"Impressive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man sat silently by her, a man of noble beauty, whose soul was in every part of his body, expressive and impressive—a fiery particle not always at its window, but when there, infecting and going through observers, whether they would or not. He was dressed altogether in black, and had fine small hands, a thin austere face and clean sensitive lips which seemed to say, "He hath made us kings and priests"—a ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... a good deal more talk of the sort, and of course it interested me greatly, although I tried not to show it, but I could not help wondering why the subject had been brought forward in such an impressive manner upon the present occasion. It seemed to me that there was something personal in it—personal to me. Had that ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... notwithstanding his physical martyrdom, were Garibaldi's last years. Italy showed him an unforgetting love; when he came to the continent, the same multitudes waited for him as of old, but instead of cheers there was a not less impressive silence now, lest the invalid should be disturbed. Soon after the transfer of the capital he went to Rome to speak in favour of the works by which it was proposed to control the inundations of the Tiber, and it was curious to hear it said on all sides that, of ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... to literature in the century before Dante. The Cid, the Arthur Legends, the Nibelungen, the Troubadours, naturally led up to Dante. He was only the culmination of a great period of literature. We know now that men had worked in art before Cimabue and Giotto, and had done impressive work that made for the progress of art. These names, however, have come to represent in many minds the sort of solitary phenomena that Dante has seemed sometimes even ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... into Urania's mysteries it is unnecessary to draw a parallel between the constellation and its astrological sign. They are too clear, magnificent and impressive to escape notice. To the majority of students the resembance may not be so apparent, hence, for their benefit, we will point out a few ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... the engraver's hand. "But you must know for the future," he added in a friendly but impressive way, "that I never take anything but money when I am dealing with these fellows. Ho, you!" he went on, turning to the company, "some one go to uncle's and get cash for this watch; tell him to pay conscientiously at least two thirds of what it is worth; it is a good watch. ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... prose, not of that high-strung sensibility which compels the true poet into verse. This must not be said without exception. The Threnody, written after the death of a deeply loved child, is a beautiful and impressive lament. Pieces like Musquetaquid, the Adirondacs, the Snowstorm, The Humble-Bee, are pretty and pleasant bits of pastoral. In all we feel the pure breath of ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... nothing much to it," the colonel said. "He showed us a lot of impressive-looking stuff in his laboratory, but it didn't mean a thing. He had this suitcase, as I told you. There were a couple of thick copper electrodes coming out of the side of it, and he claimed that ...
— With No Strings Attached • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA David Gordon)
... that has been made ready in thine honour!" And again there is a crash of drums. After that he smites the skull yet again and prays saying, "Guard me! Guard my people! Guard my children!" And every prayer of the litany is followed by the solemn roll of the drums. When these impressive invocations to the spirit of the dead chief are over, the feasting begins. The skull is ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... his belt is his club, similar to those carried by American policemen, and jangling in one hand is usually a pair of steel handcuffs. In passing white men he often raises his hand in a formal military salute that would be worthy of a major general. Altogether he is a most impressive personage and, with such examples constantly before them, it would seem incredible that the citizens should ever cause a-disturbance. An interesting contrast was seen in a group of men, sitting idly in the shade and watching eight little Chinese women stagger by with a huge ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... in her master, and administered her favorite medicine, Fan, with increasing frequency. As the neurasthenic believes in strange drugs, expensive cures, impressive doctors, she believed in the healing powers of the exceedingly young. Nor was Fan doubtful of her own magical properties. She supposed that her intense interest in herself and the affairs of her life was fully shared by Heath. Her confidences to him in respect of Masterman ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... the abashed Billiard, glancing uneasily about for some means of escape, but Tabitha had delivered her ultimatum, and now swept grandly into the house, satisfied that she had displayed her authority in a very impressive manner. ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... stood there. Where was it now? Where were the busy gossips? A wild-cat sprang over the briar-laced walls, and made off into the forest. An owl flew sluggishly up from the crumbling cupola, and hovered around our heads, uttering its doleful "woo-hoo-a," that rendered the desolation of the scene more impressive. As we rode through the ruin, a dead stillness surrounded us, broken only by the hooting of the night-bird, and the "cranch-cranch" of our horses' feet upon the fragments of pottery that covered the ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... looking about him steadily, and, seeing me, moved towards me. But for his manner I should scarcely have recognised him. A dance was beginning; but many eyes were turned curiously, and even admiringly, to him; for he looked singular and impressive and his face was given fulness by a beard and flesh paints. I motioned him aside where there was shadow, and said: "Well, you have ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the impressive, gravelike silence that had fallen upon the world. No longer was there a lapping of waters upon the rocks. No breath of wind murmured through the trees. There was a silence so complete, so absolute that Charley declared ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... a poor apology for the crime, by pretending that the Protestants had conspired against the life of the king. The embassador was received in the court of the queen with appalling coldness and gloom. Arrangements were made to invest the occasion with the most impressive solemnity. The court was shrouded in mourning, and all the lords and ladies appeared in sable weeds. A stern and sombre sadness was upon every countenance. The embassador, overwhelmed by his reception, was overheard to exclaim to himself, in ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... the many nights I have watched the Southern Cross, I remember no two occasions when the spectacle interested me exactly in the same way, nor any one upon which I did not discover the result to be somewhat different, and always more impressive, than what I ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... grew broader as my speech proceeded and stirred up the rancour in the hearts of those august gentlemen. The Keeper of the Seals went white and red by turns, and when I paused there was an impressive silence that lasted for some moments. At last the President leant over to confer in a whisper with Chatellerault. Then, in a voice forcedly calm—like the calm of Nature when thunder is brewing—he asked me, "Who do you insist that ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... right to consider her as his betrothed bride, for after a brief farewell and a few kisses of the hand flung to him from the threshold, she had escaped to the little bow-windowed room and thereby also evaded from the departing lover an impressive, well-prepared speech concerning the duties of a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to admit that Stonehenge looked far more impressive when apparently deserted, than with one or two tourists, however genial and guileless, in a high holiday humour in the foreground. At the same time, as we walked back to the car, I felt that I owed it to myself to lodge a grave protest against the indecent and involving methods ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... fairly well; and if she were not in the battle she was of it. Glimpses she had of the battle—stretchers going up and down in the slow elevator; sheeted figures on their way to the operating room; the clang of the ambulance bell in the courtyard; the occasional cry of a new life ushered in; the impressive silence of an old life going out. She surveyed ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and Willich and other romantic middle-class men held sway there. Karl would say to me: 'Bah! It's all froth, Hans, every bit of it is froth. They cry out for revolution because the words seem big and impressive, but they mustn't be regarded ...
— The Marx He Knew • John Spargo
... and utilized all he got. He used information as good business men use money. He made every idea bear interest; and now setting the music of his soul to the words he acquired, he soon earned a reputation as a gifted conversationalist and an impressive orator. ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... Rear-Admiral Tyrwhitt of the British Navy, thirty miles off Harwich, England. Within the following week more than eighty other German submarines and a number of Austrian craft were also surrendered to the British. The spectacle of the surrender was most impressive. ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... moment the four of us stood in silence, as though under the influence of a strange spell. It was indeed an impressive and a thoughtful sight, this array of boxes and trunks, chests and cases, of all sizes and all kinds. Could these mute witnesses only have spoken! As we stared at them we wondered what had been the fate of their owners—of the daring men, young and old, who had gone forth years ago into the ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... place for Huguenot meetings—in the old quarry, about three miles from the town. There were about twenty thousand persons present, ranged, as in an amphitheatre, along the sides of the quarry. It was a most impressive sight. Peasants and gentlemen mixed together. Even the "beau monde" of Nismes was present. Everybody thought that there was now ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... calm and very white, was brought in next, and faced the impressive coroner and his jury. He corroborated Hogan's statement as to Ray's language about the pistol; said that he had gone to bed up-stairs at eleven o'clock, leaving Ray reading in the room below, and knew nothing more of the affair until called by Hogan, when ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... is W.W. Atkinson of Chicago, author of a work called "Mind Power". Would you like to be an Impressive Personality? Mr. Atkinson will tell you exactly how to do it; he will give you the secret of the Magnetic Handclasp, of the Intense, Straight-in-the-eye Look; he will tell you what to say, he will write out for you Incantations which you may pronounce to yourself, to convince ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... I'd been gone from Mrs Dinkman's threequarters of an hour. I had left a small group excited at the free show consequent upon the too successful beautification of a local eyesore; I returned to a sizable crowd viewing an impressive phenomenon. The homely levity had vanished; no one shouted jovial advice. Opinions and comments passed in whispers accompanied by furtive glances toward the lawn, as though it were sentient and might be offended by rude speculation. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... dead is one of the most impressive and affecting things connected with the separate state of the soul. We hear the voice of a dying friend, in some last wish, or charge, or prayer, or farewell, or in some exclamation of joy or hope; and ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... Wordsworth (1770-1850), is placed here out of respect to a boy of eleven years who liked the poem well enough to recite it frequently. The scene is laid on Helvellyn, to me the most impressive mountain of the Lake District of England. Wordsworth is a part of this country. I once heard John Burroughs say: "I went to the Lake District to see what kind of a country it could be that ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... he did not spare the whip; for you will always observe, that a meditative gentleman in a gig is peculiarly impressive on his horse's shoulder. The grey trotted along, or burst ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... the old lady in her most impressive manner, "is that you should obey your elders, learn your psalms, get up early, shut the door after you, tell the truth, and ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... once been my ideal. She wore a broad straw hat, with artificial roses which made it hang down on one side, and, as she had been working in our garden, she wore huge gloves and carried a trowel in one hand. As she entered, my grandfather rose hastily from his chair and presented us with impressive courtesy. "Royal," he said, "this is your cousin, Beatrice Endicott." If he had not been present, I think we would have shaken hands without restraint. But he made our meeting something of a ceremony. I brought my heels together and bowed as I have been taught to do at the Academy, and ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... been more gracious than Kitty's reception of him, or more effusive than his response. He took his seat beside her, a solid and impressive figure, no less closely observed by such of the habitual guests of the political country-houses as happened to be present, than by the sprinkling of local clergy and country neighbors to whom Kitty was giving tea. Lord Parham, though now in the fourth year of ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and disgust were increased by the pity which Edith's pale face aroused. The guests of the night before gave their version of what had happened, omitting none of the impressive details; and a legend formed straightway around the fair-haired Englishwoman, a legend that assumed a really tragic character, owing to the popular story of ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... of a full five minutes or more Phil and Dick stood facing the cacique, while a profound and impressive silence fell upon that vast crowd of Indians, broken only by the rustle of the wind in the tree-tops, and a faint rumble caused by the movement of the naked feet of the assembled multitude, who were in the grip of an excitement so intense that they apparently found it impossible to stand ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... the young man's mind that there was but one true Church, and that of Rome being the most ancient and most powerful, and holding out unspeakably greater advantages to its followers, must be that true one. Still, Alfred was neither very impressive not communicative; the Jesuit priest could draw no positive conclusion as to the effect his remarks had produced, though he felt sure that, could he obtain time to play the fish he had hooked, he should ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... on a beautiful June day, and was as imposing a function in its line as Boston had ever seen. Trinity was crowded to overflowing, and if the ceremony was less imposing than would have been the induction of a Catholic bishop, it was impressive and dignified. The sunlight filtering through the windows of stained glass splashed fantastic colors over the long surpliced train which wound through the aisles down to the chancel, singing processionals of joyous hope; the air was full of the sense ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... in this period that West Point saw the development of one of its greatest field generals. There was nothing impressive in the physical appearance of little H. L. Hyatt. A reasonably good man, ball in hand, his greatest value lay in his head work. As the West Point trainer said one day: "I've got him all bandaged up like ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... coat, with a white cravat and a cocked hat, entered. The dead silence that ensued was not necessary to assure me that he was one in authority,—the look of command his bold, stern features presented; the sharp, piercing eye, the compressed lip, the impressive expression of the whole face, told plainly that he was one who held equally himself ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Luke himself was a gentile (Col. 4:10) and that he was a companion of Paul (Col. 4:14) and the "we" section of Acts. The book does not, therefore, claim to be a complete account of the labors of the early apostles. But it does give in a simple, definite and impressive manner an account of how the religion of Jesus was propagated after his death and of how it was received by those to whom it ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... even that the most transparent and pure may not be capable of infamy, distracted with that horror of personal degradation which is involved in family disgrace, cruel in the intensity of his pride and fear of shame! He has been revealed to us in many lands, always one of the most impressive of human pictures, with no trust of love in him but an overwhelming faith in every vicious possibility. If there is no evidence to prove that, even at the moment when Jeanne was supreme, when he was induced to go to Rheims ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... threatened the destruction of all our buildings. Clarence and myself went into a flurry, and did a great many stupid things, so excited that we did not know what we were about. Father stopped in the midst of the danger to reprove us, and gave us such a solemn and impressive lesson on the necessity of keeping cool, that I never forgot it. Then he told us to harness the horses to the plough. Clarence struck a furrow along the imperilled side of the house; my father mowed a wide swath through the tall grass, ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... his death, striking great awe to the hearts of those to whom the predictions were made. The special prophecy in respect to Grange was softened by the announcement that "God assures me there is mercy for his soul." And it is at once pathetic and impressive to read of the consolation which this assurance gave to the chivalrous Kirkaldy on the verge of the scaffold; and the awe-inspiring spectacle presented to the believers, who after his execution saw his body slowly turn and hang against the western sun, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... plainly," said Evelina, with an affectation of grandeur deeply impressive to her sister. "We have ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... indeed! in mind I mean, and heart; for her person is such, that if you expected to see a pretty woman, you would think her rather ordinary; if you expected to see an ordinary woman, you would think her pretty! but her manners are simple, ardent, impressive. In every motion, her most innocent soul outbeams so brightly, that ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... who, as the head of his house, took a leading part in the ceremonies of the day, there was a devout effort to complete this impressive outward silence by that inward tacitness of mind, esteemed so important by religious Romans in the performance of these sacred functions. To him the sustained stillness without seemed really but to be waiting upon that interior, mental condition of preparation or expectancy, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... And the Local Secretary of the Fund had the key. The model was despatched to him by special messenger to open and to empty, and in the meantime Simeon used his sou'-wester as a collecting-box. This contretemps was impressive. At night Denry received twelve pounds odd at the hands of Simeon Edwards. He showered the odd in largesse on his heroic crew, who had also received many tips. By the evening post the fatal ring arrived from Ruth, as he anticipated. He was just about to throw it ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... Mr. Smith on the death of the persecuting Patriarch, are just and impressive. "What a lesson," he says, "does that event, in such circumstances, teach us! After having martyred that faithful witness Asaad Shidiak, caused the Bible often to be burned, had missionaries insulted and stoned, and boasted that he had at last ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... voice was a feminine one, low and sweet, but clearly distinct, and vibrant with joyous confidence, on through one after another of the ever familiar, but ever impressive phrases of the service that gives into the hands of one man and of one woman the future happiness, ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... deepest interest. In him they recognized a man superior to the clamor of vulgar gratification; his indifference to gain, to luxury, and every form of display, his constant preference of the spiritual over the sensual, was always an impressive example to them. The indigent student took fresh courage as he saw in him to what a narrow compass exterior wants might be reduced; the man of fashion and the fop stood abashed before the simplicity of his dress and daily life. And wherever the spirit of classic ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... stairs, at intervals, officers armed and in armor were stationed, and keeping their positions faced inwardly, they seemed like statues. Other armed men were in the galleries. The silence was impressive. Coming presently to an arched door, the Prince glanced into a deep chamber, and at the further end of it beheld the Emperor seated in a chair of state on a dais curtained and ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... close by is that of St. Guenole, both situated near the sea. The countryman who showed us the church, knelt reverently down at the threshold and put up a short prayer before he entered the sacred building. The general devoutness and strong faith of the Bretons is most impressive and genuine, mixed, no doubt, with great superstition; but, as Wesley says, "Heaven makes allowance for invincible ignorance, and blesses the ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... 17th centuries; it was an adaptation of classical circular-arch form to modern requirements. In Rome it conformed most to ancient types; in Venice it assumed its most graceful form. It was more suitable to domestic than to ecclesiastical work; but the dome is an impressive feature, and St. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... some distant entry of the damp and shaggy wilderness. If we had not been there, no mortal had heard it. When we asked Joe in a whisper what it was, he answered,— "Tree fall." There is something singularly grand and impressive in the sound of a tree falling in a perfectly calm night like this, as if the agencies which overthrow it did not need to be excited, but worked with a subtle, deliberate, and conscious force, like a boa-constrictor, and more effectively then than even in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... profound silence reigned. Neither of the two men seemed to know what to do next, or where to go. Then both of them heard the sound of drumming. It was slow, emphatic, and impressive, a long way off and not loud, but against the background of quietness, very marked. It appeared to come from some point out of sight, to the left of where they were standing, but on the same rock shelf. ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... the vision of the heavens above continued, while Oowikapun, awed and subdued in spirit, felt thankful that he was only a spectator upon such scenes of ghostly carnage and blood. But impressive and glorious as what had already been revealed, the auroras had yet in reserve the climax of their display, and when it came it nearly froze his blood in his veins, and threw him trembling and terrified on his face upon the ground. Suddenly did the change come. With, the rapidity of a lightning ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... every man, shining in the paths that lead to righteousness and life. There is a moral leadership of God in history; revelation is the record of that leadership. It is by no means confined to words; its most impressive disclosures are in the field of action. "Thus did the Lord," as Dr. Bruce has said, is a more perfect formula of revelation than "Thus said the Lord." It is in that great historical movement of which the Bible is the record ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... in due time at the railroad. He said good-by to Young-Dog-Howls-At-The-Moon who had ridden with him, and whose kingly bearing and clean-cut features and impressive pantomime made him a popular screen-Indian, and sat down upon a baggage truck to smoke a cigarette while he waited ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... his air of vast leisure; Welton, the lumberman, red-faced, jolly, popular and ungrammatical. The women guarded baskets. All greeted the Ordes with various degrees of hilarity. When the noise had died down, a massive and impressive lady, heretofore unnamed, stepped forward. She held a jewelled arm straight before her, the hand drooping slightly, so that, although she was in reality of but medium stature, she gave the impression of ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... curtain-wise round what is within—the god and goddess decked with jewels and smothered in flowers. Round and round the barge is poled, and in the coloured light all that is gaudy and tawdry is toned, and becomes only oriental and impressive; and the white shrine in the centre reflected in the calm coloured water appears in its alternating dimness, and shining more like a fairy ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... Salvation Army. "Did you ever go to one of their meetings?" asked one. "I sure did!" answered a big fine fellow—a college man, by the way, from one of the well known New England universities. "I sure did!—and it was the most impressive service I ever attended. It was down in an old wine cellar, and the house over it wasn't because it had been blown away. The meeting was led by a little Swede, and he gave a very impressive address, and followed it by a wonderful ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... not attend the lectures when I did, but I often heard him mentioned in society where he attracted attention by his rendering of Delsarte's "Stanzas to Eternity," Pierre Dupont's "Hundred Louis d'or," and many other impressive or dramatic pieces. I know the master considered him possessed of much aptitude ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... tell how 't was, he said he agreed with the Edgewood folks that Jabe was lazier 'n Aaron. 'Well, I snum, I don't see how you make that out,' says the Pleasant River boys; 'for Aaron walked down, 'n' Jabe run a piece o' the way.' 'If Jabe Slocum run,' says the elder, as impressive as if he was preachin',—'if Jabe Slocum ever run, then 't was because he was too doggoned lazy to hold back! 'an' that settled it!... (No, I couldn't eat another mossel, Miss Cummins; I've made out a splendid supper.) ... You can't git such pie 'n' doughnuts anywhere else in the village, ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... be no use,' said the even, determined voice. 'I will write to Dr. Howson from London. And I do hope'—for the first time, the kindly nurse perceived some agitation in this impressive stranger—'I do hope that nobody will write to my sister—to Mrs. Sarratt. She is very delicate. Excitement and disappointment might just kill her. That's ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... inward miraculous transformation of character by the profoundest of personal experiences. In all socialistic or Catholic churches—whether heathen, ethnic, or Christian—young people are admitted to membership after a definite period of training and an initiation by means of an impressive ritual. In all Protestant churches, initiation takes place as the result of personal experiences and mature convictions, and is therefore usually deferred until adult life ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... beaver anew, left the office by the side door, carrying under his arm a mahogany box about two feet long and one foot wide, partially covered with a large linen cloth. His beaver hat was cocked on the side of his head, with an air supposed to be impressive. He wore the Major's coat and flowered velvet waistcoat respecting which he had won so signal a victory in the morning, and he flaunted a large bandanna handkerchief, the ownership of which he had transferred still ...
— "George Washington's" Last Duel - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... and roared;—do you remember? There was always something impressive to me in the descriptions, in the old story, of the changes in the sea, and of the tempest that rose up, more and more fearful, as the fisherman's wife grew more ambitious and more and more grasping in her desires, each time that the fisherman went down to the sea-shore. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... father, or such he appeared to Morris, but of the daughter what could be said? Without doubt she was a woman of strange and impressive power. At this very moment her sweet voice, touched with that continual note of pleading, still echoed in his brain. And the dark, quiet eyes that now slept, and now shone large, as her thoughts fled through them, like some mysterious sky at night in which the summer lightning pulses intermittently! ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... height of two hundred and eighteen feet. It covered an area of two acres, three roods, and twenty-one poles, or about that of an ordinary London square. The cubic contents amounted to above nine million feet of solid masonry, and are calculated to have weighed 702,460 tons. The height was not very impressive. Two hundred and twenty feet is an altitude attained by the towers of many churches, and the "Pyramid of the Sun" at Teotihuacan did not fall much short of it; but the mass was immense, the masonry was excellent, and ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... The natural equipment to accomplish some small part of the meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. In the last analysis ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity. Perhaps, however, this impressive quality is rightly appraised; it is no ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... ignorant debased savage. I thought he must have sunk exhausted from the effort he made to speak, but the spirit which animated him gave him strength which seemed, not his own. The sun went down, darkness came on rapidly, still he continued speaking. How solemnly impressive ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... the runaway. So we promised him, each on his word of honor, that we would do this; and he insisted that we should shake hands with him as a pledge and as a token of mutual confidence, which we accordingly did. Altogether it was quite an impressive little ceremonial—and rather dramatic, ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... appropriate to his genius, and complete absorption of it into his being; that is how the epic poet works. Allegory is a beautiful way of inculcating and asserting some special significance in life; but epic has a severer task, and a more impressive one. It has not to say, Life in the world ought to mean this or that; it has to show life unmistakably being significant. It does not gloss or interpret the fact of life, but re-creates it and charges the fact itself with the poet's own sense of ...
— The Epic - An Essay • Lascelles Abercrombie
... in his cell, with a thick and richly-clasped volume before him, a single lamp on his table, on the wall a crucifix, plain but decent furniture, with his bald head, and pale, impressive face, would have made a fine study for a painter. By such men, the embers of learning and of science were nursed into a faint but steady flame, burning through the long, gloomy night of the dark ages, unseen by profane eyes, like the vestal fire ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... rather impressive. It's like looking up suddenly from some nocturnal fete—all Japanese lanterns and fireworks—and seeing the moon gazing down serenely and unseeingly upon one; it startles and sobers one ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... more excellent method. I admit that their language sometimes enables them to take what, in words at least, is a sublimer position than mine. Kant's famous phrase, "Thou must, therefore thou canst," is impressive. And yet, it seems to me to involve an obvious piece of logical juggling. It is quite true that whenever it is my duty to act in a certain way, it must be a possibility; but that is only because an impossibility cannot be a duty. It is not my duty to fly, because I have not wings; ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... to him. The leaders issued a powerful manifesto to the workers of Denmark; pointing to the abyss from which they had climbed and to the pinnacles of light toward which they were striving upward; and warning them, in impressive phrases, to stand firm and to hold together. A statement as to the origin of the lock-out and the intention which lay behind it was printed and distributed throughout the country, with appeal for assistance ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... missis,' and instead of overwhelming me as usual with petitions and complaints, they rose silently and quietly, in a manner that would have become the most orderly of Christian congregations accustomed to all the impressive decorum of civilised church privileges. Poor people! They are said to have what a very irreligious young English clergyman once informed me I had—a 'turn for religion.' They seem to me to have a 'turn' for instinctive ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... promise from her: only for himself, he was her bound lover while he breathed; would keep himself free to claim her, when he came back in five years, or ten, or twenty, if she had not chosen better. He would not bind her; but I can imagine how impressive his dark, bitter face must have made this renunciation to the little girl with the violet eyes; how tenderly she repudiated her freedom. She went out as a governess, and sat down to wait. And absence only rivetted faster the chain of her affection: ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... scene. There is an air of cold, solitary desolation about the noiseless streets which we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and over the quiet, closely-shut buildings, which throughout the day are swarming with life and bustle, that is very impressive. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... with vermin. The men carried short bows and arrows, one of them, who appeared to be the chief, having a lynx's skin for a quiver. A few had fishing tackle, but the bystanders said that they lived almost entirely upon grasshoppers. They were a most impressive incongruity in the midst of the ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... ELINOR MORDAUNT, has collected into the volume that she calls Before Midnight (CASSELL) a series of short stories of a psychic (though not always ghostly) character, which, while not very eerie, or on the same high level, are at their best both original and impressive. The first of them, which affords excuse for a highly-intriguing cover-picture, is at once the most spooksome and the least satisfactory. That is to say that, though it opens with a genuine and quite horrible thrill, the "explanation" is obscure and tame. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... disgusting. Their very voluptuousness is accidental: the sum and substance, the property and business of their lives and natures, are compact of mischief, malice, treachery, and the desire of "getting the better of somebody." Nor has this diabolism anything grand or impressive about it—anything that "intends greatly" and glows, as has been said, with a black splendour, in Marlowesque or Websterian fashion. Nor, again, is it a "Fleur du Mal" of the Baudelairian kind, but only an ugly as well ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... to the fortress and wandered through its gloomy, impressive galleries, seeing little of the armament because visitors are barred from the real fortifications. The fortress did not seem especially impregnable and was, taken altogether, a distinct disappointment to them; but the ride through the town ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... the principal organizations which Booker T. Washington founded for the purpose of helping his people to help themselves tells a story of constructive achievement more impressive than any amount ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... Alda is a very beautiful and human piece. Alda was Roland's bethrothed and the music aims at suggesting her loveliness and her mourning for her lover. There are passages of intensely impressive melancholy in the Fragment and its human feeling is typical of MacDowell. Altogether the two pieces are music on a high plane and worth attention for their own intrinsic value, quite apart from their connection with the symphony ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... presented itself, his people must come to him for information. His dignified manner would have done credit to a great statesman. Facing the deputation, with Paul standing at his right, he began a harangue in the Sioux tongue, using gestures that were at once impressive and graceful. ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... costumes, was the pursuit of specialists. But Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, Salisbury Cathedral, and York Minster, ruins such as Melrose and Fountain Abbeys, Crichton Castle, and a hundred others were impressive witnesses for the civilization that had built them and must, sooner or later, demand respectful attention. Hence it is not strange that the Gothic revival went hand in hand with the romantic movement in literature, if indeed it did not give it ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... the happenings of the previous night, the Tuppy-Angela situation seemed more or less to have slipped a cog. With every desire to look for the silver lining, I could not but feel that the rift between these two haughty spirits had now reached such impressive proportions that the task of bridging same would be ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... quote his exact language: there was too much of it, but he made an impressive showing of the amount of literature that could be had at a very low price per pound. Mr. Dixon was a hypnotist. He fixed me with his glittering eye, and he talked so fast, and his ideas upon the subject were so original that he held me spellbound. At first I was inclined ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... is impressive, but reason did lead to some bizarre—in the light of present-day medical knowledge—conclusions. Aware of the value to the scientist of close observation and of the necessity to reason about these observations, Clayton was in the finest seventeenth-century scientific tradition. Observing a ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes
... Baron Muench- Bellinghausen—for Friederich Halm is a pseudonym—are much less known in this country than they deserve to be. He is one of the most gifted of the minor poets of Germany, a master of vivid style and of impressive, varied, and beautiful thought. Griselda first appeared at Vienna in 1835. It was enthusiastically received and soon ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... especially on the mountains, but also far and wide in the lowlands, and we are told that in the darkness and stillness of night the moving groups, lit up by the flickering glow of the flames, presented an impressive spectacle. In some places the people shewed their sense of the sanctity of the fires by using for fuel the trees past which the gay procession had defiled, with fluttering banners, on Corpus Christi Day. In others the children ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... themselves within the communion rail; and the choir seats were occupied by men in khaki, for the most part deplorably travel-stained and tattered. Soldiers sat on the pulpit stairs; and into the very pulpit khaki intruded, for I was there and of course in uniform. It was a most impressive sight, this coming together into the House of God of comrades in arms fresh from many a hard fought conflict ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... consulted aside with the judge, and then in an authoritative tone, made the more impressive by the decided way with which he hitched up his ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... knew the sayings he had heard were but the outriders of a mighty army; that, in fact, this man had treated him as if he were a child. Who could he be? And whence came the great storehouse of wisdom which lay behind that impressive brow? From whence came the influence with which he spoke? His voice was low, but every word struck home and flashed forth strong conviction. Was he a god in disguise? Was he one of the gods come down to witness the festivities of the great ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... moved to use the story in the. "Contributors' Club," and warned Clemens against letting it get into the newspapers. He declared he thought it one of the most impressive things he had ever read. But Clemens seems never to have allowed it to be used in any form. In its entirety, therefore, it is quite ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sad and impressive was the funeral of Colonel Stopford, who was shot early in the fight the day before. His grave was made in a peaceful spot beside one of the gardens of the village, and garlands gathered by his men of the 2nd Coldstream Guards were placed all ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... to whom, in all probability, I shall never preach again, and therefore I feel that I must exert my utmost power in that last chance." And in this, even if this were all, one sees why each of his sermons is so impressive, and why his energy never lags. Always, with him, is the feeling that he is in the world to do all the good he can possibly do; not a moment, not an ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... festoons and trianguloids and drapings throughout its entire length and breadth, its atmosphere vocal with the strains of martial music. Everywhere were women dressed with elegance and taste. The Tory ladies, gowned in the height of fashion, were to Marjorie a revelation at once amazing and impressive. ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... not to forget before your journey, to perform your promise, that is, to make a certain visit. I have my reasons for this. Pray present my kind regards in that quarter, but in the most impressive and tender manner,—the most tender; and, oh,—but I need not be in such anxiety. I beg my compliments to Roxalana, who is to drink tea this evening with the Sultan. All sorts of pretty speeches to Madlle Mizerl; she must not doubt my love. I have her constantly before my eyes in her fascinating ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... financial system. If in this particular instance our predicament is at all influenced by a recent insistence upon the position we should occupy in our relation to certain questions concerning our foreign policy, this furnishes a signal and impressive warning that even the patriotic sentiment of our people is not an adequate substitute ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... "This isn't a joking matter, sir. Our newspaper will have plenty of special features, and Beth's suggestion is a good one. It sounds impressive. You see, Arthur, we've got to use you as a figurehead, but so you won't loaf on your job I've decided to appoint you ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... paused a moment, and then proceeded in an impressive voice: "But Mrs. Stiles's injuries, gentlemen, are not slight; she does not ask you for a mere nominal sum in compensation of them, nor, in view of the facts, will any sum that you do give her seem excessive. I shall show you, gentlemen, that Mrs. Stiles, a widow, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... crew at that time was made up, in part, of the lowest characters in society. What, then, must be the strength and excellence of that moral feeling in England, which can display itself thus nobly where it would be the least expected! The fact conveys an impressive lesson; for if the intelligence, decision, and kindness, which, with few exceptions, characterize our sea-officers, can effect such happy results where they operate on the most unpromising materials, it is clear, that whatever faults the lower ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... found an impressive scene in the gloom of the big cellar. The man who personated the inspector (he was no stranger to the part) was speaking harshly, and giving bogus orders to his bogus subordinates for the removal of his prisoners. Evidently nothing enlightening ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... and disorder we cannot suffer to continue, of women ill trained for motherhood and worked beyond care for cleanliness, of a vast amount of preventable suffering? And these figures of filth and bad clothing are paralleled by others at least equally impressive, displaying emaciation, under-nutrition, anaemia and every other painful and wretched consequence of neglect and insufficiency. These underfed, under-clothed, undersized children are also the backward children; they grow up through a darkened, joyless childhood ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... next day in the afternoon Sam received an order to report at once at the headquarters of General Laughter. He hastened to obey, and was ushered into the presence of that distinguished officer in the palace. It was an impressive sight that met his eyes. The general was believed to weigh some three hundred pounds, but he looked as if he weighed nearer five hundred. He was dressed in a white duck suit with brass buttons, the jacket unbuttoned in front and showing his underclothes. He was suffering a good deal from ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... neatly (as he described it) with riband;—the subject of the discourse being the "Abuse of Riches." Having read it over and corrected some theological errors, (such as "it is easier for a camel, as Moses says," &c.) he delivered the sermon in his most impressive style, much to the delight of his own party, and to the satisfaction, as he unsuspectingly flattered himself, of all the rest of the congregation, among whom was Mr. Sheridan's wealthy ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... boys and masters alike were there; and all by the same sudden impulse stopped where they were standing when first they saw the hearse, and stood still without a word. The scene was the more strangely impressive because it was accidental and spontaneous. Meanwhile, the coffin was carried downstairs, and placed in the hearse, which moved off slowly across the court between the line of bareheaded and motionless mourners. It was thus that Daubeny left Saint Winifred's, and passed under the Norman ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... however, a grave impressive voice was dwelling at length on a topic remote from the event of the evening. Lady Peach considered that all social gatherings, of whatever nature, were intended for the recital of minor domestic tragedies. She lost ...
— When William Came • Saki
... had fits. The town was exceedingly filthy—the remains of the crocodile they had been eating the week before last, and piles of fish offal, and remains of an elephant, hippo or manatee—I really can't say which, decomposition was too far advanced—united to form a most impressive stench. The bark huts are, as usual in a Fan town, in unbroken rows; but there are three or four streets here, not one only, as in most cases. The palaver house is in the innermost street, and there we went, and noticed that the ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... when called upon to reply: "I disclaim, with all the sincerity of my soul, any special praise for anything I have done. I have simply tried to maintain the integrity of my soul before God, and to do my duty." In Edinburgh, the "freedom of the city" was conferred upon him with impressive ceremonies—he being the third American ever thus honored. In Paris he was also received with distinction, his special mission to that city being to attend the International Anti-slavery Convention, in the capacity of a delegate ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... tall man, as an Imperial Guardsman had to be, with a finely-shaped head and dark hair that was shot through with a single streak of gray from an old burn wound. In an officer's uniform, he looked impressive, but in civilian dress he ...
— The Unnecessary Man • Gordon Randall Garrett
... stood, kingly and impressive; its fair white sides inscribed with many names; cradled in three shepherds' crooks; and on the top, as if to guard the Cup's contents, an exquisitely carved collie's head. The Shepherds' Trophy, the goal of his life's race, ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... the body of water he climbed another ridge, upon whose crest the growth of wood was slight, and took a sweeping survey of the surrounding country. The scenery was magnificent and impressive. Far to the northward rose a towering range of mountains, whose snowy peaks pierced the sky and suggested enormous white clouds piled against the horizon. To the west rose another range, one of whose summits was loftier than any within ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... wild and impressive. A wooded amphitheatre, surrounded on three sides by precipitous cliffs of naked granite, sloped gently toward the crest of another precipice that overlooked the valley. It was, undoubtedly, the most suitable spot for a camp, had camping ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... of the most finished artists in words that literature has produced. But how true George Sand's criticism is! "Chez Obermann la sensibilite est active, l'intelligence est paresseuse ou insuffisante." He has a certain antique power of making the truisms of life splendid and impressive. No one can write more poetical exercises than he on the old text of pulvis et umbra sumus, but beyond this his philosophical power fails him. As soon as he leaves the region of romantic description how wearisome ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... interment was short, and of the simplest. The committing of the dead to final rest in the earth, is always impressive. Man's innate egotism always invests the final hiding away of the remains of one of his race in perpetual oblivion, with solemnity and awe. One of the lords has departed; let man and nature observe and ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... daughter struck me as having one of the most intelligent and impressive countenances I ever looked upon, and I spoke of her as such to Mrs. Wordsworth, Miss Fenwick, and to others. The indications which I saw in her of a somewhat alarming state of health, I could not but mention to you, when you ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... The most impressive thing to me about the religion of the soldiers was its wholesomeness. "Over there" a man dared to be natural. The mask of pretense was torn off. Men were not hypocrites in the face of death. They were free; and that freedom showed itself in their religion as well as in their pleasures. ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... interested and attentive. The words were not familiar to the company, so that none could join, and the deep monotone of the woman, at first low, and by degrees becoming louder and more animated, made every word distinct and impressive. ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society
... feeling too conscious of the inadequacy of our analysis. We see human beings possessed by different impulses, and working out a pre-ordained result, as the subtle forces drive each along the path marked out for him; and history becomes the more impressive to us ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... stairs, I affect surprise and remark in a casual way that I did not know that it was circus day until I heard the elephants. This produces mouse-like stillness at once. Really, I know no other devices except being very impressive and putting quietness on the ground of ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... climb heaven-ward the Manmoda hills. On the right, with its ruined mosque and conning-tower grey in the morning light, the massive pile of Shivner frowns over the valley, like some dismasted battleship, hurled upwards into sudden petrifaction by the hands of Titans. It is an impressive scene—the pre-Christian monastery behind you; the relics of Musulman and Maratha sovereignty in front; and below, bathed in a sea of morning-mist which Surya is hastening to disperse, Junner, the town of ancient memories, in her latest avatar of a British Taluka ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... requested me to send him some seed. He said the patent-office seed was as difficult to raise as an appropriation for the St. Domingo business. The playful bean seemed also to please him; and he said he had never seen such impressive corn and potatoes at this time of year; that it was to him an unexpected pleasure, and one of the choicest memories that he should take away with him of his ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... from the sun with which she was clothed stand out in marked contrast with the later description given of her flight into and seclusion in the wilderness. The latter stage of her experience I shall describe further on, but a brief allusion to it will make her first appearance more impressive. The wilderness describes the apostasy which was to envelop the woman and thus obscure her light. Therefore her first appearance as in the planetary heavens presents a sublime description of her dignity and excellence in the morning time of the gospel era. Her light shone upon all and her glory ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... is said to have been filled with pauses due to a certain slowness of speech, but the pauses are "lit by the lightning flash of a flying eyebrow, and the impressive nodding of ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... a great cheer rose from all parts of the plain: the Royalists were descending the craggy side of Condorcanqui. Between the infantry of each division appeared the cavalry, the riders leading their horses and advancing with difficulty. It was an impressive scene, and we stood ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... general that I can only echo it. We have seen it to the greatest advantage both from Calton Hill and Arthur's Seat, and our lodgings in Princess Street allow us a fine view of the Castle, always impressive, but peculiarly so in the moonlit evenings of our first week here, when a veil of mist added to its apparent size, and at the same time gave it the air with which Martin, in his illustrations of "Paradise Lost," has invested the palace which "rose ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... and holy passion, young man," said I, somewhat startled by his impressive manner, "however presumptuous, as far as social considerations are concerned, it might be, by which you affect to be inspired, is utterly inconsistent with the cruel, dastardly crime of which such damning evidence has an ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... the star grew upon my vision, until, in time, it shone as brightly as had the planet Jupiter, in the old-earth days. With increased size, its color became more impressive; reminding me of a huge emerald, scintillating rays of fire across ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... Robison, Watt's intimate friend of youth in Glasgow, was understood to have been deeply impressive, and to have had a decisive effect upon ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... considering the length of time it had probably been there. The portrait was that of a man who might be somewhat advanced in middle life, perhaps forty-seven or forty-eight. It was a remarkable face,—a most impressive face. If you could fancy some mighty serpent transformed into man, preserving in the human lineaments the old serpent type, you would have a better idea of that countenance than long descriptions can convey: the width ...
— Haunted and the Haunters • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of &c. adj.; feel, perceive. render sensible &c. adj.; sharpen, cultivate, tutor. cause sensation, impress; excite an impression, produce an impression. Adj. sensible, sensitive, sensuous; aesthetic, perceptive, sentient; conscious &c. (aware) 490. acute, sharp, keen, vivid, lively, impressive, thin-skinned. Adv. to the quick. Phr. "the touch'd needle trembles ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... goes to hell for ten years to save her husband, and stays there another ten, having been granted permission to carry away as many souls as could cling to her skirt. L'eo Lesp'es may have added a few details, but I have no doubt of the essential antiquity of what seems to me the most impressive form of one of the supreme parables of the world. The parable came to the Greeks in the sacrifice of Alcestis, but her sacrifice was less overwhelming, less apparently irremediable. L'eo Lesp'es tells ...
— The Countess Cathleen • William Butler Yeats
... them. It is not enough to hope (or fear?) the rising of new forms; we have also to investigate the possibility of upholding the forms and ideals which have hitherto been the bases of human life. Darwin has here given his age the most earnest and most impressive lesson. This side of Darwin's theory is of peculiar interest to some special philosophical problems to which I ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... Prussia—visiting the Universities, and storing his mind with German literature. From the walls of a convent he commanded a view of part of the field of Hohenlinden during that sanguinary contest, and proceeded afterwards in the track of Moreau's army over the scene of combat. This impressive sight produced the Battle of Hohenlinden—an ode which is as original as it is spirited, and stands by itself in British literature. The poet tells a story of the phlegm of a German postilion at this time, who was driving him post by a place ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 407, December 24, 1829. • Various
... comet-like streamers into which the whole ponderous volume of the fall separates, two or three hundred feet below the brow. So glorious a display of pure wildness, acting at close range while cut off from all the world beside, is terribly impressive. A less nerve-trying view may be obtained from a fissured portion of the edge of the cliff about forty yards to the eastward of the fall. Seen from this point towards noon, in the spring, the rainbow on its brow seems to be ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... and keeping them so. What this rule is does not matter so much. A good rule is better than a bad one, but any rule is better than none; while, for reasons which a jurist will appreciate, none can be very good. But to gain that rule, what may be called the impressive elements of a polity are incomparably more important than its useful elements. How to get the obedience of men is the hard problem; what you do with ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... it, he guessed it must be the Episcopal ritual for horseback exercise. My vocal cords, while tuning for my lowly part in life's orchestra, for a day at a time would seem to stick to a decent tenor or drop to an impressive bass which would have fitted me to be a preacher, but a sudden attack of mumps, with measles complicating, pulled them to one side and burned the bridge. They afterward drew tight down on the sounding board, so that now when I talk the rickety buzz is like that of a horse-fiddle played ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... had achieved in words of energetic simplicity, more impressive than all the tinsel of rhetoric. [Footnote: Witness the following. He speaks of himself in the third person. "To acquit himself of the commission with which he was charged, he has neglected all his private affairs, because they were alien to his enterprise; he has omitted nothing ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... slight titter at this sly reference to the magnitude of the lies that would have to be taken in, but Ujarak's vanity rendered him invulnerable to such light shafts. After glaring round with impressive solemnity, so as to deepen the silence and intensify ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... walked down Fifth Avenue the other day (In the languid summertime everybody strolls down Fifth Avenue); And I passed women, dainty in their filmy frocks, And much bespatted men with canes. And great green busses lumbered past me, And impressive limousines, ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... impregnate and to elevate the mind. —And if the vulgar joy by its own weight Wearied itself out of the memory, The scenes which were a witness of that joy Remained in their substantial lineaments 600 Depicted on the brain, and to the eye Were visible, a daily sight; and thus By the impressive discipline of fear, By pleasure and repeated happiness, So frequently repeated, and by force 605 Of obscure feelings representative Of things forgotten, these same scenes so bright, So beautiful, so majestic in themselves, Though yet the day was distant, did become Habitually ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... by the committee appointed at the first session. We do not know now why the change was made, though there must have been some little discussion, as it was only made by a vote of 6 to 5. We can only imagine now how much more beautiful and impressive the buildings of the future University might have been, lining the brows of the hills overlooking the Huron Valley, rather than spreading over the flat rough clearing of the Rumsey farm that by that time had lost the attraction which the original forest trees must once ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... sees a tendency to gloat over the ghastly exhibits. The pictures portray gallows with a large number of natives hanging side by side. In some, soldiers are drawn up in hollow square, one side of it open to the civil population, and there is little doubt that these are punitive and impressive official executions, carried out under "proper judicial conditions" as conceived by Germans. But what offends one's taste so much are the photographs of German officers and men standing with self-conscious and self-satisfied expressions beside the grim gallows on which their victims ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... all other nations revolved. His mind was polemical, not philosophic; a great theologian, he was but an indifferent historian. In one particular, indeed, his observations are admirable, and, at times, in the highest degree impressive. He never loses sight of the divine superintendence of human affairs; he sees in all the revolutions of empires the progress of a mighty plan for the ultimate redemption of mankind; and he traces the workings ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... 4: Benjamin Franklin's visit to the University of Goettingen is described in the Goettingische Anzeigen for Sept. 13, 1766, which states that the session of the Royal Society of Sciences held on the 19th of the preceding July was more impressive than usual. "The two famous English scholars, the royal physician, Mr. Pringle, and Mr. Benjamin Franklin, from Pennsylvania, who happened to be at that time in Goettingen on a trip through Germany, took their seats as members of ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... in the collected courage of a brave man more impressive than any menace; and courage is a thing which acts upon all natures, however vile. Strongly moved by the calm audacity of the magistrate the ruffian, who had seized the knife with menacing vivacity, now set it down upon the table, and with a faltering voice ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... impressive in his commands upon these points, and the chief pledged his faith upon them, delighted beyond measure by the promise of an ample supply of powder, blankets, and provisions for his tribe, while the Intendant added an abundance of all such delicacies as could be forwarded, for the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... of astonishment when remonstrated with for what appeared a most dare-devil performance. The only person, of course, that could remonstrate with telling effect was our captain, himself a man of dare-devil tradition; and really, for me, who knew under whom I was serving, those were impressive scenes. Captain S- had a great name for sailor-like qualities—the sort of name that compelled my youthful admiration. To this day I preserve his memory, for, indeed, it was he in a sense who completed my training. It was often a stormy process, but let that pass. I am sure he meant well, ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad |
