"Impassible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the guests had remained, in appearance at least, the most impassible during this scene. He was a man between thirty-three and thirty-four years of age, with blond hair, red beard, a calm, handsome face, with large blue eyes, a fair skin, refined and intelligent lips, and very tall, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... the last stage of human existence. He was ninety-two years of age. The lines in his face were cordage, his aspect was stony and impassible, and he was all but impervious to passing events; his thin blood had almost ceased to circulate in his extremities; for every drop he had was needed to keep his old heart a-beating at all, instead of stopping like a clock that ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... Always the same impassible member of the Reform Club, whom no incident could surprise, as unvarying as the ship's chronometers, and seldom having the curiosity even to go upon the deck, he passed through the memorable scenes of the Red Sea with cold indifference; did not care to recognise ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... attention, other than what might be founded on suspicion only. In my own person also, as a successful author in another department of literature, I might have been charged with too frequent intrusions on the public patience; but the Author of Waverley was in this respect as impassible to the critic as the Ghost of Hamlet to the partisan of Marcellus. Perhaps the curiosity of the public, irritated by the existence of a secret, and kept afloat by the discussions which took place on the subject from time to time, went a good way to maintain an unabated interest in these frequent ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... that the very first words Henry Dunbar said to his daughter were uttered in a tone of anger. The girl drew herself away from him, and looked up almost piteously in her father's face. That face was as pale as death: but cold, stern, and impassible. Laura Dunbar shivered as she looked at it. She had been a spoiled child; a pampered, idolized beauty; and had never heard anything but words of love and tenderness. Her lips quivered, and the tears ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... surrounded on all sides by high mountains, lived a community or body of people who had never been outside the valley. To them the mountains proved an impassible barrier and they had no wish or desire to penetrate beyond. For generations they had lived in this peaceful retreat happy and content. The ground yielded sufficient for their wants and needs. No one in this little world was richer than his neighbor and if one of the community fell ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt
... moment the Chief's countenance had been impassible. No look either of admiration or dislike had appeared upon that grim and war-painted visage. But now, as Louis spoke, Tatua's face assumed a glance of ineffable scorn, as, bending his head, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... usually impassible woman was deeply excited. Her selfish nature made her grudge any of her husband's estate to others, except, indeed, to Godfrey, who was the only person she cared for. As she thought over the unjust disposition, as she regarded it, which her husband had made of his property, a red spot glowed ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... pretend, that matter is called unqualified not because it is void of all quality, but because it has all qualities, it is most of all against sense. For no man calls that unqualified which is capable of every quality, nor that impassible which is by nature always apt to suffer all things, nor that immovable which is moved every way. And this doubt is not solved, that, however matter is always understood with quality, yet it is understood to be another ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... obtund^, numb, benumb, paralyze, deaden, hebetate^, stun, stupefy; brutify^; brutalize; chloroform, anaesthetize^, put under; assify^. inure; harden the heart; steel, caseharden, sear. Adj. insensible, unconscious; impassive, impassible; blind to, deaf to, dead to; unsusceptible, insusceptible; unimpressionable^, unimpressible^; passionless, spiritless, heartless, soulless; unfeeling, unmoral. apathetic; leuco-^, phlegmatic; dull, frigid; cold blooded, cold hearted; cold as charity; flat, maudlin, obtuse, inert, supine, sluggish, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... when he was absent that the wide difference in the motives which actuated their lives became clearly visible, and Aunt Faith saw worldliness on one side, and unworldliness on the other, with an apparently impassible gulf between. When Mr. Leslie spoke, therefore, Sibyl smiled, and took a seat by his side while she occupied herself in wrapping up the cups and saucers ready for the hamper which Nanny and Bridget were packing on the ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... vainement qu'ici nous nous aimmes! Rien ne nous restera de ces coteaux fleuris O nous fondions notre tre en y mlant nos flammes! L'impassible nature ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... higher in the passage, and it seemed to the boys that by this time most of the lower gangways were entirely impassible. ...
— Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns • Major Archibald Lee Fletcher
... Heaven, the Impassible Divinity occupies the highest seat; underneath, face to face, are the Son of God and the ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... is there room for spontaneous feeling, springing from His own nature, the necessary concomitant of thought and will. Impassibility is a comprehensive attribute. Originally negative, it soon acquired a rich positive connotation. An impassible God is one who is outside space and time. The attribute connotes creative power, eternity, infinity, permanence. A passible God is corruptible, i.e. susceptible to the processes of becoming, change, ...
— Monophysitism Past and Present - A Study in Christology • A. A. Luce
... The theme of melancholy is as follows: "The moon appeared. . . . What is the moon, and what is its nocturnal magic to me? One hour more or less is nothing to me." This might very well be Lamartine. We then have the malediction pronounced in face of impassible Nature: "Yes, I detested that radiant and magnificent Nature, for it was there before me in all its stupid beauty, silent and proud, for us to gaze on, believing that it was enough to merely show itself." ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... whom England and all Europe, saving only the Frenchmen, worshipt almost, had this of the god-like in him: that he was impassible before victory, before danger, before defeat. Before the greatest obstacle or the most trivial ceremony; before a hundred thousand men drawn in battalia, or a peasant slaughtered at the door of his burning hovel; before a carouse of drunken German lords, or a monarch's court, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... the good government of Ireland by England is impossible, not so much by reason of natural obstacles, but because of the radical, essential difference in the public order of the two countries. This, considered in the abstract, makes a gulf profound, impassible—an obstacle no human ingenuity can ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... all the disabilities and pains and absence, 'yet believing,' you can put out a long arm of faith across the gulf that lies, not only between to-day and eighteen centuries ago, but the deeper and more impassible gulf that lies between earth and heaven, and clasp Christ with a really firm grasp, which will fill the hand, and which we shall feel has laid hold of something, or rather has laid hold of a living person and a loving heart. That is faith. The Apostle uses a very strong form of expression ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... and where their number is not up to the mark, the blood acts more feebly on the organs, life is calmer, and people are no longer troubled with emotions—in other words, with violent heats of the blood. Hence the impassible character of lymphatic people, who often get on in the struggle of life better than others, because they are never in a hurry, and know how to wait for opportunities. You will occasionally hear the word lymphatic, for it ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... neglected on the table, spread it out and began to go over it once more with his finger, enumerating now the members of the family who were still living: Eugene Rougon, a fallen majesty, who remained in the Chamber, the witness, the impassible defender of the old world swept away at the downfall of the Empire. Aristide Saccard, who, after having changed his principles, had fallen upon his feet a republican, the editor of a great journal, on the way to make new millions, ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... Monsieur Grandet was something between a tiger and a boa-constrictor. He could crouch and lie low, watch his prey a long while, spring upon it, open his jaws, swallow a mass of louis, and then rest tranquilly like a snake in process of digestion, impassible, methodical, and cold. No one saw him pass without a feeling of admiration mingled with respect and fear; had not every man in Saumur felt the rending of those polished steel claws? For this one, Maitre Cruchot had procured the money ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... yesterday to San Angelo, one of the prettiest villages in the environs of Mexico, and spent the day at the hacienda of Seor T—-e, which is in the neighbourhood. The rain has rendered the roads almost impassible, and the country round Mexico must be more like Cortes's description of it at this season, than at any other period. One part of the road near the hacienda, which is entirely destroyed, the owner of the house wished to repair; but ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... these, which had been dim and vague until then, or but slightly regarded when they came up, returned upon their excited fancies with intense force at this parting moment. Dr. Ferguson, still cold and impassible, talked of this, that, and the other; but he strove in vain to overcome this infectious gloominess. He ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... which are now desirable for mill-sites and for generating power, on account of the directness with which they receive the sun's rays and their freedom from clouds. Mile after mile Africa has been won for the uses of civilization, till great stretches that were considered impassible are as productive as gardens. Our condensers, which compress, cool, and rarefy air, enabling travellers to obtain water and even ice from the atmosphere, are great aids in desert exploration, removing absolutely the principal distress ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... difficulty of ascending the precipice, he said to the same officer in a familiar strain, "I don't believe there is any possibility of getting up; but you must do your endeavour." The narrow path that slanted up the hill from the landing place the enemy had broken up, and rendered impassible by cross ditches, besides the intrenchment at the top: in every other part the hill was so steep and dangerous, that the soldiers were obliged to pull themselves up by the roots and boughs of trees growing on both sides ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... all that retained even a memory of her youth. The dark blue of the iris still cast its passionate fires, to which the woman's life seemed to have retreated, deserting the cold, impassible face, and glowing with an expression of devotion when the welfare of ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... of the Infinite Mind. What can still be wanting to our hearts? The thought that God desires our good,—that He loves us. If it is so, we shall be able to understand that our cause is His, that He is not an impassible sun whose rays fall on us with indifference, but a Father who is moved at our sorrows, and who would have us find joy and peace in Him. This will be the subject of our next ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... day, converting the rich soil on which we were encamped into one mass of soft, sticky clay. In the forenoon, fearing the rain would continue so as to render the valley (through which we must pass to gain the firmer ground) impassible, I ordered my men to prepare to march, and leave the tent with its contents standing, the point which I wished to gain being distant only about five hundred yards. When the oxen were inspanned, however, and we attempted to ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... for Montgomery instantly to avail himself of this first impression. Cape Diamond, around which he was to make his way, presents a precipice, the foot of which is washed by the river, where enormous and rugged masses of ice had been piled on each other, so as to render the way almost impassible. Along the scanty path leading under the projecting rocks of the precipice, the Americans pressed forward in a narrow file, until they reached the block-house and picket. Montgomery, who was himself in front, assisted with his own hands to cut down ...
— An interesting journal of Abner Stocking of Chatham, Connecticut • Abner Stocking
... to be mortal, except one, who alone is immortal, impassible, invisible. Pindar plainly saith that there is no more thread, that is to say, no more life, spun from the distaff and flax of the hard-hearted Fates for the goddesses Hamadryades than there is for those ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... mystic punishments. No one can be initiated, says Suidas, until after he has proven, by the most terrible trials, that he possesses a virtuous soul, exempt from the sway of every passion, and at it were impassible. There were twelve principal tests; and some make the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... bones, which must be placed in the definition of man, as is plain from the Philosopher (Metaph. vii, 39). Secondly, because this would lessen the truth of such things as Christ did in the body. For since a heavenly body is impassible and incorruptible, as is proved De Coel. i, 20, if the Son of God had assumed a heavenly body, He would not have truly hungered or thirsted, nor would he have undergone His passion and death. Thirdly, this would have detracted from God's truthfulness. For since the Son of God showed Himself to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... given her time to quell her emotion in this earnest speech, and he shuddered as he met the look of impassible and contemptuous determination with which she answered him—"Why will you weary me with proposals which I have a hundred times rejected, and will reject again, as often as it shall please you to amuse yourself by making ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... to the inn, the weather, which had been threatening for some time past, became very tempestuous. It rained for three successive days and the roads were almost impassible. To continue my journey was wholly out of the question. I determined therefore, to take a seat in the coach for Halifax, and defer until next year the remaining part of my tour. Mr. Slick agreed ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... his mournful kiss on the icy brow. These offices fulfilled, he took Haco's arm, and leaning on it, returned to the spot on which they had left their steeds. Not evincing surprise or awe,—emotions that seemed unknown to his gloomy, settled, impassible nature—Haco said calmly, ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the floor, opened its wide mouth full of fire, and breathed on us with heat and stared at our endless work through the two black air-holes above the forehead. These two cavities were like eyes—pitiless and impassible eyes of a monster: they stared at us with the same dark gaze, as though they had grown tired of looking at slaves, and expecting nothing human from them, despised them with the cold contempt of wisdom. Day in and day out, amid flour-dust and mud and thick, bad-odored ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... as much struck as I was at the behavior of my lord Faruskiar. This Mongol, usually so calm, so impassible, with his cool look beneath his motionless eyelid, had become a prey to a sort of furious anxiety which he appeared incapable of controlling. His companion was as excited as he was. But what was there in these two missing ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... heart, at last freed from its weight of conventional duties, and forced submission to the requirements of court etiquette, soared high into regions of exultant happiness. His countenance, once so cold and impassible, was now full of joyous changes; his eyes, once so dull and weary, glowed with the fire of awakened enthusiasm, and they looked so brilliant a blue, that it seemed as if some little ray from heaven had found its way into ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... bow; then he returned to the large, cold, bare apartment. The attitude, countenance, and gait of this personage seemed to have undergone a sudden change. He appeared to have increased in dimensions. He was no longer an automaton, moved by the mechanism of humble obedience. His features, till now impassible, his glance, hitherto subdued, became suddenly animated with an expression of diabolical craft; a sardonic smile curled his thin, pale lips, and a look of grim satisfaction ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... galley to put the kettle on—and 'pose you wanted to burn the tip of your little finger just now, it's not in the galley that you find a berth for it—and den the water before seven bells. I've a notion it's just impassible." ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... merciful intention of those hands that do destroy themselves? the Devil, were it in his power, would do the like; which being impossible, his miseries are endless, and he suffers most in that attribute wherein he is impassible, his immortality. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... journey was long and wearisome; and it was not until the evening of the fifth day after leaving Cincinnati, that they arrived at Painted Posts—a village about twenty miles distant from their destination. From this place the road became almost impassible, and the toil of travelling very disheartening. They were frequently obliged to make a long circuit to avoid some monster tree which had fallen just across the track, and to ford streams whose stony beds and swift-flowing waters presented a fearful aspect. Mr Jones the wagoner ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... anthropomorphitism of their representations of the Deity; and yet the heathen philosophers and priests—Plutarch for instance—tell us as plainly as Donne or Aquinas can do, that these are only accommodations to human modes of conception,—the divine nature being in itself impassible;—how otherwise could it be the ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... Only don't absolutely shake her in her bed before her thirteenth hour of rest, and you may say what you please. It cannot be implied that she is hardened, for no such quality is compatible with her character. But she smiles every joke and every advice aside with such an air of impassible benignity, that you see it is of no use to think of reforming ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... with feelings which may be imagined, that nothing I could do would be likely to arouse Mr. Allison to an immediate sense of his danger, for not only were the windows shut between us, but he was lost in one of his brooding spells, which to all appearance made him quite impassible to surrounding events. ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... its poetry, its impressive contrasts, Shakespeare, as I said, conveys to us a strong sense of the tyranny of nature and [180] circumstance over human action. The most powerful expressions of this side of experience might be found here. The bloodless, impassible temperament does but wait for its opportunity, for the almost accidental coherence of time with place, and place with wishing, to annul its long and patient discipline, and become in a moment the very opposite of that which under ordinary ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... prove insufficient where the specific properties and heterogeneous nature of matter come into play; it is to be feared that, by persisting in the pursuit of laws, we may find our course suddenly arrested by an impassible chasm. The principle of unity is lost sight of, and the guiding clew is rent asunder whenever any specific and peculiar kind of action manifests itself amid the active forces of nature. The law of equivalents and the numerical proportions of composition, so happily recognized ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... Government, discouraged by these disasters were desirous of peace on any terms, their deputies were sent to Detroit, they offered to confine their Pretensions within certain limits far South of the Lakes. if this offer had been accepted the Indian Country would have been for ages an impassible Barrier between us. twas unfortunately perhaps wantonly rejected, and ...
— The Character and Influence of the Indian Trade in Wisconsin • Frederick Jackson Turner
... most severe winter I ever remember—the whole Kingdom was rendered impassible from the deepness of the snow & the streets in London were in a state I never heard ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... same centrifugal forces were at work in northwestern Virginia and western Pennsylvania, a region which felt its isolation keenly. "Separated by a vast, extensive and almost impassible Tract of Mountains, by Nature itself formed and pointed out as a Boundary between this Country and those below it," the settlers of this trans-Alleghany region besought Congress to recognize them as a "sister colony and fourteenth province of the ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... Sat-yrs, and to be conquered with the love of women; and at last, being unable to take the cloak off of Nessus, he kindled his own funeral pile and died. Such are specimens of the ancient myths. Their character is such as to leave an impassible gulf between them and the character of the God revealed in our religion. No development theory, seeking the origin of our religion in the old mythical system, can bridge across this chasm. It is as deep and broad as the distance between ...
— The Christian Foundation, April, 1880
... stopped, as before, by an immense frozen expanse, which filled the whole area of the southern horizon. The northern edge of this expanse was ragged and broken, so firmly wedged together as to be utterly impassible, and extending about a mile to the southward. Behind it the frozen surface was comparatively smooth for some distance, until terminated in the extreme background by gigantic ranges of ice mountains, the one towering above the other. Captain Cook concluded ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Madame la Comtesse de Hamal, and asked how it sounded, a score of times. I said very little. I gave her only the crust and rind of my nature. No matter she expected of me nothing better—she knew me too well to look for compliments—my dry gibes pleased her well enough and the more impassible and prosaic my mien, the more ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... is anything of a nature to cause sovereigns to reflect, it is that, more or less impassible spectators of human calamities, they are, by the very constitution of society and the nature of their power, absolutely powerless to cure the sufferings of their subjects; they are even prohibited from paying any attention to them. Every question of labor and wages, say with one accord the ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... a certain mystery about the habits of their convivial host, the guests were silent for a while—all watching his movements and the play of his features; but the impassible countenance of Don Estevan did not betray a single emotion that was passing his mind, even to the most acute observer around the table. In truth he was a man who well knew how to dissemble his thoughts, and perhaps on that very occasion, more than ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... brother! and this clime Wherein thou art, impassible and pure, I call created, as indeed they are In their whole being. But the elements, Which thou hast nam'd, and what of them is made, Are by created virtue' inform'd: create Their substance, and create the' informing virtue In these bright stars, that round them circling move ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... mesenteric veins. You discover in it all the same organs of feeling that are in yourself. Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the means of feeling in this animal, so that it may not feel? has it nerves in order to be impassible? Do not suppose this impertinent contradiction ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... down, his lips so thin, so imperceptible, that his mouth seemed cut in his face; when he smiled in a wicked and sinister manner, the ends of his teeth could be seen, black and decayed. Closely shaved to his temples, this man's countenance had an expression austere, sanctified, impassible, rigid, cold and reflecting; his little black eyes—quick, piercing, restless,—were hidden by large ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... judgment of the mortal soul by Osiris, no transfer of human love and hate, passions and hopes, to the powers above; all here is ascribed to disembodied agencies or principles, and their works are represented as moving on in quiet order. There is no religion [!], no imagination; all is impassible, passionless, uninteresting.... It has not, as in Greece and Egypt, been explained in sublime poetry, shadowed forth in gorgeous ritual and magnificent festivals, represented in exquisite sculptures, nor preserved in faultless, imposing fanes and temples, filled with ideal creations." ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... not have wings on his shoulders, we should not be deceived regarding his nature. A divine indifference is depicted upon his charming face, and almost a smile lurks in the corners of his lips. He accomplishes the commission given him by the Eternal with an impassible serenity. ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... sound, and the colour rose in her small dark face. English departed from her. 'Je ne le regrette pas du tout, du tout!' she cried with a flood of words. 'Madame—ah! je me jetterais au leu pour madame—une femme si charmante, si adorable! Mais un homme comme monsieur—maussade, boudeur, impassible! Ah, non!—de ma vie! J'en avais par-dessus la tete, de monsieur! Ah! vrai! Est-ce insupportable, tout de meme, qu'il existe des types comme ca? Je vous ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... Or like the thrill of Aeolian strings In which the sudden wind-god rings. In caves and hollow trees he crept And near the wolf and panther slept. He came to the green ocean's brim And saw the wheeling sea-birds skim, Summer and winter, o'er the wave, Like creatures of a skiey mould, Impassible to heat or cold. He stood before the tumbling main With joy too tense for sober brain; He shared the life of the element, The tie of blood and home was rent: As if in him the welkin walked, The winds took flesh, the mountains talked, And he the bard, a crystal soul Sphered and concentric with ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... potent as that of warring good and evil, with this important difference, that the former is but for a season, and will one day bind as strongly as it parted, while the latter is essential, absolute, impassible, eternal. ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... partly covered with logs and rails, but once across we were in the town and when we enquired about the road around to Detroit, they said the country was all a swamp and 30 miles wide and in Spring impassible. They called it the Maumee or Black Swamp, We were advised to go by water, when a steamboat came up the river bound for Detroit we put our wagons and horses on board, and camped on the lower deck ourselves. We had our own food and were very ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... with dignity, and returned to the house without looking back, impassible as her mother had been for one day only, but more pitiless. The searching eye of that young girl had discovered, though tardily, the secrets of her mother's heart, and her hatred to the man whom she fancied fatal to her mother's life ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... evidently very opportune, for the visitor let himself fall heavily into an arm-chair. Great drops of perspiration were on his forehead, his lips were pallid: at intervals he looked at the journalist, whose impassible countenance did not seem to invite confidences. The poor trooper lost countenance more and more: Fandor ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... indeed a Brahmana, the manly, the noble, the hero, the great sage, the conqueror, the impassible, the accomplished, ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown
... hereafter. Who can but pity the merciful intention of those hands that do destroy themselves? The devil, were it in his power, would do the like; which being impossible, his miseries are endless, and he suffers most in that attribute wherein he is impassible—his immortality. ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... day. She gave a slight rocking motion to her seat, leaning back with half-closed eyes, her long hair shading her face from the smoky light of the lamp on the table. Almayer looked at her furtively, but the face was as impassible as ever. She turned her head slightly towards her father, and, speaking, to his great ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... up in the mountains. There was a daily mail in that direction, except when the roads and the weather hindered; and it seemed that these would now be hinderances. The threatened storm came, and with it high wind which piled the snow into deep, hard drifts, making the mountain road nearly impassible. Dorian found the mail-carrier who told him that it would be impossible to make a start until the storm had ceased. All day the snow fell, and all day Dorian fretted impatiently, and was tempted to once more go out to Mr. and Mrs. Whitman; but he did not. Christmas was only three days off. He ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... insensate, insentient, numb, apathetic, impassible, impassive; stoic, callous, cruel, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... Quasimodo, impassible, did not wince. All resistance had been rendered impossible to him by what was then called, in the style of the criminal chancellery, "the vehemence and firmness of the bonds" which means that the thongs and chains probably cut into his flesh; ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... of this manner of pleasure, and he shall take little pleasure in it, and say he careth not to have his flesh shine, he, nor like a spark of fire to skip about in the sky. Tell him that his body shall be impassible and never feel harm, and he will think then that he shall never be ahungered or athirst, and shall thereby forbear all his pleasure of eating and drinking, and that he shall never wish for sleep, and shall thereby lose the pleasure that he was wont to take ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... Spruit, below the Zwaartkop, was a ragged gash in the earth, hidden from all approaches by dense bushes of wacht een beetje thorn. The spruit was here throttled between banks of worn stone, and the water roared over the drift at a depth that made it impassible to foot- farers. Its name Morder Drift (Murder Ford), was secured to it no less by its savage aspect than by the incident associated ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... it is, every day, to show to strangers wonders that throw them into perfect ecstasies of admiration! He gets so that he could not by any possibility live in a soberer atmosphere. After we discovered this, we never went into ecstasies any more—we never admired any thing—we never showed any but impassible faces and stupid indifference in the presence of the sublimest wonders a guide had to display. We had found their weak point. We have made good use of it ever since. We have made some of those people savage, at times, but we have never lost our ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... they made great leaps and twisted about their hands and feet. Lactantius shouted forth his exorcisms; Barre threw himself upon his knees with all the old women; and Mignon and the judges applauded. The impassible Laubardemont made the sign of the cross, without being struck dead for it! When Monsieur du Lude took back his box the nuns became still. 'I think,' said Lactantius, insolently, 'that—you will ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... children. But though he left no wish of theirs ungratified, he seemed to have forfeited his power to draw and hold them to himself. He was more like an unobtrusive guest than a master in his house. His children loved, but never clung to him, because unseen, yet impassible, rose the barrier of an instinctive protest against the wrong done their dead mother, unconscious on their part but terribly ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... remained unbroken even at the moment when she became the mother of Christ. But the rashness of these concessions has encouraged a milder sentiment of those of the Docetes, who taught, not that Christ was a phantom, but that he was clothed with an impassible and incorruptible body. Such, indeed, in the more orthodox system, he has acquired since his resurrection, and such he must have always possessed, if it were capable of pervading, without resistance or injury, the density of intermediate matter. Devoid of its most ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... by an invincible curiosity, the old mulatto followed the ever increasing throng into the peristyle; then passing through a double row of footmen, in resplendent blue and silver liveries, and standing as impassible as soldiers, he finally reached the reception room, where another army of servants in blue coats, black silk breeches and white silk stockings, stood in array. Although the modest appearance of the guests ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... passion, passive, impassive, impassioned, compassion, pathos, pathetic, impatient, apathy, sympathy, antipathy; (2) passible, impassible, dispassionate, pathology, telepathy, hydropathy, homeopathy, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... to sit down again; his legs refused to bear his weight; he turned pale; and that nature, ordinarily so impassible, seemed about to give way under the shock of ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... which the long slight lance was held, that had an unmistakably Eastern look about it. There was a certain air of dignity too about my friend which contributed to his Arab-like appearance. Yet it was not exactly the dignity of the grave and impassible Eastern man. It was a mixture of dignity and jauntiness. There was a certain air of self-consciousness about the man in the cloak and brigand's hat that told you clearly enough that he knew he was riding remarkably well, and expected you ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... had been exceedingly tiring, and the youth could scarcely drag one foot after the other, as the party of three hurried along over rocks and through thickets which at certain points seemed almost impassible. ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... rely on his marvellous physical gifts grew on him as he became older, which was to be expected with a man of his temperament. Even in his early days, when he was not in action, he had an impassible and slumberous look; and when he sat listening to the invective of Hayne, no emotion could be traced on his cold, dark, melancholy face, or in the cavernous eyes shining with a dull light. This all vanished when he began ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge |
