"Imperceptibly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Fashions change so imperceptibly that it is difficult for the historian to assign their initiatory date. Does the young dandy of to-day want to know when white ties came into vogue? - he knows that his great-grandfather wore a white neckcloth, and takes it for granted, may be, that his grandfather did so too. Not a ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... is not told that a dream begins. To understand that, one must see the film through twice. But it is perfectly legitimate to deceive us. Through our ignorance we share the young man's hallucinations, entering into them as imperceptibly as he does. We think it is the next morning. Poe would start the story just here, and here ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... case bisexuality merges imperceptibly into simple inversion. In at least 16 of 52 cases of simple inversion in men there has been connection with women, in some instances only once or twice, in others during several years, but it was always with an effort, or from a sense of duty and anxiety to be normal; they never experienced ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... It was apparently for this reason that God, who orders all things with wisdom and gentleness, and who does not force the inclinations of men, when He willed to employ me entirely in the care of schools, wrought imperceptibly and during a long space of time, so that one engagement led to another in an ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... being conscious now. What an irony! To think that Holliday's inexpertness should have brought about the agony of the past half-hour! But for him she would have remained in peaceful oblivion, out of which she would have passed imperceptibly to her final sleep. These terrible moments were her last glimpses of life. In a few seconds would come utter blankness again; her last chance would be gone for saving Roger and herself. Should she make a struggle for it and die fighting? Or was it better to continue her supine pretence ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... study of superficial anatomy are to show, first, the form and proportions of the human body and, second, the surface landmarks which correspond to deeper structures hidden from view. This study blends imperceptibly with others, such as physical anthropology, physiognomy, phrenology and palmistry, but whereas these deal chiefly with variations, superficial anatomy is ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... expression. The writer of "Dream Children" will have a select audience, but he will have it pretty much to himself, and, as the best of all rewards which he could have, he will educate the thoughts of his juvenile readers imperceptibly into a greater love and reverence for the very heart of truth ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... none of these things. She looked toward her husband, whose eyes were fixed upon her; she would read in his countenance if he were pleased with her words. A smile played upon the lips of the king, and he bowed his head almost imperceptibly as ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... encumbered with foreign words; but the grammar seems to have arrived at its lowest ebb, and withstands further change. From this state of grammatical numbness, languages recover by a secondary formation, which grows up slowly and imperceptibly at first in the speech of the people; till at last the reviving spirit rises upwards, and sweeps away, like the waters in spring, the frozen surface of an effete government, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... had undertaken to attend to the business side of their establishment on the sands of the great West Coast resort, Andrew providing the capital out of his famous hundred louis. But it came almost imperceptibly to pass that Andrew made all the arrangements, drove the bargains and kept an accurate account of their ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... his mind almost imperceptibly. He will not turn against the woman, but he will realise that she can never be more to him than a friend, a genial chum. The cause of this is most likely the advent of the right woman. Force of contrast has a way of sorting people ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... and that people who never uttered an oath in their lives while in the "States," now clothe themselves with curses as with a garment. Some try to excuse themselves by saying that it is a careless habit, into which they have glided imperceptibly from having been compelled to associate so long with the vulgar and the profane; that it is a mere slip of the tongue, which means absolutely nothing; etc. I am willing to believe this, and to think as charitably as possible of many persons here, who have unconsciously adopted a custom ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... out into the great snow waste. The sunset afterglow was just fading into the moonshine. The effect upon the pure white sheet before me was indescribably beautiful. The warm tint of the last of day, as it waned, dissolved imperceptibly into the cold lustre of the night as if some alchemist were subtly changing the substance while he kept the form. For a new spirit was slowly possessing itself of the very shapes that had held the old, and the snow looked very silent, very cold, very ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... the others looked blank, but Mike narrowed his eyes imperceptibly. Vaneski was practically ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... now, she guiding him toward it as imperceptibly and skillfully as if she controlled ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... remember the lines; and you remember how feelingly, how daintily, how almost imperceptibly the verses raise up before you, feature by feature, the ideal of a true and perfect woman; and how, as you contemplate the finished marvel, your homage grows into worship of the intellect that could create so fair a thing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... winter has not been my own." Rowland assented, ungrudgingly fumbled for the Italian correlative of the adage "Better late than never," begged him to be seated, and offered him a cigar. The Cavaliere sniffed imperceptibly the fragrant weed, and then declared that, if his kind host would allow him, he would reserve it for consumption at another time. He apparently desired to intimate that the solemnity of his errand left him no breath for idle smoke-puffings. ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... But consequences undreamed of by any of the actors in it flowed from it. For imperceptibly it brought a change into the relations between Mrs. Norton and Wargrave and eventually altered them completely. At first it merely seemed to strengthen their friendship and increase the feeling of intimacy. To Violet—they ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... Instead of being made like a machine, the League of Nations may come about like a marriage. The Peace Congress that must sooner or later meet may itself become, after a time, the Council of a League of Nations. The League of Nations may come upon us by degrees, almost imperceptibly. I am strongly obsessed by the idea that that Peace Congress will necessarily become—and that it is highly desirable that it should become—a most prolonged and persistent gathering. Why should it not become at length a permanent gathering, inviting representatives to aid its deliberations ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... refuge from it, and that is in just going to Him and telling Him all about it. We can not force ourselves to love Him, but we can ask Him to give us the love, and sooner or later He will. He may seem not to hear, the answer may come gradually and imperceptibly, but it will come. He has given you one friend at least who prays for your spiritual advance every day. I hope you pray thus for me. Friendship that does not do that is not worth the name. April 17th.—Of course, I'll take the will for the deed and consider ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... in his dress and way of living and marching on foot making himself like them rather than the commander, and in his morals and in his noble bearing, and in eloquence surpassing all who were intitled Imperators and generals, by such means he imperceptibly produced in the men at the same time good will towards himself. For no true emulation after virtue is bred except from perfect good will and respect towards him who commends it: but those who having no love, praise the brave, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... know that his sufferings bring down upon that despotism the execration of mankind; but he who is entrapped and entangled in the meshes of a crafty and corrupt system of jurisprudence; who is pursued imperceptibly by a law with leaden feet and iron jaws; who is not put upon his trial till the ear of the public has been poisoned, and its heart steeled against him,—falls, at last, without being cheered with a hope of seeing his tyrants execrated even by the warmest of his friends. ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... course of many generations. Not in one lifetime can we perceive the measure of ethical force obtained by self-control; but in the course of several hundreds of years we find that the result obtained is so large as to astonish us. This result, imperceptibly obtained, signifies a great increase of that nervous power upon which moral power depends; it means an augmentation in strength of every kind; and this augmentation again represents what we might call economy. Just as there ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... the scintillating crystal her blue gaze plunged; and for a few moments she saw nothing. Then, almost imperceptibly, faint hues and rainbow tints grew in the brilliant and transparent sphere—gathered, took shape as she watched, became coherent and logical and clear ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... temperament and by fortune. And she, Hilda—what real anxieties had she? None! She was sure of a small but adequate income. Her grief for her mother was assuaged. The problem of her soul no longer troubled: in part it had been solved, and in part it had faded imperceptibly away. Nor was she exercised about the future, about the 'new life.' Instead of rushing ardently to meet the future, she felt content to wait for its coming. Why disturb oneself? She was free. She was enjoying existence ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... been assumed as an axiom that every one in this world is fond of power. During our passage in the track-schuyt I had an evidence to the contrary, for as we glided noiselessly and almost imperceptibly along, a lady told me that she infinitely preferred the three-horse power of the schuyt to the hundred-horse power of the steam-packet. We arrived at Bruges, escaping all the horrors and difficulties of ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... mother. What to do? I look at Reine with distress. I take her hand; at that moment the train takes a curve, the jerk throws her forward; our lips approach, they touch, I press mine; she turns red. Good heavens, her mouth moves imperceptibly; she returns my kiss; a long thrill runs up my spine; at contact of those ardent embers my senses fail. Oh! Sister Angele, Sister Angele! a man can not make himself over! And the train roars and rolls onward, without slackening speed; we are flying under full steam toward Mantes; ...
— Sac-Au-Dos - 1907 • Joris Karl Huysmans
... his own chairs for her. But she declined it, choosing a less comfortable one, feeling that she must sit straight up if she were to moralise. She had imagined that the subject would introduce itself in the course of conversation, and that it would develop imperceptibly. She had imagined that they would speak of the first performance of "Tristan and Isolde," now distant but a couple of days, or of Lady Ascott's ball, at which she had promised to appear. But Owen had spoken of a song ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... traps. One day she did not take her gun, and when she had made her rounds of the traps and started homeward discovered that she was being followed by a big gray timber wolf. When she stopped, the wolf stopped; when she went on, it followed, stealing gradually closer and closer to her, almost imperceptibly, but still gaining upon her. She wanted to run, but she realized that if she did the wolf would know at once that she was afraid and would attack and kill her and her baby; so without hastening her pace, and only looking back now and again to note the wolf's gain, ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... antique pattern, adorn St. Augustin's esplanade. Our much-perplexed maiden turned away wearily and sat down upon the nearest of these. She held up her head, bravely essaying to maintain an air of composure and dignity; but her shoulders soon not imperceptibly quivered, while, try hard as she might, setting her teeth and holding her breath, small plaintive noises threatened betrayal of ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... horns of an unusually large size, even in its own group; while, at the same time, those horns have that peculiar structure which can only be traced in the Camelopardalis; they are covered with skin, which passes so imperceptibly to the horny state, that, as Captain Clapperton observes, "there is no exact demarcation where the one commences and the other ends." The five leading types of quadrupeds and birds being now represented, and in precisely the same order, we ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... for the acquisition of which experience is such an obvious necessity, that whenever we see the acquisition we assume the experience, gradate away imperceptibly into actions which seem, according to all reasonable analogy, to necessitate experience—of which, however, the time and place are so obscure, that they are not now commonly supposed to have any connection with bona fide experience ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... they are used as symbols on the border-ground of human knowledge; they receive a fresh impress from individual genius, and come with a new force and association to every lively-minded person. They are fixed by the simultaneous utterance of millions, and yet are always imperceptibly changing;—not the inventors of language, but writing and speaking, and particularly great writers, or works which pass into the hearts of nations, Homer, Shakespear, Dante, the German or English Bible, Kant and Hegel, are the makers of them in later ages. ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... 1258. Quoted in Beazley, Hakluyt Soc, Publications, 1899, cxliv., etc.] But its properties savored of magic; the earlier sailors, who hugged the shore, scarcely needed it, and it came into general use as slowly and imperceptibly as most of the other great inventions ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... her own peculiar anxieties. She thought of the sleepers whom she was watching, till, overpowered herself by the want of rest, she fell off into short slumbers in which the night wore imperceptibly away. To be sure, Alice spoke, and sang during her waking moments, like the child she deemed herself; but so happily with the dearly-loved ones around her, with the scent of the heather, and the song of the wild bird hovering about her in imagination—with ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... was for him at first only a temporary amusement, and he toyed with his vows and wooing, until, imperceptibly, he found his heart entangled in his own net. The ardent yet innocent love of the young girl touched his feelings. It was something new to be the object of so chaste and devoted an affection. He was ashamed of himself in his inmost ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... her corpulence had increased in the same ratio. She was now a most unwieldy, bloated mountain of flesh, such a form as I have never since beheld, although, at the time, she did not appear to me to be disgusting, accustomed to witness imperceptibly her increase, and not seeing any other females, except at a distance. For the last two years she had seldom quitted her bed—certainly she did not crawl out of the cabin more than five minutes during the week— indeed, her obesity and habitual intoxication rendered ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... let his cigar burn out. He looked steadfastly at this strange little figure whose chair had imperceptibly moved ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the parting she had been trying to face. For though Sir William rallied again from the crisis which had so alarmed her, he sank gradually into a state of coma from which he was destined never to wake, and from which, almost imperceptibly, he passed during the evening of ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... burns on his clothes? Surely he could smell himself singeing. Enough to explode the rifle ... The big rock at last! A rest and then a peep, with infinite precaution. Dam held his breath and edged his face to the corner of the great boulder. Moving imperceptibly, he peeped ... No ibex! ... He was about to spring up with a hearty malediction on his luck when he perceived a peculiar projection on a large stone some distance down the hill. It moved—and Dam dropped back. It must be ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... animals;" he caught at the words he had heard, and played the game the jackal desperate plays in India, the fox in England, the elephant in Ceylon: he feigned death; filled his mouth with water, floated on his back paddling imperceptibly, and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... girl of twenty-one. Nevertheless, as the weeks went on, the half-amused, half-contemptuous embarrassment, which had been the first natural effect of her presence upon the mind of a man so little used to women and their ways, had passed imperceptibly into something else. His reserved and formal manner remained the same. But Miss Fountain's goings and comings had ceased to be indifferent to him. A silent relation—still unknown ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... bless them.—Thus my parishioners derive a triple advantage, being instructed, fed and amused at the same time: moreover, this method of spending their Sundays being so congenial with their inclinations, that they are imperceptibly led along the path of piety and morality ...'" with many other arguments Mr Carter supported his case so that "the Archdeacon very candidly acknowledged the propriety of Mr C.'s arguments in defence of his conduct, and complimented him on his discernment in using the most ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... away of the banks, immense as is the amount of earth thrown into the waters of the river, has no sensible effect in blocking or directing the current, though it imperceptibly raises the channel. The force of the water does not permit its entire settlement in quantities at any one place, but distributes it along the bottom and shores below. Were this not the case, it is easily ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... was silent, as though he were reflecting upon Unorna's character and peculiar gifts, before describing them to his friend. His ivory features softened almost imperceptibly, and his sharp blue eyes suddenly lost their light, as though they no longer saw the outer world. But the Wanderer cared for none of these things, and bestowed no attention upon his companion's face. He preferred the little man's silence to his wild ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... though imperceptibly. "You must speak to my father yourself," she said. "I think ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... said Fanny, as though at last assured of a long-suspected truth. The train began to move, almost imperceptibly. "Run!" she cried. ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... sovereign's feet. Ever since that profound thinker assumed a fixed position, a reaction against orthodoxy has been progressing in the Established Church. There are reasons why the slow but effectual introduction of German Rationalism has been taking place imperceptibly. ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... to learn what they are like. They immediately addressed themselves to my neck below the occiput and thus entered my affections, not wanting to enter my thoughts, which they adroitly avoided. They altered my affections one by one with a mind to bend them imperceptibly into their opposites, which are lusts of evil; and as they did not touch my thought at all they would have bent and inverted my affections without my knowledge, had ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... Familiarity with this world makes men discontented with the doctrine of the narrow way; they fall into heresies, and attempt to attain salvation on easier terms than those which Christ holds out to us. In a variety of ways this love of the world operates. Men's opinions are imperceptibly formed by their wishes. If, for instance, we see our worldly prospects depend, humanly speaking, upon a certain person, we are led to court him, to honour him, and adopt his views, and trust in an arm of flesh, till we forget the overruling ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... oblivion.... Paddling in the warm sea-water gives oblivion to those children. They forget their little worries in the sensation of sea and sand, as I forget mine in that dreamy blue which fades and deepens imperceptibly, like a flower from the intense heart to the ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... observes ('Annals and Mag. of Nat. History,' 2nd series, vol. xix., 1857, p. 231) with respect to infusoria, that "fissation and gemmation pass into each other almost imperceptibly." Again, Mr. W. C. Minor ('Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist.,' 3rd series, vol. xi. p. 328) shows that with Annelids the distinction that has been made between fission and budding is not a fundamental one. See ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... of his chair, and crossed himself and started praying in Latin. He made no special noise nor movement, but after a while I saw the sweat stand out on his forehead and his face was drawn and pale—and grew paler. Every now and then he'd give a sort of deep sigh and hitch along, almost imperceptibly, on his knees, from fatigue and nervous tension, and after about ten minutes he was almost in the fireplace. With anybody else I could never have stood it, but it was impossible not to respect Father Kelly, and I can ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... licked his dry lips. His rifle lay on his knees. Almost imperceptibly he moved it, moved it again, froze stiff as Kloon spat, then, by infinitesimal degrees, continued to edge the ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... and having risen between eight and nine o'clock, now shone aslantwise over the river, throwing the high, opposite bank, with its woods, into deep shadow, but lighting up the hither shore pretty effectually. Not a ray appeared to fall on the river itself. It lapsed imperceptibly away, a broad, black, inscrutable depth, keeping its own secrets from the eye of man, as ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... at Pinkey with a scowl that softened imperceptibly into a smile, and then a passionate flame ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... not a hundred little rivulets of news which never flow through the journals, but are passed from mouth to mouth, and seem shallow enough, but which, uniting at last, form a great stream of public opinion, and this, having formed itself imperceptibly, is suddenly found in full flow, and is so obvious that the newspapers forget to mention it? Thus colonists and other exiles returning to England, and priding themselves upon having kept in touch with the progress of events ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... I afterwards found to be the case, that what we had taken, to be land, was in reality an unusually large field of ice, with icebergs imbedded in it, and that we had been carried by some unknown current imperceptibly towards the north for a considerable distance. Now, when we had left the ship, we had kept to the westward. When we wished to return, we had steered east by the pocket-compass I told you of. On, and on, and on, I kept on the same course. What do you think I was doing? Why I was walking ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... however, in the history of fiction are those wide and slow moving currents of opinion, for which prejudice is perhaps too narrow a name, which flow so imperceptibly through the minds of a generation or a whole century that there is little realization of their novelty. Such a slow-moving current was the humanitarianism which found such vigorous expression in Dickens, the belief in industrial ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... the people nearest the uncouth visitor had drawn away. Only the stranger held his ground; more than held it, indeed, for he edged almost imperceptibly nearer. He had noticed a fleck of red on the matted beard, where the lip had been bitten into. Also he saw that the Professor, whose gaze had so timorously shifted from his, was intent, recognizing danger; intent, and unafraid ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... rocks are auriferous in the Quebrada del Oro, near Guigue; and between Villa de Cura and the Morros de San Juan, in the mountain of Chacao. The gold is contained in pyrites, which are found sometimes disseminated almost imperceptibly in the whole mass of the gneiss,* and sometimes united in small veins of quartz. (* The four metals, which are found disseminated in the granite rocks, as if they were of contemporaneous formation, are gold, tin, titanium, and cobalt.) Most of the torrents that traverse the mountains bear ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... to put his finger on the precise periods at which new views of every thing suddenly opened before him, and he emerged at once, if not into new powers, at least into a new use of them. The frame may grow like a tree; the faculties may grow as imperceptibly as the frame; but the mind acquires that knowledge of life which forms its exercise, its use, and perhaps its essence, by bounds and flights. This moonlight walk with my old and honoured Mentor, was the beginning of my mental adolescence. My manhood ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... like most collections, began imperceptibly. A man does not say to himself, 'I am going to collect' this thing or that. True, the schoolboy says so; but his are not, in the true sense of the word, collections. He seeks no set autobiographic symbols, for boys ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... sleeves of his black doublet. "All but dead," he answered. "The wonder is that any spark of life should still linger in a body with that hole in it. He is bleeding inwardly, and his pulse is steadily weakening. It must continue so until imperceptibly he passes away. You may count him dead already, Sir John." He paused. "A merciful, painless end," he added, and sighed perfunctorily, his pale shaven face decently grave, for all that such scenes as these were commonplaces in his life. "Of the other four," he continued, "Blair is ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... nor at any other, do we propose to draw an absolute line of demarcation between genuine and spurious writings of Plato. They fade off imperceptibly from one class to another. There may have been degrees of genuineness in the dialogues themselves, as there are certainly degrees of evidence by which they are supported. The traditions of the oral discourses both of Socrates and Plato may have formed the basis ...
— Menexenus • Plato
... asked for sugar and tobacco. Roosevelt told him that he had none. Another Indian now began almost imperceptibly to approach. Roosevelt called to him to keep back, but ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... imperceptibly, turning her head a little so that his lips touched her cheek, not her mouth, and they sat down opposite ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... unpleasant. As for ladies, it may not, indeed, be necessary to be thorough master of the three great histories, and the five classical texts; yet they ought not to be destitute of some knowledge of both public and private affairs, and this knowledge can be imperceptibly acquired without any regular study of them, which, though superficial, will yet be amply sufficient to enable them to talk pleasantly about them with their friends. But how contemptible they would seem if this made ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... edge, have been incorporated into the inclosing masonry. The Indians stated that originally the bottom of this basin was lined with stones, but these statements could not be verified. Without excavation on the upper side, the basin faded imperceptibly into the rising ground of the surrounding drainage. Other examples of these basin reservoirs are ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... of her subjects—with the coming and going of artists and men of letters to her court, and the resuming of all those ancient Cyprian customs that might minister to the content of the nobles—whom it was ever most needful to satisfy with a sufficient show of gaiety—there had nevertheless been an imperceptibly increasing tightening of the threads of government which stretched far across the waters to Venice's own blue Adriatic, into the very Council-Chambers of the Palazzo ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... would shake our steadfastness, and sweep us away? Well, there are, first, the tiny, continuously acting, and therefore all but omnipotent forces of daily life—duties, occupations, distractions of various kinds—which tend to move us imperceptibly away, as by the slow sliding of a glacier, from the hope of the Gospel. There is nothing so strong as a gentle pressure, equably and unintermittently applied. It is far mightier than thrusts and hammerings ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Stanton paused imperceptibly before answering, while his ultrafast mind considered the problem before arriving at a decision. Just how much confidence should he show the colonel? Mannheim was a man with tremendous confidence in his own abilities, ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... gave no form to my danger, and prescribed no limits to my caution. I had formerly neglected it, and yet escaped. Might I not trust to the same issue? This idea might possess, though imperceptibly, some influence. I persisted; but it was not merely on this account. I cannot delineate the motives that led me on. I now speak as if no remnant of doubt existed in my mind as to the supernal origin of these ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... Chloe started slightly, and instantly she knew that the man had noticed. He smiled, with just an appreciable tightening at the corners of the mouth, and his eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. He continued: ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... opera. But nothing would flow from his pen; he went over to the window, and stood thoughtfully drumming on the panes with it, and gazing at the little drab-coloured street, with its high roof of mist; along which the faded dollar continued to spin imperceptibly. Suddenly he saw Mary Ann turn the corner, and come along towards the house, carrying a big parcel and a paper bag in her ungloved hands. How buoyantly she walked! He had never before seen her move in free space, nor realised how much of the grace of a sylvan childhood ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... engrossed were the savages in the contest that the snake-like approach of Acantow was unnoticed until he had cut the thongs that bound Manetabee's wrists and ankles—she did not cry out, for she had expected rescue—and both had imperceptibly slid away from them. Then, with a yell, one of the gamblers pointed to the receding forms, and straightway the fifteen ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... low before her, coldly and almost imperceptibly inclined her dark head, while her large eyes, under the shadow of their heavy lashes, seemed vainly trying to meet the gray eyes of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... it is difficult to believe that Gabrielle any longer deceived herself, though I do not suppose that Arthur realised the true meaning of their relation. The significant feature in it is that he was gradually and almost imperceptibly becoming a normal human being. Gabrielle had begun by developing in him a substitute for a conscience; for since he had begun to consider everything that he said or did in the light of its probable effect upon his idol, it had become ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... very happily and imperceptibly. There were few changes in our mode of life; though Pussy, from a kitten, in due time became a full-grown cat, who left off running after her tail and climbing up the banisters, and walked up and down stairs as steadily ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... interminable; but at length his anxious eyes were gladdened by the appearance of a faint paling of the sky low down on the horizon in the eastern quarter. Gradually and imperceptibly the pallor spread right, left, and upward toward the zenith, until a broad arch of it lay stretched along the horizon, within the limits of which the stars one after another dwindled in brightness and ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... project of helping my father to get to the German baths. I, the eldest, who ought to be the first to assist in it, am the least likely to do so. I don't know how I managed to get into debt," mused Hamish. "It came upon me imperceptibly; it did, indeed. I depended so entirely upon that money falling to us, that I grew careless, and would often order things which I was not in need of. Arthur, since that news came, I have felt overwhelmed ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... should distrust; the future shun. From beneath thick shade he should watch the sunlight creeping at his toes. If there be sun of summer, let him not go out into it, mistaking it for the Indian-summer sun! Thus peradventure he shall decline softly, slowly, imperceptibly, until impatient Nature clutches his wind-pipe and he gasps away to death some early morning before the world is aired, and they put on his tombstone: 'In the fulness of years!' yea! If he preserve his principles in perfect ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and so sudden was his movement that Ringfield retreated as if caught guiltily; in doing so he very nearly slipped on the icy rocks that sloped imperceptibly towards the rushing fall, and he was about to warn the guide, who was farther down the bank than himself when ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... haughtily, sitting up very straight; he continued beside her in silence, face in his hands as though overwhelmed. Nothing was said for several minutes—until the clear disdain of her gaze changed, imperceptibly; and the rigidity of her spinal ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... miles of wading of this description, which we considerably increased by turning and winding about to avoid soft places, we at length fairly stepped on terra firma and found ourselves at the base of some almost imperceptibly-sloping ground which gradually rose into low, red, sandy, loamy hills, thinly covered with grass, bushes, and stunted trees. Across these we bent our steps in a south-east direction, no change whatever ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... to increase than restrain Mr Quilp's eccentricities, and Richard Swiveller, astonished to see him in such a roystering vein, and drinking not a little himself, for company—began imperceptibly to become more companionable and confiding, so that, being judiciously led on by Mr Quilp, he grew at last very confiding indeed. Having once got him into this mood, and knowing now the key-note to strike whenever he was at a loss, Daniel Quilp's task was comparatively ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... of being companionable with those on either hand occupied, and its window commanded an attractive view. A tangled old garden opened on a steep descent to the quiet river, edged with willows and garnished by a great row of red and blue boats rocking almost imperceptibly in the even flow, while a huge placard advertised ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... of observation, feasted his soul to the full. The ivory whiteness of her neck shaded imperceptibly into the creamy lace of her gown. Underneath her firm, well rounded chin, on the left side, was a place that was almost a dimple, but not quite. There was a real dimple in her chin and another at each corner of her mouth, where the full scarlet lips drooped a little from sadness. ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... wanderer! he has started early on his wretched pilgrimage for bread. "Your heart, enlarged by its new sympathy with one, grows bountiful to all." The fragrant smoke curls in heavier clouds, and is wafted imperceptibly into the darkness. Ah, Arthur Granger! Arthur Granger! you are dreaming impossibilities, as the man athirst ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... bells and a dozen neighboring chimes rang noon; then the rectangular oblongs of hot sunlight that fell from the windows upon the carpet of Mellin's room began imperceptibly to shift their angles and move eastward. From the stone pavement of the street below came the sound of horses pawing and the voices of waiting cabmen; then bells again, and more bells; clamoring the slow and cruel afternoon into the past. But all was silent in Mellin's room, save when, from time ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington
... best to make certain changes delicately, imperceptibly, so that Innes would not, above all things, be perplexed into seeking for their reason. The walks and rides came to a vague conclusion, and Miss Anderson no longer kept the Viceroy or anybody else waiting, while Innes finished what he had to say to her in public, ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... surpasses Tibullus. His luxuriant imagination collects the most beautiful flowers of nature, and he displays them with all the delicate attraction of soft and harmonious numbers. With a dexterity peculiar to himself, in whatever subject he engages, he leads his readers imperceptibly through devious paths of pleasure, of which, at the outset of the poem, they could form no conception. He seems to have often written without any previous meditation or design. Several of his elegies may be said to have neither middle ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... that slow movement which imperceptibly changes a well-filled stage, places a figure now here, now there, shifts the grouping and the lights. Now Judith was one of a knot of younger women. In the phraseology of the period, all were "belles"; ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... ostentation prevailed in the councils of the emperors, they proceeded with anxious diligence to divide the substance and to multiply the titles of power. The vast countries which the Roman conquerors had united under the same simple form of administration, were imperceptibly crumbled into minute fragments; till at length the whole empire was distributed into one hundred and sixteen provinces, each of which supported an expensive and splendid establishment. Of these, three were governed by proconsuls, thirty-seven by consulars, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... what he could not carry by authority. He opened his heart to Gassion alone. As he was a man who saw nothing but what was easy even in the most dangerous deeds, he had very soon brought matters to the point that the prince desired. Marshal de l'Hopital found himself imperceptibly so near the Spaniards that it was impossible for him any longer to hinder an engagement." [Relation de 31 de la Houssaye.] The army was in front of Rocroi, and out of the dangerous defile which led to the place, without any idea on the part of the marshal and the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... small gentleman went through a little piece of vehemence by himself, and got very tenor indeed, in the excitement of his feelings, to which the tall lady responded in a similar manner; then the small gentleman had a shake or two, after which the tall lady had the same, and then they both merged imperceptibly into the original air: and the band wound themselves up to a pitch of fury, and the small gentleman handed the tall lady out, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... as body; there must be no more teaching or writing. You are overworked, and incessant mental labor has hastened the approach of a disease which, under other circumstances, might have encroached very slowly and imperceptibly. If latent (which is barely possible) it has contributed to a fearfully rapid development. Refrain from study, avoid all excitement, exercise moderately but regularly in the open air; and, above all things, ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... imperceptibly a change came over public feeling, and the necessity for a sane and vigorous patriotism began to be dimly realized. One of the earliest symptoms of this new attitude was the publication, in 1903, of Federigo Garlanda's La terza Italia; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... pearls was around her throat, and pendants of the same beautiful jewels hung from her ears. Berkeley Hayden started, and his eyes widened. Mrs. Vandervelde, who had been watching him intently, sighed imperceptibly. ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... For each man he had a suitable bait, and a proper mode of presenting it; he poured the guerdon into the sleeve of those who were too proud to extend their hand, and trusted that his bounty, thought it descended like the dew, without noise and imperceptibly, would not fail to produce, in due season, a plentiful crop of goodwill at least, perhaps of good offices, to the donor. In fine, although he had been long paving the way by his ministers for an establishment ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... good and powerful God, intending to produce man, commence with the lowest possible forms of life; with the simplest organism that can be imagined, and during immeasurable periods of time, slowly and almost imperceptibly improve upon the rude beginning, until man was evolved? Would countless ages thus be wasted in the production of awkward forms, afterward abandoned? Can the intelligence of man discover the least wisdom in covering the earth with crawling, ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... obeisance, withdrew. The seer adjusted his beard, carefully brushed the down from his velvet cap, and sate for a while as if abstracted from all outward intercourse. His keen quick eye became fixed, its lustre imperceptibly waning. A cloud seemed to pass gradually over his sharp features, until their expression was absorbed, giving place to a look of mere lifeless inanity. A spectator might have fancied himself gazing ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... in most other animals that I can now think of, the eyes are so planted as imperceptibly to blend their visual power, so as to produce one picture and not two to the brain; the peculiar position of the whale's eyes, effectually divided as they are by many cubic feet of solid head, which towers between them like a great mountain separating ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... jerked up. To the trained eye of Cluff, swift to interpret physical indications, it seemed that Perkins's weight had almost imperceptibly shifted its ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... smile trembled for an instant on his lips, and then, without apparently noticing her confusion, he began to talk, passing easily from one subject to another until she had regained her confidence, finally leading her almost imperceptibly into ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... party at the rooms of Naroumoff, of the Horse Guards. The long winter night passed away imperceptibly, and it was five o'clock in the morning before the company sat down to supper. Those who had won ate with a good appetite; the others sat staring absently at their empty plates. When the champagne appeared, however, the conversation ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... time was near when the fierce, implacable day-genius of the desert would fall asleep and the soft, gentle, beautiful star-eyed night-genius of the desert would arise and move softly. My pony racked along in the desert. The mass that represented Hooper's ranch drew imperceptibly nearer. I made out the green of trees and the white ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... city the parties in favour of each of the opponents were not far from an equality in their numbers and strength. Whilst these parties disagreed in the choice of a master, by contending for a choice in their subjection, they grew imperceptibly into freedom, and passed through the medium of faction and anarchy into regular commonwealths. Thus arose the republics of Venice, of Genoa, of Florence, Sienna, and Pisa, and several others. These cities, established ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... to a pitch of heroism, and the next dissolved me in tears. Her cheek was flushed with inspiration, her eyes glistened; the whole tone of her countenance was like that of a person rapt and inspired. I forgot both time and place whilst she was breathing forth such celestial harmony. The night stole imperceptibly away, and morning dawned before I awoke from my trance. I don't recollect ever to have passed an evening, which every circumstance conspired so much to improve. In general, my musical pleasures suffer terrible abatements from the phlegm and stupidity ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... Imperceptibly the outlines of the shape grew in the gloom from a deep, rich background, and I made out a figure of a youth all cased in armor save for the helmet, which was borne in one ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... and he fared no better than had Bibby. O'Brien, catching the judge's eye, made a wry face and imperceptibly lowered his left lid—on the side away from the jury, thus officially indicating that, of course, the case was a lemon but that there was nothing that could be done except to try it out to ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... costume in his dirty hands, spread it out in the sunlight, looked over it a few times, smiled imperceptibly, put it back in the paper, wrapped it up, picked up his bag and stick and said, "Such fineries are not for me." He began to descend the stairway, ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... Imperceptibly Shirley began to take an interest in Daisy. She did not run away from him, and he discovered, much to his surprise, that she was worth talking to. She was not exactly the child he had supposed, and she had the ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... enough to dare and to dictate, and born with a genius to strike out a great system from the twilight of imperfect essays. He leaped the fence and saw that all nature was a garden[143]. He felt the delicious contrast of hill and valley changing imperceptibly into each other, tasted the beauty of the gentle swell, or concave swoop, and remarked how loose groves crowned an easy eminence with happy ornament, and while they called in the distant view between their graceful stems, removed and ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... is boiling hot, the other as cold as ice; the next is Tide's Well, not far from the town of that name through which I passed. It is a spring or well, which in general flows or runs underground imperceptibly, and then all at once rushes forth with a mighty rumbling or subterranean noise, which is said to have something musical in it, and overflows its banks; lastly Chatsworth, a palace or seat belonging to the Dukes of Devonshire, at the foot of a mountain whose summit is covered ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... all sides, and a misstep or slip would send one down the blue steps where no friendly rope could rescue, and only the rushing water could be heard. To view the solid phalanxes of icy floes, as they fill the mountain fastnesses and imperceptibly march through the ravines and force their way to the sea, fills one with awe indescribable. The knowledge that the ice is moving from beneath one's feet thrills one with a curious sensation hard ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... qualities, be they good or bad, tend to increase by exercise. In whatever direction we move, the rate of progress tends to accelerate itself. And this is preeminently the case when the motion is downwards. Every day that a bad man lives he is a worse man. My friend! you are on a sloping descent. Imperceptibly—because you will not look at the landmarks—but really, and not so very slowly either; convictions are dying out, impulses to good are becoming feeble, habits of neglect of conscience are becoming fixed, special forms of sin—avarice, or pride, or lust—are striking ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... Arch beyond arch, to fourth apartments, lessening in dimension, with increase of wealth;— groups of beautiful women, on either hand, seated or half reclined; the pure or rich hues of their robes blending imperceptibly, or in gorgeous contrasts, with the soft outlines and colors of their supports; a banquet for the eyes and the mind; the perfect work of art and culture;—gliding about and among these, or, with others, springing and revolving in that monarch of all measures, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... eyes," Cain said swiftly, "may you be the first to know that they're all men! All men, get it?" There was a soft gasp from Daleb, and the commander's eyes flickered, widened almost imperceptibly. "And better yet, I'm a pal of Kriijorl, their commander who picked us up just inside the Rim that time you followed us into Earth. So think it over. It ought to be worth a fancy little pile to you, ladies, since women agents would be kind of ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden
... showed that. They were warm to the touch and as she looked at them intently, at their white clear faces, familiar to her as those of human beings, bent on her with a mute message from the garden, she saw they had begun to droop imperceptibly, that the close, fine texture of their petals had begun ever so slightly to wither. She sprinkled them, put their stems deep into water and went downstairs, wiping her ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... followed by a dull, echoing boom drew the eyes of both towards the precipitous bank across the river. The great glacial field had already awakened from its long winter sleep. Once more it was the living giant of countless ages stirring and heaving imperceptibly but irresistibly. ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... interrupted in my meditations by the sight of a thin trail of vapour ascending from the window ledge. I had failed to put the extinguisher on the lighter, and the wick had gone on burning. As I watched the red spark crawling almost imperceptibly along the yellow wick, there dawned in my mind the first glimmering of the idea of a slow match and a delayed report. Bit by bit it took form, and the means of my revenge was made clear to me. I went back to ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... were turned casually in Farrel's direction, seemingly without interest. Instantly he rose, fixed her with a comprehending look, nodded almost imperceptibly toward the chair he was vacating, and returned to his seat inside the car. Her fine brows lifted a trifle; her slight inclination of the head was robbed of the chill of brevity by a fleeting smile of gratitude, not so much for the sacrifice of his seat in her favor ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... when the hook is moved slowly; or if the switchboard is one where the operator is signalled by a little disk which falls over a blank space the disk fails to move down but remains quivering almost imperceptibly in ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... displayed itself in a powerful manner. Admitting the identity of electricity and lightning, and knowing the power of points in repelling bodies charged with electricity, and in conducting fires silently and imperceptibly, he suggested the idea of securing houses, ships and the like from being damaged by lightning, by erecting pointed rods that should rise some feet above the most elevated part, and descend some feet into the ground or water. The effect of these he concluded would be either to ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... child. Your son will ask you: "Who are those men?" And when you tell him: "This is Washington, the Father of his Country; this is Patrick Henry, the ardent lover of civil liberty; and this is Taney, the incorruptible Judge," your boy will imperceptibly imbibe not only a veneration for those men, but a relish for the civic virtues for which they were conspicuous. And in like manner, when our children have constantly before their eyes the purest and most exalted models of sanctity, they cannot fail to ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... structure of which I completely explored during that period of municipal regimen—for it was the season of yellow fever, and there was a rigid quarantine. Dr. Dewitt, the health officer, who had known my father, received me very kindly, and my time wore off imperceptibly, while I footed its serpentine vales ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... that James had any vices. He did not drink or smoke, was abstemious and clean as an anchorite, and never lowered his fine tone. But still, the two unprotected ones must be sheltered from him. Miss Frost imperceptibly took into her hands the reins of the domestic government. Her rule was quiet, strong, and generous. She was not seeking her own way. She was steering the poor domestic ship of Manchester House, illuminating its dark rooms ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... has been and must be gradual in order to be permanent. There has been no spasmodic growth in the oak of the forest. A few years ago it was only a tiny twig, but silently, imperceptibly, and daily, it has increased in strength and greatness, until now it stands forth the giant of the forest with its large and manifold parts extending far and wide, sheltering the cattle of the hills and the fowl of the air. We do not ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 3, September, 1898 • Various |
