"Imperious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... part of the world is the "milk of human kindness" so completely wanting in the female breast, as among the women of the wandering Arabs of Africa. Slaves to their imperious lords,—even when enjoying the sacred title of wife,—they are themselves treated worse than the animals which they have to manage and tend,—even worse at times than their own bond-slaves, with whom ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... by. The call for men to join our fighting forces, which is our primary need, has been and is being nobly responded to here at home and throughout the empire. That call, we say with all plainness and directness, was never more urgent or more imperious than today. For this is a war not only of men but of material. To take only one illustration, the expenditure upon ammunition on both sides has been on a scale and at a rate which is not only without all precedent but is far in excess of any expert forecast. At such a time patriotism has cast a ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... submitted perforce to the behests of her imperious neighbour, but the citizens had never ceased to hope that his unwelcome "protection" might be dispensed with; that, by the aid of French troops, they might eventually wrest themselves free from the Burgundian incubus. In spite of all promises to Charles, secret negotiations between the anti-Burgundian ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... versus Powers that Be!" Ah, yes! Imperious Norman, that's a modern trial That's always being argued more or less; The Press keeps now such vigilant espial On every grasping would-be public plunderer. You, Sire, had not to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 27, 1892 • Various
... me to remain, with an imperious gesture whose fierceness showed the tumult underlying her brave front. "No; I want you should stay. I want you should hear what I say, so's you can tell folks, if you have to. Now, look here, Emma," she went on to the other, still obstinately silent; ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... already closeted in my study for three days when a ring at the door-bell startled me. There was something imperious, fantastic, and strange in the motion communicated to the bell-rope which disturbed me, and it was with real anxiety that I went myself to open the door. And whom did I find on the landing? The young ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... his face was so peeled and blistered and scorched that his disguise was sufficient to conceal him even from his wife. Yet as he stood there with downcast head, as a devout peasant might have done before the altar, he saw Felicita make a slight but imperious sign to him to advance. She did not take a step toward him, but leaning against the altar rails she waited till he was near to her, within hearing. There ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... and to illustrate the imperious humor of the Scot, he waved his fingers and a red wrister at me. The gesture unnerved him for a moment, and he had to go thumbing over the page to find his place. He caught it again and chanted on—"'At my sover-sover-yne's will. To each one whom he lists, however unmeet to ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... scarcely six years, walked hastily in the direction of a wood which skirted the banks of the River Tyne. It was evident from her dress and the jewels she wore that she was a lady of no ordinary importance, and a certain imperious look in her worn face seemed to suggest that she was one of those more used to ruling than obeying, to receiving honour rather than rendering it. The boy who accompanied her was also richly dressed, and reflected in his handsome face the proud nature of his mother, as this lady seemed ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... much we lend indeed, Perforce, by force of need, So much we must; even these things and no more The far sea sundering and the sundered shore A world apart from ours, So much the imperious hours, Exact, and spare not; but no more than these All earth and all her seas From thought and faith of trust and truth can borrow, Not memory from desire, nor ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... image, effigy imaginary, imaginative impending, approaching imperious, imperial imply, infer in, into inability, disability ingenious, ingenuous intelligent, intellectual insinuation, innuendo instinct, intuition involve, implicate irony, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... obstacles the great workers of the world fought their way to triumph. Milton wrote Paradise Lost in blindness and poverty. Luther, before he could establish the Reformation, had to encounter the prestige of a thousand years, the united power of an imperious hierarchy and the ban of the German Empire. Linnaeus, studying botany, was so poor as to be obliged to mend his shoes with folded paper and often to beg his meals of his friends. Columbus, the discoverer of America, had to besiege and importune in turn the states of Genoa, Portugal, ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... turned back by the imperious Rocky Mountains in 1806. A few years later Captain Bonneville braved the plains, the plateaus, the mountain passes, and the deserts, and saw the Columbia. Then continuous migrations finally fixed the overland highway known from ocean to ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... mind reigns over the body and bears itself as ruler: here it has its independence to defend against imperious impulse, always ready to do without it, to act and shake off its yoke. But in grace, on the contrary, the mind governs with a liberal government, for here the mind itself causes sensuous nature ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... That she loved me not, proves not that she could love no one; and though she now seems so coldly heartless and so rashly heedless of her fame, yet who knows what she might have been if fettered by the love of a spirit more imperious than her own? Who can tell how the great good that is within her might then have conquered the evil, and her soul have spurned its present headstrong course, and gloriously aroused itself to its sole great duty ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... once tempted and restrained by the richness of illustration, which presents itself under all these heads. The necessity of limitation is, however, imperious. This, and a wish for simplicity, dispose us to throw all under one ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... approach Done felt the stir of a novel exultation in his traitorous flesh. To be sure, he had woven romances for himself, but his heroines were always of a type totally different to Lucy Woodrow. They were strong, dark-eyed, imperious creatures, who espoused all his beliefs and echoed his defiance of the world. What sense of humour had as yet found place in his nature was exercised to the full at the expense of the lackadaisical lover in life and ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... that I was unable to control or influence him. This was true at the time and remains true now. Time and again have efforts been made to harness his energies to the State, but they have never succeeded. The responsibilities of office are irksome to his imperious temperament. There is something almost tragic in a figure, equipped with the qualities of an hereditary autocrat, endeavouring to accommodate himself to the needs of a democracy. The spectacle of this purple Emperor ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... Willful, generous, forgiving, imperious, affectionate, improvident, bewitching, in short—was Laura at this period. Could she have remained there, this history would not need to be written. But Laura had grown to be almost a woman in these few years, to the end of which we have now come—years which had ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... satisfaction which she felt on the sudden and unexpected appearance of her favorite: after she had leisure for recollection, all his faults recurred to her; and she thought it necessary, by some severe discipline to subdue that haughty, imperious spirit, who, presuming on her partiality, had pretended to domineer in her councils, to engross all her favor, and to act, in the most important affairs, without regard to her orders and instructions. When Essex waited on her in the afternoon, he ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... she gasped, affrighted at his vehemence and the ghastly look with which he greeted her. "How—how you startled me! Why, what has happened? where were you going in such—why, major—what is the matter?" and now there was something imperious in the demand. ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... sincerely sympathize with you in all that you have suffered, and we consider the persecution with which you have been pursued by a venal Court and an imperious and uncharitable priesthood, as an illustrious proof of your personal merit, and a lasting reproach to that Government from the grasp of whose tyranny you ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... I had succumbed supinely to this imperious domination. The sentiment of deep awe with which I habitually regarded the elevated character, the majestic wisdom, the apparent omnipresence and omnipotence of Wilson, added to a feeling of even ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... anticipations on this head having been disappointed, and the squadron being without even the provisions necessary for the maintenance of the few men required on board the ships when at anchor, it has become an imperious duty no longer to delay calling upon your excellencies to fulfil the engagement entered into relative to the appropriation of two-thirds of the revenues of the islands, which you have thought fit to apply ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... did, as their equals or superiors? Descartes, I think, said the same thing. Fame will not run after the men who are afraid of her. She makes mock of those trembling and respectful lovers who deserve but cannot force her favors. The public is won by the bold, imperious talents—by the enterprising and the skillful. It does not believe in modesty, which it regards as a device of impotence. The golden book contains but a section of the true geniuses; it names those only who have taken glory ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... dallied a twelvemonth, lapped in the Elysium of freedom and youth. Every want anticipated, every whim gratified, servants prostrate before her, father adoring her,—the year sped on wings of silent joy, and left her a shade more imperious than it met her. Launched into society, wealthy and winning, Eloise counted, too, her lovers; but she spurned them so gayly that her hard heart became a proverb through all the region round, wherever the rejected travelled. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... precisely as she pleases," said a voice, sharp, lowered also, but imperious, like the drawing of a sword. "If she wants me, she knows ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the hideous ring "Of the black clouds; no stream of sharp, clear light "From those great torches, pass'd into the black "Of deep oblivion. She seem'd to watch, but she "Forgot her long-dead nations. When she stirr'd "Her vast limbs in the dawn that forc'd its fire "Up the black East, and saw the imperious red "Burst over virgin dews and budding flow'rs, "She still forgot her molder'd thrones and kings, "Her sages and their torches, and their Gods, "And said, 'This is my birth—my primal day!' "She dream'd new Gods, ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... the supreme act, which was exhibited by the administration of James Buchanan, in its last hours, when it proclaimed the doctrine of secession to be unfounded in constitutional right, and yet denied the power of the Government to prevent its own destruction. The threats of an imperious band of traitors, operating upon the fears of a weak old man, who was already implicated in the treason, drove him to the verge of the abyss into which he was willing to plunge his country, but from ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... to you now, when should I find the possibility of doing so? Time flies here with such a frightful rapidity, my pleasures and my affairs whirl onwards together in such a torrentuous galopade, that I am compelled to seize occasion by the forelock; for each moment has its imperious employ. Do not then accuse me of negligence: if my correspondence has not always that regularity which I would fain give it, attribute the fault solely to the whirlwind in which I live, and which carries me hither and ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... measuring forces with their eyes, they buzz insults at each other. Then they go back and alight on the nest in dispute, first one, then the other. I expect to see them come to blows, to make them draw their stings. But my hopes are disappointed: the duties of maternity speak in too imperious a voice for them to risk their lives and wipe out the insult in a mortal duel. The whole thing is confined to hostile demonstrations and a ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... confirm a faith already held, though that faith may be part of his unconscious spiritual possessions. Many times the scientist is determined that the scientific discoveries shall look in theistic directions just to satisfy the imperious though unconscious demands of his own soul. Some scientists are theists just because they are bound to be so, for the close contemplation of the entire situation in the material realm does not make for any adequate ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell
... Apart from his persistent infirmity, he was actively disposed, as indeed is evident from the laborious journeys he undertook during his travels. Field sports, including hunting, were among the recreations of his more active years. But through all his work or recreation the imperious conditions necessitated by his infirmity of stomach had to be considered, and nothing but the most rigorous care could possibly have enabled him to achieve what he did. On many days he could not work at all, and on many others two ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... foibles: the strongest fort has its feeble point, as the chain snaps at its weakest link;—family pride was Mahomet's weak link. This was his tender point; and Mahomet, the great and the imperious, yielded to the gentle scratching of his ear if a stranger claimed connexion with his ancient lineage. Of course he had no family, with the exception of his wife and two children, whom he had left in Cairo. The lady ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... by a smile of mocking interrogation, a judiciously placed silence or a resigned glance at the architect. So the estimates poured in, were studied, resisted—then yielded to and signed; then the hour of advance payments struck, and an imperious appeal was despatched to Mr. Tredegar, to whom the management of Bessy's ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... hair about the white brow, it suddenly seemed to him as if the picture had never been out of his mind. "The Lass with the Delicate Air" was before him, but changed. The look of girlish immaturity was gone—replaced by an imperious decision of manner. A haughty, almost wayward, expression was on the smiling face—a look of dawning worldliness and caprice. 'Twas as if the thought which had once passed through Calvert's mind had come true—that countenance which had been ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... one who seemed of a coming-on disposition. Emma Jane had disposed of three single cakes, Rebecca of three small boxes; for a difference in their ability to persuade the public was clearly defined at the start, though neither of them ascribed either success or defeat to anything but the imperious force of circumstances. Housewives looked at Emma Jane and desired no soap; listened to her description of its merits, and still desired none. Other stars in their courses governed Rebecca's doings. The people whom she interviewed either remembered their present need of soap, or ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... ridden far when he met one of the huntsmen of Alcina, bearing a falcon on his wrist, and followed by a dog. The huntsman was mounted on a powerful horse, and came boldly up to the paladin, demanding, in a somewhat imperious manner, whither he was going so rapidly. Rogero disdained to stop or to reply; whereupon the huntsman, not doubting that he was about making his escape, said, "What if I, with my falcon, stop your ride?" So saying, he threw off the bird, which ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... throne did not lie so open, but that before he were reinstated in the secure possession of them, he must encounter many difficulties. His palace, wanting its king, was become the resort of insolent and imperious men, the chief nobility of Ithaca and of the neighbouring isles, who, in the confidence of Ulysses being dead, came as suitors to Penelope. The queen (it was true) continued single, but was little better than a state-prisoner ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... which all philosophy directs itself; that imperious necessity of the human mind, that pivot round which it is compelled to group the aggregate of its ideas: Unity, this source, this centre of all systematic order, this principle of existence, this central point, unknown in its essence, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... beings, and become tame in an incredibly short space of time. Man had dominion given unto him over the beasts of the field; the fiercest of the feline race will not attack, but avoid him, unless goaded on by the most imperious demands of hunger; and it is a well-known fact, that there is a power in the eye of man, to which all other animals quail. What, then, must it be to an animal who is brought on board, and is in immediate collision with hundreds, whose fearless eyes meet his in ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... hazardous experiment had succeeded. As it was the ring which had brought the passionate, imperious goddess into her marble counterfeit, so—the ring once withdrawn—her power was instantly at an end, and the spell which had enabled her to assume a form of ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... the triangular space was hushed by an imperious guttural shout that scattered the groups. Two Austrian officers, followed by military servants, rode side by side. Dust had whitened their mustachios, and the heat had laid a brown-red varnish on their faces. Way was made for them, while Barto stood smoothing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... never bettered, was among the bravest of the Elizabethans. Her temperament was as large and as reckless as Ben Jonson's own. Neither her tongue nor her courage knew the curb of modesty, and she was the first to reduce her craft to a set of wise and imperious rules. She it was who discovered the secret of discipline, and who insisted that every member of her gang should undertake no other enterprise than that for which nature had framed him. Thus she made easy the path for that other ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... may here be noticed that throughout the whole of the operations it was observable that the men wrought, if possible, with more keenness upon the Sundays than at other times, from an impression that they were engaged in a work of imperious necessity, which required every possible exertion. On returning to the floating light, after finishing the tide's work, the boats were received by the part of the ship's crew left on board with the usual attention ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no longer delay to demonstrate to the squadron, and the world, that I am no partner in the deceptions and oppressions which are practised on the naval service; and as the first, and most painful step in the performance of this imperious duty, I crave permission—with all humility and respect—to return those honours, and lay them at the feet ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... to the worst," he said to himself, "we need never die of hunger! Here are thousands of dozens of oysters to satisfy the calls of the most imperious stomach! If Tartlet complains, it is because he does not like mollusks! Well, he ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... battalions and sabred the fugitives. A great disaster was imminent; and yet it was avoided, partly by Soult's cool and obstinate defence, and partly by the accident that at that moment Wellington was struck by a spent ball and was disabled, so that his swift and imperious will no ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... Caesarea, or from Ferrara through all the bitter desolation of Comacchio, or across the endless marsh from Bologna or Faenza, its wide and empty horizons, its astonishing silence, and the difficulty of every approach will seem to you but a fitting environment for a place so solitary and so imperious. ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... in a bird as it flashed past him, or a drop of water as it fell from his finger: he was, perhaps, the happiest of the sons of men. Yet this man undoubtedly founded his whole polity on the negation of what we think the most imperious necessities; in his three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, he denied to himself and those he loved most, property, love, and liberty. Why was it that the most large-hearted and poetic spirits ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... l'entourait, 'his was usually a fiery, violent, immoderate nature, given to shouting, breaking and storming. In reality, he was an excellent man; quick, however, with his hands, loud in his speech, and prompted by an imperious desire to make all ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... and ready I verily believe to march out from their barricades and make straight for the horsemen. In the midst of this clamour and turmoil the young dragoon officer, a handsome, olive-faced lad, rode fearlessly up to the barrier, and pulling up his beautiful roan steed, held up his hand with an imperious ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was a kind of superstitious and traditional devotion, it must he owned, rather than an enlightened or rational faith. They had the greatest veneration for crucifixes and images of their saints, and had no idea of any duty more imperious than that of attending on all the solemnities of religion. They were singularly attached also to their cures, who were almost all born and bred in the country, spoke their patois, and shared in all their pastimes and occupations. When ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes
... tenderness of her allusions to him; from the fact, which indirectly appears, that he first cooled towards her, and the pang—not of wounded vanity—which this gave her; and yet more unmistakably from the forgiveness which she, imperious and relentless as she was, extended, manifestly, again and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... he concerns himself, is "a certain loftiness and excellence of language," which "takes the reader out of himself.... The Sublime, acting with an imperious and irresistible force, sways every reader whether he will or no." In its own sphere the Sublime does what "natural magic" does in the poetical rendering of nature, and perhaps in the same scarcely-to-be-analysed fashion. Whether this ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... Mrs. Durrant, sweeping down upon them in her imperious manner, "you remember Mrs. Adams? Well, that is her niece." And Mr. Bowley, getting up, bowed politely and ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... drink much?"—"Moderately, Sire; not more than twenty-five bottles." This was, in fact, a great improvement, for he had more than once reached the number of forty without being made tipsy. Moreover, with General Bisson it was not a vice, but an imperious need. The Emperor knowing this, and being much attached to him, allowed him a pension of twelve thousand francs out of his privy purse, and ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... battle, in the last charge across a certain cornfield, or in the hurried falling back through a certain wood, with the murderous lead singing and hitting from yonder dark mass descending on the flank, and the air full of imperious calls, "Halt!"—"Surrender!" a man disappeared. He was not with those who escaped, nor with the dead when they were buried, nor among the wounded anywhere, nor in any group of prisoners. But long after the war was over, another man, swinging a bush scythe among the overgrown ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... retorted (by a snob and brute) on her own sex in general, and upon Mrs. Bazalgette in particular. This sweet lady maneuvered on a carpet like Marlborough on the south of France. She was brimful of resources, and they all tended toward one sacred object, getting her own way. She could be imperious at a pinch and knock down opposition; but she liked far better to undermine it, dissolve it, or evade it. She was too much of a woman to run straight to her je-le-veux, so long as she could wind thitherward serpentinely and by detour. She could ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... Moustier is considered a better Turk than the Grand Turk himself'. Under the circumstances a possible alliance between France and Russia, giving the latter a free hand in the Near East, would have proved a grave danger to Rumania; 'it was, consequently, a skilful, if imperious act, to enter voluntarily, and without detriment to the existing friendly relations with France, within the Russian sphere of influence, and not to wait ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... in the bronze bull that he had made; wherein great effort may be seen in those who are thrusting him into that bull, and terror in those who are waiting to behold a death so unexampled, besides which there is the seated figure of Phalaris (so I believe), ordaining with an imperious air of great beauty the punishment of the inhuman spirit that had invented a device so novel and so cruel in order to put men to death with greater suffering. In this work, also, may be perceived a very beautiful frieze of children, painted to ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... the only blemishes and faults of the Carthaginians.(564) They had something austere and savage in their disposition and genius, a haughty and imperious air, a sort of ferocity, which, in the first transports of passion, was deaf to both reason and remonstrances, and plunged brutally into the utmost excesses of violence. The people, cowardly and grovelling under apprehensions, were proud and cruel in their transports; at the same time ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... imperious traitor do? My life Beyond thy wretched purpose stands secure. Go, learn at leisure what your deeds deserve, And tremble at the vengeance you provoke. [Exeunt ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... of them were converted, all that was lovely and of good report in woman was entirely wanting. They were trodden down, but at the same time exceedingly defiant and imperious. If they were not the "head," it was not because they did not "strive for the mastery." They seemed to have no idea of self-control; their bursts of passion were awful. The number of women who reverenced their husbands was as small as the list of husbands who did ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... answered, "I might say I dropped in as it were." Lisbeth brushed the hair from her temples, and turned to me with an imperious gesture. ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... usually so gentle, could be prettily imperious when she chose. And now, wrought up by Malcom's reference to Barbara and her own fast crowding thoughts, her voice took on this tone, and she turned with high head to ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... not mistaken. He was waiting for her by the baize door that led to the surgery when she emerged. With a brief, imperious gesture he invited her to pass through. The door closed behind them, and ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... inferred from hence that I am or shall be disposed to quit the ground I have taken, unless circumstances more imperious than have yet come to my knowledge, should compel it; for there is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth, and to pursue it steadily. But these things are mentioned to show that a close investigation of the subject is more ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... south and the east, I have very often thought with delight of the immense acquisitions which he would at length bring back to enrich the works, which I trust the public will in due time receive from him, and to which it has an imperious claim. And still I trust he will feel the solemn duty of making his very best and continued efforts to mend as well as delight mankind, now that he has attained the complete mastery and expansion of his admirable powers. You do not fail, I hope, to urge him to devote ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... is ever harsh in his treatment of woman. The natives of this country were less imperious than those of Port Jackson, where the blows of the waddy solemnised matrimony. Beside the burden of travel, they chiefly hunted the opossum, and mounted the lofty trees of the Tasmanian forest. When the man condescended to give part of his spoil, he handed over ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... Her imperious chin was as high as Major King ever had carried his own in the most self-conscious ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... tearing, sorting the papers again. A rasping quality was in his voice and speech, hitherto unknown to his mother, a cold, imperious quality in his manner, also, new to her. And these brought her down to earth, setting her feet thereon uncompromisingly. And the earth on which they were thus set was, it must be owned, rather ugly. A woman made ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... mountaineer's eyes were fixed upon a tall, imperious looking man, whose collar bore the ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... freshening breeze at her stern. In a few days the north-east trade winds which blow gently over the bosom of the ocean were reached, and every stitch of canvas was hung up. The sailors had got over their monotony, and began to entertain themselves during the dog-watches from six to eight. The imperious commander was never happy himself, and was angry at the sight of mirth in anybody. He forthwith commenced a system that was well calculated to breed revolt, and which did ultimately do so. Orders were given that there were to be ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... have imagined that this man had ever been a slave; his face was swarthy, but his fine black eyes lighted it up with a glance of firm self reliance and fiery energy. It was the look of a man who might be the moving spirit of one of those rebellions which were frequent in Alexandria; there was an imperious ring in his voice, and decision in the swift gestures of his hardened but ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the artist, by accentuating, unduly, some individuality of face or figure, and Tetrazzini is no exception. From her pictures one would expect to find one of the imperious, dominating order of prima donnas of the old school. When I met the diva, I was at once struck by the simplicity of her appearance and attire. There was nothing pompous about her; she did not carry herself with the air of one conscious of possessing ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... Her worry was not confined to this particular phase of Elsa's imperious moods; it was general. There was that blond man with the parrot. Martha was beginning to see him in her dreams, which she considered as a presage of evil. There was also the astonishing lack of interest in the man who was waiting at home. Elsa rarely spoke of him. Nobody could tell Martha that ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... for sixteen years. At fourteen and fifteen I often thought that the time was come when I should commence my pilgrimage, which I had cheated my own mind into believing was my imperious duty: but a reluctance to quit my Aunt; a remorse for the grief which, I could not conceal from myself, I should occasion her for ever withheld me. Sometimes when I had planned the next morning for my escape a word of more than usual affection from ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... of constantly reiterated delirious ideas, having their source in illusions of sense and diseased organic processes. Here and there emerges a distinct idea, which, as is always the case with the insane, assumes the form of an imperious assertion, a sort of despotic command. ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... herself called it? Nobody could answer that question. The matter was as incomprehensible to Miss Wodehouse as to Dr Rider, but not of such engrossing interest. Bessie Christian, after all, grew tame in the Saxon composure of her beauty before this brown, sparkling, self-willed, imperious creature. To see her among her self-imposed domestic duties filled the doctor with a smouldering wrath against all surrounding her, which any momentary spark might ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... themselves well rid of it; and that no man of worth, none that is not a plain unthrift of his own hours, is ever likely to succeed them, except he mean to put himself to the salary of a press corrector; we may easily foresee what kind of licensers we are to expect hereafter, either ignorant, imperious, and remiss, or basely pecuniary. This is what I had to show, wherein this Order cannot conduce to that end ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... cried Lady Hunter, affecting all the imperious vivacity of a young bride, under favour of which she determined to satisfy her ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... first came to manhood and began to take part in public affairs, that greatest of crimes, human slavery, was entrenched everywhere in power in this Republic. Congress and Supreme Court, Commerce and Trade and Social Life alike submitted to its imperious and arrogant sway. Mr. Webster declared that there was no North, and that the South went clear up to the Canada line. The hope of many wise and conservative and, as I now believe, patriotic men, of saving this country from being rent ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... in his white burnous. Durtal could only see him in profile, and he distinguished a long grey beard, a shaven skull, surrounded by the monastic crown, a high forehead, and a nose like an eagle's beak. He had a grand appearance, with his imperious features, and his fine figure as it swayed under ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... the Prussian kings, he had won a friend for life who, as will subsequently appear, proved of service to him. The general character of life in Prussia also greatly contributed to strengthen in him that independent bearing of which Spontini's imperious splendor had given him a hint, and which subsequently was to invest his own art with so much ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... to the disinclination of the parents to send their children to school. This certainly does exist to a certain extent, particularly to schools where the under classes of whites are taught, who often treat the negro children in a most imperious and hostile manner. As some proof that no decided objection exists in the negro to educate his children, a vast number of the apprentices of my district send them to school, and take pride in paying a bit a week ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... her, nor overlooking her. She was just as colossally commanding as ever, just as imperious. At sight of her, Decatur understood Jane's position clearly. She was still the dependent niece, the obscure satellite of a star of the first magnitude. Very distinctly had Mrs. Philo Allen once explained to ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... the terrible denunciations of Tarleton's dragoons on their arrival at the swampy and imperious thicket, and what they would do if they could only see a bush or a cane move, he felt perfectly safe as long as he could remain motionless in his muddy retreat. But when his fears had somewhat subsided in his place of ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... best time to have children is when the lovers, sure of themselves and of each other, feel an imperious need to stamp the gold of life with each other's images. I feel no hesitancy in urging married couples to take a year or so to make sure of their love, if only for the children's sake. Economic conditions being ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... by the Prince seemed to increase the young Count's embarrassment. Beneath a polished manner, the evidence of an imperious temperament appeared in the slightest glance, the least gesture, of this handsome fellow of twenty-seven or twenty-eight years. Seeing him pass by, one could easily imagine him with his fashionable clothes cast aside, and, ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... was an eye so fitted to rob my Uncle TOBY of his repose as the very eye at which he was looking. It was not, Madam, a rolling eye, a dissatisfied or a revolutionary one—nor was it an eye wicked, wanton, or wandering—but it was an eye sparkling, petulant, and imperious, of high claims, and large exactions—an eye full of brisk challenges and sharp responses, an eye of satisfied strength and confident ascendancy—speaking, not like the dulcet appeal of a mellow flute, but like the trumpet stop of some powerful party organ. The cornea was perhaps a shade sallow ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various
... usual, she submitted to her husband. Had she not done so, there would have come that glance from the corner of his eye, and that curl in his lip, and that gentle breath from his nostril, which had become to her the expression of imperious marital authority. Nothing could be kinder, more truly affectionate, than was the heart of her husband towards her niece. Therefore Madame Voss yielded, and comforted herself by an assurance that as the best was being done for Marie, she need not subject ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... to last her mistress for a week; and by the time the trunk and bag were ready the carriage was waiting to take Mrs. Gaylor into Bakersfield. Everybody knew that no train would leave Kern for San Francisco until night, but the imperious lady was in no mood to receive extraneous information. She had said something about seeing a lawyer in Bakersfield. If she chose to waste hours there it was her business, ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... was a proud and imperious beauty, who abused the power which she soon found that she possessed over the king, in a manner to make her an object of hatred to every one else. She interfered with every thing, and had a vast influence even over the affairs of ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... done, each man went home and dwelt in their own Houses as they did before. It was thought that this carriage would offend the King, and that he would at least take away their Allowance. And it is probable before this time the King hath taken Vengeance on them. But the Ambassador's carriage is so imperious, that they would rather venture whatsoever might follow than be subject to him. And in ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... the feet of an imperious mistress, obey her mandates, or implore pardon, were for me the most exquisite enjoyments, and the more my blood was inflamed by the efforts of a lively imagination the more I acquired the appearance of a ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... Mr. William Gifford, hinting distantly at a Review; he admitted the most imperious necessity for one, and that too in a way that leads me to think that he has had very important communications upon the subject.... I feel more than ever confident that the higher powers are exceedingly desirous for the establishment of some counteracting ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... of strong resemblance to Vittorio Emmanuele. He wore an enormous broad-brimmed hat and emerald-green earrings, and looked considerably younger than his eldest son, Francesco. Throughout the nozze he took the lead in a grand imperious fashion of his own. Wherever he went, he seemed to fill the place, and was fully aware of his own importance. In Florence I think he would have got the nickname of Tacchin, or turkey-cock. Here at Venice the sons and daughters call their parent briefly Vecchio. I heard him ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... conversation became more intimate. Anybody, to look at us, as we walked, arm in arm, round the paths of the rose garden, would have taken us for lovers. Of course she wanted none of my advice. Her frank and generous nature felt the imperious need of expansion. I, to whom she could talk as to a sympathetic wooden idol, happened to be handy. I don't think she could have talked in the same way to a woman, I don't think she would have talked so even to me, who had taken her pick-a-back ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... as it was in the very middle of an extremely severe winter; but she soon perceived that he was in earnest: she knew from the air and manner of her husband that he thought he had sufficient reason to treat her in this imperious style; and finding all her relations serious and cold to her complaint, she had no hope left in this universally abandoned situation but in the tenderness of Hamilton. She imagined she should hear from him the cause of her misfortunes, of which she was still totally ignorant, ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... annoying too, for the middy felt that, to use his own term, he ought to hate this "filibustering young ruffian" with all his heart. As for speaking to him unless it were to give him some imperious order, he mentally vowed he ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... had strict orders to obey him with implicit submission, he became so whimsical and imperious, that he was hated and despised by every one in the house, excepting his parents. Augustus was his only companion who loved him, and it was upon that account he patiently put up with his humours. He was so perfectly ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... had been performed by Stokesly bishop of London, a solemn benediction was pronounced upon the future queen by Cranmer, that learned and distinguished prelate, who may indeed be reproached with some too courtly condescensions to the will of an imperious master, and what is worse, with several cruel acts of religious persecution; but whose virtues were many, whose general character was mild and benevolent, and whose errors and weaknesses were finally expiated by the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... them as the only tangible indications of a land of plenty. Rigdon expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome, as we have seen; Booth left the church as soon as he got back to Ohio; members of the party called Cowdery and Smith imperious, and the prophet and Rigdon incurred the charge of ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... replied, but he was instantly silenced by an imperious gesture from the King, who, rising from his seat, left the chamber ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... an imperious need of getting out of that room for a moment—of getting where he could think for a little while, out from under the starings of ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... itself but for good manners, and walked out in childish boredom at having to wait for the rise of the curtain, but sat on instead, diffusing an atmosphere of affluence and delicate scents, and suggesting, with imperious chins, the use of quick orders in a ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... unimpressive at best, long retain even these poor dimensions. A visit to the cafeteria, in response to the imperious demands of a familiar organic process, resulted in less labour, by two dimes, ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... there," he said, "like a grave! Sylvie, come here." Just an echo of his old imperious fashion it was—though the look was that of a beggar for alms. "Give me those warm little hands of yours." She knelt close to him, rubbed his hands in hers, looking up at Pete with a tremulous mouth that ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... sense or conscience is by far the most important. This sense, as Mackintosh (2. 'Dissertation an Ethical Philosophy,' 1837, p. 231, etc.) remarks, "has a rightful supremacy over every other principle of human action"; it is summed up in that short but imperious word "ought," so full of high significance. It is the most noble of all the attributes of man, leading him without a moment's hesitation to risk his life for that of a fellow-creature; or after due deliberation, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... out of Pasquale in an imperious gesture of his arm. "Afterward, captain. You shall ask her a ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... it is fair play to kick an opponent's shins at football. But of course a man who had, as it were, become the acknowledged champion of the ring, and who had an irascible and thoroughly dogmatic temper, was tempted to become unduly imperious. In the company of which Savage was a distinguished member, one may guess that the conversational fervour sometimes degenerated into horse-play. Want of arguments would be supplied by personality, and the champion would avenge himself by brutality on an ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... officers into the presence of Earle and Dick. It was Adoni who presented them, naming them respectively, Acor— who subsequently proved to be the captain of King Juda's guard—Tedek and Kedah, the two latter being lieutenants in Acor's corps. They were all fine, upstanding men, of distinctly imperious and haughty bearing— Acor perhaps exhibiting those characteristics most markedly, as was only natural, considering the exalted position which he occupied at Court, and the almost autocratic authority which he wielded; nevertheless, at the sight of Earle's ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... ceased, after their first imperious call, to trouble Jimmy to the extent he had anticipated. It had been a bitter struggle during the first few days of his stay, but gradually he had fought the craving down, and now watched them across the dinner table at night with a calm which filled him with ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... the hall, across a covered way, to the gallery that held the gems—and the refuse—that Philip Harris had gathered up from the world. She looked about her with a proud, imperious gesture. She knew—better now than when the pictures were purchased—which ones were good, and which were very bad; but she could not interfere with the gallery. It was Philip's own place in the house. It had been his fancy—to ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... was a visible change in the manners of the Atheling toward his page, for his vanity had been piqued by this trifling circumstance, of which the artful Brithric took advantage to irritate his mind against Wilfrid. He now addressed him only in the language of imperious command, and not unfrequently treated ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... fire, its boiler-heart that sent the hot blood pulsing along the iron arteries, and its thews of steel. And while I was admiring the adaptation of means to end, the harmonious involutions of contrivance, and the never-bewildered complexity, I saw a grimed and greasy fellow, the imperious engine's lackey and drudge, whose sole office was to let fall, at intervals, a drop or two of oil upon a certain joint. Then my soul said within me, See there a piece of mechanism to which that other you marvel at is but as the rude first effort of a child,—a force which ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... made to the Roman church, partly because its adherents compose the majority of Christendom, partly because its demands are the most pretentious, and partly because it has commonly sought to enforce those demands by the civil power. None of the protestant churches have ever occupied a position so imperious, none have ever had such widespread political influence. For the most part they have been averse to constraint, and except in very few instances their opposition has not passed beyond the exciting of theological ...
— The Christian Foundation, April, 1880
... heart, and be a Man. You grudge sleep, you grudge eating, and drinking even, their intrusion on those exquisite moments. There will be no more rising before breakfast in casual old clothing, to go dusting and getting ready in a cheerless, shutter-darkened, wrappered-up shop, no more imperious cries of, "Forward, Hoopdriver," no more hasty meals, and weary attendance on fitful old women, for ten blessed days. The first morning is by far the most glorious, for you hold your whole fortune in your hands. Thereafter, every night, comes a pang, a spectre, that will not be exorcised—the premonition ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... plucked the strings of an ukulele and lifted her voice in a barbaric love-call such as might have come from the dark forest-depths of the primeval world. The air tingled with her cry, softly imperious and seductive. Upon a mat, timing his rhythm to the woman's song Kiloliana danced. It was unmistakable. Love danced in all his movements, and, next, dancing with him on the mat, was a woman whose heavy hips and generous breast gave ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... of Florentino, has turned from Itchoua. A terror comes to him of this man, of this imperious and cold influence, so completely felt already; an entire soft and refined side of his nature is awakened, made disquiet and ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... Helena, emphatically. And Magdalena, who invariably gave way to her friend's imperious will, nodded deprecatingly. Miss ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... take my reed again and blow it free Of dusty silence, murmuring, 'Sing to me.' And, as its stops my curious touch retries, The stir of earlier instincts I surprise,— Instincts, if less imperious, yet more strong, And happy in the ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... had walked out a long way into the Campagna. His hours were seldom his own, for both Mr. and Mrs. Hicks were becoming more and more addicted to sudden and somewhat imperious demands upon his time; but on this occasion he had simply slipped away after luncheon, and taking the tram to the Porta Salaria, had wandered on thence in the direction of the ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... time I knew how the day went, by the imperious clangour of midday and evening bells striking down upon the houses and the edge of the lake. Yet it did not occur to me to ask where these bells rang. Till at last my everyday trance was broken in upon, and I knew the ringing of the Church of San Tommaso. The church ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... so fierce and cruell? Is it because your eyes have powre to kill? Then know that mercy is the Mighties iewell, And greater glory think to save then spill. But if it be your pleasure and proud will To shew the powre of your imperious eyes, Then not on him that never thought you ill, But bend your force against your enemyes. Let them feel the utmost of your crueltyes, And kill with looks, as cockatrices do: But him that at your footstoole humbled lies, With mercifull regard give mercy to. Such mercy shall you ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... bonnet! off with the veil! say we. But there are others to be consulted in settling this preliminary dogma of taste—the feelings and the inclinations of woman herself are entitled to at least as much regard as the imperious wishes of man. She, who possesses the bright but fleetly fading gift of beauty, has also that inestimable, indefinable accompaniment of it—modesty. Beauty is too sensitive a gem to be always exposed to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... her room. On the third she opened a magazine at the portrait of the King of Belgium, and laughed sardonically. If that far-famed breaker of women's hearts should cross her path, he would have to bow before her cold and imperious beauty. She would not spare the old or the young. All America—all Europe should do homage to her sinister, ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... and polish the social amalgamation at West Point without it. Some of the rough specimens annually admitted care nothing for regulations. It is fun to them to be punished. Nothing so effectually makes a plebe submissive as hazing. That contemptuous look and imperious bearing lowers a plebe, I sometimes think, in his own estimation. He is in a manner cowed and made to feel that he must obey, and not disobey; to feel that he is a plebe, and must expect a plebe's portion. He is taught by it ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... to frenzy. Once, at sunset, standing on a hillside, and looking down upon a peaceful valley, he utters, in a poetic strain of exquisite tenderness and beauty, the final wish of his forlorn and weary soul. It is no longer now the god-like aspiration and imperious desire of his prime, but it is the sufficient alternative. All he asks now is that he may see the world always as in that sunset vision, in the perfection of happy rest; that he may be permitted, soaring on the wings of the spirit, to follow ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... the perilous trust of the Great Seal. Christopher Hatton wrested from the see of Ely the site of Holborn, whereon he built his magnificent palace. The reluctance with which the Bishop of Ely surrendered the ground, and the imperious letter by which Elizabeth compelled the prelate to comply with the wish of her favorite courtier, form one of the humorous episodes of that queen's reign. Hatton House rose over the soil which had yielded strawberries to Morton; ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... it was all entailed! For a moment the Cellini chalice seemed of less account, and he felt ready to throw open the window of his treasure-room and pitch everything out. The demon of having is as imperious and as capricious as that of drink, and there is no refuge from it but with the Father. "This kind goeth ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... forfeited all claim to consideration. A just regard for the rights and interests of the United States required that they should be suppressed, and orders have been accordingly issued to that effect. The imperious considerations which produced this measure will be explained to the parties whom it may in ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... all round that one could hardly hear one's own voice. The stoker with the red nose stood there like a king; he drank from a flat-bodied flask, and from time to time he handled the valves, sending forth a loud, imperious bellowing like a tamer of wild beasts. And then the big wheel began to turn—surr, surr, surr—always quicker and quicker. One became quite giddy by merely looking on, and then there was a crack—a clatter—a hissing— the great wheel stood ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... Munich. She it was who first became impressed, and it was she who took the first steps. According to the young lady, the Spaniard was the living picture of Wagner in his youth. Smiling at the pleasant memory, Febrer contemplated the prominent brow which seemed to oppress his imperious, small, ironic eyes. His nose was sharp and aquiline, the nose common to all the Febrers, those daring birds of prey who haunted the solitudes of the sea. His mouth was scornful and receding, his lips and chin prominent and covered ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... playmates of Tad and Willie were Budd and Hally Taft, and although they were older than the Lincoln boys, they were much like them in temperament and in looks, Budd was fair like Willie Lincoln, and Hally dark, and more like Tad, whose eyes were bright and brown, in keeping with his quick imperious disposition. ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... masked man's throat, in which purpose he had certainly not failed had he been alone; but the elder, who seemed to possess not only the habit but the right of command, contented himself by regrasping his coat, and saying, in an imperious, almost harsh tone: "Sit down, Roland!" And the young man had ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... almost necessary that a man should be able to be rough also, on occasions, if he desired to live among them without injury. Heathcote of Gangoil could do all that. Men said of him that he was too imperious, too masterful, too much inclined to think that all things should be made to go as he would have them. Young as he was, he had been altogether his own master since he was of age—and not only his own master, but the master ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... Nor is our gratification less to discern, after the subsiding of the showers of sawdust so gracefully scattered by that groom in the doeskin integuments, the stately form of Widdicomb, cased in martial apparel, advancing towards the centre of the ring, and commanding—with imperious gesture, and some slight flagellation in return for dubious compliment—the double-jointed clown to assist the Signora Cavalcanti to her seat upon the celebrated Arabian. How lovely looks the lady, ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... the slender, black-haired youth, they set up a great cry: "A Bacon! A Bacon! A Bacon!" This was too much for him to resist. It is stated by one of the old chroniclers that he had "a most imperious and dangerous hidden pride of heart." The leadership thus thrust upon him must have pleased him. He was now no longer the erratic youth who had been withdrawn from Cambridge, had caused his father great trouble and ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker
... under his skin, burned deep brown by the sun, there rose a hot flush of red! Yes, he reddened at the thought of what he was going to do, but still he meant to do it. He could not forego his pleasure. He could not. There was something wild and imperious within him that defied his better self at this moment. But the better self was not dead. It was even startlingly alive, enough alive to stand almost aghast at that which was going, it knew, to dominate it—to dominate it for a time, but only for a ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... with spreading wings as if considerably hurt. The male, though prudently neutral in the contest, showed his culpable partiality by flying off with his paramour, and for the rest of the evening left the tree to his pugnacious consort. Cares of another kind, more imperious and tender, at length reconciled, or at least terminated, these disputes with the jealous females; and by the aid of the neighboring bachelors, who are never wanting among these and other birds, peace was at length completely restored by the restitution of the ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... foundation; and Cicero's own share in the transaction is not improved by the fact of his taking another wife as soon as possible—a ward of his own, an almost girl, with whom he did not live a year before a second divorce released him. Terentia is said also to have had an imperious temper; but the only ground for this assertion seems to have been that she quarrelled occasionally with her sister-in-law Pomponia, sister of Atticus and wife of Quintus Cicero; and since Pomponia, by her own brother's ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... see, The grace that is given of a god that abides for a season, mysterious And merciful, fervent and fugitive, seen and unknown and adored: His presence is felt in the light and the fragrance, elate and imperious, His laugh and his breath in the blossom are love's, the beloved soul's lord. For surely the soul if it loves is beloved of the god as a lover Whose love is not all unaccepted, a worship not utterly ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... to pay our homage and swear allegiance to that mighty sovereign; for he is imperious, severe, blunt, hard, uneasy, inflexible; you cannot make him believe, represent to him, or ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... her will had welded together. They were wraiths obediently advancing her dream of one fleeting moment of triumph over fate. They were nothing, since she had summoned them out of the void of this world by an imperious cry. They were everything; for without them her dream ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... moment all the energies of his life had been directed into a new channel, whose insufficient walls were threatened with destruction by the flooding torrent. The primeval man arose, exulting, sure; and so, in a moment, John Eddring knew why the world was made, and by what tremendous enginery of imperious desire it is driven on its way. Work, riches, art, music, architecture, the vast industrialism of an age, all this thing called progress—all, all were for this alone, this thing of love! The atmosphere about ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... had been defeated by them: when he was set up as the only consul to oppose the tribunitian influence, a law was passed, which former consuls obstructed with less effort, amid hopes of the senators by no means so great (as those formed of him). His resentment and indignation at this, excited his imperious temper to harass the army by the rigour of his command; nor could it (the army) however be subdued by any means; such a spirit of opposition had they imbibed. They executed every measure slowly, ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... yards I heard voices raised as in anger. Presently I made out the sharp, imperious tones of Bothwell and the dogged ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... came to the Valley was a distinction of which any man might well be proud, and Colonel Lloyd was proud of it. He was proud of the fact that she had inherited his lordly manner, his hot temper, and imperious ways. It pleased him that people had given her his title of Colonel on account of the resemblance to himself. She had outgrown it somewhat since she had first been nicknamed the Little Colonel. Then she was only a spoiled baby ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... which will only be solved by the ultimate separation of the races. This theory is as unique as it is original, and bids fair to revolutionize the laws of economics. But to the contrary the laws of trade and labor are as imperious as all the enactments of necessity. The South is fast regaining her lost treasures and bids fair to become not only an agricultural section, but with her wonderful oil and mineral resources to be the rival of the ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... is our first care. To develop its strength, to secure and preserve proper tone, to make it harmonious, active, and beautiful, to plant in its vitality the roses of health and sow in its blood the seeds of enduring life and activity, is our first and imperious duty. To neglect the body is to neglect the mind. To abuse the body is to abuse the mind. To enervate, irritate, or corrupt the body is to produce a like effect upon the mind. To beat, bruise, and shatter the house in which we ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver |
