"Impervious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... something. What did they know? At parting she pressed my hand significantly. What did she mean? But I didn't feel offended by these manifestations. The souls within these people's breasts were not volatile in the manner of slightly scented and inflated bladders. Neither had they the impervious skins which seem the rule in the fine world that wants only to get on. Somehow they had sensed that there was something wrong; and whatever impression they might have formed for themselves I had the certitude that ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... have a suspicion that the ground is naturally wet, that it contains hidden springs or conceals an impervious basin, making in effect a pool of standing water underground, the first necessity is a clean outlet—not a sewer—low enough to underdrain the lot at least a foot and a-half below the bottom of the cellar. Having found the clean outlet, lay small drain tiles, ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... however closely the body may be imprisoned, no bolts and no bars can shut in a spirit; that before it is a fair and favored land, far off but ever open; and, best of all, that within its own being, impervious to all influences from without, is a guide which may be implicitly trusted and which will never betray. Why not follow its suggestions at once and press on toward that fair land of truth and beauty which so earnestly invites? Ah! why not? Here we ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... confusion by his side. An open manuscript was in front of him. He took up his pen. Very soon he would be absorbed by the strong fascination of his studies; the door into another world would open and shut him in. He would be impervious then to this present century, to his present life, to his children, to the home in ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... principal storehouse of America on the Pacific Ocean, thanks to its Port of Callao, built in 1779, in a singular manner. An old vessel, filled with stones, sand, and rubbish of all sorts, was wrecked on the shore; piles of the mangrove-tree, brought from Guayaquil and impervious to water, were driven around this as a centre, which became the immovable base on which rose ...
— The Pearl of Lima - A Story of True Love • Jules Verne
... eastward still was more forest, stretching seaward. Southward, the land was low—almost as low and flat as the Netherlands themselves; an unexplored immensity, whose fertile soil had for countless ages been hidden from the sun by the impervious shelter of interlacing boughs. No—never had Hudson seen a land of such enduring charm and measureless promise as this: and here, in this citadel of loneliness, which no white man's foot had ever trod, which, till then, only ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... urinals must be constructed of materials impervious to moisture and that will not corrode under the action of urine. The floors and walls of urinal apartments must be lined with similar non-absorbent and ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble
... they who say the Host should be descried By sense, define a body glorified? Impassable, and penetrating parts? Let them declare by what mysterious arts He shot that body through the opposing might Of bolts and bars impervious to the light, And stood before his train confess'd in open sight. For since thus wondrously he pass'd, 'tis plain, 100 One single place two bodies did contain. And sure the same Omnipotence as well Can make one body in more ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... remembered that Hamilton, although usually intelligent, had a clear conscience and no suspicion whatsoever as to any culpability on his part in his relations with his wife: thus it was that now he was wholly impervious to the sarcasm of her reference, which he answered with ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... that excited great curiosity among the sailormen. These were the "monitors" which were just floating platforms for big guns. They were built originally for the rivers of South America, but it was discovered that their shallow draft made them impervious to torpedo attack; and as they were able to get close in shore, their big guns made havoc of the Turkish defenses. They do not travel at high speed and appear to waddle a good deal, but they have been most invaluable right along, and were of great assistance ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... repeatedly rolled in with printing ink and etched, is ready for printing. An impression is then made in the usual manner from this key-transfer, which impression is coated with a solution of shellac. This is done for the purpose of rendering it impervious to the effect of the atmosphere, thus insuring against its stretching or shrinking. Upon this varnished key-sheet all subsequent transfer impressions of the ten colors are "stuck up," to use the technical term, and transferred to stone in the same manner as is employed ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... del gran Duca to the Piazza del Duomo, where stands the Cathedral, you have only to pass thro' a long narrow street or rather alley (for it is impervious to carriages) with shops on each side and always filled with people going to or returning from the Duomo. This Cathedral is of immense size. The architecture is singular from its being a mixture of the Gothic and Greek. It appears the most ponderous load that ever ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... found her alone with Lucinda and she read it to herself three times and then read it aloud to her companion. Lucinda, whose thorough knowledge of the imperious will and impervious eardrums of her mistress rendered her, as a rule, extremely monosyllabic, not to say silent, vouchsafed no comment upon the contents of the epistle, and after a few minutes Aunt Mary herself took ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... trifling damage done by enemy fire almost as soon as there was a lull in the shooting. Learning this lesson, the determined Confederate defenders of Fort Sumter in 1863-64 refused to surrender, but under the most difficult conditions converted their ruined masonry into an earthwork almost impervious to ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... i.e. a pedant, and a complete, if sausage-munching, German gentleman of the period, they degraded him to the third. No doubt there were protests: one cannot believe that Wagner the boy any more than Wagner the man could refrain from declamation under a grievance; but with such impervious skulls and thick hides protests would be unavailing. The mischief was done: he was numbered amongst the rebels, the lost souls, the unhappy beings who dared to have notions of their own. He neglected his studies and sought refuge in his drama. I wonder if he found, or made, ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... of the white settlers, were square and built of logs; the wigwams were conical, with a frame of slender poles gathered together at the top and covered with buffalo-robes, dressed and smoked to render them impervious to the weather. An opening at the side formed the entrance, and over it was hung a buffalo-hide, which served as a door. The fire was built in the centre of the lodge, and directly overhead was an aperture to let out the smoke. Here the women performed culinary ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... piece. The inspector laughed without noise and shook his head. This one inspector is impervious to money or smooth speeches. He is the law ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... Now pall the tasteless meats and joyless wines, And Luxury with sighs her slave resigns. Approach, ye minstrels! try the soothing strain, Diffuse the tuneful lenitives of pain: No sounds, alas! would touch the impervious ear, Though dancing mountains witness'd Orpheus near: 270 Nor lute nor lyre his feeble powers attend, Nor sweeter music of a virtuous friend; But everlasting dictates crowd his tongue, Perversely grave, or positively wrong; The still returning tale, and lingering jest, Perplex the fawning niece ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... tap-root at all, merely a very insufficient network of fibres, seldom of any size, which spreads a short way along the surface of the ground As long as a Bush is undisturbed by civilization, it appears to be impervious to wind or weather; but as soon as it is opened and cleared a little, it begins to diminish rapidly. There are traces all over the hills of vast forests having once existed; chiefly of totara, a sort of red pine, and ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... to have warned him. Its wiry mat of coat stood out like quills upon the fretful porcupine. But the rollicking, galumphing Jan was just then impervious to any such comparatively subtle indication ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... of chalk or lime to soil was found in Chap. III. to improve it very much by making it less sticky and less impervious to air and water. Chalk or lime does more than this. It puts out of action certain injurious substances or acids that may be formed, and thus makes the conditions more favourable for plants and for the useful micro-organisms; ...
— Lessons on Soil • E. J. Russell
... in general use," said Robinson, "glass is the most brilliant, and yet the cheapest; the most graceful and yet the strongest. Though transparent it is impervious to wet. The eye travels through it, but not the hailstorm. To the power of gas it affords no obstacle, but is as efficient a barrier against the casualties of the street as an iron shutter. To that which is ordinary ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... in your frame of mind, you'd have a hundred fights; there would be time for nothing else but knocking out the men who insulted you. You'll collapse over Sunday if you are not absolutely and totally impervious to everything and everybody. The only way you can throw the world over is to ignore it; while you appear to have the idea that it should put a ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and vegetables have an exterior coating which is porous and pervious to water when it is unripe. But when it fully ripens this coating is chemically changed into a thin, impervious coating of a cork-like structure, through which water cannot pass, and as a result potatoes, and fruit, will keep through an entire winter and become mellower and better as time ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... from an attack of rheumatism and ague, when she longed to escape from the lovely, damp screens of the Forest to fresh Wold breezes. She died, and Geoffry took another wife. Then he died of what was called in the district marsh-fever. Mr. Fairfax was not impervious to regret, but no regret would bring them ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... was one continuous undeviating scene of tropical beauty, with green aquatic mangroves growing everywhere out into the tidal waves, with the beetal, palmyra, and other palms overtopping this fringe; and in the background a heterogeneous admixture, an impervious jungle, of every tree, shrub, and grass, that characterise the richest grounds on the central shores of this peculiar continent. The little islands we passed amongst, and all the reefs that make these shores so dangerous ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... as he pleased, and nothing else, being as capricious as the breeze that blows only as it chooses. For beginning with his parents, nobody ever crossed him, or placed any obstacle whatever in the path of his desires, which grew up accordingly like a very rank jungle impervious to the light, in which his will wandered like a wild young tiger-cub, wayward, and passionate, and absolutely uncontrolled. And he gave in to others, and was guided by them, in one point only, and ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... and the pufformance was offered for his entertainment with admirable conscientiousness. True to the Lady Clara caste and training, Roderick's pale, fat face expressed nothing except an impervious superiority and, as he sat, cold and unimpressed upon the front bench, like a large, white lump, it must be said that he made a discouraging audience "to play to." He was not, however, unresponsive—far from it. He offered comment very ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... bark below and the shrapnel burst all around them as it pleased, no one in all that vast armada of the air was paying the slightest attention to such things. They all, in their carelessness of danger, seemed to themselves impervious to the ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... country around Champion Bay, which had been extolled by Gray, and subsequently condemned by Captain Stokes. Beyond the Murchison, he did not succeed in penetrating any considerable distance; being turned back at all points, after repeated attempts, by the tract of impervious scrub that intervened between the Murchison and the Gascoyne. He therefore returned, without seeing the latter river, having attained a distance of three hundred and fifty miles north of Perth. On their return to the Murchison, a vein of galena was discovered, and the river traced upwards and ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... which one lives is a matter of primary importance; it may be a matter of life or death for a weakly person, but it is important for every one. First, as regards the subsoil on which a house is built. If this be clay, or impervious rock, then no possible system of drainage can make the site a dry one; this condition of affairs will be very bad indeed for health. No house should be built on such a soil if at all possible to avoid it. Light open gravel and sand, ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... began to assume a savage and sombre character. The banks drew closer together, and became rugged and precipitous; while the trees met overhead, and, intermingling their branches, formed a canopy impervious to the sun's rays. The stream was likewise contracted in its bed, and its current, which, owing to the gloom, looked black as ink, flowed swiftly on, as if anxious to escape to livelier scenes. A large raven, which had attended the horsemen all the way, now ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... inspected the holes in which the towers stood, we examined the cellar. It was cut out of the solid rock, and is twenty feet long by eight wide, and four feet deep, and has a covering of granite eight inches thick, the entrance being by two gun-metal doors, or rather man-holes, perfectly impervious to water when closed; it was formed to hold the tools and stores of the labourers. The rock itself is twelve feet above the level of the sea at high-water, and the lantern of the old lighthouse stood seventy ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... a long march the value of thoroughly well fitting and comfortable nether integuments is "above rubies." And they did carry me right well and safely through many rough ways and much wild weather, impervious alike to water, mud, rain, or snow. I will give honor where honor is due. Fagg, of Panton street, was the architect.[1] So I "set my foot down," literally and metaphorically, on this point, absolutely determined ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... think, is the foremost of all elephant-warriors in the world.[54] His elephant, again, is the foremost of elephants, without a rival to encounter it in battle. Possessed of great dexterity and above all fatigue, it is, again, impervious to all weapons. Capable of bearing every weapon and even the touch of fire, it will, O sinless one, alone destroy the Pandava force today. Except us two, there is none else capable of checking that creature. Go ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... coat when they talk to me, and who sometimes even offer to go home with me from a tea-party all alone, and after dark too. It is true, one or two of these are "literary" themselves; the others I knew before I was dyed blue; which may account for it. Also I am impervious to anonymous letters, exhorting me to all kinds of mental and moral improvement, or indulging in idle impertinences about my private affairs, the result of a knowledge about me and the aforesaid affairs drawn solely from my ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... and consequently contract by their elasticity, so as to close the canal, and their sides gradually coalesce. Of these, those which are most distant from the heart, and of the smallest diameters, will soonest close, and become impervious; hence the hard pulse of aged patients is occasioned by the coalescence of the sides of the vasa vasorum, or capillary arteries of the coats of the ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... old vision of things. His new and saner vision made him see that vow was a mistake. Was he not strong enough to defy the corrosiveness of a mean, vulgar atmosphere? Nay, his life, by its own inner force, would flow impervious to such influence. ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... "Cumberland," the "Merrimac" again turned on the "Congress" with her entire broadside and, owing to her own impervious character, soon got the Federal ship into such condition, notwithstanding the heroic defence of her men under Lieutenant Smith, who soon was killed, that she had to surrender, and thereafter caught fire from ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... feel for their kingly families made them submit to woman's rule. The valley of Nacooche, Georgia, indeed, perpetuates in its name one of these princesses of a royal house, for though she ruled a large tribe with wisdom she was not impervious to the passions of common mortals. The "Evening Star" died by her own hand, being disappointed in love affair. Her story is that of Juliet, and she and her lover—united in death, as they could not be in life—are buried beneath a mound in the ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... and day in the forest, impervious to the sun's and moon's rays, the sudden transition to light has a fine heart-cheering effect. Welcome as a lost friend, the solar beam makes the frame rejoice, and with it a thousand enlivening thoughts rush at once on the soul and ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... made of some alloy of steel and nickel, impervious to rust, and very hard. It resisted all gentle methods of attack, and it was finally found necessary to force the lock with a charge of powder. Within was found another case, which was pried open with the point of the ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... intolerable person to me. Either her Southern social position or her rent (she took the whole second floor, except Mrs. Trevise's own rooms) was of importance to Mrs. Trevise; but I assure you that her ways kept our landlady's cold, impervious tact watchful from the beginning to the end of almost every meal. Juno was one of those persons who possess so many and such strong feelings themselves that they think they have all the feelings there are; at least, they certainly consider no one's ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... feet), and the ridge seemed to run evenly to either side. The space for a camp was somewhat cramped, and the small yellow bees that are so persistent in clinging to one's face and hands were very numerous; they will sting if irritated. Even the lieutenant, ordinarily impervious to that kind of annoyance, sought the ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... the cloud is not so victorious as when it towers above some little landscape of rather paltry interest—a conventional river heavy with water, gardens with their little evergreens, walks, and shrubberies; and thick trees impervious to the light, touched, as the novelists always have it, with "autumn tints." High over these rises, in the enormous scale of the scenery of clouds, what no man expected—an heroic sky. Few of the things that were ever done upon earth ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... they missed their respective trains repeatedly. Hers on the "West bound" platform, and his on the "East," might have rumbled in and out of the station beneath them, ad infinitum, had not Kitty recollected that she was due to have tea with an aunt at Richmond, who was impervious to diplomacy and dimples and with whom no excuses concerning Fate and an Affinity at the Victoria Underground, would avail, if the kettle were over-boiled and the tea delayed. So Kitty reluctantly bade ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... reached the clearing that gave a full view of the sea. In the distance the eye could discern the curving coast of tiny Bongao; Kali was impervious to the summer beauty and youth of the sparkling ocean, to the charm of the dainty island so gaily chatting with the garrulous waves. He did not see the graceful, white rice-birds or the regal aigrets flitting about among the trees; he saw only the vast, restless ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... and protection of men, saying that they are weak, that they fall an easy prey to the seductive wiles of men,[294] disposed to accept the love that is offered them, and devoted to truth. There are others among them that are full of malice, covetous of honours, fierce in disposition, unlovable, and impervious to reason. Women, however, deserve to be honoured. Do ye men show them honour. The righteousness of men depends upon women. All pleasures and enjoyments also completely depend upon them. Do ye serve them and worship them. Do ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... and patter of bullets filled the air, punctured the kiswah, slogged against the Ka'aba. Lebon and Rennes, turning loose the machine-guns, mowed into the white of the pack; but still they came crowding on and on, frenzied, impervious to fear. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... and wrinkled though they might be, were no more impervious to his allures than are the rest of us, and in consequence appointed him to an office. This office was, I glean of mediaeval legend, that of teaching dunderheaded mortals the First Conjugation. So Eros donned cap and gown, took lodgings with a quiet musical family, and set amo as ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... As usual a coral reef extends from the shore, without leaving a clear spot of sufficient size to admit of the seine being hauled. Species of Cissus and two or three Capparidae constituted the bulk of the vegetation, and rendered the low scrub almost impervious in many places. A number of Torres Strait pigeons, chiefly young birds, and some stone-plovers and other waders, were shot, and one rare bird was obtained for the collection, a male of Pachycephala melanura. Soon after our return we got underweigh, passed ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... the camphor and Flossie tied them up for him in a bit of linen and bade him be quite easy in his mind, as with these disinfectants he was impervious ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... for the multitude, employed their talents in contriving edifices that should be cool; and, for this purpose, nothing could be better adopted than those buildings, vast, narrow, dark, and lofty, impervious to the sun-beams, and having little communication with the scorched external atmosphere; but ever affording a refreshing coolness, like subterranean cellars in the heats of summer, or natural caverns in the bowels of huge mountains. But nothing could ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... end being hastened by fear of poverty coming like an armed man, and his guinea a week going. Matthews met with an accident, and, being impervious to pain, but subject to death, was laid beside his poor mistress in St. Anne's churchyard. Julia buried him, and had a headstone put to his grave; and, when this was done, she took her husband to see it. On that stone ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... omnibuses, coaches, and carriages of every description, filled with groups of young and old, were intermingled with the countless multitude—men and horses so crowded into contact that neither could move. It was an impervious ocean of throbbing life. In the center of this Place, the pride of Paris, the scene of its most triumphant festivities and its most unutterable woe, vast scaffolds had been reared, and they were burdened with fire-works, intended to surpass in brilliancy and sublimity ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... the suppliant head, And reverence powers that shake his heart with dread, His pliant faith extends with easy ken From heavenly hosts to heaven-anointed men; The sword, the tripod join their mutual aids, To film his eyes with more impervious shades, Create a sceptred idol, and enshrine The Robber Chief in attributes divine, Arm the new phantom with the nation's rod, And hail the dreadful delegate of God. Two settled slaveries thus the race control, Engross their labors and debase their soul; Till creeds and crimes and feuds and fears ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... me quite pronounced, and scarcely affected even by the vigorous and mercantile activity of this large city. A large and busy city, and yet I feel that I am among a people who are, ineradically, provincial peasants, men and women of a temper impervious to civilisation. Here too are those symbols of peasantry, the white caps of endless shape and fashion which seem to exert such an attraction on the sentimental English mind. Yet they are not by any means beautiful. And what terrible ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... and fern from the eager sunbeam, and kept the dew upon the bracken until the noonday hours. An exquisitely delicate campanula with minute flowers bloomed with hemp-agrimony and wood-sage along the sides of the rills that -scarcely murmured as they slid down the clefts of the impervious rock. ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... brother and putting your mother's drawers and presses to rights. It's her only vent, and furnishes exercise for body and mind. There is to be a great fete in your mother's room to-day. The Grace Church Sewing Society is to meet there at 10 A. M.—that is, if the members are impervious to water. I charged the two Mildreds to be seated with their white aprons on and with scissors and thimbles in hand. I hope they may have a refreshing ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... three days, unsheltered and alone, upon nothing but tobacco and snow! On losing his way, not thinking of crossing the snow-bridge, he struck right up the mountain side, in search, first of the path, and afterwards of some hut or shelter. He then gradually got into thick and almost impervious cover; not a habitation of any sort was within miles of him, and thus he wandered about for two days and nights. On the third day he descended again towards the torrent, and, falling and stumbling, reached a rock on its ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... they wear out? They did not wear out. I wore them and wore them and wore them, till I was so tired of those deathless, impervious, unnaturally whole stockings that I ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... great deal better, after a full summary of life, were we to be created utterly devoid of feeling, equally impervious to joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain. We should be manifestly benefited, for the greater part of our life is now full of sorrow, anxiety, fear, pain, ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis
... reads of groves, but it is impossible for those who never felt it, to conceive the effect of such a situation in a warm climate. In this island the woods which are naturally so interwoven with vines as to be impervious to a human being, are in some places, cleared and converted into nurseries for the young coffee-trees which remain sheltered from the sun and wind till sufficiently grown to transplant. To enter one of these "semilleros," as they are here called, at noon ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks
... with furiously black and luxuriant hair. He had been every sort of journalist in America and in London, and some years previously had been brought into the editorship of the County Times. The Press, broad-based on the liberty of the English people and superbly impervious to whatever temptation to jump in the direction the cat jumps, is, on the other hand, singularly sensitive to apparently inconsequent trifles in the lives of its proprietary. Pike, with his reputation, was brought into the editorship of the County Times solely because ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... which, entering from the broad river, described a semi circle, and returned its waters on the same side. On three sides, except at the mouths of the little stream, the island was rendered inaccessible by the high banks, while on the fourth side the shrubs grew so luxuriantly as to be impervious, save to the most resolute visitor. From the high banks which walled it in the surface of the island sloped gradually towards a common centre, through ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... all her sluggish sleeps and chilling damps, Impervious to the day, Where nature sinks into inanity. How can the soul desire Such hateful nothingness to crave, And yield with joy the vital fire To moulder in the grave! Yet mortal life is sad, Eternal storms molest its sullen sky; And sorrows ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... perdition. (Matt. x., 28; Luke xii., 5.) And in another passage He says that He will disclaim all those who shall have denied Him before men. (Matt. x., 33; Luke xii., 10.) These words, if we are not altogether impervious to feeling, might well make our hair stand on end. Be this as it may, this much is certain; if these things do not move us as they ought, nothing remains for us but a fearful judgment. (Heb. x., 27.) All the words of Christ having proved unavailing, we stand convinced ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... naval architect named DUNKIN claims to have constructed a new style of vessel, impervious to rams, shell, or shot." Now, then, where is our friend, Captain ERICSSON? The Captain has a torpedo which he is anxious to explode, near a strong vessel belonging to somebody else. He says it will blow up anything. DUNIN says nothing can blow up his vessel. A contest ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... had strong principles as well as warm feelings, and a fine and resolute sense of honour utterly impervious to attack. It was impossible to be in his company an hour, and not see that he was a man to be respected. It was equally impossible to live with him a week, and not see that he was a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 533, Saturday, February 11, 1832. • Various
... into the city from February fields and muddy roads far off. There would be lambs in the fields.... Gideon suddenly wanted to get out of the town into that damp, dark country that circled it. There would be fewer people there; fewer minds crowded together, making a dense atmosphere that was impervious to the piercing, however sharp, of truth. All this dense mass of stupid, muddled, huddled minds.... What was to be done with it? Greedy minds, ignorant minds, sentimental, ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... separated from its gardens by a dirty lane. Between peasant and prince the, contact is unbroken, and one would suppose Italian good-nature sorely taxed by their mutual allowances; that the prince in especial must cultivate a firm impervious shell. There are no comfortable townsfolk about him to remind him of the blessings of a happy mediocrity of fortune. When he looks out of his window he sees a battered old peasant against a sunny wall sawing off his dinner from a ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... a room in the remote corner of a spacious wing. Clifton at once turned the key, placed his package upon the table, and proceeded to employ a stray bit of carpet in stopping a ventilator which communicated with the entry. Having satisfied himself that this passage was rendered impervious to sound, he drew two chairs up to the table, motioned me into one, and planted himself in the other with the air of a man, in popular phrase, about to make a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... proud blue-ribboned head angrily toward the riders as if indignant that anything except him should absorb attention; a gallant horse, with another floating blue streamer, bearing himself as becometh a king's son; the chase comes near to crushing sundry grunting porkers impervious to pride and glory in any worldly distinctions of cerulean decorations, and at last is fain to draw up and wait until a flock of silly over-dressed sheep, running in frantic fear every way but the right way, can be gathered together and guided to ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... and so that others besides yourself shall know its contents. I am no longer an officer under you, but a private citizen, and free, so far as any citizen of Arkansas can call himself free while he lives in this State; and I will see whether you are as impervious to all other considerations, as you are to all sense ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... on speaking fiercely, impervious to the man's coarse sarcasm, her eyes, which had deepened almost to purple, still fixed piercingly on Gilder, who, for some reason wholly inexplicable to him, felt himself strangely ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... down, facing her. She made a charming picture. But Inspector Fay had been taken in by charming women several times during the early part of his career, and at this stage of it was as impervious as an oyster. ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... He was ordinarily impervious to the influence of weather, the more depressing aspects of nature; but now he was conscious of a dejection communicated, in part at least, he felt, by the bleak prospect without. Another, and infinitely more arresting, reason for this feeling ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... soldier! You can understand that, once I understood my condition, I determined incontinently to die with all the glory possible. Another more fortunate than I would have succeeded a hundred times already. But I'm bewitched; I am impervious alike to bullets and balls; even the swords seem to fear to shatter themselves upon my skin. Yet I never miss an opportunity; that you must see, after what occurred at dinner. Well, we are going to fight. I'll expose myself like a maniac, giving my adversary all the advantages, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... resent that. Making a desperate mental search for the best way to serve her hard self-interest, he thought, she was impervious to insult. ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... I chosen to read it to him, he would have resented it, been impervious, suspicious, hostile. I looked at the boy's laughing ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... is, to be sure, very perilous: on the left you have a chasm, down which, should your horses take the smallest alarm, you are infallibly precipitated; to the right hangs an impervious wood, and there, sir, I can assure you, are wolves enough to devour a regiment; a little farther on, you cross a desolate tract of forest land, the roads so deep and broken, that if you go ten paces in as many minutes you may think ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... looks high and bold after the desperate flatness of the Bights, and we note with pleasure that we have left behind us the "impervious luxuriance of vegetation which crowns the lowlands, covers the sides of the rises, and caps their summits." During the rains after October the grass, now showing yellow stubble upon the ruddy, rusty plain, becomes a cane fence, ten to twelve feet tall; ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... interval of three miles had been occupied by a thousand archers on horseback, under the command of a count and a tribune. Para must have yielded to superior force, if the accidental arrival of a friendly traveller had not revealed the danger and the means of escape. A dark and almost impervious path securely conveyed the Armenian troop through the thicket; and Para had left behind him the count and the tribune, while they patiently expected his approach along the public highways. They returned to the Imperial court to excuse their want of diligence or success; and seriously ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... luck, each according to his totem. The Catfish man had caught six large catfish, and the Copper-tailed Bear man had killed a black bear. The resin of the pine had covered the inscription, rendering it impervious ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... glances of certain of his neighbors who had never before seen the Chief Inspector otherwise than a model of cleanliness and spruceness he was indifferent. But the manner in which the taxi-driver looked him up and down penetrated through the veil of abstraction which hitherto had rendered Kerry impervious ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... surface, and consequently less friction for the ascending currents, and less absorption of heat by the walls. Chimneys should be closely built, having no cracks nor openings through which external air may be drawn to weaken the draught. If they could be made throughout their length as impervious to air as a tube of glass, with interior surface as smooth, one cause of smoky chimneys would be removed. A downward current of air is frequently caused by some contiguous object higher than the chimney, against which the wind strikes. ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... certain degree of familiarity. The curious way in which I was disillusioned about this lady on that occasion will be related in due course. I would only mention here that, through my earlier experiences of the world, I had become fairly impervious to deception, and my desire for closer acquaintance with these circles speedily gave way to a complete hopelessness and an entire lack of ease ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the harsh monosyllable. There was a finality about it—definite, unalterable. She looked at him dry-eyed, her face tragically beautiful in its agony. But he seemed impervious to either its beauty or its suffering. There was no hint of softening in him. Without another word he swung round on his heel and turned to ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... semi-reducta Venus, and affords a happy specimen of what the poetry of passion ought to be—glowing but through a veil, and stealing upon the heart from concealment. Few of the ancients have attained this modesty of description, which, like the golden cloud that hung over Jupiter and Juno, is impervious to every beam ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps. When, formerly, I have analyzed my partiality for some farm which I had contemplated purchasing, I have frequently found that I was attracted solely by a few square rods of impermeable and unfathomable bog,—a natural sink in one ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... did not like the prospect of spending the whole dreary day at Marai, where it was impossible to ramble ashore, the forest being utterly impervious, and the land still partly under water. Besides, we had used up our last stick of firewood to boil our coffee at sunrise, and could not get a fresh supply at this place. So there being a dead calm on the river in the morning, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... pomegranate-trees and violets, which, though single, have a delicious fragrance. This stretches out into an immense vegetable-garden and orchard, terminating in a shrubbery, through which walks are cut, impervious to the sun at noon-day. There is also a large reservoir of water, and the garden, which covers a great space of ground, is kept in good order. There are beautiful walks in the neighbourhood, leading to Indian villages, old churches, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... drifted pungent whiffs of garlic, black olives and peppers from the stalls of the street salad-venders. Occasionally a Moor in fez and wide-bagging trousers, passed silently through the volatile chatter, looking on with jet eyes and lips drawn down in an impervious dignity. ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... alive. The person who caught him is still living. I saw the negro when he was brought to Suffolk and lodged in jail. He had been shot at several times, but was little hurt. He had on a coat that was impervious to shot, it being thickly wadded with turkey feathers. Small shot were the only kind used to shoot runaway slaves, and it was very seldom the case that any ever penetrated far enough to injure. I know three persons now living ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... fibres as hemp or silk, if saturated with tar or some other good non-conductor? For very short distances under still water they served fairly well, but any exposure to a rocky beach with its chafing action, any rub by a passing anchor, was fatal to them. What the copper wire needed was a covering impervious to water, unchangeable in composition by time, tough of texture, and non-conducting in the highest degree. Fortunately all these properties are united in gutta-percha: they exist in nothing else known to art. Gutta-percha ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... Chantelle—possibly as the result of her friend's ministrations—was able to appear at the dinner-table, rather pale and pink-nosed, and casting tenderly reproachful glances at her grandson, who faced them with impervious serenity; and the situation was relieved by the fact that Miss Viner, as usual, had remained in the school-room with ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... the bill. The other young men peered at it over his shoulder, and repeated the amount with whistles and half-laughs of scorn and anger. The girls ejaculated to each other in whispers. Silas stood impervious, waiting. ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... impervious to sternness. He was mentally shaken and distressed, though outwardly irreproachable, even to the violets in the lapel of his coat—the violets that for a week past had been brought each morning to the door of Loder's rooms by Eve's maid. For one second, as Loder's eyes' rested on the flowers, ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... take up his duties as a subordinate officer in the National Government, he was thirty-eight years old; a man in the prime of life, with the strength of an ox, but quick in movement, and tough in endurance. A rapid thinker, his intellect seemed as impervious to fatigue as was his energy. Along with this physical and intellectual make up went courage of both kinds, passion for justice, and a buoying sense of obligation towards his fellows and the State. His career thus far had prepared him for the highest service. Born and brought up amid what our society ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... have issued from this limestone crag. You can see the women of to-day fetching water from below, from a spot which I was too lazy to investigate, where perhaps the soft tertiary rock leans upon this impervious stuff and allows the liquid to escape into the open. An unclean place is Bellegra, and loud, like all these Sabine villages, with the confused crying of little children. That multiple wail of misery will ring in your ear for days afterwards. They are more neglected by their mothers than ever, since ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... wanted to make me sit up with him all night. As for me, I pretended to believe everything, and I seemed to interest myself really in him. Besides, I have never seen him so small and humble; and if I had not known how easily his heart overflows, and how mine is impervious to every other arrow than those with which you have wounded it, I believe that I should have allowed myself to soften; but lest that should alarm you, I would die rather than give up what I have promised you. As for you, be sure to act in the same way ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... day. The mountains lifted them-selves out of veils of tinted mist, the islands lay like jewels—but Aunt Caroline, impervious to mere scenery, ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... should never have done anything without you; although I never stop wondering at that blessed old head of yours with all its ideas in watertight compartments, and all the compartments warranted impervious to anything that it doesn't suit you ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... towards the thick mahogany doors—thick and impervious as should be the doors of statesmen. "Why, you know that, with three words from you, I could produce an effect upon the stocks of three nations, that might give us each a hundred thousand pounds. We would ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... but one half of his story. Soule gave like a prince,—secretly, with a woman-like, anxious helpfulness, a passionate eagerness, as if the pain or want of a human being were insufferable to him. In this he was alone: the woman had no share in it. She was as cold, impervious to the suffering of others as nothing but a snake or a selfish woman can be: whatever muddy human feeling did ooze from her brain was for this man only. And yet, when we think of it, she was, as they guessed, a quadroon: maybe, under the low, waxy-skinned forehead that Yarrow's fingers were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... dipping towards the ocean, now rising into the blue ether, showing that land was at no great distance. As the wind was from the northward, the air was cool, though the shady side of the ship was generally sought for by the watch on deck, except by a few whose heads seemed impervious to the hot ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... proprietor, and only inhabited by a rustic servant or two. A place more solitary and wild could scarcely be imagined; the garden and walks were overgrown with weeds and briars, and the unpruned woods were so tankled as to be almost impervious. About this domain I would wander till overtaken by fatigue, and then I would sit down with my back against some beech, elm or stately alder tree, and, taking out my book, would pass hours in a state of unmixed enjoyment, my eyes now fixed on the wondrous pages, now glancing at the sylvan scene ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Harris found a sticky, yellow clay in the side of the ravine, and two or three inches of this he spread carefully over the sods, like icing on a great cake. The greasy clay soon hardened in the sun, and became so impervious to water that the heaviest rains of summer made ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... of the soft earth of the banks to break into gullies, branching back into impervious scrubs, was such as to prevent me from either seeing much of the river during this day's journey, or pursuing a straight course. At one place I could only follow the grassy margin of the river, by passing between its channel ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... Lord. Quarter was to be neither taken nor given. A Malay running a muck, a mad dog pursued by a crowd, were the models to be imitated by warriors fighting in just self-defence. To reasons such as guide the conduct of statesmen and generals the minds of these zealots were absolutely impervious. That a man should venture to urge such reasons was sufficient evidence that he was not one of the faithful. If the divine blessing were withheld, little would be effected by crafty politicians, by veteran captains, by cases of arms from Holland, or by regiments of unregenerate ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... as in my tympanum I heard the cannon's roar, "'Twill be a wonder if I come Impervious ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... some sorts of Staggs as to their shape? and even in the hairs of several creatures, we find a vast difference, as the hair of a man's head seems, as I said before, long, Cylindrical and sometime a little Prismatical, solid or impervious, and very small; the hair of an Indian Deer (a part of the middle of which is described in the third Figure of the fifth Scheme, marked with F) is bigger in compass through all the middle of it, then the Bristle of an Hogg, but the end of it is smaller then ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... passing exploring hands with utmost care over each inch, from the floor to as high as I could reach on tiptoe, until confident I had made the complete circuit. It was all the same, vast slabs of flat stone, welded together by some rude yet effective masonry, the mortar between impervious to the sharp probing of the knife. Again and again I made that circuit, testing each crack, sounding every separate stone in the hope of discovering some slight fault in construction by which I might ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... by this entertainment into approval of the firemen's idleness and inquired sarcastically why they had left their cots behind or if they thought they were still on WPA? The men remained impervious until the chief jumped out of his red roadster and surveyed the scene napoleonically. "Thought somebody was pulling a rib," he explained to no one in particular. "All right, boys, there's folks in that house—let's ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... scramble up their sides by holding on by the branches and underwood, the descent on the opposite side being equally difficult and laborious; now forcing our way through deep ravines overgrown with underwood, all but impervious; sinking to the ground at every step, and raising on our snow-shoes a load of half-melted snow, which strained the tendons of the ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... "The impervious horrors of a leeward shore" they were doomed to experience during a moonless and starless night. They reduced their sails to a few yards of canvass, and lowered their yards on deck. The waves, that rolled the vessel with irresistible force, threatened to swallow them up; ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... Neumann-Schultz," said Priscilla, very clearly and slowly; and though she was, as we know, absolutely impervious to the steadiest staring, she did wonder whether this good lady could have seen her photograph anywhere in some paper, her stare was so very round and ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... perfection of triumph, she had no need to fear these voices—these little evidences of sociability. They could not hurt her, for was she not impervious to pain? ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... do with the soils. It is a deeper proposition than that. Artesian water comes from gravel strata overlaid with impervious layers of rock or clay in such a way that water in the gravel is under pressure because the gravel leads up and away to some point where water is poured into it by rain falling or snow melting on mountain or high plateau. As the water cannot get out of this gravel until ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... are bachelors, and tough. They've stood their own cooking so long that they ought to be impervious to anything, and if anybody's really sick I hold off and tell him to wait until he can get a doctor. A sensitive conscience," he added reflectively, "is quite a handicap ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... and sandy plains, almost free of vegetation. In others, where the rains were less able to drain quickly away, were districts of extraordinary fertility. Here grew the cocoa, vanilla, indigo and aromatic shrubs innumerable, forming thick and tangled jungles, impervious to the foot of man. Flowers of gorgeous colors bordered these groves, and lofty trees of foliage, altogether strange to Roger, reared ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... almost beautiful; and on the whole he was pleased with the result of this interview. He knew that it was destined to come sooner or later—he had known that all along; and it might have been worse. It is characteristic of an untruthful nature to be impervious to the shame of mere detection. In Eastern countries the liar detected smiles in one's face. Detection is to an Oriental no punishment; something more tangible is required to pierce ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... English. It sometimes conceals a robust good sense and even kindliness; but it is a base thing at best, and seems to be the shadow of commercial prosperity. Yet it at least implies a certain sturdiness of character, and a stubborn belief in one's own merits which is quite impervious to the lessons of experience. On sensitive and imaginative people the result of the professional struggle with life, the essence of which is often social pretentiousness, is different. It ends in a mournful and distracted kind of fatigue, a tired sort of padding along ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... laurel, and the arbutus; and they seemed contending for preeminence with the vine, clematis, and woodbine, which climbed to the very tops, and in many instances bore them down into a thicket of vegetation, impervious except to the squirrels and birds, which, sensible of their security in these retreats, stand boldly to survey the traveller." Elsewhere he found the ground carpeted with the most beautiful flowers. A Protestant Missionary,[51] ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... tan, the other white, were fighting desperately, near the exits. In between human legs, under chairs, this way and that, snarling, snapping, dragging. Men called out, kicked, tried to use canes and umbrellas, and some burned matches. The dogs were impervious. Now the white dog was atop, now the tan. So many interfered that there was ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... of doors looked asleep, taking a mid-day siesta. Everything, that is, but the bees, which carried on their honey- gathering business as briskly as ever, utterly impervious to the warmth. Indeed, perhaps they got on all the better for it, probing the petals of the white lilies yet in bloom, and investigating the cavities of the foxglove and wonderful spider-trap of the Australian balsam, or else sweeping the golden ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... of their tenants. Do you remember the thrilling chapter of "The Jew's last night alive," in "Oliver Twist?" Well, this was the scene! These were the same beams and uprights. There, huge, massive, and blackened with smoky years, rose the cold, impervious stones; and yonder, casting its sharp pinnacles into the sky, is the tower of St. Sepulchre's Church, where the bell hangs muffled for the morrow's tolling away of a sinner's life. Old Fagin heard it, though ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... things possessed only a passing interest. The vagaries of the mountain atmosphere rarely concerned him. His vigorous body was quite impervious to its changes. He picked up his "catch" of pelts and shouldered them. They were few enough, and as he thought of the unusual scarcity of foxes the last few days he could not help feeling that the circumstance was only in keeping with the rest of the ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... question was of vast extent, and stretched across Sussex from Kent to Southampton Water; dense, impervious save where a few roads, following mainly the routes traced by the Romans, penetrated its recesses; the haunts of wild beasts and wilder men. It was not until many generations had passed away that this tract of land, whereon stand now so many pretty Sussex villages, was even inhabitable: ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake |
