"Impervious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was worth while to marry Abel since she could not marry Mr. Mullen. Marriage, having few illusions for her, possessed, perhaps for that reason, the greater practical value. She was unhappy with her stepmother in a negative way, but so impervious had she become to casual annoyances, that she hardly weighed the disadvantages of her home against the probable relinquishment of Mrs. Mullen's washing day after her marriage to Abel. Her soul was crushed like a trapped creature in the iron grip of a hopeless passion, and her insensibility ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... unsheltered and alone, upon nothing but tobacco and snow! On losing his way, not thinking of crossing the snow-bridge, he struck right up the mountain side, in search, first of the path, and afterwards of some hut or shelter. He then gradually got into thick and almost impervious cover; not a habitation of any sort was within miles of him, and thus he wandered about for two days and nights. On the third day he descended again towards the torrent, and, falling and stumbling, reached a rock on its bank, and there ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... distance from the banks; and its visits to the water are usually nocturnal. It is an object of chase among the native Indians, who prize both its flesh and skin; but its capture is by no means an easy matter, since its thick hide renders it impervious to the tiny arrow ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... hill-farm, some place favorable for the growth of a maple orchard—some rocky spots yielding little grass, and impervious for the plough. Such spots may be favorably chosen for the growth of a maple orchard; and whether the increase be used for manufacturing sugar or molasses, or for timber or fuel, the proprietor of the land will find a profit better than ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... the travellers would have laughed incredulously at the idea of liquids being conveyed in baskets; but now they took it quite as a matter of course, for they had by this time grown quite familiar with the native basket, so exquisitely woven out of grass as to be quite impervious to leakage). They accepted the gift with a few words—but not too many—of thanks, and then, desirous of creating a good impression upon the Makolo as early as might be, they directed the women to wait, and, going ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... this in Miss Affleck," the vicar said to her one day when she had been speaking to him on the subject. "She seemed at one time so docile, so teachable, so easy to be won, and now it is impossible not to see that there is something at work neutralising all our efforts and making her impervious to instruction. But, my dear Mrs. Churton, we know the reason of this; Miss Affleck is too young, too ignorant and impressible not to fall completely under ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... night and day in the forest impervious to the sun and moon's rays, the sudden transition to light has a fine heart-cheering effect. In coming out of the woods you see the western bank of the Essequibo before you, low and flat. Proceeding onwards past many islands which enliven the scene, you get to the falls and rapids. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... that they please no more; Now pall the tastless Meats, and joyless Wines, And Luxury with Sighs her Slave resigns. Approach, ye Minstrels, try the soothing Strain, And yield the tuneful Lenitives of Pain: No Sounds alas would touch th' impervious Ear, Though dancing Mountains witness'd Orpheus near; Nor Lute nor Lyre his feeble Pow'rs attend, Nor sweeter Musick of a virtuous Friend, But everlasting Dictates croud his Tongue, Perversely grave, or positively ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... of $1,000 for his apprehension, dead or alive. The person who caught him is still living. I saw the negro when he was brought to Suffolk and lodged in jail. He had been shot at several times, but was little hurt. He had on a coat that was impervious to shot, it being thickly wadded with turkey feathers. Small shot were the only kind used to shoot runaway slaves, and it was very seldom the case that any ever penetrated far enough to injure. I know three persons now living who ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... men was standing by a window, peering through a field-glass at the more ardent and impervious enthusiasts who ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... idea of the hill country, apart from that of the Plain, a walk should be taken, by those who are impervious to fatigue, to Broad Chalke, about seven miles from East Harnham, or even farther to Berwick St. John, more than six miles higher up the stream. The river Ebble itself, if river it can be called, is rarely ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... had scarcely arrived at the encampment, when snow began to fall, and an early winter seemed to be setting in. It was deemed expedient for the united party to establish winter quarters there. They erected very comfortable lodges, of buffalo skins, quite impervious to wind and rain, and made everything snug for a mountain home. They had food in abundance, ample materials for making and repairing their clothing, and when gathered around their bright and warm camp-fires seemed to ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... his countenance curiosity had mingled with the expectation. He glanced at it. A shadow swept over his face but vanished instantly: the mask of impervious non expression which a man of his breeding always knows how to assume, was already ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... explanations for which it may be required. Sometimes this principle has weight, and sometimes it has not; sometimes it is free fire and sometimes it is fire combined with the earthy element; sometimes it passes through the pores of vessels, sometimes these are impervious to it; it explains both causticity and non-causticity, transparency and opacity, colours and their absence; it is a veritable Proteus changing in form at each instant." Lavoisier may be justly regarded as the founder of modern or quantitative chemistry. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... the roof and sometimes the walls covered with palm leaves, which are impervious to rain, and will last about five years, when they have to be renewed. The floor is generally covered with rough boards, far enough off the ground to make a chicken-house underneath, or else room to tie up a bull or cariboo, or to put the ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... choked with a bar of sand, and crossed with peril.[145] This they called "Hell's gates,"—not less appropriate to the place, than to the character and torment of the inhabitants: beyond, they saw impenetrable forests, skirted with an impervious thicket; and beyond still, enormous mountains covered with snow, which rose to the clouds like walls of adamant: every object wore the air of rigour, ferocity, ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... black gown, made in the deepest fashion of mourning devisable, pale, silent, feverish, like an avenging spirit on his track; undoing what he had done if he had profaned an embodied memory of her mother, and as impervious to his anger as he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... what the poetry of passion ought to be—glowing but through a veil, and stealing upon the heart from concealment. Few of the ancients have attained this modesty of description, which, like the golden cloud that hung over Jupiter and Juno, is impervious to every ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... urbane, suburban Vado, vasum go pervade, invasion Valeo, validum be strong prevail, invalid Venio, ventum come intervene, adventure Verto, versum turn divert, adverse *Verus true verdict, veracity *Via way obviate, impervious, trivial Video, visum see provide, revise Vinco, victum conquer province, convict Vir man triumvir, virtue Vivo, victum live vivacious, vivisect Voco, vocatum call revoke, avocation *Volo wish malevolent, voluntary Volvo, volutum turn revolver, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... and operation of the tricuspid valves in the right ventricle, and of the sigmoid valves at the beginning of the pulmonary artery and aorta, and that there were only two ventricles separated by a solid impervious septum. These were afterwards described in greater detail by Vesalius, who nevertheless appears not to have been aware of the important use which might be made ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Beaver skins were nearly as cheap as cloth, and the wife of the poorest habitant could have a winter wardrobe that it would nowadays cost a small fortune to provide. Heavy clogs made of hide—the bottes sauvages as they were called—or moccasins of tanned and oiled skins, impervious to the wet, were the popular footwear in winter and to some extent in summer as well. They were laced high up above the ankles, and with a liberal supply of coarse-knitted woollen socks the people managed to trudge anywhere ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... his words cut short, his tones in turn suppliant and proud; I know nothing grander than the sublime passion of this noble heart bursting out in petitions, menaces, prayers, now caressing, now terrible, growing by degrees more angry in face of this cruel refusal, ready for the last extremities, impervious to the counsels of reason, so violent and sacred were the sentiments by which he ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... architecture, struck the eager eye with mixed melancholy and surprise! The singular half-circular, and half square, corner towers, hanging over the ever-restless wave, interested me exceedingly. The guide shewed me where the prisoners used to be kept—in a dungeon, apparently impervious to every glimmer of day-light, and every breath of air. I cannot pretend to say at what period even the oldest part of the Castle of Montmorenci was built: but I saw nothing that seemed to be more ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... long disuse, were resurrected in her honour. Tremendous phrases came labouring forth. There was a general though covert rearranging of bandanas, and an interchange of self-conscious glances. Haines alone seemed impervious ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... impossible still that they should have been able to adopt the means for concealing the wound which the assassin had adopted? What if such was the perfectly unhesitating judgment and declaration of the medical authorities? Such people as Orsola Steno, and those who shared her opinion, are ordinarily impervious to any such reasoning. It is remarkable that, in any case of doubt or circumstances of suspicion, the popular mind—or, at all events, the Italian popular mind—is specially disposed to mistrust the medical profession. They suspect error exactly where scientific certainty is the most ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... disorganized water-spout that, dangling from the roof, seemed to be playing on the front door, drove him into black obscurity and again sandwiched his host between the door and the wall. Then there was a lull, and in the midst of it Yuba Bill, driver of the "Pioneer" coach, quietly and coolly, impervious in waterproof, walked into the hall, entered the bar-room, took a candle, and, going behind the bar, selected a bottle, critically examined it, and, returning, poured out a quantity of whiskey in a glass and gulped it in a ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... in life is one that precludes me in a great measure from the enjoyment of sensual indulgences; and I have heretofore imagined myself impervious to the attacks of Venus; but ah! you have conquered me. My leisure moments have been devoted to study and contemplation; I ventured here to-night to be a spectator of the joys of others, not designing to participate in those joys myself. The graceful ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... had evidently no more to say to him; she had again become impenetrable. He would fain have stayed, though honour and conscience were clamorous in their demands for his departure. Happily for honour and conscience, the lady was silent as death, impervious as marble; so M. Lenoble presently bowed ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... Stone would check such a public castigation. He did not. Impervious to abuse, because master of the situation, he seemed to enjoy his victim's fury. "I'm finishing up with your gang around here, McAlpin," he snarled, never losing his grin. "You've run a rustler's barn in Sleepy Cat long enough. I've warned you and I've warned Kitchen. It didn't ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... show him the black wall of the jungle on either side of the path. There were no openings. Tropical undergrowth is not like that of a northern forest. Here the lianas and thorns intermingled with strong brush, make an impervious hedge. One could not penetrate it without ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... says, that then both body and soul will be consigned to perdition. (Matt. x., 28; Luke xii., 5.) And in another passage He says that He will disclaim all those who shall have denied Him before men. (Matt. x., 33; Luke xii., 10.) These words, if we are not altogether impervious to feeling, might well make our hair stand on end. Be this as it may, this much is certain; if these things do not move us as they ought, nothing remains for us but a fearful judgment. (Heb. x., 27.) All the words ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... They had looked forward to delicious nocturnal confidences, when, half disrobed, each should visit the other's boudoir and discuss the fascinating topic from all possible and impossible points of view. That Lulu had proved impervious to all hints of this nature was a slight which could not be pardoned, at least not without due penance on her part. Moreover, to add to their mortification, there seemed daily to be less occasion for sympathy. Lulu was winning Mr. Grover back to his allegiance slowly but surely. He called, now, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... one reason why my alarmingly outspoken Master was innocent of the cunnings of diplomacy. Unlike those teachers who have to flatter their supporters, my guru was impervious to the influences, open or subtle, of others' wealth. Never did I hear him ask or even hint for money for any purpose. His hermitage training was given free and ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... Estsanatlehi. When they reached the house of the Sun they called him father, as they had been instructed to do, but the Sun disowned them and subjected them to many ordeals, and even thrust at them with a spear, but the mother had given each of the youths a magic feather mantle impervious to any weapon. Klehanoai (the night bearer—the moon) also scoffed at them and filled the mind of the Sun with doubts concerning the paternity of the twins, so he determined to subject ...
— Navaho Houses, pages 469-518 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... safe although the thorny shade that overhangs it be not completely impervious and constant. Fitful glances of sunshine now and then will not bring the fruit to maturity. Stand beneath the branches of a forest tree on a day that is at once bright and breezy: you may observe on the ground at your feet a curious network of flickering light trembling and ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... lance in rest, Edward and his cavalry dashed through the archers and billmen of Somerset; clad in complete mail, impervious to the weapons of the infantry, they slaughtered as they rode, and their way was marked by corpses and streams of blood. Fiercest and fellest of all was Edward himself; when his lance shivered, and he drew his knotty mace from its sling by his saddlebow, woe to all who attempted ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... generally. She wasn't of the least consequence in any way, being not only old but very poor; yet people dreaded her, and would slip away round doors and corners to avoid her tongue. She succeeded, in spite of all drawbacks, in making herself felt; and it was only one or two impervious beings, such is Dicky Browne for example (who knew the Monktons well, and was indeed distantly connected with them through his mother), who could endure her manners ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... neatly show the form of the foot. Under the other garments is worn a shirt of either silk or calico, besides that of mail sometimes put on in war; and over all is thrown in cold weather an ample cloak called a bourka, woven of sheep's wool or goat's hair, and impervious to rain. ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... is at its maximum, at the brink of insanity without being over it. Associations and combinations of images form the entire content of consciousness, which remains impervious to impressions from without. Its world becomes the world. The parasitic life undermines and corrodes the other in order to become established in its place—it grows, its parts adhere more closely, it forms a compact mass—the imaginary ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... red lion a more terrible devil to combat, or harder to trick into civility, or more impervious to the injunctions of the Ten Commandments? I suppose it will be said that he is; that the black fellow bolted the whole code at a gobble, and wagged his tail, as if the feat must surely please his new masters; that he had long had the benefit of civilized cooking, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... next completely covered by silk, gutta-percha, mackintosh, or many thicknesses of newspaper—anything that will hold all the heat in—as the cold compress is quickly heated up. Lastly, a bandage of heavy flannel completely covers the whole—compress, impervious ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... surface; or, having larger inlets than outlets, and being at times "water-logged," at least in its lower parts. The subsoil, to a great extent, consists of clay or other compact material, which is not impervious, in the sense in which india-rubber is impervious, (else it could not have become wet,) but which is sufficiently so to prevent the free escape of water. The surface soil is of a lighter or more open character, in consequence of the cultivation which it ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... the bill. The other young men peered at it over his shoulder, and repeated the amount with whistles and half-laughs of scorn and anger. The girls ejaculated to each other in whispers. Silas stood impervious, waiting. ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... without parley, and the pufformance was offered for his entertainment with admirable conscientiousness. True to the Lady Clara caste and training, Roderick's pale, fat face expressed nothing except an impervious superiority and, as he sat, cold and unimpressed upon the front bench, like a large, white lump, it must be said that he made a discouraging audience "to play to." He was not, however, unresponsive—far from it. He offered comment very ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... soil on which one lives is a matter of primary importance; it may be a matter of life or death for a weakly person, but it is important for every one. First, as regards the subsoil on which a house is built. If this be clay, or impervious rock, then no possible system of drainage can make the site a dry one; this condition of affairs will be very bad indeed for health. No house should be built on such a soil if at all possible to ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... rain water is caught and stored in barrels above ground; if so, these should always be well covered, not only to avoid pollution, but to prevent the barrels from becoming mosquito breeders. Cisterns should always be built with care and made water-tight and impervious. The walls should be lined with cemented brickwork. In soil consisting of hard pan, cisterns in some parts of the country are built without brick walls, the walls of the excavation being simply cemented. I do not approve of such ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... great a cause of the spread of tuberculosis is the change in clothing. The original native was clad in skins, which are the warmest clothing in the world. Moose hide or caribou hide garments, tanned and smoked, are impervious to the wind, and a parkee of muskrat or squirrel, or, as was not uncommon in the old days, of marten, or one of caribou tanned with the hair on, with boots of this last material, give all the warmth that exposure to the coldest ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... for he had trained himself to be impervious to interruptions, the editorializer turned in his chair. Instantly he sprang to his feet, and caught Miss Van ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... was impervious to sound or sense. He only muttered, in a drowsy whisper, "Lemme 'lone," a few times, and went off into a ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... their sides by holding on by the branches and underwood, the descent on the opposite side being equally difficult and laborious; now forcing our way through deep ravines overgrown with underwood, all but impervious; sinking to the ground at every step, and raising on our snow-shoes a load of half-melted snow, which strained the tendons of the legs and caused ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... of prudence, and partly that he himself was under this spell of antiquity, How many a Troubadour, who recited tales of king Arthur, had his incidents furnished him by the events of his own time! And thus it is the many are attracted to the poetry of things past, yet impervious to the poetry of things present. But this retrograde movement in the poet, painter, or sculptor (except in certain cases as will subsequently appear), if not the result of necessity, is an error in judgment or a culpable dishonesty. For why ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... purpose, it was rumoured, of plundering the royal tombs at Pyeng-yang. It entered the Tai-tong River, where it was ordered to stop. A fight opened between it and the Koreans, the latter in their dragon cloud armour, supposed to be impervious to bullets, sending their fire arrows against the invaders. The captain, not knowing the soundings of the river, ran his ship ashore. The Koreans sent fire boats drifting down the river towards ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... having quitted its old mortal frame, entereth into others which are new and freshly prepared for it. Weapons pierce not the Real Man, nor doth the fire burn him; the water affecteth him not, nor the wind drieth him nor bloweth him away. For he is impregnable and impervious to these things of the world of change—he is eternal, permanent, ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... which is invaluable in locating bullets and pieces of shell or shrapnel. Under the X-ray, too, extraction frequently takes place, the operators using long-handled instruments and gloves that are soaked in a solution of lead and thus become impervious to the rays so destructive to ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the dreamy, lazily swelling Pacific—forests of fir and spruce and pine and cypress, in all the riot of dank spring growth, a dense tangle of windfall and underbrush and great vines below, festooned with the light green stringy mosses of cloud line overhead and almost impervious to sunlight. Myriad wild fowl covered the sea. The coast became beetling precipice, that rolled inland forest-clad to mountains jagging ragged peaks through the clouds. This was the Olympus Range, first noticed by Meares, and to-day seen for miles out at sea like a ridge of ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... escheat; his folkmote, forestall and gage; his livery and seasin, wage and waif? It will be said, however, that, whatever the learning of Spenser may have gleaned, the law-books of that age were impervious to the illiterature of Shakespeare. No: such an intellect, when employed on the drudgery of a wool-stapler, who had been high-bailiff of Stratford-upon-Avon, might have derived all that was necessary from a very few books; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... Impervious Concrete Mixtures—Star Stetten Cement—Medusa Waterproofing Compound—Novoid Waterproofing Compound—Impermeable Coatings and Washes: Bituminous Coatings; Szerelmey Stone Liquid Wash; Sylvester Wash; Sylvester Mortars; Hydrolithic Coating; Cement Mortar Coatings; Oil ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... palpable, (as far as it is in the wit of man to do so) or they are no longer eloquence. That which by its natural impenetrability, and in spite of every effort, remains dark and difficult, which is impervious to every ray, on which the imagination can shed no lustre, which can be clothed with no beauty, is not a subject for the orator or poet. At the same time it cannot be expected that abstract truths or profound observations should ever be placed in the ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... standing rigging, shrouds, &c.; in the latter case it is generally tarred to keep out rain. It is supposed that this style of rope is stronger in proportion to the number of yarns than cable or water-laid rope, which is more tightly twisted, each strand being a small rope. This latter is more impervious to water, and therefore good for cables, hawsers, &c.; it is laid left-handed, or against ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... particularly to all growths having woody roots, where breakage and wastage cannot be rapidly restored. When a rose is once established, its persistent roots may find means of boring through soil that in its first nonresistant state is impossible. While stiff, impervious clay is undesirable, a soil too loose with sand, that allows the bush to shift with the wind, instead of holding it firmly, is ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... be no new thing for Slim in one of his ugly moods, and ordinarily it did not matter, for he kept his pockets well filled with strips of jerked elk and venison, while in the rags of his heavy flannel shirt he seemed as impervious to cold as he was ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... architect named DUNKIN claims to have constructed a new style of vessel, impervious to rams, shell, or shot." Now, then, where is our friend, Captain ERICSSON? The Captain has a torpedo which he is anxious to explode, near a strong vessel belonging to somebody else. He says it will blow up anything. DUNIN says nothing can blow up his vessel. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... town that he is the Devil, because he has killed seven men in duels since he came, and has never been wounded. People don't know the great American invention, worn next the skin, which makes the body impervious to bullets." ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... intention he ordered his men to cut down stakes and to collect a large quantity of prickly pear-bushes which grew in the neighbourhood. A square fence was then formed with stakes, the interstices being filled up by masses of bushes, making it perfectly impervious, so that even elephants would hesitate before attempting to break through it. Within the circle rude huts were built for the accommodation of the garrison, one of which, of rather better construction, was devoted to Ned's ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... other elevated site. Many of those that creep on trees nest in holes in the wood. The marsh-frequenting kinds attach spherical or oval domed nests to the reeds; and in some cases woven grass and clay are so ingeniously combined that the structure, while light as a basket, is perfectly impervious to the wet and practically indestructible. The most curious nests, however, are the large stick structures on trees and bushes, in the building and repairing of which the birds are in many cases employed more or less constantly all the year round. These stick nests vary greatly in ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... by the supremacy of the Latin language, from which no less than a quarter of their own meagre vocabulary is derived; though driven southwards by the Romans and northwards by the Greeks, they have remained in their mountain fastnesses to this day, impervious to any of the civilizations to which they have ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... way to try farther on; but with the linen I could do nothing, for, after several attempts, I was unable to move any of the pieces, and as to cutting a way through them, a wall of adamant would scarce have been more impervious to the blade of my knife. It would have been the work of a week at least. My provision would not keep me alive till I had reached the other side. But I did not speculate on such a performance. It was too manifestly impossible, ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... passionate as the loftiest mystical saint, and who, in spite of all their listening for the inner flow of things, discover no inrushes, feel no invasions, are aware of no environing Companion, do not even feel a "More of Consciousness conterminous and continuous with their own." Their inner life appears impervious to divine bubblings. The only visitants that pass over the threshold of their consciousness are their own mental states, now bright and clear, now dim and strange, but all bearing the brand and mark of temporal origin. This type ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... and as nearly as possible resembling a keel at the bottom. I covered this on both sides with pieces of strong cloth saturated with grease from the carcases of birds, and then covered the whole with well-dried seal skins, which I had made impervious to wet. The inside of the boat nearest the water I neatly covered with pieces of dry bark, over which I fixed some boards, which had floated to the island from wrecked ships. Finally I put in some benches to sit on, and then fancied I had done ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... harsh monosyllable. There was a finality about it—definite, unalterable. She looked at him dry-eyed, her face tragically beautiful in its agony. But he seemed impervious to either its beauty or its suffering. There was no hint of softening in him. Without another word he swung round on his heel and turned to ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... hear of coating the skin by a substance which is impervious to water, smooth and elastic?" asked Kennedy quietly as Waldon's tender sped along back ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... encampment again," the Captain said, "but our huts are quite impervious to their shells; the sand is ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... best," the Doctor said grimly; "but the British subaltern is pretty well impervious to snubs; he belongs to the pachydermatous family of animals; his armor of self conceit renders him invulnerable against the milder forms of raillery. However, I think you can be trusted to hold your own with him, Miss Hannay, without much ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... skirted the outside of the jungle on the high bank, on the narrow arm of the river. We were not long in finding traces of the lions. A broad track in the sandy bed of the dried stream showed where the buffalo had been dragged across to the thick and impervious green bushes, exactly beneath us on the margin of the river. A hind quarter of the buffalo, much gnawed, lay within seven or eight paces of us, among the bushes that had been trampled down, and the dung of numerous ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... as that emanating from radium, is to be employed. I have experimented with the latter, but only in such small quantity as I could obtain; but so far as I can ascertain the stone of the Coffer is absolutely impervious to its influence. There must be some such unsusceptible substances in nature. Radium does not seemingly manifest itself when distributed through pitchblende; and there are doubtless other such substances in which ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... unsatisfactory and not strictly speaking erotic experience had the remarkable effect of rendering me for the next seven years impervious to the tender passion, so that, undisturbed by women or erotic emotions, I was able to absorb myself in the world of varied research that was now opening ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... wrapped in a healthful slumber that infuriated Bangs, who wandered in and out of their apartment like an unhappy ghost. On the rare occasions when he and Rodney lunched or dined together, Laurie was entirely good-humored and when Epstein was with them seemed wholly impervious to any hints thrown out, none too subtly, ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... side. An open manuscript was in front of him. He took up his pen. Very soon he would be absorbed by the strong fascination of his studies; the door into another world would open and shut him in. He would be impervious then to this present century, to his present life, to his children, to the ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... of chains, which makes his blood creep until he has become to some extent accustomed to the sound. The shaft through which he is descending is cut and rounded with great precision, first through a mixture of clay and rock-salt, and then in the solid rock-salt itself. To render it impervious to water he will find the wall here and ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... four neighboring trees, and married the whole clump with a perfectly inextricable knot of polygamy. Once, while sheltering myself from a summer shower, the fancy had taken me to clamber up into this seemingly impervious mass of foliage. The branches yielded me a passage, and closed again beneath, as if only a squirrel or a bird had passed. Far aloft, around the stem of the central pine, behold a perfect nest for Robinson Crusoe or King ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... man of high principles. She had heard him "make speeches on woman's suffrage that could be equalled only by John B. Gough,"[204] the well-known temperance crusader. Train's radical ideas did not disturb her. Her association with antislavery extremists prior to the Civil War had made her impervious to the criticism and accusations of conservatives. She was aware that on this proposed lecture tour Train probably wanted to make use of her executive ability and of Mrs. Stanton's popularity as a speaker; but on the other hand, his generosity to them was beyond anything ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... with his hands clasped round his knees, looked up with the smile of an infant. "It suits my constitution, sir," he said. "I freeze myself in the morning and boil myself at night—always. By that means I am rendered impervious to all atmospheric ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... reached a mature age; was deeply and sincerely devoted to his religion; and, according to the eulogist of the rival house of Ormond, one whom nothing could deject or bow down, a scorner of luxury and ease, insensible to danger, impervious to the elements, preferring, after a hard day's fighting, the bare earth to ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... I chosen to read it to him, he would have resented it, been impervious, suspicious, hostile. I looked at the boy's laughing face, and wondered, ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... with perfumed clumps of Bo-trees, tamarinds, and holy figs: in one place Vikram planted 100,000 in a single orchard and gave them to his spiritual advisers. The river valley separated the stream from a belt of forest growth which extended to a hill range, dark with impervious jungle, and cleared here and there for the cultivator's village. Behind it, rose another sub-range, wooded with a lower bush and already blue with air, whilst in the background towered range upon range, here rising abruptly into points and peaks, there ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... well washed the surface with water, I pour over it a solution of iodide of potassium, very weak, not more than two or three grains to the ounce of water. The effect of this is to turn the white parts to a brilliant yellow, quite impervious to actinic rays. This process is only applicable to weak negative or instantaneous pictures, as, if used on a picture of much intensity, the opacity produced is too great. By using, however, instead of the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... orange in one bough, mixing the juices of the pineapple in another; we behold the tree as a mother, making each infant acorn ready against the long winter, rolling it in swaths soft and warm as wool blankets, wrapping it around with garments impervious to the rain, and finally slipping the infant acorn into a sleeping bag, like those the ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... the data that would give a tottering support to so comforting a generalisation. Alas! the births of the great slopes of antiquity are shrouded in a night scarcely ruffled by the minute researches of patient archaeologists and impervious to the startling discoveries by experts of more or less palpable forgeries. Of these critical periods we dare not speak confidently; nevertheless we can compare the fifth century with the nineteenth and draw our ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... respect but I was never quite at ease with him. His valuations were too intensely religious; he could not understand my ambitions. His mind filled with singular prejudices,—notions which came down from the Colonial age, was impervious to new ideas. His character had lost something of its mellow charm—but it had gained in dramatic significance. Like my uncles he had ceased to be a part of my ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... humours of the eye are known to be highly impervious to the invisible calorific rays, and the question therefore arises, 'Did the radiation in the foregoing experiment reach the retina at all?' The answer is, that the rays were in part transmitted to the retina, and in part absorbed by the humours. Experiments ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... variable circumstances. In some places, Keston for instance, the church is founded upon a bed of chalk, and out of the chalk the graves are laboriously hewn. It is obvious therefore that the nature of the soil, as it is yielding or impervious, must be a prime factor in the question of survival. It may be granted, however, that our progenitors in selecting their burial-grounds had the same preference for a suitable site as we have in our own day, and, notwithstanding ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... the garden of my Father's house at Cockermouth was a high terrace that commanded a fine view of the river Derwent and Cockermouth Castle. This was our favourite play-ground. The terrace wall, a low one, was covered with closely-clipt privet and roses, which gave an almost impervious shelter to birds that built their nests there. The latter of these stanzas alludes ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... we had endured. Huge trunks of pistangs and tops of cocoanut trees, broken off by the wind were driven about in all directions, and as they met us, awakened almost as much apprehension as would a reef of rocks. We passed many islands uninhabited, and with their impervious forests still remaining in primitive wildness, clothed in the beauty of a perpetual verdure unknown in northern regions, and soon came in sight of the white houses of the island of Java, which surrounded with lofty trees and blooming gardens, ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... had toughened his skin, or he had become expert in wriggling from the full force of the blow, or else, as many believed, the elfish nature was impervious; for he was as ready as ever for a trick the moment he was released, like, as his brother said, the dog Keeper, who, with a slaughtered chick hung round his neck in penance, rushed murderously upon ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a moment longer through the gilded scroll-work; then, as she had done once before, thrust her pistols well within her sash that they should not catch upon the boughs, and pushing herself through the prickly cactus hedge, impervious to anything save herself or a Barbary marmoset, twisted with marvelous ingenuity through the sharp-pointed leaves, and the close barriers of spines and launched herself with inimitable dexterity on to the ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... Chris had to laugh. If it could see itself! Only a wide muddy road full of ruts and puddles, along which someone's line of geese was waddling, impervious to the cursing of passing carters and riders on horseback. A little below him Chris could see the two old warehouses he remembered from the night before. But now they looked quite new, their bricks bright and their walls solid. Barrels were being lifted by the winch and ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... flowing through it was augmented by drainage which had previously been disposed of on the surface. All this had to seek an outlet somewhere, except in those rare instances where it maintains its downward course until, below the level of any open stream it can reach, it encounters an impervious stratum and must lose itself in the deep rocks. Usually, however, it emerges in the face of a bluff or on the side of a hill; and the opening becomes "the mouth of a cave." Occasionally, in such situations, the water continues to flow out; but usually it finds a way to reach a lower ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... grief, he repelled all consolation. Taking his rope and axe he went up into the mountain by himself. All through the winter he haunted the track by which she must have travelled, indifferent to the danger that he ran, impervious apparently to cold, or hunger, or fatigue, undeterred by storm, or mist, or avalanche. At the beginning of the spring he returned to the village, purchased building utensils, and day after day carried them back with him up into the ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... his world and surroundings to transform. . . . It is in this adventure, and not apart from it, that we find and maintain the personality which we suppose ourselves to possess ab initio.'[15] The soul is a world in itself; but it is not, and must not be treated as, an isolated personality impervious to the mind of others. At each stage of its evolution it is the focus and expression of a larger world. A man does not value himself as a detached subject, but as the {114} inheritor of gifts which are focused in him. Man, in short, is a trustee for the world; and suffering ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... invitation without positive rudeness; and, now that Mrs. Marden and Agatha are going, of course I would not if I could. But I had rather meet them anywhere else. I know that Wilson would draw me into this nebulous semi-science of his if he could. In his enthusiasm he is perfectly impervious to hints or remonstrances. Nothing short of a positive quarrel will make him realize my aversion to the whole business. I have no doubt that he has some new mesmerist or clairvoyant or medium or trickster of some sort whom he is going to exhibit ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... against the | poet's self-chosen epitaph, and against all but one or two of the most self-contained of his letters, that the soul of Keats was so far from being "snuffed out by an article," that it was more than ordinarily impervious to hostile comment, even when it came in the shape of rancorous abuse. In all discussion of the effects produced upon Keats by the reviews in Blackwood and The Quarterly, let it be remembered, first, ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... serious disorders to minor sources of daily discomfort, there are few individuals so mentally gifted that they are impervious to the distress occasioned by variations of temperature and of weather; to the annoyance caused by criticism, neglect, and lack of appreciation on the part of their associates; to active resentment, even anger, upon moderate provocation; to loss of temper when exhausted; to ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... up in laughter, to return to pipe and can, And—plumped for his opponent pretty nearly to a man; For of all ungrateful cynics, and of all impervious clowns, Commend me (says our wanderer), to the workmen of ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 103, July 16, 1892 • Various
... rather than force, and something of the respect that Europeans feel for their kingly families made them submit to woman's rule. The valley of Nacooche, Georgia, indeed, perpetuates in its name one of these princesses of a royal house, for though she ruled a large tribe with wisdom she was not impervious to the passions of common mortals. The "Evening Star" died by her own hand, being disappointed in love affair. Her story is that of Juliet, and she and her lover—united in death, as they could not be in life—are buried beneath a mound in the ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... California it is a matter of some moment. For in all woods and by every wayside there prospers an abominable shrub or weed, called poison oak, whose very neighbourhood is venomous to some, and whose actual touch is avoided by the most impervious. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she should be taught her place. If we could only manage to inflict some decided snub on her, she might take the hint and give up trying to poke herself in where she doesn't belong. The idea of her consenting to be elected on the freshmen executive! But she seems impervious to snubs." ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... vegetables have an exterior coating which is porous and pervious to water when it is unripe. But when it fully ripens this coating is chemically changed into a thin, impervious coating of a cork-like structure, through which water cannot pass, and as a result potatoes, and fruit, will keep through an entire winter and become mellower and better ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... they have a kind of armour something like a coat of mail, which is formed by a great many folds of dressed antelope skins, united by means of a mixture of glue and sand. With this they cover their own bodies and those of their horses, and find it impervious to the arrow. ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... wood floats for an indefinite time; the pasteboard, after a time, soaks, and finally sinks, as was to be expected. But suppose we soak the pasteboard in marine glue before the experiment, then we find the pasteboard equally as impervious to the water as wood, and as buoyant, if of the same weight; but, to be of the same weight, it must be thinner than the wood, yet even then it stands the before-mentioned tests as well as when thicker; and it will ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... the cloud is not so victorious as when it towers above some little landscape of rather paltry interest—a conventional river heavy with water, gardens with their little evergreens, walks, and shrubberies; and thick trees impervious to the light, touched, as the novelists always have it, with "autumn tints." High over these rises, in the enormous scale of the scenery of clouds, what no man expected—an heroic sky. Few of the things that were ever done upon earth are great enough to be done under such a heaven. It was surely ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell |
