"Impassible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... generally a moral, sometimes an inverted one, in the Rops etchings. Order Reigns at Warsaw is a grim commentary on Russian politics quite opportune to-day. La Peine de Mort has been used by Socialists as a protest against capital punishment. Les Diables Froids personifies the impassible artist. It is a page torn from the book of hell. Rops had read Dante; he knew the meaning of the lines: "As the rill that runs from Bulicame to be portioned out amid the sinful women"; and more than once he explored the frozen circles of Gehenna. Victor Hugo was much stirred by the design, ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... 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 of their being ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... The scouts stated the situation, with the impassible ravine to the north, and the attackers to the south of their position. His force was on the eastern side of the river, and moving back a sufficient distance to prevent knowledge of his presence from reaching ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay
... 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 ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... p 74 is applied strictly to analogous phenomena; but as soon as dynamical views 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
... 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
... and down the room, casting a searching look from time to time at Manicamp, who remained motionless and impassible in the same place. ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 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 ...
— The Character and Influence of the Indian Trade in Wisconsin • Frederick Jackson Turner
... twenty-eight thousand nine hundred times, always kept in Mecca during peace, and never since the conquest of Constantinople lost in battle before. The King was at vespers in the Escorial. Entering the sacred precincts, breathless, travel-stained, excited, the messenger found Philip impassible as marble to the wondrous news. Not a muscle of the royal visage was moved, not a syllable escaped the royal lips, save a brief order to the clergy to continue the interrupted vespers. When the service had been methodically concluded, the King made ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a natural thing, it requires determinate matter, to wit, flesh and 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 ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... death's-head, his nose crushed 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
... they threw all the rest into the shade. In less than five minutes they had thus revealed to me their characters, and in less than five minutes I had buckled on a breast-plate of steely indifference, and let down a visor of impassible austerity. ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... The impassible chief agent made no answer. Some new noise in the street struck his quick ear. He ran to the ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... 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 may have ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... It looked as though it thrust itself out from underneath 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 ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... "God consented to be born" ("deus crucifixus," "nasci se voluit deus") and who, impelled by opposition to Marcion and by his apologetic interest, distinguished the Son as capable of suffering from God the Father who is impassible, and imputed to him human weaknesses—which was already a further step,—sharply emphasised the "distinct function" ("distincte agere") of the two substances in Christ and thus separated the persons. With Tertullian the interest in the Logos doctrine, on the one hand, and in the real humanity, ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... a sense of distrust which the bailiff understood at once in spite of their impassible faces. Marthe let them look at the gun, to the tune of Couraut's bark; she was so convinced that her husband was meditating some evil deed that she was thankful for the curiosity ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... Bastille, the successive scenes of that long-protracted agony will give the prisoner a form shaped by his own fancy and a grief proportioned to his own power of suffering. How we long to pierce the thoughts and feel the heart-beats and watch the trickling tears behind that machine-like exterior, that impassible mask! Our imagination is powerfully excited by the dumbness of that fate borne by one whose words never reached the outward air, whose thoughts could never be read on the hidden features; by the isolation of forty years secured by two-fold barriers ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... more soldierlike and respectable than when I first saw them. After the exercise was ended, the men gathered around a small brass band, of half a dozen Germans, which began to play in front of General Walker's quarters. The little General himself sat in his door, and looked out with impassible countenance upon the crowd in the street. It was an excellent conglomerate to study, for any one who could have the head and feeling there. What General Walker made of it, not even his staff-officers, who sat beside him, could tell,—if it were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... marquis called to him in a voice vibrating with passion. As he entered and bowed low to the Emperor, he saw the marquis, tall, white with anger, his blue eyes glittering, standing in the centre of the room. He paid no attention to Jack, but the Emperor raised his impassible face, haggard and gray, and acknowledged ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... vainement qu'ici nous nous aimames! Rien ne nous restera de ces coteaux fleuris Ou nous fondions notre etre en y melant nos flammes! L'impassible nature a ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... stood at the bar of Westminster Hall,—when the Methodist preacher walked through a line of men, each of whom greeted him with a brickbat or rotten egg,—they had some preparation for the crisis, though it might be very difficult to meet it with an impassible brow. Our little girl was quite unprepared to find herself in the midst of a world which despised her, and triumphed ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the snow kem so thick that it was impassible to get along the roads at all at all; an' faix, instead iv gettin' betther, next mornin' it was only tin times worse; so Jim had jist to take it asy, an' stay wid his uncle antil such times as the snow ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... still pacing the study when Ali returned. The Nubian's usually impassible face bore traces of excitement and horror. He prostrated himself at his master's feet and, with his visage pressed against the floor, held up his hand, presenting to the Count the identical letter of which he had been ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... and to assert, that the seal of her virginity 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 ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... fine for rain would have made the flat, black soil almost impassible. But as it was, we had a comfortable, dustless ride of sixty li to Yen-chou-fu, a city of unusually massive walls, whose 60,000 people are reputed to be the most fiercely anti-foreign in Shantung. Comparatively ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... 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 Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... 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 ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... which they were to have so much by-and-by. The 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 Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... I do not know. As he was a man of much dignity, with an impassible face, it was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the end had finally come, or felt sad over the result, and was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, they were entirely concealed from my observation; but my own feelings, which had ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... 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 ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... 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 ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... 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
... face remained expressionless, impassible; he was doing his business, all truths were the same to him, he looked as though he suspected the Prefet of some caprice. ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... party skirting the swamp in one direction and some in another. It was difficult work and they did not wonder that Merrick and his party had given up in disgust. Occasionally they had to wade in water up to their ankles and then climb through brushwood that was all but impassible. They tore their clothing more than once, ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... and higher in the passage, and it seemed to the boys that by this time most of the lower gangways were entirely impassible. ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... are in vain. 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 her in this ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... absent. Surprised and displeased, the general was impatiently waiting for his return, when his aide-de-camp and faithful friend, Colonel Hamilton, brought him important despatches. Washington's face remained impassible; but throughout the garrison and among the general's staff there had already spread a whisper of Arnold's treachery: he had promised, it was said, to deliver West Point to the enemy. An English officer, acting as a spy, had actually been arrested ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... no adequate means of attaining this great end existed, short of the segregation of the black population from the white—that an IMPASSIBLE BARRIER existed in the state of society in this country, between these classes—that whatever might be the liberal sentiments of some good men among us, the blacks were marked with an indelible note of inferiority—they saw placed high ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... for some time on the part of the frigid countess not only to the preserver of her daughter, but to the man who under such romantic and singular circumstances had come before her mind. Carefully considered, Madame de l'Estorade is seen to be far from one of those impassible natures which resist all affectionate emotions except those of the family. With a beauty that was partly Spanish, she had eyes which her friend Louise de Chaulieu declared could ripen peaches. Her coldness was not what physicians call congenital; ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... which are so displeasing to Candaules. This spectacle should become wearisome to you,' said the queen in accents of bitter irony, as she stood on the threshold of the chamber; 'you will end by finding me ugly.' And a sardonic, forced laugh momentarily curled her pale mouth; then, regaining her impassible severity of mien, she continued: 'Do not imagine you will be able to steal away this time as you did before; you know my sight is piercing. At the slightest movement on your part I shall awake Candaules; and you know that it will not ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... Germans from following closely. They procured quarters in these three towns and were going to enjoy a much needed rest for one night. But during that night the Germans, overcoming all difficulties of snowdrifts and impassible roads, attacked and stormed Eydtkuhnen as well as Wirballen and killed, wounded, or made prisoners almost all the Russian forces located there, amounting to about 10,000 men with considerable artillery and even greater quantities of supplies. Gumbinnen also was retaken ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... 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 or pull ...
— An interesting journal of Abner Stocking of Chatham, Connecticut • Abner Stocking
... human natures in Christ were denoted by the two sparrows, one of which, in likeness of His human nature, was offered up in an earthen vessel over living waters, because the waters of Baptism are sanctified by Christ's Passion. The other sparrow, in token of His impassible Godhead, remained living, because the Godhead cannot die: hence it flew away, for the Godhead could not be encompassed by the Passion. Now this living sparrow, together with the cedar-wood and scarlet or cochineal, and hyssop, i.e. faith, hope and charity, as stated above (ad 5), was put ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... they dissect it alive in order to show the 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 ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... silly?" with an impassible countenance. "Young Driscoll is silly, of course, and evidently looks upon part of the breakfast-ware as enemies of some sort. But that is ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... How could he ever get free? Between his mind and that of his fellows there lay a spiritual barrier more impassible than the walls ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... which left many wrecks on the coast, sprang up and next day the trail was impassible by reason of fallen timber. Late in the afternoon, they reached the beach again and finding it impossible to pull the three lions up, or to get them to civilization if they did, Paul took off the traps ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... "Their impassible fortitude and endurance of suffering are, after all, in my mind, the result of a greater degree of physical insensibility. It has been told me, and I believe it, that in amputation and other surgical ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... later. The New York volunteer fire department was for a long time one of the institutions of the country. When they had their annual parade the people of the surrounding towns would flock to the city and the streets would be as impassible as they are to-day when a representative of one of the royal families of Europe is placed on exhibition. At the New York state fairs during the early '50s the tournaments of the volunteer fire department of the various cities ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... impassible country of the Meuse and the Argonne lies the plain of Champagne-Pouilleuse, which is almost a steppe, bare and open, only slightly undulating, overgrown with heath, and studded here and there by small copses ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... aujourd'hui a le calme qui appartient a la terre, support impassible de l'homme, et il resemble a toutes les plaines. La nuit pourtant une espece de brume visionnaire s'en degage, et si quelque voyageur s'y promene, s'il regarde, s'il ecoute, s'il reve comme Virgile dans les funestes ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... man bowed. He seemed now impassible. He was stern, and hard as rock. He believed that he had wellnigh been deceived,—and deception practised successfully on him would have disgraced him in his own eyes forever. He believed, what he would not trust his lips to utter, that this applicant was Madeline Desperiers's agent. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... crooked smile. I also dug his hide and he was a Mekstrom, of course. "Friend," I replied, "Nothing would convince me, after what you've said, that U.S. 40 is anything but a cowpath; slippery when wet; and impassible in the Early Spring, Late Summer, and ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... 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
... 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
... stairs, carrying away that livid face in my thoughts; as I crossed the parlour I once again came upon the motionless bust (of Balzac, by David of Angers), impassible, proud and vaguely radiant, and I drew a ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... the sun blazed—within was the wind of great punkahs that made you shiver, the shame that made you burn, the attentive eyes whose glance stabbed. The face of the presiding magistrate, clean shaved and impassible, looked at him deadly pale between the red faces of the two nautical assessors. The light of a broad window under the ceiling fell from above on the heads and shoulders of the three men, and they were fiercely distinct in the half-light of the big court-room where the audience seemed composed of ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... and 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 ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... grew darkened by clouds above the impassible horizon, his reflections turned more gloomy and deadly. Was it impious for him to arrogate the right to substitute his justice for that supreme, and wield its dreadful sword? But he shrank from acting as his father had done, and mainly because he saw that, if ever the ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... 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 ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... take the form and rigidity of trenchant steel. Suppose this an animated blade, feeling and willing in conformity with its temper and structure; it would delight in being brandished, and would need to strike; such is the need of Saint-Just. Taciturn, impassible, keeping people at a distance, as imperious as if the entire will of the people and the majesty of transcendent reason resided in his person, he seems to have reduced his passions to the desire of dashing everything to atoms, and to creating dismay. It may be said of him that, like the conquering ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... first great joy of Joseph's life. His 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 their clear, bright depths. The poor boy was an altered creature. He was ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... they grew confused, as from much trampling. But they did not return; they did not go elsewhere. There was a clear distance of a rod over the sand to the rocky ground where the trees grew. On the other side lay the deeps of the pool. Before them reared the impassible wall of the precipice. And there ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... she failed to note the agitated mien of her father while receiving his visitor—that father, at all other times, and in the presence of all other people, so bold, fierce, and impassible! She observes all this with a feeling of pain. For such strange conduct there must be a cause, and a serious one: ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... Leoni" the account of the jeweller's daughter's life with her mother, passed in dressing, and learning to be looked at when dressed, "avec un front impassible," it reminded me of —— and her mother. What a heroine she would be for Sand! She has the same fearless softness with Juliet, and a sportive naivete a mixture of bird and kitten, unknown ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... as we should say, several elements; but he differs from that sect again in affirming for it a passible quality. To show that there must be more than one element, or kind of matter, he says, that if there was only one element, or a unit, it would be impassible; it could undergo no change whatever. For there would be nothing by which it could be made to suffer any alteration, or into which it could be altered. Whatever is changed, is changed into something else, and whatever ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... a woman of nothing, Madame de Prie," and who renewed the persecution of the Protestants and the Jansenists. The young king contented himself with "showing at the council table his handsome and impassible countenance, which nothing ever animated. When not thus engaged, when he was neither gambling nor hunting, he occupied himself with tapestry-making, turning snuff-boxes in wood, or reading either ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... found the fire blazing and reddening the ceiling and curtains, the room all aglow with rich shadows, and his wife awaiting him, in full toilet, just as superb as you will see her tonight, just as sweet and cold and impassible and impenetrable. At least," continued Mrs. McLean, taking breath, "I have manufactured this little romance out of odds and ends that McLean has now and then reported from his conversation. I dare say there isn't a bit of it true, for Mr. Laudersdale ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... 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 the Indians, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... 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 seemed little befitting the princely luxury of the house in which they ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... 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 ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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
... 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 Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... great brains finally left for the city on the five-thirty, it was hard to realize that behind each grand, impassible face a perfect vortex ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... just as she was about to leave her slip. They sat down in a row midway of the upper deck. The heat inside was intense. Gladys loosened her shabby little sacque. Maria sat impassible. ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... close together now, father and daughter—a beautiful group in the yellow lamplight against the dark background that surrounded them like an impassible fate; her face was a study of happiness, tenderness, suffering, and strength; her father wrapped her close in his protecting arms, and thus she could bear everything. They were silent for a while: he trying to accept the revelation in its strangeness, ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Much more in the Christian God 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, and decay. If to-day theists have to be on their ...
— Monophysitism Past and Present - A Study in Christology • A. A. Luce
... newspapers have detailed many public incidents of the severe weather of the commencement of 1854: such as snow ten yards deep; roads blocked up; mails delayed; the streets of the metropolis, for a time, impassible; omnibuses with four horses; Hansom cabs driven tandem, &c. The effects of the storms of snow, socially, were not the least curious. In the neighbourhood of Manchester seventy persons were expected at an evening party, one only arrived. At another house one hundred guests were expected, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... 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, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... knowledge related to each; but he was equally clear that the composite personality involves a communicatio idiomatum (antidosis idiomaton). The human nature taken up into the Divine received the glory of the Divinity: the Divine "imparts to the human nature of its own glories, remaining itself impassible and without share in the passions of humanity." S. John Damascene taught then that our Lord's humanity was so enriched by the Divine Word as to know the future, though this knowledge was only manifested ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton
... insensible, render callous; blunt, 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, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... had half expected worse—he found that the boiler-explosion of the previous night had really made the way impassible, from the third story downward. These lowest flights of steps had been so badly broken, that now they gave no access to ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... that he was lost. But mustering all his courage, he sprang forward on his impassible adversary. The two blades crossed, but at a touch from Michael's knife, wielded in the hand of the Siberian hunter, the sword flew in splinters, and the wretch, stabbed to the heart, fell ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... betwixt the flights and emotions of the soul or a resolute and constant habit; and very well perceive that there is nothing we may not do, nay, even to the surpassing the Divinity itself, says a certain person, forasmuch as it is more to render a man's self impassible by his own study and industry, than to be so by his natural condition; and even to be able to conjoin to man's imbecility and frailty a God-like resolution and assurance; but it is by fits and starts; and in the lives of those heroes of times ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... feeble attempt, in which he was seconded by no one. Lord Alfred stood, stock-still, stroking his grey moustache with his hand. That much greater man, Augustus Melmotte, put his thumbs into the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and was impassible. The bishop saw at a glance the hopelessness of the occasion, and made no attempt. The master of the house shook hands with each guest as he entered, and then devoted his mind to expectation of the next corner. Lady Pomona and her two ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... up," said Gigonnet, drawing from his wallet a pile of bank-bills. Du Tillet looked furious. "You should never frown at money," said his impassible associate; ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... be triumphant and happy in possessions, of which I cannot be deprived, and that are beyond my own power to alienate. But that time is far in the future and I am contented with the walls of my present world now expanded to the hills of Mendon. Between them and me flows the Charles stream. It is impassible as far as I can see, yet I have heard and been warned of a bridge full of peril. It is, however, an incredible distance to that bridge—as much as a quarter of a mile. When there, I dare not go forward lest I might be lost. I tremble with desire and apprehension. I return, slowly ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... late at the lawyer's, and they are all assembled. He gives a quick glance toward Wilmarth. The impassible face has its usual half-sneer and the covert politeness so baffling. Lindmeyer has been explaining something, and stops ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Chateaubriand. 