"Impassible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... years later. The New York volunteer fire department was for a long time one of the institutions of the country. When they had their annual parade the people of the surrounding towns would flock to the city and the streets would be as impassible as they are to-day when a representative of one of the royal families of Europe is placed on exhibition. At the New York state fairs during the early '50s the tournaments of the volunteer fire department of the various cities throughout the state formed one of the principal ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... usually impassible woman was deeply excited. Her selfish nature made her grudge any of her husband's estate to others, except, indeed, to Godfrey, who was the only person she cared for. As she thought over the unjust disposition, as she regarded ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... open beside him, and the marquis called to him in a voice vibrating with passion. As he entered and bowed low to the Emperor, he saw the marquis, tall, white with anger, his blue eyes glittering, standing in the centre of the room. He paid no attention to Jack, but the Emperor raised his impassible face, haggard and gray, and acknowledged the ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... face remained expressionless, impassible; he was doing his business, all truths were the same to him, he looked as though he suspected the Prefet of some caprice. Prefets have their ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... at all different from any commonplace man put into the like circumstances. Exactly that in which he differed from all others is exactly what cannot be put upon the stage. We have had Nelson, and of course it was quite impassible to get any suggestion of the ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... own power to alienate. But that time is far in the future and I am contented with the walls of my present world now expanded to the hills of Mendon. Between them and me flows the Charles stream. It is impassible as far as I can see, yet I have heard and been warned of a bridge full of peril. It is, however, an incredible distance to that bridge—as much as a quarter of a mile. When there, I dare not go forward lest I might be lost. I tremble with desire and apprehension. I return, slowly at ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... mounted him, taking a northern direction, being able to find a road which led that way. But I had not gone over three or four miles before I came to a large stream of water which was past fording; yet I could see that it had been forded by the road track, but from high water it was then impassible. As the horse seemed willing to go in I put him through; but before he got in far, he was in water up to his sides and finally the water came over his back and he swam over. I got as wet as could be, but the horse carried me safely across at the proper place. After I got ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... I do not know. As he was a man of much dignity, with an impassible face, it was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the end had finally come, or felt sad over the result, and was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, they were entirely concealed from my observation; but my own feelings, ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... mill-sites and for generating power, on account of the directness with which they receive the sun's rays and their freedom from clouds. Mile after mile Africa has been won for the uses of civilization, till great stretches that were considered impassible are as productive as gardens. Our condensers, which compress, cool, and rarefy air, enabling travellers to obtain water and even ice from the atmosphere, are great aids in desert exploration, removing ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... the two sparrows, one of which, in likeness of His human nature, was offered up in an earthen vessel over living waters, because the waters of Baptism are sanctified by Christ's Passion. The other sparrow, in token of His impassible Godhead, remained living, because the Godhead cannot die: hence it flew away, for the Godhead could not be encompassed by the Passion. Now this living sparrow, together with the cedar-wood and scarlet or ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... curiosity, the old mulatto followed the ever increasing throng into the peristyle; then passing through a double row of footmen, in resplendent blue and silver liveries, and standing as impassible as soldiers, he finally reached the reception room, where another army of servants in blue coats, black silk breeches and white silk stockings, stood in array. Although the modest appearance of the guests seemed little befitting the princely luxury of the house in which ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... almost unapproachable seclusion, his demeanour was that of a man who strives for life and death with a mortal enemy. "Ha! ha!—there—there!" he exclaimed, accompanying each word with a thrust, urged with his whole force against the impassible and empty air, "Did I not tell thee so?—I have resisted, and thou fleest from me!—Coward as thou art, come in all thy terrors; come with mine own evil deeds, which render thee most terrible of all,—there is enough betwixt the boards of this book to rescue me!—What mutterest thou ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... remained impassible, but his calm exterior was an indication of violent emotion. Monsieur Bourbonne alone had fathomed the secret of that apparent tranquillity. ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... other hand, an affected want of training of that sort would be even a better disguise for an artful man than a perfectly impassible demeanour. He is two removes from discovery in a hidden scheme, whilst a ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... by a woman of nothing, Madame de Prie," and who renewed the persecution of the Protestants and the Jansenists. The young king contented himself with "showing at the council table his handsome and impassible countenance, which nothing ever animated. When not thus engaged, when he was neither gambling nor hunting, he occupied himself with tapestry-making, turning snuff-boxes in wood, or reading either the ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... they did not return; they did not go elsewhere. There was a clear distance of a rod over the sand to the rocky ground where the trees grew. On the other side lay the deeps of the pool. Before them reared the impassible wall of the precipice. And there the ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... order to see, and even if he did not have wings on his shoulders, we should not be deceived regarding his nature. A divine indifference is depicted upon his charming face, and almost a smile lurks in the corners of his lips. He accomplishes the commission given him by the Eternal with an impassible serenity. ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... England and all Europe, saving only the Frenchmen, worshipt almost, had this of the god-like in him: that he was impassible before victory, before danger, before defeat. Before the greatest obstacle or the most trivial ceremony; before a hundred thousand men drawn in battalia, or a peasant slaughtered at the door of his burning hovel; before a carouse of drunken German lords, or a monarch's ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... most severe winter I ever remember—the whole Kingdom was rendered impassible from the deepness of the snow & the streets in London were in a state I never heard of their being ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... laboured extraordinarily, or that he was in some great danger, this crucifix distilled blood on every side; as if then, when the apostle was actually suffering for Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ was suffering for him, notwithstanding that he is wholly impassible. The ship, which was at the port of Sancian, being at the point of setting sail For the Indies, Antonio de Sainte Foy, and George Alvarez, desired the captain, Luys Almeyda, not to leave upon the isle ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... still pacing the study when Ali returned. The Nubian's usually impassible face bore traces of excitement and horror. He prostrated himself at his master's feet and, with his visage pressed against the floor, held up his hand, presenting to the Count the identical letter of which he had ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... it is Catholic doctrine that there are two persons of Father and Son; and that the Father is greater, and that the Son is subordinated to the Father, together with all things which the Father hath subordinated to Him; and that the Father has no beginning and is invisible, immortal, and impassible, but that the Son has been begotten of the Father, God of God, light of light, and of this Son the generation, as is aforesaid, no one knows but His Father. And that the Son of God himself, our Lord and God, ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... Pacifico, in his quiet, impassible way, "but there was a letter." He turned again to interrogate Pipa. "Then the signorina must have taken the letter herself." Slightly raising his eyebrows, a sudden light came into his eyes. "That letter has done this. What can Nobili have said to her? Did ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... there who would sacrifice their lives, their fortune, their reputation?'—'Yes, she loves you,' I replied, 'but you do not love her.' He was furious, and made me a scene; he stormed, he declaimed, he depicted his love, declaring that he had never supposed it possible to love as much. I remained impassible, and lent him money for his journey, which, being unexpected, found him unprepared. Beatrix left a letter for her husband and started the next day for Italy. There she has remained two years; she has written to me several times, ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... insensible, render callous; blunt, obtund^, numb, benumb, paralyze, deaden, hebetate^, stun, stupefy; brutify^; brutalize; chloroform, anaesthetize^, put under; assify^. inure; harden the heart; steel, caseharden, sear. Adj. insensible, unconscious; impassive, impassible; blind to, deaf to, dead to; unsusceptible, insusceptible; unimpressionable^, unimpressible^; passionless, spiritless, heartless, soulless; unfeeling, unmoral. apathetic; leuco-^, phlegmatic; dull, frigid; cold blooded, cold hearted; cold as charity; flat, maudlin, obtuse, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... let him have a window from that pine-and-canvas palace, but he, of course, declined, as to part with it would really inconvenience himself. So F. has sent to Marysville for some glass, though it is the general opinion that the snow will render the trail impassible for mules before we can get it. In this case we shall tack up a piece of cotton cloth, and should it chance at any time to be very cold, hang a blanket before the opening. At present the weather ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... of which they were to have so much by-and-by. The journey was long and wearisome; and it was not until the evening of the fifth day after leaving Cincinnati, that they arrived at Painted Posts—a village about twenty miles distant from their destination. From this place the road became almost impassible, and the toil of travelling very disheartening. They were frequently obliged to make a long circuit to avoid some monster tree which had fallen just across the track, and to ford streams whose stony beds and swift-flowing waters presented ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... necessity, which stifles both; which chokes all utterance; which has no aim or method. It is courage absorbed in despair. They linger but for a moment. Their look is onward. They have passed the fatal stream. It shall never be repassed by them,—no, never. Yet there lies not between us and them an impassible gulf. They know and feel, that for them there is still one remove farther, not distant, nor unseen. It is the general burying-ground of ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... nor judgment of the mortal soul by Osiris, no transfer of human love and hate, passions and hopes, to the powers above; all here is ascribed to disembodied agencies or principles, and their works are represented as moving on in quiet order. There is no religion [!], no imagination; all is impassible, passionless, uninteresting.... It has not, as in Greece and Egypt, been explained in sublime poetry, shadowed forth in gorgeous ritual and magnificent festivals, represented in exquisite sculptures, nor preserved in faultless, imposing fanes and temples, filled with ideal creations." Besides ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... impartial, and conscientious connoisseur in the Duchy of Hesse. But, as may be imagined, her musical appreciation is entirely negative; if you sing with expression, and play with ability, she will remain cold and impassible. But let your execution exhibit the slightest defect, and you will have her instantly showing her teeth, whisking her tail, yelping, barking, and growling. At the present time, there is not a concert or an opera at Darmstadt to which Mr. S—— ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... child still, this nursling of the forbidding Amazon, of that Amazonian goddess—to be a child always? or a wily priest rather, skilfully circumventing her sorceries, with mystic precautions of his own? In truth, there is something of the priestly character in this impassible discretion, reminding her of his alleged intimacy with the rival goddess, and redoubling her curiosity, her fondness. [182] Phaedra, love-sick, feverish, in bodily sickness at last, raves of the cool woods, the ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... the box with delight, and hardly had he touched the foreheads of the two sisters with it when they made great leaps and twisted about their hands and feet. Lactantius shouted forth his exorcisms; Barre threw himself upon his knees with all the old women; and Mignon and the judges applauded. The impassible Laubardemont made the sign of the cross, without being struck dead for it! When Monsieur du Lude took back his box the nuns became still. 'I think,' said Lactantius, insolently, 'that—you will not question ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... admiration which attended him; the friendship of workers as valiant as himself—Grandville and Serizy, both presiding judges—had no hold over the Count: either he told them nothing, or they knew all. Impassible and lofty in public, the Count betrayed the man only on rare intervals when, alone in his garden or his study, he supposed himself unobserved; but then he was a child again, he gave course to the tears hidden beneath the toga, to the excitement which, if wrongly ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... terms, their deputies were sent to Detroit, they offered to confine their Pretensions within certain limits far South of the Lakes. if this offer had been accepted the Indian Country would have been for ages an impassible Barrier between us. twas unfortunately perhaps wantonly rejected, ...
— The Character and Influence of the Indian Trade in Wisconsin • Frederick Jackson Turner
... with all the disabilities and pains and absence, 'yet believing,' you can put out a long arm of faith across the gulf that lies, not only between to-day and eighteen centuries ago, but the deeper and more impassible gulf that lies between earth and heaven, and clasp Christ with a really firm grasp, which will fill the hand, and which we shall feel has laid hold of something, or rather has laid hold of a living person ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... cloak, and in the way in which the long slight lance was held, that had an unmistakably Eastern look about it. There was a certain air of dignity too about my friend which contributed to his Arab-like appearance. Yet it was not exactly the dignity of the grave and impassible Eastern man. It was a mixture of dignity and jauntiness. There was a certain air of self-consciousness about the man in the cloak and brigand's hat that told you clearly enough that he knew he was riding remarkably well, and expected you to mark it too. He would have been exceedingly unwilling that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... scouts stated the situation, with the impassible ravine to the north, and the attackers to the south of their position. His force was on the eastern side of the river, and moving back a sufficient distance to prevent knowledge of his presence from reaching the Illyas, went to ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay
... her time to quell her emotion in this earnest speech, and he shuddered as he met the look of impassible and contemptuous determination with which she answered him—"Why will you weary me with proposals which I have a hundred times rejected, and will reject again, as often as it shall please you to amuse yourself by making them. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... indeed, there is generally a moral, sometimes an inverted one, in the Rops etchings. Order Reigns at Warsaw is a grim commentary on Russian politics quite opportune to-day. La Peine de Mort has been used by Socialists as a protest against capital punishment. Les Diables Froids personifies the impassible artist. It is a page torn from the book of hell. Rops had read Dante; he knew the meaning of the lines: "As the rill that runs from Bulicame to be portioned out amid the sinful women"; and more than once he explored the frozen circles of Gehenna. Victor Hugo was much stirred by the design, ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... find it impassible to set seriously to work, and this idle temper, this humour of hypochondria which casts its black veil over everything in life,—continues and grows in spite of the moral activity which ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - KARL-LUDWIG SAND—1819 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... room for spontaneous feeling, springing from His own nature, the necessary concomitant of thought and will. Impassibility is a comprehensive attribute. Originally negative, it soon acquired a rich positive connotation. An impassible God is one who is outside space and time. The attribute connotes creative power, eternity, infinity, permanence. A passible God is corruptible, i.e. susceptible to the processes of becoming, change, and decay. If to-day theists have to be on their guard ...
— Monophysitism Past and Present - A Study in Christology • A. A. Luce
... opportune, for the visitor let himself fall heavily into an arm-chair. Great drops of perspiration were on his forehead, his lips were pallid: at intervals he looked at the journalist, whose impassible countenance did not seem to invite confidences. The poor trooper lost countenance more ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... my brother! and this clime Wherein thou art, impassible and pure, I call created, as indeed they are In their whole being. But the elements, Which thou hast nam'd, and what of them is made, Are by created virtue' inform'd: create Their substance, and create the' informing virtue In these bright stars, that round them circling move The soul of every ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... divisible docible edible effectible eligible eludible enforcible evincible expansible expressible extendible extensible fallible feasible fencible flexible forcible frangible fusible gullible horrible illegible immiscible impassible intelligible irascible legible miscible negligible partible passible (susceptible) perceptible permissible persuasible pervertible plausible possible producible reducible reflexible refrangible remissible reprehensible resistible responsible ...
— Division of Words • Frederick W. Hamilton
... The impassible chief agent made no answer. Some new noise in the street struck his quick ear. He ran to the window and ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... Bey, cold and impassible as the sculptured image, gazed at it without saying anything, his forehead divided by a straight crease wherein his courtiers alone could read his anger; then, after two quick words in Arabic, to order ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... dignity, and returned to the house without looking back, impassible as her mother had been for one day only, but more pitiless. The searching eye of that young girl had discovered, though tardily, the secrets of her mother's heart, and her hatred to the man whom she fancied fatal to her mother's life may have been increased ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... last stage of human existence. He was ninety-two years of age. The lines in his face were cordage, his aspect was stony and impassible, and he was all but impervious to passing events; his thin blood had almost ceased to circulate in his extremities; for every drop he had was needed to keep his old heart a-beating at all, instead of stopping like a ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... were stopped, as before, by an immense frozen expanse, which filled the whole area of the southern horizon. The northern edge of this expanse was ragged and broken, so firmly wedged together as to be utterly impassible, and extending about a mile to the southward. Behind it the frozen surface was comparatively smooth for some distance, until terminated in the extreme background by gigantic ranges of ice mountains, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... worse, saw, with feelings which may be imagined, that nothing I could do would be likely to arouse Mr. Allison to an immediate sense of his danger, for not only were the windows shut between us, but he was lost in one of his brooding spells, which to all appearance made him quite impassible ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... (1) passion, passive, impassive, impassioned, compassion, pathos, pathetic, impatient, apathy, sympathy, antipathy; (2) passible, impassible, dispassionate, pathology, telepathy, hydropathy, homeopathy, allopathy, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... that retained even a memory of her youth. The dark blue of the iris still cast its passionate fires, to which the woman's life seemed to have retreated, deserting the cold, impassible face, and glowing with an expression of devotion when the welfare of a ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... weaning-time a couple of large flocks got temporarily together, and one could see driven by the herder a compact mass of four thousand advancing over the prairie with a quick step, "a unit in aggregate, a simple in composite," their impassible countenances gazing fixedly forward, resembling, it seemed to me, a brigade going into action. For most of the year it is thought by no means advisable to fold the sheep in the corral at night, so they sleep at large near it. Especially on moonlight nights they are apt to be uneasy and to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... moon, nor stars were visible there. "The moon's pale beams" never afford material for a blank line in poetry; neither do scientific discussions rage on the formation of Saturn's rings, or the spots on the sun. They knew they occupied a hollow sphere, bounded North and South by impassible oceans. Light was a property of the atmosphere. A circle of burning mist shot forth long streamers of light from the North, and a similar phenomena occurred ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... Superieure entered. As she advanced towards him, with stately step and solemn visage, De Mauleon recoiled, and uttered a half-suppressed exclamation that partook both of amaze and awe. Could it be possible? Was this majestic woman, with the grave impassible aspect, once the ardent girl whose tender letters he had cherished through stormy years, and only burned on the night before the most perilous of his battle-fields? This the one, the sole one, whom in his younger dreams he had seen as his destined wife? It ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sound, and the colour rose in her small dark face. English departed from her. 'Je ne le regrette pas du tout, du tout!' she cried with a flood of words. 'Madame—ah! je me jetterais au leu pour madame—une femme si charmante, si adorable! Mais un homme comme monsieur—maussade, boudeur, impassible! Ah, non!—de ma vie! J'en avais par-dessus la tete, de monsieur! Ah! vrai! Est-ce insupportable, tout de meme, qu'il existe des types comme ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... These offices fulfilled, he took Haco's arm, and leaning on it, returned to the spot on which they had left their steeds. Not evincing surprise or awe,—emotions that seemed unknown to his gloomy, settled, impassible nature—Haco said calmly, ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that bed-chamber became too small for all the thoughts revolving in his mind, and he strayed first into the dressing-room and then down the passage as far as the dining-room. And again and again he went to and fro, grave and impassible, his head low, ever lost in the same gloomy reverie. What were the multitudinous thoughts stirring in the brain of that believer, that haughty Prince who had given himself to God and could do naught to stay inevitable Destiny? From time to ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... had remained, in appearance at least, the most impassible during this scene. He was a man between thirty-three and thirty-four years of age, with blond hair, red beard, a calm, handsome face, with large blue eyes, a fair skin, refined and intelligent lips, and ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... tranquillity. With his eyes moving from Marche-a-Terre to the road and thence to the woods he stood expecting, not without dread, a general volley from the Chouans, whom he believed to be hidden like brigands all around him; but his face remained impassible. Knowing that the eyes of the soldiers were turned upon him, he wrinkled his brown cheeks pitted with the small-pox, screwed his upper lip, and winked his right eye, a grimace always taken for a smile by his men; then he tapped Gerard on ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... tortures and mystic punishments. No one can be initiated, says Suidas, until after he has proven, by the most terrible trials, that he possesses a virtuous soul, exempt from the sway of every passion, and at it were impassible. There were twelve principal tests; and some make ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... to the southward, a plantation called Swawny was attacked and burnt by the Indians in the June of 1675. He is said to have shed tears (impassible Indian as he was) at the tidings, foreseeing the utter ruin of his people; and, twenty days after, Squando's influence led to another attack 200 miles off, and this was viewed as a sign ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... valley, surrounded on all sides by high mountains, lived a community or body of people who had never been outside the valley. To them the mountains proved an impassible barrier and they had no wish or desire to penetrate beyond. For generations they had lived in this peaceful retreat happy and content. The ground yielded sufficient for their wants and needs. No one in this little ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt
... higher and higher in the passage, and it seemed to the boys that by this time most of the lower gangways were entirely impassible. ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... good father;" again replied the impassible Fleming; "pray therefore as much as you will. I will content myself with fasting, which will come whether I will or no."—At this moment a horn was heard before the gate.—"Look to the portcullis and the gate, ye knaves!—What ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... chagrin—though he had half expected worse—he found that the boiler-explosion of the previous night had really made the way impassible, from the third story downward. These lowest flights of steps had been so badly broken, that now they gave no access to ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... when he smiled in a wicked and sinister manner, the ends of his teeth could be seen, black and decayed. Closely shaved to his temples, this man's countenance had an expression austere, sanctified, impassible, rigid, cold and reflecting; his little black eyes—quick, piercing, restless,—were hidden ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... Italy preceded by an immense reputation; religious, strenuous, unwearied, impassible, loving with the simplicity of a Tartar and fighting with the fury of a Cossack, he was just the man required to continue General Melas's successes over the soldiers of the Republic, discouraged as they had been by the weak ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... of mind, however, for some time, when there fell still another great snow on the following day, heavier than the preceding storm. It piled drift upon drift, and made the roads about Benton, for miles in every direction, impassible. It shut each farmhouse in upon itself; the Ellisons in their home; Colonel Witham and Granny Thornton alone in the Half Way House. The old mill was silent ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... quoique etant de l'ombre, ils sont du fer. Sont-ce des larves? Non; et sont-ce des statues? Non. C'est de la chimere et de l'horreur, vetues D'airain, et, des bas-fonds de ce monde puni, Faisant une menace obscure a l'infini; Devant cette impassible et morne chevauchee, L'ame tremble et se sent des spectres approchee, Comme si l'on voyait la halte des marcheurs Mysterieux que l'aube efface en ses blancheurs. Si quelqu'un, a cette heure, osait franchir la porte, A voir se regarder ces masques de la sorte, Il croirait que la mort, a de certains ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... After the exercise was ended, the men gathered around a small brass band, of half a dozen Germans, which began to play in front of General Walker's quarters. The little General himself sat in his door, and looked out with impassible countenance upon the crowd in the street. It was an excellent conglomerate to study, for any one who could have the head and feeling there. What General Walker made of it, not even his staff-officers, who sat beside him, could tell,—if it were true, as was said, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... a le calme qui appartient a la terre, support impassible de l'homme, et il resemble a toutes les plaines. La nuit pourtant une espece de brume visionnaire s'en degage, et si quelque voyageur s'y promene, s'il regarde, s'il ecoute, s'il reve comme Virgile dans les funestes plaines de Philippes, l'hallucination de la catastrophe ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... occupied the middle of the room or congregated around its walls, which enshrined a maelstrom of beauty, circling and ever changing, like the figures in a kaleidoscope. A prominent figure in these scenes was Edward Everett, cold-blooded and impassible, bright and lonely as the gilt weather-cock over the church in which he officiated ere he became a politician. John Van Buren—"Prince John"—he was called—was another notable, his conversation having the double charm of seeming ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... underneath the floor, opened its wide mouth full of fire, and breathed on us with heat and stared at our endless work through the two black air-holes above the forehead. These two cavities were like eyes—pitiless and impassible eyes of a monster: they stared at us with the same dark gaze, as though they had grown tired of looking at slaves, and expecting nothing human from them, despised them with the cold contempt of wisdom. Day in and day out, amid ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... impassible peace of the darkness To wake, and blink at the garish light Through one short ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... anthropomorphitism of their representations of the Deity; and yet the heathen philosophers and priests—Plutarch for instance—tell us as plainly as Donne or Aquinas can do, that these are only accommodations to human modes of conception,—the divine nature being in itself impassible;—how otherwise could it ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... together now, father and daughter—a beautiful group in the yellow lamplight against the dark background that surrounded them like an impassible fate; her face was a study of happiness, tenderness, suffering, and strength; her father wrapped her close in his protecting arms, and thus she could bear everything. They were silent for a while: he trying to accept the revelation in its strangeness, ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... c'est vainement qu'ici nous nous aimmes! Rien ne nous restera de ces coteaux fleuris O nous fondions notre tre en y mlant nos flammes! L'impassible nature ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... letter, written by a young man in Petersburg; one of us, of course. You were seen—you were observed with your notebook, impassible, taking notes...." ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... and a smile, that had no brightness in it, flickered over his full lips, then died, leaving behind it an impassible serenity. ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... air, but never did he express any gratitude for them. Never would he yelp, never would he rap the floor with his tail, never bestow on them a single one of those caresses dogs are so fond of lavishing. He remained impassible in a sphinx-like pose, like a serious man who will not take part in the conversation of frivolous persons. The master he had elected was my father, in whom he acknowledged the authority of the head ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... approached nearer, the weather changed, and dark, gloomy clouds enveloped them, so that they seemed to present an impassible barrier to the lands beyond them. At Ivrea, I entered the interesting valley of Aosta. The whole valley, fifty miles in length, is inhabited by miserable looking people, nearly one half of them being afflicted with ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... in the earth, hidden from all approaches by dense bushes of wacht een beetje thorn. The spruit was here throttled between banks of worn stone, and the water roared over the drift at a depth that made it impassible to foot- farers. Its name Morder Drift (Murder Ford), was secured to it no less by its savage aspect than by the ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... If she is wretched and miserable and bleeding, has she anything but what she richly deserves, and has brought down upon her own head? By Spain we of course mean the Spanish nation—for as for the country, it is so much impassible matter, so much rock and sand, chalk and clay—with which we have for the moment nothing to do. It has pleased her to play an arrant jade's part, the part of a mula falsa, a vicious mule, and now, and not for the first time, the brute has been chastised—there she lies on the road amidst the ...
— A Supplementary Chapter to the Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... silent like the terrible questioning of one's conscience. Outside the court the sun blazed—within was the wind of great punkahs that made you shiver, the shame that made you burn, the attentive eyes whose glance stabbed. The face of the presiding magistrate, clean shaved and impassible, looked at him deadly pale between the red faces of the two nautical assessors. The light of a broad window under the ceiling fell from above on the heads and shoulders of the three men, and they were fiercely distinct in the ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... gift is in devising impossible slanders] [W: impassible] Impossible slanders are, I suppose, such slanders as, from their absurdity and impossibility, bring their ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... number is great or small it is "rich" or "poor," as it is called; and where their number is not up to the mark, the blood acts more feebly on the organs, life is calmer, and people are no longer troubled with emotions—in other words, with violent heats of the blood. Hence the impassible character of lymphatic people, who often get on in the struggle of life better than others, because they are never in a hurry, and know how to wait for opportunities. You will occasionally hear the word lymphatic, for it has become the fashion, and it is time for me to explain it; ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... triumph you admire, and form part of the duties of the heroes you fondle? Our chief, whom England and all Europe, saving only the Frenchmen, worshipped almost, had this of the godlike in him, that he was impassible before victory, before danger, before defeat. Before the greatest obstacle or the most trivial ceremony; before a hundred thousand men drawn in battalia, or a peasant slaughtered at the door of his burning hovel; before a carouse of drunken German lords, or a monarch's ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... to visit the garrison of West Point: the commandant was absent. Surprised and displeased, the general was impatiently waiting for his return, when his aide-de-camp and faithful friend, Colonel Hamilton, brought him important despatches. Washington's face remained impassible; but throughout the garrison and among the general's staff there had already spread a whisper of Arnold's treachery: he had promised, it was said, to deliver West Point to the enemy. An English officer, acting as a spy, had actually been arrested within ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... fade from each eye, The smile from each face; They will curse the impassible sky, And the earth when ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... by clouds above the impassible horizon, his reflections turned more gloomy and deadly. Was it impious for him to arrogate the right to substitute his justice for that supreme, and wield its dreadful sword? But he shrank from acting as his father had done, and mainly ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... pauvre Tamango versa un torrent de larmes, et poussa des cris de douleur aussi aigus que ceux d'un malheureux qui subit une opration chirurgicale. Tantt il se roulait sur le pont en appelant sa chre Aych; tantt il se frappait la tte contre les planches, comme pour se tuer. Toujours impassible, le capitaine, en lui montrant le rivage, lui faisait signe qu'il tait temps pour lui de s'en aller; mais Tamango persistait. Il offrit jusqu' ses paulettes d'or, son fusil et son ...
— Quatre contes de Prosper Mrime • F. C. L. Van Steenderen
... gait of this personage seemed to have undergone a sudden change. He appeared to have increased in dimensions. He was no longer an automaton, moved by the mechanism of humble obedience. His features, till now impassible, his glance, hitherto subdued, became suddenly animated with an expression of diabolical craft; a sardonic smile curled his thin, pale lips, and a look of grim ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... wisdom and of power; it is the creation of the Infinite Mind. What can still be wanting to our hearts? The thought that God desires our good,—that He loves us. If it is so, we shall be able to understand that our cause is His, that He is not an impassible sun whose rays fall on us with indifference, but a Father who is moved at our sorrows, and who would have us find joy and peace in Him. This will be the subject of our next ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... marks. He added, in his stolid way, that he had another idea, too. But they did not ask him what that was. One of the party, a naval officer, expressed surprise that he had ridden all the way from Cantigny and asked him if it were not true that part of the road was made impassible by floods. Tom answered that there were floods but that they were not impassible "if you knew how." The officer said he supposed Tom knew how, and Tom regarded ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... joy of Joseph's life. His heart, at last freed from its weight of conventional duties, and forced submission to the requirements of court etiquette, soared high into regions of exultant happiness. His countenance, once so cold and impassible, was now full of joyous changes; his eyes, once so dull and weary, glowed with the fire of awakened enthusiasm, and they looked so brilliant a blue, that it seemed as if some little ray from heaven had found its way into their clear, bright depths. The poor boy was an altered creature. He was ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... be conquered with the love of women; and at last, being unable to take the cloak off of Nessus, he kindled his own funeral pile and died. Such are specimens of the ancient myths. Their character is such as to leave an impassible gulf between them and the character of the God revealed in our religion. No development theory, seeking the origin of our religion in the old mythical system, can bridge across this chasm. It is as deep and broad as the distance between the antipodes. There is no analogy between these counterfeits ...
— The Christian Foundation, April, 1880
... league and a half, even two leagues towards the centre of the earth. The descents were sufficiently perilous, and while we were engaged in them we learned fully to appreciate the marvelous coolness of our guide, Hans. Without him we should have been wholly lost. The grave and impassible Icelander devoted himself to us with the most incomprehensible sang-froid and ease; and, thanks to him, many a dangerous pass was got over, where, but for him, we ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... divine Word suffered no change by becoming man. The second is entitled The Inconfused, from the subject, which is to prove that in Christ, after the Incarnation, the divine and human nature remain really distinct. The third is called, The Impassible, because in it the author demonstrates that the divinity neither did nor could suffer; the same is the purport of his Demonstration by syllogisms. The dialogues were written about the year 447; for ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... occasion for grief in watching the progress of his own perfect and unfailing plans—your difficulty in God's impassibility vanishes. Christ, qua God, was, of course, impassible too. It seems to me that your position implies that God's 'designs' have partially (at least) failed, and hence the grief of perfect benevolence. Now I stoutly deny that any jot or tittle of God's plans ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... it sounded, a score of times. I said very little. I gave her only the crust and rind of my nature. No matter she expected of me nothing better—she knew me too well to look for compliments—my dry gibes pleased her well enough and the more impassible and prosaic my mien, the ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... made no reply. Neither did he appear angry; only impassible. Mr. Huntley had certainly hit the right nail on the head; for the master of Helstonleigh College school was entirely under the control, of ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... consequence. That General Lee or General Grant turned this or that corner in reaching Appomattox may be important, but the grand historical tableau is the Christian hero, noble in the midst of defeat, disaster, and ruin, formally rendering his sword to the impassible but magnanimous conqueror as the crowning event of a long and bloody war. The details are historically important, though overshadowed by the mighty result ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... daily mail in that direction, except when the roads and the weather hindered; and it seemed that these would now be hinderances. The threatened storm came, and with it high wind which piled the snow into deep, hard drifts, making the mountain road nearly impassible. Dorian found the mail-carrier who told him that it would be impossible to make a start until the storm had ceased. All day the snow fell, and all day Dorian fretted impatiently, and was tempted to once more go out to Mr. and Mrs. ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... You would hardly say that they were devoid of expression, any more than that a perfectly drilled soldier is incapable of activity; but you got puzzled in making out what their natural expression was: it was not sternness, far less ferocity—the face was much too impassible for either; and yet its listlessness could never be mistaken for languor. The thin short lips might be very pitiless when compressed, very contemptuous and provocative when curling; but the enormous mustache, sweeping ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... colonized and brought into cultivation, and it was here that Napoleon ended the career which had laid waste and despoiled Europe. Here in this little island was bounded his wide ambition; the sea set limits to his steps on every side and stretched its strong impassible barrier all around him. Here, though not alone, he endured a solitude which was doubtless heavier to bear and more hopeless than that felt by any of the wanderers who in early days were left upon that shore. For there is no solitude like that of a heart which ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous |
