Instantly Commodore HARCOURT appeared in offing; landed on Front Opposition Bench, diffusing unwonted smell of stale mussels and seaweed. Commodore looked very imposing pacing down quarter-deck towards Mace, with telescope under his arm, sou'wester pulled well over his ears, and unpolished square-toed boots rising above his knees. A blizzard outside; snow and wind; bitterly cold; but the Commodore soon ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... his narrative; if he endeavour to infuse into his auditors sentiments of jealousy, vengeance, or any violent passion, his features become exaggerated, and the vivacity of his glances, and the contraction of his lips, show clearly, and in an imposing manner, the foreign origin of the Gitanos, and all the customs of barbarous people. Even his very smile has an expression hard and disagreeable. One might almost say that joy in him is a forced sentiment, and that, like unto the savage man, sadness ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... the temperature altogether decidedly changed from that we had been having. The head of the cooking department being still sick, proceeded on a pony, and, having a certain air of the Sepoy about him, very grand and imposing he looked. The road being long and up hill, we breakfasted at a tomb in the pass of Fotoola, ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... result of high excitement, not of quiet thought, such as the subject requires,—a time for rushing forward, not for retracing misguided steps. Accordingly, a system was produced which from its magnitude and importance was truly imposing, and which, to the present day, is highly applauded by all those who, under the influence of the error alluded to, conceive decimal numeration to be a sacred truth: applauded, not because of its adaptation to commerce, but simply because of its beautiful ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... this villa is perfect. It is three miles from Florence, on the side of a hill. Beyond some hill-spurs is Fiesole perched upon its steep terraces; in the immediate foreground is the imposing mass of the Ross castle, its walls and turrets rich with the mellow weather-stains of forgotten centuries; in the distant plain lies Florence, pink & gray & brown, with the ruddy, huge dome of the cathedral dominating its center like a captive balloon, & flanked on the right by the smaller ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Italy had a tenderness for Bulgaria arising out of her antipathy to Jugo-Slavs and Greeks, and while proclaiming that Austria must be totally destroyed, she exclaimed against the wickedness and folly of imposing on Bulgaria a second Peace of Brest-Litovsk (see Map, ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... a moment into the other room. We are all waiting for him." The great man, entering at that moment, looked bigger, taller, quite imposing in a long dressing-gown of some dark stuff. It descended in straight lines down to his feet. He suggested a monk or a prophet, a robust figure of same desert-dweller—something Asiatic; and the dark glasses in conjunction ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... softer, more protective of her than he had felt before; it made him wish that always she would keep this spirit and courage which burned like a brave candle in the mists of life. As they said good-bye upon the imposing pillar-guarded steps of her boarding-house—called in modern fashion a Ladies' Club—he held her hand longer than he had ever imagined he might want to hold the hand of this dragon ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... other. He is the happiest man who best understands his happiness; for he is of all men most fully aware that it is only the lofty idea, the untiring, courageous, human idea, that separates gladness from sorrow. Of this idea it is helpful to speak, and as often as may be; not with the view of imposing our own idea upon others, but in order that they who may listen shall, little by little, conceive the desire to possess an idea of their own. For in no two men is it the same. The one that you cherish may well bring no comfort to ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... morning when Jesus is taken to Pilate. It was an imposing procession of the leading men of the nation, headed very likely by Caiaphas, that now led Jesus across the city, through its narrow streets, up to the palace of the Roman governor. Jesus is conducted into Pilate's hall of judgment within, but, with their scrupulous ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... He had no fear of what he could do with men: he had measured himself a few times with English gentlemen as he travelled, and he knew where his power lay—not in making himself agreeable, but in imposing his personality. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... The priest, an imposing figure clad in the gorgeous vestments of the Roman Catholic church, was bending down and allowing the worshippers to touch a relic of the Good St. Anne, in whose miraculous power of healing they ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... was Number One, a ramshackle tenement which in some forgotten day had been a fine old colonial residence. The city had long since hemmed it in completely, and all that remained of its former grandeur were a flight of broad steps that once boasted a portico and the imposing, ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... Byron persuaded me to go with them to Miss White. Never have I seen a more imposing convocation of ladies arranged in a circle than when we entered, taking William Spencer with us. Lord Byron brought me home. He stayed ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... belong the historical or heroic dramas. Their characters are usually kings, princes, and personages in the highest rank of life, and their prevailing tone is imposing and tragical. A love story, filled as usual with hair-breadth escapes, jealous quarrels, and questions of honor, runs through nearly every one of them; but truth, in regard to facts, manners, and customs, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... nations ascribed to the ambitious Tamerlane a new design of vast and romantic compass; a design of subduing Egypt and Africa, marching from the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean, entering Europe by the Straits of Gibraltar, and, after imposing his yoke on the kingdoms of Christendom, of returning home by the deserts of Russia and Tartary. This remote, and perhaps imaginary, danger was averted by the submission of the sultan of Egypt: the honors of the prayer and the coin attested at Cairo the supremacy of Timour; and a rare ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... not surprised, knowing by what influences my brother was led, to find his name in the list of Virginia burgesses who declared that the sole right of imposing taxes on the inhabitants of this colony is now, and ever hath been, legally and constitutionally vested in the House of Burgesses, and called upon the other colonies to pray for the Royal interposition in favour of the violated rights of America. And it was now, after we had been some three ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... head of the bed and close to the candlestick is a Bible—a little, familiar, daily Bible, very different indeed from the portentous and imposing family Bible which reposes on the centre-table in the front room, which is never opened except to record a death. It has been well worn, this small nightly Bible, by much handling. Is there a care or ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... that, though, when it came to the matter of public spirit. Gridley people were proud of their town. They wanted everything there to be of the best. Certainly, the Gridley High School was not surpassed by many in the country. The imposing building cost some two hundred thousand dollars. The equipment of the school was as fine as could be put in a building of that size. Including the principal, there were sixteen teachers, four ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... bethink himself of the old revolver on board, Will presently armed himself with the same, and tried to imagine that he presented an imposing appearance as the guardian of the motor-boat. Truth to tell, he would have really been far more dangerous handling his favorite camera, for he did not have it in him to harm a flea, if he could ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... more it grieves me to see man, who occupies his supreme place for the very purpose of imposing his will upon nature, and freeing himself and his from an outrageous necessity—to see him taken up with some false notion, and doing just the opposite of what he wants to do; and then, because the whole bent of his mind is spoilt, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... and at length, timidly and cautiously opening the door, she discovered him standing up before a black velvet chair, which was mounted on an old oak table, in the act of throwing open his striped calico dressing-gown, and flinging away his nightcap—which is what the French call an imposing attitude. ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... reason why in the lesser towns of the empire the sports of the amphitheatre were comparatively humane and rare; and in this as in other respects, Pompeii was the miniature, the microcosm of Rome. Still, it was an awful and imposing spectacle, with which modern times have, happily, nothing to compare; a vast theatre, rising row upon row, and swarming with human beings, from fifteen to eighteen thousand in number, intent upon no fictitious representation—no ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... the rights and duties of the State, it is not perceived how far the conduct which you propose to adopt can find a parallel in the history of any country, or be reconciled with any other purpose of your Government than that of imposing upon this State the condition ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... under the best masters of the art, he rapidly attained to great skill in performance and in composition. He finally went to Brazil, where he now resides, being engaged in the manufacture of pianos. He is about fifty years of age, a gentleman of imposing appearance. Lucien Lambert has written much music. Below is given the titles of only a very ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... government rebuilt a line of walls in the early eighteen hundreds, you will find it hard to trace even a vestige of the old French walls. Mounds tell you where there were bastions. A magnificent boulevard tops the most of the old ramparts. An imposing hotel stands where Castle St. Louis once frowned over the St. Lawrence. Of the palace where the Intendant held his revels there are not even ruins. If you drive out past Beauport, you will find at the end of a nine-mile forest path the crumbling brick walls of Chateau Bigot, the Hermitage, ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... humbly. "They always thundered when they spoke: so think how imposing and convincing their ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... and the history of that epoch. And at the same time, if your whole thoughts are engaged on one incident and one person, I can see in imagination how much fuller your material will be, and how much more elaborately worked out. I am quite aware, however, what little modesty I display, first, in imposing on you so heavy a burden (for your engagements may well prevent your compliance with my request), and in the second place, in asking you to shew me off to advantage. What if those transactions are not in your judgment ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... man of noble and imposing appearance, whose lofty bearing contrasted strangely with the humble and submissive attitude of the rest of the courtiers. His tall, slim form was clad in a coat of mail glittering with gold; over his shoulders hung a velvet mantle ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... within the limits of the nursery and garden. The other inmate of the house is a beautiful and attractive terrier called "Rags," a Skye dog, who unbends "in the bosom of his family," but ordinarily is as imposing in his demeanour as if he, and not his master, represented the dignity ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... an imposing castle, his ancestral mansion, in the vicinity of Badajoz. Here the poor boy Ferdinand, though descended from families of the highest rank, was an entire dependent upon his benefactor. The haughty Don Pedro treated him kindly. Still he regarded him, in consequence ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... convenience or luxury the rich, varied, and complicated tracery and carving of the ancient cathedral, so, in the Castle of Otranto, it was his object to unite the marvellous turn of incident and imposing tone of chivalry exhibited in the ancient romance, with that accurate display of human character and contrast of feelings and passions, which is, or ought to be, delineated in the modern novel." Sir Walter Scott; Prose Works, vol. iii. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... wasn't certain that it could be done this way, nor did he like the idea of imposing upon her. But, she told him quickly, it could be done; she had acted for another gentleman in this capacity, Mr. Nate Kemble of the Quigley mines. She knew all about it. As for imposition, she broke ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... pious, urges with sinister whispers the commission of a great crime, bidding the king save his vice-laden soul. Montespan laughs happily in her brief days of triumph. And dominating the scene is the imposing figure of the Grand Monarque. Louis haunts his great creation; Louis in his prime, the admired and feared of Europe, the incarnation of kingship; Louis surrounded by his gay and brilliant court, all eager to echo his historic boast, to sink in their master ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... honour in imposing upon Mrs. Minikin your pretended cousins as ladies of virtue and reputation. I therefore demand such satisfaction as a soldier ought to receive, and expect you will adjust with my friend Count ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... of the older Squares which still remained stately, through the splendour of modern fashion had waned in its neighbourhood, there was among the gloomy, though imposing, houses one in particular upon whose broad doorsteps—years before the Gareth-Lawlesses had appeared in London—Lord Coombe stood oftener than upon any other. At times his brougham waited before it for hours, and, at others, he appeared on foot and lifted the heavy knocker with ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... possible in order to be able to present the Committee with a respectable catalogue of crimes instigated by the German Government in the United States. Apparently his only object was to produce a list of imposing length, and for this purpose he included in it cases in which it would be difficult for even the most suspicious mind to discover the hand of the German Government. Moreover even he himself did not venture directly ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... the soldier sick, he visits him; penitent, he shrives him; dying, he comforts him. One such I knew, a Catholic priest, six feet two, and a mighty hunter of buck in his day, who was often longing for a shot at the Huns, and as often imposing penances upon himself for such un-ghostly desires. He found consolation in confessing the Irishmen before they went into the trenches: "The bhoys fight all the better for it," he explained. He was sure of the salvation of his flock; the only doubts ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... are dictated by "honour," and are therefore acknowledged and approved by the world, while the outraged sympathy takes refuge in a profound melancholy, the more telling and sublime for being scarcely expressed, and revealing the world in all its terrible nullity. Such is the wondrous and imposing experience which Calderon presents to us in magic creative charm. No poet of the world is his equal in this respect. The Catholic religion intervenes as a mediator, and nowhere has it attained greater significance than here, where the opposition between ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... turf that they once shaded still remains. The wild rushing river still pours down its resistless spring floods, but its banks have been levelled, and a noble bridge now spans its rapid waters. It has seen the destruction of two log-bridges, but this new, substantial, imposing structure bids fair to stand from generation to generation. The Indian regards it with stupid wonder: he is no mechanic; his simple canoe of birch bark is his only notion of communication from one shore to another. The towns-people and country settlers ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... across the top of High Street. Below the junction it is all modern, immense red-brick buildings of similar type, with large shops on the ground-floors. At the junction is an imposing fire-station, built by Vulliamy in 1874 on the site of the old police-station. The street higher up is narrow and irregular, with a row of elms above the level of the roadway on the west side. A conspicuous ...
— Hampstead and Marylebone - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... a little shrubbery, across a further strip of garden and through a door in a high wall, which he opened with a key attached to his watch-chain. They were in an open park now, studded with magnificent trees, in the further corner of which stood an imposing mansion, with a great domed roof in the centre, and broad stone terraces, one of which led down to the river. The house itself was an amazingly blended mixture of old and new, with great wings supported by pillars thrown out on either side. It seemed to have been built ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... villa-studded background; the town full of good handsome shops (one like the Egyptian Hall), a large cathedralish church, and with a very special market-place, of light granite, in the form of a plain Grecian temple, surmounted at the middle by an imposing dome. As I had duly culled information from the natives, I lost no time in breakfasting, but drove off, bun in hand, to explore the country of the Druids. Now, if the matters I succeeded in visiting were in isolated and plain situations, they might have been less disappointing; ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper |
