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Inimitable   Listen
adjective
Inimitable  adj.  Not capable of being imitated, copied, or counterfeited; beyond imitation; surpassingly excellent; matchless; unrivaled; exceptional; unique; as, an inimitable style; inimitable eloquence. "Inimitable force." "Performing such inimitable feats."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Inimitable" Quotes from Famous Books



... oranges, grapes, fish, vegetables, flowers, and hawkers of every sort fill the air with their shrill cries. Common-looking men fling thin, greasy, tattered cloaks over their shoulders, with a proud air and inimitable grace; groups of half-clad children play in the dirt; whole families cook and eat in the street; while liveried turn-outs are dashing hither and thither. No matter in which direction one may go in or around ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... Siege of Corinth, though the work of a Trinity man; would not take in the Thanksgiving Ode of Mr. Wordsworth, of St. John's College; declined Leigh Hunt's Story of Rimini; vetoed the Headlong Hall of the inimitable Peacock, and, most wonderful of all, would have nothing to say to Scott's Antiquary, being probably disgusted to find that a book with so promising a title was ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell

... surging back to my heart, as I caught her glance. Nora was a woman to laugh and chat with; Nora was kind and gracious, and gentle too; Nora was amiable as well as witty; charming in manner, piquant in expression, inimitable at an anecdote, with never-failing resources, a first-rate lady-conversationist, if I may use so formidable a word—in fact, a thoroughly fascinating woman; but Marion!—Marion was one, not to laugh with, but to die for; Marion had ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille

... Train of Voters for Monosyllables, the inimitable Cowley marches next, whom we must ...
— An Apology For The Study of Northern Antiquities • Elizabeth Elstob

... limitation of the common reader—and a maximum length of six thousand words. Short stories broke out everywhere. Kipling was writing short stories; Barrie, Stevenson, Frank-Harris; Max Beerbohm wrote at least one perfect one, "The Happy Hypocrite"; Henry James pursued his wonderful and inimitable bent; and among other names that occur to me, like a mixed handful of jewels drawn from a bag, are George Street, Morley Roberts, George Gissing, Ella d'Arcy, Murray Gilchrist, E. Nesbit, Stephen Crane, Joseph Conrad, Edwin Pugh, Jerome K. Jerome, Kenneth ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... could be immediately gratified. It is therefore not necessary to suppose that Antony was foolishly enamoured of the Queen of Egypt, to understand the change that took place in him after their marriage, as he tasted the inimitable life of Alexandria, that elegance, that ease, that wealth, ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero

... flooded with a blue light, the mother of the dawn. I saw the leaves labouring in the wind and the ribbon of the road; and, on turning my head, there was Modestine tied to a beech, and standing half across the path in an attitude of inimitable patience. I closed my eyes again, and set to thinking over the experience of the night. I was surprised to find how easy and pleasant it had been, even in this tempestuous weather. The stone which annoyed me would ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... stared inquisitively for a moment, and then moved off slowly with the inimitable gait of these ebon specimens of mankind, increasing his pace almost to a run once out of the ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest

... in summer, then, that we draw near to feast our eyes more intimately on Oxford's charms. Not first of all upon those which she hides away within her outer cloak of beauty, but upon the garment which she borrows from Dame Nature, and wears with such inimitable grace. Meadows, gardens, rivers, trees: these are the materials of which the robe is woven, and to each belong at least some names that have become famous beyond ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How

... cultivate the insinuating art of shaking hands, of smiling sweetly, and of making apropos remarks. No one will ever leave her without feeling that she is an exceedingly gracious person. She will even convey to them, in her inimitable way, the impression that she thinks they are "just right." She will use "blarney" as a science in an artful way. The flattering remarks she will make regarding others will be passed along by those to whom she makes them, and ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... look more the vagabond enthroned. For dress, he wore the common equipment of Cattleland—jingling spurs, fringed chaps, leather cuffs, gray shirt, with kerchief knotted loosely at the neck, and revolver ready to his hand. But he carried them with an air, an inimitable grace, that marked him for a prince among his fellows. Something of the kind she hinted to him in jesting paradoxical fashion, making an attempt to win from his sardonic gloom one of ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine

... to the general enjoyment, as he gave in an inimitable manner which fascinated his listeners, sketches of places and people he had met in his western journey; but a close observer would have noticed that his dark eyes often wandered to the face of the fair ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... possible, if one is to believe the majority of priests. He had no desire to implore a God whose forgiveness seemed most improbable. Yet the sympathy he felt for his old teachers lent him an interest in their works and doctrines. Those inimitable accents of conviction, those ardent voices of men of indubitably superior intelligence returned to him and led him to doubt his own mind and strength. Amid the solitude in which he lived, without new nourishment, without any ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... amuse themselves with theatrical converse, arising out of their last half-price visit to the Victoria gallery, admire the terrific combat, which is nightly encored, and expatiate on the inimitable manner in which Bill Thompson can 'come the double monkey,' or go through the mysterious ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... some portraits of the Cornaro family by Titian, is said to have been one of the finest things on record. The sly and pungent humour, and the banter with which the counsel derided and laughed down this witness, were inimitable. The printer won his case; but he eventually consented to remove his steam presses from the neighbourhood, on the Duke paying him a certain sum to be determined by the award ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... than this is not often thrown in our way. His sketches of character are inimitable; and many of the prominent men of his time are hit off in the most ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... ordinary head," he said to Leon, pointing to the person on whom he was operating,—"a grocer, or something of that kind. But if we devoted ourselves to art only, we should lie in Bicetre, mad!" and he turned back with an inimitable gesture to his client, after saying to Regulus, "Prepare monsieur, ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac

... mountain path, I heard the well-known strain ringing through the woods. It was unquestionably that, and nothing else, for I sat down upon a convenient log and listened for ten minutes or more, while the singer ran through all those inimitable variations which infallibly distinguish the wood thrush's song from every other. And afterward, to make assurance doubly sure, I again saw the bird in the best possible position, and at short range. On looking into the subject, indeed, I learned that ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey

... first two Acts, then; for Miss LOTTIE VENNE'S voice; above all, for Mr. A. W. BASKCOMB'S face, My Aunt is worth while. As Aubrey Braxton Mr. BASKCOMB—the never-to-be-forgotten Slightly of so many Christmasses—goes through all the many troubles of a hero of farce with his own inimitable air of hopeless resignation. I hope that his efforts will not be unrewarded, and that the management will find that, without rivalling the success of that other aunt, Charley's, they will yet for some time be able to play to good ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 2nd, 1914 • Various

... magnificent Trophies of Cookery that have adorned your Tables; nor can I but confess to the world, except I should be Guilty of the highest Ingratitude, that the only structure of this my Art and knowledge, I owed to your costs, generous and inimitable Epences; thus not only I have derived my experience, but your Country hath reapt the Plenty of your ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May

... shops. The rose-water that is imported from the South of France is, however, very superior in odor to any that can be produced here. As it is a residuary product of the distillation of roses for procuring the attar, it has a richness of aroma which appears to be inimitable with English-grown roses. There are four modifications of essence of rose for the handkerchief, which are the ne plus ultra of the perfumer's art. They are,—esprit de rose triple, essence of white of roses, essence of tea rose, and essence of moss rose. ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse

... together in the boat, the less said the better; of course, if there were nothing else, they would have been swamped thirty times over during the course of Lantenac's harangue. Again, after Lantenac has landed, we have scenes of almost inimitable workmanship that suggest the epithet "statuesque" by their clear and trenchant outline; but the tocsin scene will not do, and the tocsin unfortunately pervades the whole passage, ringing continually in our ears with a taunting accusation of falsehood. And then, when we come to the place where ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... their own society, their own traditions. During our intercourse, facilitated by an interpreter, with these men of past days, we were able to study them and to understand the secret of their greatness. It was really curious to observe the inimitable originality caused by the utter exclusiveness of the view taken by them. This limited cultivation, while it greatly diminishes the value of their ideas upon many subjects, at the same time gifts the mind with a peculiar force, almost resembling the keen ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... exaggerated or deficient, she could never have carried off her height so lithely and gracefully. She might take twenty poses in a morning, and people always thought they would choose the last one to have her painted in. Here, she was quite inimitable. For instance, women, I believe, used to practice in their own room for hours to catch her peculiar way of half-reclining in an arm-chair; but the most painstaking of them all never achieved any thing beyond a caricature. Yet no one could ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... may turn aside from the dust and heat of the day, and drink of the living streams of knowledge. There is a "daily beauty in his life," on which mankind may meditate, and grow better. It exhibits no lofty and almost useless, because inimitable, example of excellence; but presents a picture of active, yet simple and imitable virtues, which are within every man's reach, but which, unfortunately, are not exercised by many, or this world ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... when she concluded the "Quia amore langueo"—"Because I yearn for love"—to which she had long given the preference when she felt impelled to relieve her heart from unsatisfied yearning, she had seen Gombert look at the choir leader, and understood the "inimitable" which was not intended for her, but ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Nothing can please persons of taste but nature drawn with all her graces and ornament—la belle nature; or, if we copy low life, the strokes must be strong and remarkable, and must convey a lively image to the mind. The absurd naivete of Sancho Panza is represented in such inimitable colours by Cervantes, that it entertains as much as the picture of the most ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... fancy will sometimes be importunate. I had been most hospitably received and punctually served in my green caravansary. The room was airy, the water excellent, and the dawn had called me to a moment. I say nothing of the tapestries or the inimitable 30 ceiling, nor yet of the view which I commanded from the windows; but I felt I was in some one's debt for all this liberal entertainment. And so it pleased me, in a half-laughing way, to leave pieces of money on the turf as I went along, ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... is true that Best Society is comparatively rich; it is true that the hostess of great wealth, who constantly and lavishly entertains, will shine, at least to the readers of the press, more brilliantly than her less affluent sister. Yet the latter, through her quality of birth, her poise, her inimitable distinction, is often the jewel of deeper water in the ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... classes" without being struck by their indifference to every phase of British art,—except portraiture. "Have you been to the Exhibition? Are there many nice miniatures? are the portraits good? Lady D.'s lace is perfect; Mrs. A.'s velvet is inimitable." Such observations strike the ear with painful discord, when the mind is filled with memories of those who are brave or independent enough to "look forward" with creative genius. There are many noble exceptions among ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... be an extraordinary pleasure to me to accompany him about the village; he knew every one, and could talk with a simple directness and a quiet humour that was inimitable. I never saw so naturally pastoral a man. He carried good-temper about with him, and yet he could rebuke with a sharpness which surprised me, if there was need. He was curiously tolerant, I used to think, of sensual sins, but in the presence of cruelty or meanness or deliberate deceit ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... point," said Sunday. "I believe your own accent to be inimitable, though I shall practise it in my bath. Do you mind leaving your beard with ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... Bayley—and he 's here yet, going on thirteen year. He could n't live any longer with the old man. Between you and I, old Clem Jaffrey, Silas's father, was a hard nut. Yes," said Mr. Sewell, crooking his elbow in inimitable pantomime, "altogether too often. Found dead in the road hugging a three-gallon demijohn. Habeas corpus in the barn," added Mr. Sewell, intending, I presume, to intimate that a post-mortem examination ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... he returns, in a parable, to his epoch. For this book is the history of France "from the earliest time to the present day," seen in the mirror of the writer's ironical temperament. It is very good. It is inimitable. It is sheer genius. One cannot reasonably find fault with its amazing finesse. But then one is so damnably unreasonable! One had expected—one does not know what one had expected—but anyhow something ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett

... colleagues, as excited at once their envy and admiration. Indeed, it was very natural for them to repine at your having taught me a way of doing business, which it was impossible for them to follow—it was both original and inimitable. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... consent as the foremost actor of his time. Ben Jonson, a critic little prone to exalt the merits of men of mark among his contemporaries, bestowed unstinted praise on Alleyn's acting (Epigrams, No. 89). Nash expresses in prose, in Pierce Penniless, his admiration of him, while Heywood calls him "inimitable,'' "the best of actors,'' "Proteus for shapes and Roscius for a tongue.'' Alleyn inherited house property in Bishopsgate from his father. His marriage on the 22nd of October 1592 with Joan Woodward, stepdaughter of Philip ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... he can hear Nature breathing deeply and freely; even as she takes her rest she turns and smiles"? or this, "A faint sound, more like a moving coolness than a stream of air"? And at the end of the chapter which describes his "night under the pines," he speaks of the "tapestries" and "the inimitable ceiling" and "the view which I command from the windows." In this one chapter are personification, simile, metaphor,—all comparisons, and doing what could hardly be done without them. Common, distinct, concrete images ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... half animal and half human. The Jews acknowledge one god only, of whom they have a purely spiritual conception. They think it impious to make images of gods in human shape out of perishable materials. Their god is almighty and inimitable, without beginning and without end. They therefore set up no statues in their temples, nor even in their cities, refusing this homage both to their own kings and to the Roman emperors. However, the fact that their priests intoned to the flute and cymbals and wore wreaths ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... fetching and carrying of the life-giving water is the one primordial occupation in this Egypt, which has no rain, nor any living spring, and subsists only by its river—these women walk and posture with an inimitable grace, draped in black veils, which even the poorest allow to trail behind them, like the train of a court dress. In this bright land, with its rose-coloured distances, it is strange to see them, all so sombrely clothed, spots of mourning, as ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... texts in use, nothing will supercede the English script, and those inimitable styles of old English text; the most novel being those with dropped capitals, and the extremely neat, extra- shaded. Visiting cards, with the familiar words denoting the object of the call, will remain in use, to some extent, especially ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... horseman, from the loving manner in which he describes and dwells on the perfections of the matchless stallion. None but one who knew every point of a horse, none but one of the Centaur breed, could have drawn Don Fulano,—just as none but a born skater could have written those inimitable skating-scenes in his story of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... contemptible, are they, compared with the Scriptures! Is it possible that a book at once so simple and sublime should be merely the work of man? The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality contained in the Gospel, the marks of whose truths are so striking and inimitable that the inventor would be a more ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... inimitable Fechter" Never brings the gallery down, Constantly "the Great Protector" There "rejects the ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.

... page 290. For the idea of this line, I am indebted to Emerson, in his inimitable sonnet to ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... say that the supper-party was jovial? We think not. The "ticket-of-leave man" and the "tiger" were inimitable in their own lines, and Sam came out so strong on the "pirits" of the Philippine Islands that the tiger even declared himself to be satiated with blood! As for Susy—she would have been an amply sufficient audience for each ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne

... good spurs!" cried the merchant, half indignantly, "I call them splendid, glorious, inimitable! Only look you here, it is all virgin silver; and observe, I beseech you, this dragon's neck and the sibilant head that holds the rowels; they are wrought to the very life with horrent scales, and erected crest; beautiful! beautiful!—and the rowels too of the best Spanish steel that was ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... the ships lying down to it and scudding. I was thinking what a vile day it was, when she appeared. Her hair blew in the wind with changes of colour; her garments moulded her with the accuracy of sculpture; the ends of her shawl fluttered about her ear and were caught in again with an inimitable deftness. You have seen a pool on a gusty day, how it suddenly sparkles and flashes like a thing alive? So this lady's face had become animated and coloured; and as I saw her standing, somewhat inclined, her lips parted, a divine ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson

... silver-tongued orator, a man who had "suped" for Mansfield, and half a dozen others. The little cabin was crowded, the air hazy with smoke, the conversation animated. But mostly it was a monologue by the inimitable Yorick. ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... good fellow. It was not often that he told a story, but when he did, it was a good one, and it was clean. He had an inimitable way of telling anything, and his stories were all the more effective because they came at rare intervals. He did not cheapen ...
— Frank Merriwell's Nobility - The Tragedy of the Ocean Tramp • Burt L. Standish (AKA Gilbert Patten)

... variety and vivacity combined with monumental repose. The more his nature and training have made him a designer the more certainly he feels, before that single medallion of Poetry, that he is in the presence of the inimitable master of design. ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox

... this talent in constant practice, he was wont to celebrate in inimitable verse such events, be they private or public, as happened at court, or befell the courtiers; and inasmuch as his subjects were frequently of a licentious nature, his lines were generally of a scandalous ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... had made half of the weary row up the river, he ran into a little cove to rest and wipe the perspiration from his forehead. Then he informed Mr. Balfour that he was not alone in the camp, and, in his own inimitable way, having first enjoined the strictest secrecy, he told the story of ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... the translations, which he declares to be very imperfect, as, from the specimens he gives, they undoubtedly are. Macaulay, who never saw the Latin text, owns to have taken a few touches from the passages quoted in the memoirs for his inimitable picture of affairs in the Highlands during the days immediately preceding Killiecrankie; but the passage recording the early gallantry of the conqueror at Killiecrankie ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris

... would ask my Friend, whether the Character of a blunt & honest officer entitles him to the Command of one of our Capital Ships if he is "deficient in point of Experience & Discretion." The Characteristick of a Sailor is the blunt honest Tar. They carry this Character to an inimitable Height. But surely every honest blunt or even brave Tar is not fit for Command in our Navy. I some times fear there was an Error in the beginning. Thus much for Manly. "His Address (viz Mc Neils) is insinuating. His Assurance great. He may tell you fine Storys" &c. ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams

... of this king than of any other who ruled in Egypt, and there are few remains of any city in that country where it is not met with. To him we are indebted alike for the rock temples of Nubia, and the inimitable obelisks of Luxor. He raised that splendid structure on the western side of Thebes, supported by colossal statues, which is foolishly styled the Memnonion; he made great additions to Karnak; he built the temple of Osiris at Abydus; he adorned ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli

... in wine. A good Turinese would rather have no dinner at all than sit down to one without a good-sized bundle of these torrified reeds on his right or left. Beware of the spurious imitations of this inimitable mixture of flour, which you will light on in some passages in Paris! They possess nothing of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... deeply indented with the small-pox, and in every hole there was visibly ensconced a little imp of audaciousness. His eyes were such intrepid and quenchless lights of impudence, that they could look even Irish sang froid out of countenance. And then that inimitable wooden leg! It was a perfect grace. As he managed it, it was irresistible. He did not progress with a miserable, vulgar, dot-and-go-one kind of gait; he neither hopped, nor halted, nor limped; and though he was wood from the middle of his right thigh downwards, his walk might almost have been called ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... that another motive strongly prompts me upon this occasion. I am not aware of any one, to whom with such propriety a volume of anecdote and adventure should be inscribed, as to one, himself well known as an inimitable narrator. Could I have stolen for my story, any portion of the grace and humour with which I have heard you adorn many of your own, while I should deem this offering more worthy of your acceptance, I should also feel more confident of ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever

... below the counter, and set it before them. What it contained I was not tall enough to see, but out of it he took several tiny flat irons of triangular shape, and apparently made of pewter, or some alloy of tin. These the grey beaver examined and tried upon a corner of her cape with inimitable gravity and importance. At last she selected two, and keeping one for herself, gave the other to ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... this stepped forward with his candles, and, with an inimitable bow, requested the young officers to follow him. They bowing again to madame and her daughters, followed the maitre d'hotel, who led the way to a large room with two beds in it, as also a couple of cane sofas, several chairs, a table, and, ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... said O'Reirdon, with an inimitable affectation of comprehension in the Oh!—"but to talk of the ringin' iv a bell doin' the like is beyant the beyants intirely, barrin', as I said before, it was a blissed bell, ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... heresies, however, the novel will well reward the attention of readers of all classes. It is exceedingly well written, and contains many scenes of uncommon power, pathos and beauty. With these advantages it may also claim the honor of being the most inimitable specimen of theological impudence and pretension which the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... thousand and seven hundred quintals, which they called alteres. Those he took up from the ground, in each hand one, then lifted them up over his head, and held them so without stirring three quarters of an hour and more, which was an inimitable force. He fought at barriers with the stoutest and most vigorous champions; and when it came to the cope, he stood so sturdily on his feet that he abandoned himself unto the strongest, in case they could remove him from his place, as Milo was wont to do of old. In whose ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... Jew carries off one of the Maids of Honour. These little incidents, together with the unblushing realism of the Pots of Porter that are made to do duty for wine, and the extra two-penny worth of Lightning that is ordered against the first night, are all in the spirit of that inimitable picture of the Strolling Actresses dressing in a Barn, which Hogarth gave to the world two years later, and which, very possibly, may have borrowed some of its ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... wit, they were always animated, elegant, and classical. The strength of his oratory was intrinsic; it presented the rich and abundant resource of a clear discernment and a correct taste. His speeches are stampt with inimitable marks of originality. When replying to his opponents, his readiness was not more conspicuous than his energy: he was always prompt and always dignified. He could sometimes have recourse to the sportiveness of irony, but he did not often seek any other aid than ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various

... school—the winter sicknesses, the amount of vitality required to resist contagions, mental and physical—the whole tendency of the school toward making an efficient and a uniform product, rather than to develop the intrinsic and inimitable ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort

... pets, and there is apparently a point of difference between the attention of the men and the women given to animals once taken into the household. The men were interested in these animals as reviving in memory the emotional situations of hunting life, and also in the clever and inimitable accuracy of co-ordination and superhuman development of sense-perceptions, while there was always in the attitude of woman toward these animals a touch of maternal feeling, such as is still expended on the "harmless, ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... of Phidias was his own, and so inimitable that a few months ago, an American, scanning, with his practiced eye, the galleries of the Louvre, recognized a fragment of the work of Phidias, long separated from the Parthenon frieze which Lord Elgin sent to London. The sculptor's ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various

... eyes. Moreover, he was chaperoned, so to speak, by Nora Finnegan, who listened to every line Tig wrote, and made a mighty applause, and filled him up with good Irish stew, many colored as the coat of Joseph, and pungent with the inimitable perfume of "the rose of the cellar." Nora Finnegan understood the onion, and used it lovingly. She perceived the difference between the use and abuse of this pleasant and obvious friend of hungry man, and employed it with enthusiasm, but discretion. Thus it came about that whoever ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie

... of trees. Was that an umbrella waiting there? Yes, an umbrella, held with evident difficulty against the blast; behind it fluttered a French-gray cloak. Martin grinned as he toiled up the steep, encumbered field, difficult to the foot as a slope in the upper realms of Etna. There was an inimitable look in his face when, having gained the stile, he seated himself coolly thereupon, and thus opened a conference which, for his own part, he was ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... the invitation, of monarchs to visit their courts. There is endless variety in the poems of Hafiz, and they are replete with surpassing beauty of thought, feeling, and expression. The grace, ease, and fancy of his numbers are inimitable, and there is a magic in his lays which few even of his professed enemies have been able to resist. To the young, the gay, and the enthusiastic his verses are ever welcome, and the sage discovers in them a hidden mystery which reconciles him to their subjects. His tomb, near Shiraz, is ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... some other of ghostly appearance, hath ascended, with a face all pale with powder, and a shirt all bloody with ribbons;—but from none of these, nor from Phidias or Praxiteles, if they should return to life—no, not from the inimitable pencil of my friend Hogarth, could you receive such an idea of surprize as would have entered in at your eyes had they beheld the Lady Booby when those last words issued out from the lips of Joseph. "Your virtue!" said the lady, recovering after ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding

... very young—a very great deal younger, Duncan thought, than when they had been classmates, what time Duncan shared his rooms with Kellogg: very much younger and suffering exquisitely from over-sophistication. His drawl barely escaped being inimitable; his air did not escape it. "Smitten with my old trouble," Duncan appraised him: "too much money... Heaven knows I hope ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance

... highly of this great work, its author was bowed down by poverty and infirmities, and nothing was done for him by the king or his courtiers. The last glimpse of the life of Cervantes I have space for, is from his own inimitable pen, and is taken from the preface to the "Labors of Persiles and Sigismunda," which was published ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... it fulfilled to perfection the needs of the essay style. He avoids verbiage and excessive adornment, he is content to tell what he sees or knows or thinks as simply as possible (and even with a tendency towards the conversational), and he has an inimitable feeling for just the right word, just the most elegantly turned phrase and period. Do not imagine this sort of thing is the result of a mere gift for style: true, it could not happen without that, but neither can it happen without ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others

... exorbitant in his demand for Jacko, that the General did not change proprietors. Another monkey was soon heard of, who had been brought up by a cook in a kitchen, where he had learned to pluck fowls with inimitable dexterity. This accomplished pet was bought and presented to Madame, who accepted him. The first time she went out, the two animals were locked up in her bed-chamber. When the lady returned, the monkey was alone to be seen. Search, was made for Pretty Poll, and to her horror ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... dramatic adaptations. And here, if any man doubt the doctrine of original sin, let him note the fierce competition among the youngsters for the part of Apollyon, and put his doubts from him. With a little care a great many scenes may be selected from this inimitable work. Christian's entry into the haven of refuge in the early part of his pilgrimage can be effectively reproduced in the nursery. It will be remembered that the approach was commanded by a castle of Beelzebub's, from which pilgrims were assailed by a shower ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... incredible, although it is true,' which is what many people feel about Christianity. 'Dombey and Son' was the outlet for that curious psychology of Dickens which could get the best out of a pathetic incident by approaching it from a grotesque angle. It came, as Chesterton points out in his own inimitable way, 'into the inner chamber by coming down the chimney.' Which demonstrates the ever nearness of pathos to humour, of the ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke

... inimitable Cosey, never was, nor ever can be more perfectly at home than in the person of Mr. Jefferson. Were the author to see the performance and to observe the correspondence of the actor's physiognomy as well as action and utterance, with the sentiments ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... stalks of the kelp itself. There the destroyers and the destroyed are legion, not only in numbers, but in kind. A vast world in itself, so densely populated and of so many varied organisms that, for a due delineation of it, I must again borrow from the inimitable pen of Darwin. Thus ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid

... with the figure of a goddess; Moreau, who played the cello at the opera; little Louise Dumont, who posed at Julian's, and old Jacquemart, the very soul of good fellowship, who would set them roaring with his inimitable humor. ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith

... says, 'You will have it, father; well, then, egad! it is Pascal.' 'Pascal,' says the father, all blushes and astonishment; 'Pascal is as beautiful as the false can be.' 'False,' replied Despreaux: 'false! Let me tell you that he is as true as he is inimitable; he has just been translated into three languages.' The father rejoined, 'He is none the more true for that.' Despreaux grew warm, and shouted like a madman: 'Well, father, will you say that one of yours did not have it printed in ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... drawing near. She appeared out of a grove of cork-trees, and came straight towards me; and I stood up and waited. She seemed in her walking a creature of such life and fire and lightness as amazed me; yet she came quietly and slowly. Her energy was in the slowness; but for inimitable strength, I felt she would have run, she would have flown to me. Still, as she approached, she kept her eyes lowered to the ground; and when she had drawn quite near, it was without one glance that she ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... south-eastern portion. Countless incandescent lamps were glowing in all the colors of the rainbow. The luminary effect gave us the impression as if a fiery serpent was meandering along these iridescent glass-tubes with inimitable velocity. ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler

... values of this or that poem. But, even so, in width of compass, in variety of style, and in measure of success, his achievement was unparalleled. Take such poems as Manfred or Mazeppa, which have left their mark on the literature of Europe; as Beppo, the avant courrier of Don Juan, or the "inimitable" Vision of Judgment, which the "hungry generations" have not trodden down or despoiled of its freshness. Not one of these poems suggests or resembles the other, but each has its crowd of associations, a history and almost a ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... the sturdy patriots of Holland, that he hopes his young friends will not complain of the proportion in which he has mingled his material. It would be a very great happiness to him to have excited a sufficient degree of interest in these countries to induce the boys and girls to read Mr. Motley's inimitable works, "The Rise of the Dutch Republic," and "The History of the United Netherlands." The writer is confident that young people will find these volumes quite as attractive as the story ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic

... the whole of the pit burst into loud applause at the appearance of a tall, well-made dancer, wearing a mask and an enormous black wig, the hair of which went half-way down his back, and dressed in a robe open in front and reaching to his heels. Patu said, almost reverently, "It is the inimitable Dupres." I had heard of him before, and became attentive. I saw that fine figure coming forward with measured steps, and when the dancer had arrived in front of the stage, he raised slowly his rounded arms, stretched them gracefully backward and forward, moved his feet ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... where his teeth were set in gold, and proved that he had no hydrophobia. His teeth are scanty now, but he still can catch a salmon, and the bright zeal and loyalty of his soft brown eyes and the sprightly elevation of his tail are still among dogs as pre-eminent as they are to mankind inimitable. ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... "These adventures are simply inimitable, and will delight boys and girls of mature age, as well as their juniors. No happier combination of author and artist than this volume presents could be found to furnish healthy amusement to the young folks. The book is an artistic ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... and above all by promises. Promises cost less than presents, and are worth more. No one gives as much as he who gives hopes. It is not necessary for the man we choose to be of brilliant intellect. I would even prefer him to be of no great ability. Stupid people show an inimitable grace in roguery. Be guided by me, gentlemen, and overthrow the Republic by the agency of a Republican. Let us be prudent. But prudence does not exclude energy. If you need me you will find me at ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... render M. Herbault the justice to say, that he evinced no ordinary tact in suggesting certain alterations in his chapeaux and caps, in order to suit my face; and, aided by the inimitable good taste of the Duchesse, who passes for an oracle in affaires de modes a Paris, a selection was made that enabled me to leave M. Herbault's, looking a little more ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... then, it is easy to conceive this kind of work requires to be done in an open place, or out-house, to prevent accidents from fire. If the essentia bina is neither burned too little nor too much, it is a rich, high-flavoured, grateful bitter, that preserves and gives an inimitable flavour and good face to porter; to be added in proportion as the nature and composition of the grist is varied with a greater or less proportion of pale malt. To convert old hock into brown stout, it will take three pounds of essentia bina of middling or ordinary kind, and but two pounds ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger

... publication. It has already passed the ordeal of the press, and has been received, both in Europe and in America, as one of the most entertaining productions that has appeared for many years, not excepting "Charles O'Malley," and the other mirth-inspiring volumesof the inimitable Lever. ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various

... dance was in full swing. After that they adjourned to the small dormitory and spread out a repast of sweets and cakes, to which such of the younger masters as were brave enough to risk detection slipped away up the school staircase at intervals, to be more than rewarded by Lorraine's inimitable mimicry. ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... blessed, by your father and mother, and the consequences of your disobedience deprecated in the solemnest manner by your inimitable mother, your generosity would have been appealed to, since your duty would have been fount too weak an inducement, and you would have been bid to withdraw for one half hour's consideration. Then would the settlements have been again tendered for your signing, by the person least disobliging ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... pursuits, and the bias which these unavoidably communicated to his imagination, the reader may perhaps anticipate, in the following tale, an imitation of the romance of Cervantes. But he will do my prudence injustice in the supposition. My intention is not to follow the steps of that inimitable author, in describing such total perversion of intellect as misconstrues the objects actually presented to the senses, but that more common aberration from sound judgment, which apprehends occurrences indeed in their reality, but communicates to ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... host that night, the colonel was in his happiest vein, and by the time the coffee was served, had succeeded not only in entertaining the table in his own inimitable way, but he had drawn out from each one of his guests, not excepting the reticent Fitz, some anecdote or incident of his life, bringing into stronger relief the finer qualities of him ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith

... without hesitation, and sat down by him, gave him her hand again, and replied with an arch smile, while a thousand inimitable coquetries played about her eyes and lips, "You speak now like an amant ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... with grosse unpurged ear; And yet such musick worthiest were to blaze The peerles height of her immortal praise, Whose lustre leads us, and for her most fit, If my inferior hand or voice could hit Inimitable sounds, yet as we go, What ere the skill of lesser gods can show, I will assay, her worth to celebrate, 80 And so attend ye toward her glittering state; Where ye may all that are of noble stemm Approach, and kiss ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... you enjoyed Mr. Hudson's book. His observations are inimitable—and his theories and suggestions, if not always the best, at least show thought on what ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant

... approaching night. There is a mellow gray light of evening diffused throughout this painting which is almost indescribable, with the moon casting its rays across the water, so perfectly is it in harmony with the thread of the whole story which is suggested by this inimitable picture. ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro

... eyes reverently and said, 'It is something good,' speaking, as he always did, in a baby lisp inimitable here. ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to close this list of friends with the inimitable Boswell. James Boswell, born in 1740, was the eldest son of a Whig laird and lord of sessions. He had acquired some English friends at the Scotch universities, among whom must be mentioned Mr. Temple, an English clergyman. Boswell's correspondence with Temple, discovered ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... measure from Spenser to Campbell. No remarkable prose writings appeared in England at all, at that time, until Sir Walter Scott's novels were written, and until Macaulay, Carlyle, and Lamb wrote their inimitable essays. Nothing is more heavy and unartistic than Moore's "Life of Byron;" there is hardly a brilliant paragraph in it,—and yet Moore is one of the most musical and melodious of all the English poets. Milton, indeed, was equally great in prose and verse, but very ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... the decade, in the century. In fact I believe it to be worth all the Books ever written by New England upon Old. Franklin might have written such a thing (in his own way); no other since! We do very well with it here, and the wise part of us best. That Chapter on the Church is inimitable; "the Bishop asking a troublesome gentleman to take wine,"—you should see the kind of grin it awakens here on our best kind of faces. Excellent the manner of that, and the matter too dreadfully true in every part. ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... scene-painter, Mr. Henry Baylis, Mr. Tully the composer,[9] Mr. Joseph Allen the artist, and I have seen in addition Mr. Charles Dickens, Mr. Stanfield, Mr. Frank Stone, Mr. Landseer, and other celebrities, in that little snug and comfortable room. Here the inimitable Douglas Jerrold was in his glory, showing off his ready sparkling wit, his joyous hearty laugh ringing out above them all. Alas! several of this once brilliant company have now passed away, but those who remain ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann



Words linked to "Inimitable" :   unreproducible



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