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." This reminds us of Vigny in his Maison du berger. Then we have the religion ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... Raoul, impassible, and a little disengaged by the attention of his hosts, looked from his place through the open window at the gardens and the statues ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... up Goose Creek Valley was extremely slow and difficult, the valley in places being no wider than the road, while in other places rocks and streams were so thick and close together that the way was almost impassible. We camped in this valley at nightfall, and, as there was no feed in sight for the animals, several of us took them up on the mountain side and gave them a feed of bunch grass, one man and myself ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... nearer, the weather changed, and dark, gloomy clouds enveloped them, so that they seemed to present an impassible barrier to the lands beyond them. At Ivrea, I entered the interesting valley of Aosta. The whole valley, fifty miles in length, is inhabited by miserable looking people, nearly one half of them being afflicted with goitre and cretinism. ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... Amazon, of that Amazonian goddess—to be a child always? or a wily priest rather, skilfully circumventing her sorceries, with mystic precautions of his own? In truth, there is something of the priestly character in this impassible discretion, reminding her of his alleged intimacy with the rival goddess, and redoubling her curiosity, her fondness. [182] Phaedra, love-sick, feverish, in bodily sickness at last, raves of the cool woods, the chase, the steeds of Hippolytus, her thoughts running madly on what she fancies ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... being so very old, her life was despaired of. During this sickness there came a great fall of snow, piling up four or five feet on the level, and driving and drifting into the hollows, so that for several days the less frequented roads in that part of the country were impassible. And now, when Mrs. Marjoram, but for her own sad plight, would have thought of poor Aunt Hannah, there was no one enough interested to give her loneliness a moment's consideration, till, one morning, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... distensible divisible docible edible effectible eligible eludible enforcible evincible expansible expressible extendible extensible fallible feasible fencible flexible forcible frangible fusible gullible horrible illegible immiscible impassible intelligible irascible legible miscible negligible partible passible (susceptible) perceptible permissible persuasible pervertible plausible possible producible reducible reflexible refrangible remissible reprehensible ...
— Division of Words • Frederick W. Hamilton
... 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 relaxed his ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... 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 ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... 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 feu pour madame—une femme si charmante, si adorable. Mais un homme comme, monsieur—maussade, boudeur, impassible! Ah, non!—de ma vie! J'en avais pardessus la tete, de monsieur! Ah! vrai! Est-ce insupportable, tout de meme, qu'il existe des types comme ca? Je vous ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... 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. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... for grief in watching the progress of his own perfect and unfailing plans—your difficulty in God's impassibility vanishes. Christ, qua God, was, of course, impassible too. It seems to me that your position implies that God's 'designs' have partially (at least) failed, and hence the grief of perfect benevolence. Now I stoutly deny that any jot or tittle of God's plans can fail. I believe in the ordering ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... butler's impassible face for a moment, measured with his eye the distance from the pantry window to the corner of the veranda, then he drew a long breath—the first he had drawn in ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... which led that way. But I had not gone over three or four miles before I came to a large stream of water which was past fording; yet I could see that it had been forded by the road track, but from high water it was then impassible. As the horse seemed willing to go in I put him through; but before he got in far, he was in water up to his sides and finally the water came over his back and he swam over. I got as wet as could be, but the horse carried me safely ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... ancient roofing of wood, or else with trellises of cane, over which grape-vines are trained. Fronting on these passages are the shops, something like holes in a wall as regards size, and in them the turbaned dealers sit squatted, stately and impassible, among their rare knick-knacks. Shops where the same kind of goods are sold are grouped in quarters by themselves. There is the street of the dealers in clothing, where the booths are bright with pink, blue, and orange silks, and with ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... letter away from him on the table, and snatched a sheet of note-paper out of the writing-case. "Here goes for Mrs. Glenarm!" he said to himself; and wrote back to his brother, in one line: "Dear Julius, Expect me to-morrow. G. D." The impassible man-servant stood by while he wrote, looking at his magnificent breadth of chest, and thinking what a glorious "staying-power" was there for the last terrible ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... geste fier, L'air fauve, et, quoique etant de l'ombre, ils sont du fer. Sont-ce des larves? Non; et sont-ce des statues? Non. C'est de la chimere et de l'horreur, vetues D'airain, et, des bas-fonds de ce monde puni, Faisant une menace obscure a l'infini; Devant cette impassible et morne chevauchee, L'ame tremble et se sent des spectres approchee, Comme si l'on voyait la halte des marcheurs Mysterieux que l'aube efface en ses blancheurs. Si quelqu'un, a cette heure, osait franchir ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... glance, without warmth, a species of impenetrable veil, beneath which a strong soul hides profound emotions and close estimation of men and things and events. Not a fold of his face quivered. His mouth and forehead were impassible; but his eyes moved and lowered themselves with a noble, almost tragic slowness. There was, in fact, a whole drama in the motion of ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... numb, apathetic, impassible, impassive; stoic, callous, cruel, stern, incompassionate, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... 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 to meet me here in June, and to provide for me the same conveyance I had used from Amherst. ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... 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.)
... the two sisters with it when 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 not question your relics now.' 'No more than I do the possession,' ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... 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 ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... gets possession of a wise man's head, is as keenly sensible of ridicule, as it is impassible to its shafts when more appropriately lodged with a fool. Of the sensitiveness arising out of this foible Walpole seems to have had a great deal, and it certainly dictated those hard-hearted reproofs that repelled ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... 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 ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... L'impassible froideur de Julien redoubla le malheur de Mademoiselle de la Mole. Elle etait loin d'avoir le sang-froid necessaire pour chercher a deviner dans ses yeux ce qu'il sentait pour elle en cet instant. Elle ne put se resoudre a le regarder; elle tremblait ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... I call indeed a Brahmana, the manly, the noble, the hero, the great sage, the conqueror, the impassible, the accomplished, the awakened. ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown
... was 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
... cataracts have proved to the trout an impassible barrier; but, strangely enough, its despised associate, the sluggish, chunky blob, the little soft-bodied, smooth, black tadpole-like fellow, with twinkling eyes and a voracious appetite—a fish who cannot leap at all—has crossed this barrier. Hundreds of blob live under the stones in ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... subject that might easily have been spoiled by the noisy clatter and coarse colouring of the inferior artist. His full length portrait of Marlborough has been too often quoted to be reproduced here—'impassible before victory, before danger, before defeat; the splendid calm of his face as he rode along the lines to battle, or galloped up in the nick of time to a battalion reeling before the enemy's charge or shot.' Of Swift, Esmond says—'I have always thought of him and of Marlborough ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... was 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 vans which could be of interest to them? They had not even ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... in a white robe was walking along the edge of the rampart, impassible, and indifferent to the death which surrounded him. Sometimes he would spread out his right hand above his eyes in order to find out some one. Matho happened to pass beneath him. Suddenly his eyeballs flamed, his livid face contracted; ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... 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 ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... respects opposed to the genius of the English drama. They do not even pretend to be representations of human life and human character, but are pure fantasy pieces, in which the personages are a heterogeneous medley of Grecian gods and goddesses, and impassible, colorless creatures, with sublunary names, all thinking with one brain, and speaking with one tongue,—the conceitful, crotchety brain, and the dainty, well-trained tongue of clever, witty ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... yet instinct can also dispose of this organ according to its whim, and even of this and of the mind, without consulting beforehand the will, directly a sharp pain, or even an energetic affection, takes us by surprise. Take the most impassible stoic and make him see suddenly something very wonderful, or a terrible and unexpected object. Fancy him, for example, present when a man slips and falls to the bottom of an abyss. A shout, a resounding cry, and not only inarticulate, but a distinct word will escape his lips, and nature will ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... 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
... in his quiet, impassible way, "but there was a letter." He turned again to interrogate Pipa. "Then the signorina must have taken the letter herself." Slightly raising his eyebrows, a sudden light came into his eyes. "That letter has done this. What can Nobili ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... at the photographs, I'd guess that the western approach is the best. But I may be wrong. Little details are hard to see from five hundred miles up, even with the best of instruments, and there may be things in our way that will make the west slope impassible. If so, we'll try the southern side. It looks pretty steep, but it also seems rough enough to ...
— The Judas Valley • Gerald Vance
... to those who rule over us more enjoyments: they have some which they will avow, solely with a view to raise themselves above the multitude. The human heart is naturally envious. Let men in power then forgive or dissemble seasonably: satire will fall to the ground; it is by shewing themselves impassible, that they will ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... alteration effected in Baisemeaux extended even to the prisoners. The turnkey, the same who, on Aramis's first arrival had shown himself so inquisitive and curious, was now not only silent, but impassible. He held his head down, and seemed afraid to keep his ears open. In this wise they reached the basement of the Bertaudiere, the two first stories of which were mounted silently and somewhat slowly; for Baisemeaux, though far from disobeying, was far from exhibiting ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... et poussa des cris de douleur aussi aigus que ceux d'un malheureux qui subit une opration chirurgicale. Tantt il se roulait sur le pont en appelant sa chre Aych; tantt il se frappait la tte contre les planches, comme pour se tuer. Toujours impassible, le capitaine, en lui montrant le rivage, lui faisait signe qu'il tait temps pour lui de s'en aller; mais Tamango persistait. Il offrit jusqu' ses paulettes d'or, son fusil et ...
— Quatre contes de Prosper Mrime • F. C. L. Van Steenderen
... caused his eldest son considerable trouble and bewilderment of mind. He asked searching questions sometimes, when, of an evening, perched on Mr. Gray's knee, and looking with his wondering, steadfast eyes into the face of that erewhile stern and impassible magistrate. The large justice-room, where the prisoners were examined, had an awful fascination to him; and so had the little "strong-room," in which sometimes they were locked up before being conveyed away to the county jail. Often, he wandered restlessly near it, looking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... giving us much trouble to get across, the road along the bottom lands being 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 comfortable, and ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... good father;" again replied the impassible Fleming; "pray therefore as much as you will. I will content myself with fasting, which will come whether I will or no."—At this moment a horn was heard before the gate.—"Look to the portcullis and the gate, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... emperor burst into an audible fit of laughter; then, remembering himself, he glanced anxiously at his impassible empress, to see if she had overheard him. No; she was perfectly unconscious of any thing but ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... in devising impossible slanders] [W: impassible] Impossible slanders are, I suppose, such slanders as, from their absurdity and impossibility, bring ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... indeed thus, that Gilbert understood it? Quiet, impassible, his eyes fixed upon the window, he seemed a perfect stranger to all that passed ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... ignorant Highlanders refus'd to venture themselves on them down the river Spey; till he first went himself, to make them sensible there was no danger.—In which passage however, he found a great obstacle in the rocks, by which that river seemed impassible; but on these he ordered fires to be made, when by the lowness of the river they were most expos'd; and then had quantities of water thrown upon them: Which method being repeated with the help of proper tools, they were broke in pieces and thrown down, which made the passage ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... 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 ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt
... mind, however, for some time, when there fell still another great snow on the following day, heavier than the preceding storm. It piled drift upon drift, and made the roads about Benton, for miles in every direction, impassible. It shut each farmhouse in upon itself; the Ellisons in their home; Colonel Witham and Granny Thornton alone in the Half Way House. The old mill was silent for ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... potentially the whole class to which it belongs; but Reason also makes all things, that is to say, it communicates to things those categories by which they become objects of thought. This higher Reason is separate and impassible ([Greek: choristos kai amiges kai apathes]); it is eternal and immortal; while the passive reason perishes with the body. The creative Reason is immanent both in the human mind and in the external world; and thus only is it possible for the mind to know ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... Silver in her extreme and all but repellant quietness was one whom the mother found it difficult to get on with. She was scrupulously kind to her; and the governess was as scrupulously exact in all courtesy and attention; still that impassible, self-contained demeanour, that great reticence—it might be shyness, it might be pride—sometimes, Ursula privately ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... Gilgamesh: "O Gilgamesh! there has never been a ferry, And no one has ever crossed the ocean. Shamash, the hero, has crossed it, but except Shamash, who can cross it? Difficult is the passage, very difficult the path. Impassible (?) the waters of death that are guarded by a bolt. How canst thou, O Gilgamesh, traverse the ocean? And after thou hast crossed the waters of death, what wilt ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow |
