"Impassive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... countenance that revealed no more of his thought than he wanted to reveal. And now, as he listened to Glory Goldie, his face was quite impassive. Just the same Katrina knew what he, who was like a father to the whole parish, was thinking. "Why should an old man who has a wife and daughter living be obliged to live with strangers? Lisa is a good woman, ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... prized his attentions. For a moment Mr. Calvert sat silent, contemplating the little play going on before his eyes, when, suddenly remembering the words of the Duchesse d'Orleans, he turned and looked at Monsieur de Talleyrand. Such a softening change had come over the cynical, impassive countenance, so wistful a look into the keen, dark eyes bent upon Madame de Flahaut, as caused a feeling of pity in the young man's heart for this brilliant, unhappy, unrighteous ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... that she had acquired a managing air, which made her mother say that Sally was a bit too fond of having things her own way. She did not speak very much, but as she grew older she seemed to be acquiring a quiet sense of humour, and sometimes uttered a remark which suggested that beneath her impassive exterior she was quietly bubbling with amusement at her fellow-creatures. Philip found that with her he never got on the terms of affectionate intimacy upon which he was with the rest of Athelny's huge family. Now and then her indifference slightly irritated ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... grey envelope," she said, the impassive, unwrinkled face unmoved to either curiosity ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... his horse for a moment, motionless as stone, his dark face immutable and impassive. Then he stretched wide his right arm in the direction of No Name Mountains, now losing their last faint traces of the afterglow, and he shook his head. He made the same impressive gesture toward the Sonoyta Oasis with ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... ever been thus cold and impassive towards me, ever turning a deaf ear to my prayer. Why, why can ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... a concentrated Council, but it rose upon faces that looked momentous. Only the Governor's and Treasurer's were impassive, and they concealed something even graver ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... impassive on the teleceiver screen, Commander Walters listened to Strong's report, and when the Solar Guard officer finished, he grunted ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... did brave battle with his own emotions. He took her little offered hand and gently kissed it. If to touch its soft smooth whiteness sent fire through his veins, there was no sign of feeling in his face. He was grave and strangely impassive. ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... was true she could not accuse Lady Caroline of not leaving him to himself, for she was taking no notice of him at all, but that did not help. Exactly like foolish moths did men, in other respects intelligent, flutter round the impassive lighted candle of a pretty face. She had seen them doing it. She had looked on only too often. Almost she laid a mother hand on Briggs's fair head as she passed him. ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... in the midst of his colleagues. The quiet Baumann still remained his friend, but the others considered him a castaway. The merchant received his resignation with icy coldness; and even in the hour of parting, his hand lay impassive as metal in Anton's grasp. Since then, our hero had undertaken several journeys to the capital and to creditors in the family's behalf, and now he was on his way to set the new estate in order, accompanied by Karl, whom he had induced to ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... driving at. Was there, indeed, no test? Had the murderer used the safest of poisons—one that left no clue? I looked covertly at Sato's face. It was impassive. Doctor Bernardo was visibly uneasy as Kennedy proceeded. Cool enough up to the time of the mention of the treasure, I fancied, now, that he was growing more and ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... his shoulders from the wall a couple of inches to introduce himself. I bowed slightly on my side of the table, and told him I commanded a merchant vessel at present anchored in Rushcutters' Bay. He had "remarked" her,—a pretty little craft. He was very civil about it in his impassive way. I even fancy he went the length of tilting his head in compliment as he repeated, breathing visibly the while, "Ah, yes. A little craft painted black—very pretty—very pretty (tres coquet)." After a time he twisted his body slowly to face the glass door on our right. "A dull ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... one could have shown greater presence of mind than the young ladies,' said that gentleman; and her father's 'I am glad to hear it!' would have gratified Gillian the more, but for the impish grimace with which Wilfred favoured her behind Kalliope's impassive back. ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had been with me for exactly that length of time. When I went over to my own room I found my man waiting, impassive as the copper head on a penny, to ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... a swift, brilliant thought, or an indication of feeling different from, perhaps deeper than, anything which appeared before. When you believed you had learnt it line by line it would startle you by a phase quite new, and beautiful as new. For it was not one of your impassive faces, whose owners count it pride to harden into a mass of stone those lineaments which nature made as the flesh and blood representation of the man's soul. True, it had its reticences, its sacred disguises, ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... idling about the parlor, dusting the already dusted furniture as they entered. The face was as impassive as a bronze statue. "Go and ask Miss Phillis, Harriet, if she is ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... in the brigade as "Beauty," and the appellative, gained at Eton, was in no way undeserved. His face, with as much delicacy and brilliancy as a woman's, was at once handsome, thoroughbred, languid, nonchalant with a certain latent recklessness, under the impassive ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... hears similar comments, and there can be no doubt of the Turkish soldier's bravery, and his unusual ability to endure hardship. No one who has wrangled with a minor Turkish official, and experienced the impassive resistance he is able to interpose to anything he doesn't want to do, will underestimate what this quality might become, translated into the rugged physique and ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... persons. The very idea of the necessity of guards was not ostentatiously brought forward, because, so near the presence of the Emperor, the emanation supposed to flit around that divinity of earthly sovereigns, had credit for rendering it impassive and unassailable. Thus the oldest and most skilful courtiers, among whom our friend Agelastes was not to be forgotten, were of opinion, that, although the Emperor employed the ministry of the Varangians and other guards, it was rather for form's sake, than from any ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... white skin. The lower down one is on the social and moral plane, the more necessary to emphasize the distinction between the races. Kwong used to listen, imperturbable, thinking his own thoughts. When his master beat him, he submitted. His impassive face expressed no emotion, neither assent ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... she looked at him more tenderly on the day after she had been told. Jimmy was slow of speech and rather dirty as to his face. There were warts on his hands, and his sphinx-like countenance was impassive almost to the point of stolidity. Somehow, though, Miss Willis said to herself, in her zeal to characterize him fairly, the little thirteen-year-old product of democracy (Jimmy was the son of a carpenter and a grocer's daughter) suggested power; suggested it as a block of granite ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... Secretly she was wondering if the news she brought would have any effect whatever on Theodosia's impassive calm. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... an upper floor, where they found a hundred or so guests who claimed Harvard as their alma mater. Although most of his old acquaintances were quite cordial, Selwyn felt oddly self-conscious. He caught sight of Gerard Van Derwater with his impassive courtliness dominating a group of active but less impressive men; and behind them he saw Douglas Watson of Cambridge surrounded by a dozen guests; but he pleaded a headache to Forbes, and sought a secluded corner, where he remained ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... recognize at once its kinship with former experience. Mere physical likeness does not count at all. It may possess a water-front of laths and sawdust, or an outlook over broad, shimmering, heat-baked plains. It may front the impassive fringe of a forest, or it may skirt the calm stretch of a river. But whether of log or mud, stone or unpainted board, its identity becomes at first sight indubitably evident. Were you, by the wave of some beneficent wand, to be transported direct to it from the heart of ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... moment, and without another word entered the river, and, turning his horses' heads up stream for a short distance, drove out on the other side; as he turned into the regular track again, he caught a view of the young man standing impassive on the same spot ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... Officer and officiating clergy, taking hasty cover in a truly novel trench; while the central figure of the obsequies, sublimely indifferent to the Hun and all his frightfulness, lay on the grass outside, calm and impassive amid ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... hand remained absolutely impassive, giving no response to my movement of inquiry. Then, looking again into the banian's eyes, I detected there a strange menacing look that greatly perturbed me. As his fingers were still limp over mine, signifying unmistakably that there was no willingness to buy, I hastened ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... he stared up at her with the impassive curiosity of a man just coming back from The Unknown. Then he ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... smashed to pulp by H.E. But the most distressing sight was an enemy sniper on one of the O. Pips already mentioned. Round him were many used cartridges and bandoliers. He sat among the thorns, eight feet above ground, with the impassive mien of a Buddha. His face had been broken by our shrapnel, and his brains were running down it; the flies were busy on a clot of red brain by his temple. He was one mess of blood, and very heavy as well as high up. My efforts to lift him down ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... than that the pyramid itself is standing. What space does the idea of a pyramid occupy more than the idea of a grain of corn? or how can either idea suffer laceration? As is the effect, such is the cause; as thought, such is the power that thinks, a power impassive ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... The well-trained servant stood impassive. "What would madame have?" he replied. "The man walked in like a lord, keeping his face hid in a cloak. But ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... do for a fortnight yet." Ma continued to eat her dinner with an impassive face, but a twinkle made itself apparent in her eye. Lest Pa should see it, and feel encouraged thereby, she looked immovably ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... this cause that many dependent natures find classic perfection cold, superb scenery unsympathetic, and the spectacle of careless happiness embittering? Others, of imaginative temperament, prefer that their idols should remain impassive, and, granted the inspiration arising from a fair appearance, ask no more, but find their delight in bestowing, from the riches of their own gratitude, adorable attributes and endless worship. Orange, as many other ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... retorted Gillian. "But it's your 'usual' that's so disastrous. You go sailing through life like a beautiful cold star—perfectly impassive and heartless." ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... lingering resentment and the appeals of her flattered vanity. She looked from Penelope's impassive face to the eager eyes of Irene. "Well—just as you say, Silas. I don't know as she WAS so very bad. I guess may be she ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... he looked at him steadfastly, and wondered if he had thought of peering behind the screen. The man was quite impassive, and waited for his orders. Dorian lit a cigarette, and walked over to the glass and glanced into it. He could see the reflection of Victor's face perfectly. It was like a placid mask of servility. There was nothing to be afraid ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... crowding into the gate armed with knives, guns, bows, and arrows. She beckoned to Arrowhead, and he followed her to the grindstone. She poured some water on the wheel and began to turn it, nodding at the now impassive Indian to begin. Presently he nodded also, and put his knife on the stone. She kept turning steadily, singing to herself the while, as with anxiety she saw the Indians drawing closer and closer in from the gate. Faster and faster she turned, and at last ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... met for a moment; they were large, melancholy eyes, and the face, beautiful as it was, was very worn and thin, and absolutely without colour. I could see her profile plainly all through the service, but the dull impassive expression of the countenance that she had turned upon me gave me a sensation of pain; she looked like a person who had experienced some great trouble or undergone some terrible illness. I could not make up my mind which it ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... remainder came much more readily—and finally the entire face of the safe was disclosed. Jimmie Dale stared at it—and pursed his lips. It was an ugly safe, extremely ugly—from a cracksman's point of view! Also, there seemed a hint of irony, a jeer almost, in the impassive wall of steel that confronted him. It was one of his own make—one that had helped, in the old days, to amass the millions that his father had left to him—and it was ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... the man whose life is one of routine, who has his business cares to claim his attention upon rising, visits at such an hour, loves at another, can lose his mistress and suffer no evil effects. His occupations and his thoughts are like impassive soldiers ranged in line of battle; a single shot strikes one down, his neighbors fill up the gap ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... reflection, exaggerated in narration, and intensified by the repetition of a number of writers, come to constitute a body of public belief, not strictly rational in its birth or subsequent growth, but as impassive in its resistance to argument as it was innocent of mental ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... is this great hope that forms the germ of the Messianic expectation by which they reach forth to the glories of the latter day. This attitude of Israel, in all the generations, is the one striking feature of this history. No soulless sphinx facing a trackless desert with blind eyes—no impassive Buddha ensphered in placid silence—is the genius of this people, but some strong angel poised on mighty pinion above the highest peak of Pisgah, and scanning with swift glances the beauty of the promised land. Now ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... and the escort of the preceding night could go no further. Don Miguel, with his swarthy face, and great sarape, was stalking about, rather out of humour, while the captain was regretting, in very polite tones, with his calm, Arab-looking, impassive face, that his escort could proceed no further. He seemed to think it extremely probable that we should be robbed, believed, indeed had just heard it asserted, that a party of ladrones were looking out for el Senor Ministro, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... diagram with a stern impassive face, modelled on the Sunday supplement photogravures of ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... a shade of satisfaction crossed the otherwise impassive face of Langhorne. Was it because the Bertillon dynamometer appeared at first sight to exonerate Betty Blackwell, at least so far, from any connection with the crime? It was ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... was in January, and all through February and all through the first days of March, while the cry for American wheat rose, insistent and vehement, from fifty cities and centres of eastern Europe; while the jam of men in the Wheat Pit grew ever more frantic, ever more furious, and while the impassive hand on the great dial over the floor of the Board rose, resistless, till it stood at eighty-seven, he bought steadily, gathering in the wheat, calling for it, welcoming it, receiving full in the face and ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... mornings of the Dumble family in their roomy spring wagon. The old man—he was not more than fifty-five—had two pretty daughters and a handsome son. Mrs. Dumble, a comely woman, always wore grey clothes and grey thread gloves. She had a pale, too impassive face, and her dark hair, tightly drawn back from her brows, had curious white streaks in it. Ajax said a thousand times that he should not sleep soundly until he had determined whether or not Mrs. Dumble was ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... up as before; his garment, somewhat crumpled, was restored to its original position; but his pallid countenance was set hard. Knowing as I did, only too well, what a volcano of passion and shame must be seething under that impassive exterior, for the moment I ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... left of Montague sat Somers, lord keeper; older, of more steady demeanor, of fuller figure, of bold face and full light eye, a politician, not a ponderer. At the right of Montague, grave, silent, impassive, now and again turning a contemplative eye about him, sat that great man. Sir Isaac Newton, known then to every nobleman, and now to every schoolboy, of the world. A gem-like mind, keen, clear, hard and brilliant, exact ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... to the big house on upper Fifth Avenue. Marrineal heard his editorial writer with impassive face. ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... scanned it carelessly. Suddenly he saw the heading which had attracted Lady Kelsey's attention. He read the letter, and he read the leading article. No one who watched him could have guessed that what he read concerned him so nearly. His face remained impassive. Then, letting the paper fall to the ground, he began to think. Presently he turned to the amiable stranger who had given him the paper, and asked him if he had seen ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... a chair, but he remained standing with his gaze lowered upon the floor. He was a burly man, with a heavy countenance impassive as an oriental's, out of which, startling in its unexpected rapidity, a glance flashed and stabbed as steely as Loyola's sword. His hands were clasped before him; they were, in that environment, strangely white, and covered with the scars of what, ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... indifference with which they die; but this is rather a sign of stupidity than of good courage. From all of the above data, we might deduce that the individual whom we are analyzing is more often found to be cowardly than impassive and fearless; but that he is apt to become desperate, as is very frequently observed. They express that by the idea that he is hot-headed, and at such times they commit the most atrocious crimes and suicide. He is cruel, and sheds blood with but little symptoms ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... Bessie dimly hinted that they were severe to agony at times—they were resolutely shut within her chamber door; and when she came out in the early morning, her cold brown hair drawn smoothly over those impassive cheeks, she looked like a lady abbess—as cold, as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... of the Embassy at Kabul was to all seeming perfectly friendly, and even cordial. Every honour was paid to it, and the assembled crowds, though preserving the impassive mien of Asiatics on such occasions, respectfully saluted the British officers as they passed along. It had been arranged that the members of the Embassy and escort should take up their abode in quarters prepared for them in the Bala Hissar, the celebrated ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... demanded of the impassive Chinese steward who served me liquid refreshment at the Concordia Club. (Every town in the Insulinde has its Concordia Club, just as every Swiss town ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... accomplished and made known to those whom it chiefly concerns within one and the same hour. The mighty Juggernaut of social life, moving onwards with its everlasting thunders, pauses not for a moment to spare—to pity—to look aside, but rushes forward for ever, impassive as the marble in the quarry—caring not for whom it destroys, for the how many, or for the results, direct and indirect, whether many or few. The increasing grandeur and magnitude of the social system, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... education at all. A little while ago I went through a terrific letter from a young man, who took up seventeen enormous double sheets of paper in trying to tell me something about himself. The handwriting was good, the air of educated assurance breathed from the style was quite impassive, and the total amount of six thousand eight hundred words was sufficient to say anything in reason. Yet this voluminous writer managed to say nothing in particular excepting that he thought himself very like Lord Byron, that he was fond of courting, and that his own ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... my things!" cried Marianne to the Chintz Imp, but he remained rigidly against his shiny spotted background and refused to move, though Marianne thought she saw a twinkle in his eye, which showed he was not quite so impassive as he appeared ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... impassive hand covered with great gems, that rested idly on the rich velvets so near to her touch, she gently kissed it,—then rose up ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... bag, which Said had just placed beside the white-enameled bedstead, turned to his impassive guide. ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... duties before and none had occasion to complain of the manner in which he did it. In these days of unbridled excesses and merciless outbursts of rage, he remained throughout—on these occasions—temperate and even impassive. ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... she said, rising up, and gathering her bundle of fagots, for she dreaded being questioned by her grim, impassive cousin. To her surprise, he laid his hand on ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... upon her, and her features were strung up to that tension which I had often before observed in persons who were bracing up their nerves to undergo a dangerous surgical operation. They were certainly not impassive, for, in the fixed eyes that glared upon me, there was a strange ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... portrait, for instance, of Sir Robert Peel as it is drawn in the Free Trade Hall at Manchester,[Z] at the county meeting, and in the Oxford Common Room. It is not so. Faithful and literal history is possible only to an impassive spirit. Man will never write it, until perfect knowledge and perfect faith in God shall enable him to see and endure every fact in its reality; until perfect love shall kindle in him under its touch the one just emotion which is in harmony with the ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... a moment outside the window with his right hand extended to the sky and the moonlight blazing on his penknife—a truly formidable figure, and one which the princess never forgot; and then he walked slowly away, hiding behind a cold and impassive demeanour a mind that was tortured and a heart that had plumbed most of ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... absence, but she lost it when she went back into the high, white, view-invaded dining-room at Yaverland's End. For Marion stood by the hearth looking down into the fire, and as Richard and Ellen came in she turned an impassive face towards them, and asked indifferently, "Have you had a nice walk?" and fell to polishing her nails with the palm of her hand with that trivial, fribbling gesture that was somehow more desperate than any other ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... that I ever saw who would spontaneously interfere to save his master from drowning or from attack. An enemy might assassinate you at the feet of your favourite elephant, but he would never attempt to interfere in your defence; he would probably run away, or remain impassive, unless guided and instructed by his mahout. This is incontestable; the elephant will do nothing useful unless he is specially ordered to perform a ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... and agitation over the girl's usually impassive features, giving all that they needed to make ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... while, turned the key and looked in on her husband. Blue-grey light from between the venetian blinds just dusked the room. She stood in a bluish dressing-gown, her hand on her bosom, looking down on the lean impassive face. For the briefest instant her heart had leapt with an indescribable surmise; to fall dull as lead once more. Breathing equably and quietly, the strange figure lay stretched upon the bed. 'How can he sleep? How can he sleep?' she whispered ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... had a friend. To Goutran alone did he ever open his heart, and even when he had been with him for hours, laughing and talking with gayety, he appeared before Monte-Cristo as impassive as ever. ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... her to him she seemed to grow less impassive and he felt her resign herself like a tired child. He held his breath, not ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... few minutes in my study?" he said. His face was perfectly impassive; only the peculiar brilliancy of his eyes spoke of the white-hot anger he was ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... was anything more to him than a little cousin to be cared for and protected when need was. The consequence was that she had become tamed, just as a wild animal is tamed; he had remained tranquil and impassive, almost as if he did not perceive her shy advances towards friendliness. These advances were made by her after the lessons had ceased. She was afraid lest he was displeased with her behaviour in rejecting his instructions, and was not easy till she was at peace with him; and ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... enquiry, half impatient, half interrogative, faded slowly from her face. She stood quite still; her impassive features seemed like a plaster cast, from which all life and feeling were drawn out. Her eyes began slowly to dilate, and she shivered as though with cold. Then the man who was watching her and wondering, knew that this was ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... wide, but he kept an impassive face. "Amada Garcia! What the—whatever is she here for, and how did she ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... in our history took possession of our coolest statesmen, and even the impassive Chesterfield cried in despair, "We are no longer a nation." But the nation of which Chesterfield despaired was really on the eve of its greatest triumphs, and the incapacity of Newcastle only called to the front the genius of William Pitt. Pitt was the grandson of a wealthy governor of Madras, who ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... weary of the hollowness, the insincerity, and the meanness of artificial life, is really a very ignoble creature, when seen in the "open daylight" of truth. He is selfish, sensual, cruel, indolent, and impassive. The highest graces of character, the sweetest emotions, the finest sensibilities,—which make up the novelist's stock in trade,—are not and cannot be the growth of a so-called state of Nature, which is an essentially unnatural state. We no more believe ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... She discovered the truth a year ago." Mrs. Gerard's usually impassive face was distorted and she voiced her confession ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... as Standish entered the large room where about a dozen of the men of the colony were assembled in informal council, while in the midst stood Hobomok, his red skin streaming with perspiration and stained with travel, while his usually impassive face bore an expression of ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... looking down at her, impassive, almost sombre, but for the hot glow in his eyes. His caution had gone overboard. "Mayn't I ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... thought Prosper, cursing his luck. Galors never moved. "What an impassive rogue it is!" Prosper cried, with all his anger clean gone from him. He dismounted and went to where his man lay, threw his sword on the grass beside him, and proceeded to unlace Galors's hauberk. Galors sprang up and sent Prosper flying; he set his ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... safe?" panted Rob, whose nerves were throbbing with excitement; and he was wondering that his new friend could be so impassive and cool. ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... episode Gunther resumed his impassive manner, nor did any other of their outdoor sports draw from him the strange, exultant look he had given Mary in the sleigh. But his feats on the toboggan slide and with his skis were sufficiently daring to supply the party with liberal thrills. His obvious skill gained him the captaincy ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... French, Russian and English literature at his fingers' ends, sit chuckling and absorbed for an hour over that fearful collection of lugubrious verse and worse grammar; pausing every now and then to cast a speculative and curious glance at his impassive host, who, paying absolutely no attention to him, bent his whole mind, instead, upon some tiny form in a balsam slide mount ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... Dr. Clayton's face was impassive as a marble mask when he turned to young Corelli. For a moment, the little group stood there in embarrassed silence in the classroom, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other, feigning interest in the paperweights upon Clayton's desk, or in the utterly uninspiring scenes ...
— The Fourth Invasion • Henry Josephs
... she seemed some impassive soulless creature, incapable alike of remorse or of hope, allured by no future, frightened by no past; silently fronting at last the one sunless, joyless, dreary goal, whose attainment had been for years the paramount aim of her stranded life. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Impassive, as behoves its high breeding, the Dedlock town house stares at the other houses in the street of dismal grandeur and gives no outward sign of anything going wrong within. Carriages rattle, doors are battered at, the world exchanges calls; ancient charmers with skeleton throats and peachy ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... voice had reached the Dutchman's ears from behind the thick curtains, but he knew too much to let any expression betray him, and he smiled grimly to himself at the thought of the change that an indiscreet question would bring to the stern face of his grave and impassive host. He was an elderly man with a tender heart, and he wondered speculatively what the girl in the next room would have to pay for her own indiscretion in allowing her voice to be heard. He left the next morning early without seeing the Sheik again, escorted for some little ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... signalled to the grooms, who came forward. They were well-trained servants, recent imports from England, and Sir Oliver had billeted them where they could hear no gossip of her history. They had kept their distance with faces absolutely impassive while their mistress kissed and chatted with this old man, and they merely touched their hats, with a "Very good, miss," when she gave over the mare, saying she would walk up to the cottage ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... and Mrs. Duncan found her an hour afterward, basting the fowls with a skewer, while the iron ladle lay at her feet, and with a stony, impassive expression on her face which always ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... far with impassive faces, or barely listened, for they were as indifferent to the words as to the passion ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... and daring, had completely lost his nerve, and his teeth were chattering in his head. His father, on the other hand, was emotionless and impassive as ever. ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... but little of its stubborn hostility. Hannibal turned away, and Calavius and Ninius sought to cover by eager talking the young man's ungracious reception of such signal favour. The faces of the Carthaginians remained for the most part impassive; only their dark eyes seemed to sparkle, either with wine or suppressed passion. Marcia still felt that one pair was trying to look through her, and she was conscious that Silenus, the Sicilian Greek, was ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... subsided, the finding and the sentence were read by Blenkin and duly translated by the interpreter. Pumpenheim was quite impassive, and maintained his composure throughout the small financial transaction which followed. He counted out his notes with an air of fatalism. Having obtained a receipt for the fine he made us a little bow and turned ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... figure—identical with the figures in the Mexican National Museum to which Le Plongeon, the discoverer of one of them, at Chichen-Itza, has given the name of Chac-Mool. But what filled us with dread was not this impassive stone image. Our alarm came from a much more natural cause, as we beheld, squatted on their haunches in long semicircular rows, facing the great stone idol, more than a hundred Indians. Truly, considering that our rifles were ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... wondrous cause to find, How body acts upon impassive mind; How fumes of wine the thinking part can fire, Past hopes revive, and present joys inspire; Why our complexions oft our soul declare, And how the passions in the features are; How touch and harmony arise between Corporeal figure, and a form unseen; ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... one of those amazingly unsympathetic rooms in which the walls, windows and doors all have a stiff, unsalient aspect of the most hard-finished indifference to every emotion of humanity, and a perfectly rigid insensibility to the pleasures or pains of the tenants within their impassive shelter. In the whole configuration of the heartless, uncharacterized place there was not one gracious inequality to lean against; not a ledge to rest elbow upon; not a panel, not even a stove-pipe hole, to become dearly familiar to the wistful eye; not so much as a genial ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various
... sallow, wan face of his? I wish the Academie would give me leave to dub such faces the lunar type. It was like silver-gilt, with the gilt rubbed off. His hair was iron-gray, sleek, and carefully combed; his features might have been cast in bronze; Talleyrand himself was not more impassive than this money-lender. A pair of little eyes, yellow as a ferret's, and with scarce an eyelash to them, peered out from under the sheltering peak of a shabby old cap, as if they feared the light. He had the thin lips that you see ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... overhear R. Schmidt's impassive estimate of the first cabin parade, or he might have had something to repeat that would not have pleased those ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... deliberate and well-poised wisdom of the judge seemed to shower down cold truth upon the jury from his very eyes. His words were low in their tone, though very clear, impassive, delivered without gesticulation or artifice, such as that so powerfully used by Mr. Chaffanbrass; but Alaric himself felt that it was impossible to doubt the truth of such a man; impossible to ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... stake than she cared to confess, and she was not equal to it. She shone, but did not blind those thousand eyes; she sang but did not cast enchantment. And David Cannon would not help her. He sat at the piano, uncouth, impassive, deliberately detached, as if he gave her and his music over to an anonymous crowd of whose existence he was hardly aware. There was something huge and static about him, something elemental as an earth-shape, containing in and by itself mysterious rhythms. His songs were things of faun-like ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... is a separate race, with its own patois, in Monaco. You would never spot it in the somewhat Teutonic cosmopolitanism of the Condamine and Monte Carlo tradesmen and hotel servants. It is not apparent in the impassive croupiers of the Casino. But within a few hundred yards, in half a dozen streets and lanes, the physiognomy, the mentality, the language of the people make you realize that regarding Monaco as a separate country is not wholly a polite fiction to relieve the ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... same time I offered him the needle, and as he pierced the insect before fixing it on the cork, Sir Thomas, until then impassive, got up, and, drawing near a bandbox, he began to examine the spider crab of Guiana with a feeling of horror which was strikingly portrayed on ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... and I came into personal contact with only one or two. Grant, I saw once, after he was Lieutenant-General, on the platform of a railroad station submitting stoically to the compliments of a lively crowd of women. Once again I saw him, in academic surroundings, sturdy and impassive, an incongruous element among the caps and gowns; but it was among such men that he won what is to my mind one of his greatest victories. What triumph of Grant's was greater than his subjugation of Matthew Arnold! I rode once ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... like that of most Americans, from books and chance observation of the handful of Kwangtung men who are earning their living among us by washing our clothes. Silent, inscrutable, they flit through the American scene, alien to the last. What lies behind the riddle of their impassive faces? Perhaps I could find an answer. Then, too, it was clear, even to the most unintelligent, that a change was coming over the East, though few realized how speedily. I longed to see the old China before I made ready to welcome ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... full sense came home to him, although his face remained impassive, I saw his dark eyes shine with the light of triumph. Moreover I heard him whisper to Marut words that ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... change of guards, and the rousing choruses around the fires. There was, besides, an atmosphere of recklessness and gayety, engendered by excitement, by danger, by the very desperation of their cause, that could not long be resisted by even the most impassive recruit. Jack alone, of his whole party, remained indifferent and unmoved; but his wife, all of the savage in her rising to the surface, grew intoxicated almost to the ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... on the poor girl, whilst sentence upon sentence was poured into her ear; and as the death of her relation was mentioned, she fancied she perceived a movement in her seemingly impassive features. She opened her eyes, and looked at Mrs Prothero, who went to her, and seeing her lips move, knelt down by ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... face impassive as a mask she met the footman's look. By her side her aunt was smiling recognition, but Anthony never saw that. Gazing upon the beauty of that face which he had once transfigured, he found it frozen. That proud red bow of a mouth, that had been his for the taking, ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... he, M. de Veron, wished to speak with him immediately. On hearing this order, Eugene looked quickly up from the desk at which he was engaged, to his father's face; but he discerned nothing on that impassive tablet either to dissipate or confirm ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... they could just stick on their stationary and impassive mounts, so drunk that they talked thickly. And they were disputing and arguing and wrangling with their voices raised almost to a shout. Thickly as they talked, we had listened to them but a few moments when we were sure that they were low-class highwaymen who had robbed two Imperial ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... over-plentifully; here and there, accentuating the picture, the gorgeous colors of some eastern prince stood out like the brighter bits in a kaleidoscope. Steele's glance swept over royalty, rank and condition. It took in persons who were more than persons—personages; it passed over the impassive face of a dark ameer who looked as if he might have stepped from one of the pages of The Arabian Nights, and lingered on a box a little farther to one side. Here were seated Sir Charles and his wife and party; and among them he could discern ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... ungratified one on the part of his daughter. He was considering, also in a leisurely sort of way, the columns of the morning paper; she considering him and the paper, and at intervals knocking with her knife against the edge of her plate, — a meditative and discontented knife, and an impassive and unimpressed plate. So breakfast went on till ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... the Faith, by Law Established," and by us despised as the self-willed tyrant, who lost America and poured out human blood like water to gratify his lust of power. By that Lord Chancellor whose cold, impassive statue has a place in Westminster Abbey, where Byron's was refused admittance, and whose memory, when that stone has crumbled into dust, will live as one who furnished an example for execrable tyranny over the parental ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... his honor with impassive judicial dignity, but the faces of the lumber trust attorneys were wreathed with smiles at the audacity of the suggestion. The corporation lawyers very politely registered their objections which the ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... tracks, that no such train was in readiness, she ran at one of the puffing and strutting children whose muffler was loose, and tied it up again. Then, struck by another thought, she returned to the impassive man ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... out of the house, in a pulpy, watery state, while the butler handled his swing doors with a stony, impassive countenance, intended for the deception of the very elect, though it did not deceive me. I knew well enough that next time he was off duty, and strolled around our way, we should meet in our kitchen as man to man, ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... were swimming under water in some great untroubled lake. And as you tread softly and silently over the thick carpets it is something like swimming. There is an intense stillness about each roulette table. Even the winners are impassive. And the groups are gloomier still at the stables where they are playing "Trente ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... shouted, by the fear, the pain, the entreaties of his victim, that the poor creature, after asking Mme. Verdurin whether he should stay and receiving no answer, had left the house in stammering confusion and with tears in his eyes. Odette had looked on, impassive, at this scene; but when the door had closed behind Saniette, she had forced the normal expression of her face down, as the saying is, by several pegs, so as to bring herself on to the same level of vulgarity as Forcheville; her eyes ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... have replied; but she was silent. Her silence seemed to grow over him like a cloud. When the lights came in, he looked the same proud, impassive Harold Gwynne, as in the old time. Already his clasp had melted from Olive's hand. Before she could guess the reason why, she found him speaking, and she answering coldly, indifferently. All the sweetness of that sweet hour had with ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... The impassive countenances of these bland young Secretaries of Legation seemed to acquiesce far too much as a matter of course in the idea that there was no society except in the old world. She broke into the conversation with an ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... in itself significant. The Duke alone remained impassive. Bransome's face was dark with anger. Even the Prime Minister was annoyed. Bransome would have spoken, but the former held out his hand to ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 'No; there was few travelers any way in October.' He vouchsafed a few more words, adding: 'It's a pity folks don't know the mountains are never so pretty as in October, and sport never so smart!' Was there ever a sportsman the dullest, the most impassive, but he had some perception of woodland beauty? While we were talking, and I was seemingly measuring with my eye the depth of the water, as transparent as the air, my father and sister had changed their position, and come close to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... grace the landscape lacks, too spacious, Impassive, silent, lonely, to be fair, Their kindness swiftly comes more soft and gracious, Who ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... the money gleam in the gaslight. These croupiers are the most extraordinary race of men it is possible to conceive. They seem to unite the stoicism of the American Indian to the politeness of the Frenchman of the ancien regime. They are never seen to smile, and wear the same impassive countenance whether the banque is gaining or losing. In fact, what do they care as long as their salary is regularly paid? They seem to fear neither God nor man: for when a shock of the earthquake was felt at Wisbaden, in 1847, though ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... found that we knew a great deal of the same country, so we began exchanging reminiscences. I told the story about Tyrer, and added that I had often wondered as to what had become of him. Our host, who had listened to my long relation with an impassive face, then remarked ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... conversation as she did in the next ten minutes. The "Argus," the new chapel rules, Miss Raymond and her theme classes, the sophomore elections,—none of them evoked a responsive chord in the strange girl who sat impassive, with no thought apparently of her social duties ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... and packed the horses, and shortly after eight Bill led the way deeper into the forest. The snow-swept trees, the white glades between, the long line of pack horses following in the wake of the impassive form of Bill made a picture that Virginia could never forget. And ever the snow sifted down upon them, ever heavier on the branches, ever deeper on ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... of excitement in the human hive, which the bailiff suppressed by a sharp rap of his gavel. Those who had caught the signal turned their eyes from Silvia to the large man, but there was nothing in his impassive demeanor to attract attention. ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... face worn into hollows, pale from lips to eyes, but wrapped in serenity as in a veil, as in a shroud. The consultants spoke in low tones, cast furtive glances as each other, or exchanged some barbarous word, remaining impassive, without even a frown. But this mute and reticent expression of the doctor and magistrate, this solemnity with which science and justice hedge themselves about to hide their frailty or ignorance, had no power to ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... mere servile livery. Their painted, immobile faces and plumed heads towered with grave dignity above the meaner crowd; their inscrutable eyes returned no response to the timid glances directed towards them. They stood by themselves, alone and impassive,—yet their presence filled the room with the sense of kings. The unostentatious, simple republican court suddenly seemed to have become royal. Even the interpreter who stood between their remote dignity and ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... the heads of that crowd of brokers like steam through a boiler, now hot, now cold, but always at high pressure, for upon the correctness of the answers depended the fortune of many who breathlessly awaited the renewal or the suspension of the contest. Even Barry Conant's usually impassive face wore ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... a Spaniard from the upper deck and obliged him to conduct us to the magazine, and there, sure enough, was Frey Bartolomeo, calm and impassive as ever. He had stove in the head of one barrel of gunpowder, and now stood over the powder holding a lighted candle in his hand. As we burst in the door and confronted him, he raised his pale face and regarded us with ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... apparently impassive, stood silent at the Table. When storm exhausted itself he quietly added that in accordance with law he would forthwith retire from the House "until, if it pleases them, my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... from the room, through the halls, into the park, where, though he followed, he never could find her. One day she and Madame returned from a walk in the forest, the one with high color and brilliant eyes, the other impassive as ice. Now, all these things did not escape Maurice, but he could not piece them together with ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... her leather coat flung over the end of the bunk and she flushed, looking sideways at the man. He seemed impassive, unconscious, and her puzzled gaze wandered over his face and form. She noted striking differences in the tanned, lean face and the lithe body. The skin was clear and the eyes no longer red and swollen. He stood upright and moved with ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... snow, an abrupt command to halt, and they found themselves surrounded by a dozen troopers. Prescott recognized the faded blue uniform and knew at once that he was in the midst of Yankee horsemen. The girl beside him gave one start at the sudden apparition and then became calm and impassive. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler |
