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More "Imperceptible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the child of wealth. There are few things in the poverty-stricken home too good for him to play with; in its narrow quarters, he becomes, perforce, a part of all domestic activity. He learns the uses of household utensils, and his play merges by imperceptible ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... might think the snow covered by a very fine dust, but if your eyes are good, and you place your face within eighteen or twenty inches of the snow, you can easily discern the snow flea. Although so small as to be almost imperceptible to the naked eye, yet they are most active, jumping from twelve ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... majesty of anything belonging to religion, she caught at it and silenced all her doubts with it,—hoped she had silenced them for ever,—but the perception would return that it was only the beauty that he praised, because it was beauty, and struck him as such. Shade upon shade, imperceptible in itself, but each tint adding to its depth, the cloud of misgiving darkened, and though she tried to fight it off,—though she told herself it was too late,—though she was very angry with herself for it, there it still hung; and the ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... horse makes the least motion when you advance towards him, stop, and remain perfectly still until he is quiet. Remain a few moments in this condition, and then advance again in the same slow and almost imperceptible manner. Take notice—if the horse stirs, stop, without changing your position. It is very uncommon for the horse to stir more than once after you begin to advance, yet there are exceptions. He generally keeps his eyes steadfast on you, ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... not fear that I felt as I stood there, waiting for the coming of my adversary, for fear has always been foreign to my family, but a sort of secret elation. For that day, if I survived, though the down upon my lip was as yet imperceptible, I could take my place as a man among men. No longer would my boyish face keep me out of the councils of my elders, but I would have the right to take my stand and ruffle it with the best of them all. I was there ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... succeeded in turning Augusta's attention to the hothouses Mervyn beckoned to Robert, rather injudiciously, for his patient was still tremulous from the first greeting. Her face had still the strangely old appearance, her complexion was nearly white, her hair thin and scanty, the almost imperceptible cast of the eye which had formerly only served to give character to her arch expression, had increased to a decided blemish; and her figure which had shot up to woman's height, seemed to bend like a reed as Mervyn supported her to the sofa in the school-room. With nervous fright ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ten days ago, the zealous priest never paused to explore and map the region. You are paddling down the brown, forest-shadowed waters—long lanes of water like canals through walls of trees silent as sentinels. Suddenly a change almost imperceptible comes. Instead of the earthy smell of the forest mold in your nostrils is the clear tang of sun-bathed, water-washed rocks; and the sky begins to swim, to lose itself at the horizon. There is no ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... imperceptible second, for thought is quick, it occurred to Philip Hamlyn to temporise, to affect ignorance, and say, What woman? just as if his mind were not full of the woman, and of nothing else. But he abandoned ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... more fully displays our fallen nature, than that of reprobation. All mankind agree in opinion, that there ever has been an elect, or good class of society; and a reprobate, or worthless and bad class; varying in turpitude or in goodness to a great extent and in almost imperceptible degrees. All must unite in ascribing to God that divine foreknowledge that renders ten thousand years but as one day, or hour, or moment in his sight. All ascribe to his omnipotence the power to ordain or decree what shall come ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... went. But she made no reply—except it were through an imperceptible pressure of the hand holding ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... all standing still, however persistent, is after all merely an imperceptible advancing, a ray of hope appears even in this status quo. The first trees of the Augarten and the Brigittenau come into view. The country! The country! All troubles are forgotten. Those who have come in vehicles alight and mingle with the pedestrians; ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... in the death of Elisabeth, the wise, gentle, and quiet invalid sister who had been always part of Mr. Keble's life, and seemed, above all, to diffuse about her an atmosphere of peace and holiness. After a gradual, almost imperceptible decay, she sank to sleep on the 7th of August 1860. Mrs. Keble's always frail health began to fail more and more, so that winters in a warmer climate became necessary. Dawlish, Penzance, and Torquay were resorted to in successive winters, and Mr. Keble began to revolve the question whether it ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... had seized his palette, and at intervals added a few short, almost imperceptible strokes to the mouth, eyes, and delicate nostrils of the portrait, before which he sat—but these few strokes lent charm and intellectual expression to his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... good-humored deviltry in his young face and big blue eyes, began an excellent imitation of Dr. Nash's exhortation to submission and obedience delivered upon the last instruction day for servants, and soon had his audience of two guffawing with laughter. The mulatto and the convict edged by imperceptible degrees farther and farther away from the others, until, within the shadow of a stack of grass, they lay side by side and commenced a muttered conversation. The countenance of the white man, atrocious villainy written large in every lineament, became horribly intent as his amber-hued companion ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... the highest branches, wood-pigeons more in the body of the tree, and when the boughs are bare of leaves a flock of the latter may be recognised in this way as far as the eye can see, and when the difference of colour is rendered imperceptible by distance. The wood-pigeon when perched has a rounded appearance; the rook a ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... applied to an acute infection, usually followed by suppuration, commonly met with in the fingers, less frequently in the toes. The point of infection is often trivial—a pin-prick, a puncture caused by a splinter of wood, a scratch, or even an imperceptible lesion of ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... earth. They wind across the plain with many unexpected and apparently aimless turns; on closer examination, however, it may be seen that this irregularity is not to be attributed to ignorance or caprice. Experience had taught the Egyptians the art of picking out, upon the almost imperceptible relief of the soil, the easiest lines to use against the inundation: of these they have followed carefully the sinuosities, and if the course of the dykes appears singular, it is to be ascribed to the natural configuration of the ground. Subsidiary embankments thrown up ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... more broken and undulating, while here and there, from the summit of a hill, elevated above the rest, the view which you command is both striking and extensive. At last, the White Mountain, as it is called, lies before you, and by an easy and almost imperceptible ascent, you arrive at its crest. There it will, indeed, be worth your while to pause; for a finer scene of its kind you will rarely look down upon in any ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... first time I see Dr. Sexton he will point to something unsatisfactory in the bolts to which that doorkeeper is fastened, and give me the addresses of the ironmonger who will sell me some like them, or the tailor who will manufacture me a swallow tail coat with an imperceptible slit down the back. Then again, I have, as I said, seen young Mr. Sexton go in and out of the corded box, and I know how that's done; but Dr. Lynn's man goes into three, one inside the other. Well, I can understand that if Dr. Sexton's theory be correct, it ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... at once in the plenitude of its power. Neither is it to be imagined that the system was simultaneously adopted by Christians all over the world. Jerome informs us that it was established "by little and little;" [559:1] and he thus apparently refers, as well to its gradual spread, as to the almost imperceptible growth of its pretensions. We have shewn, in a preceding chapter, [560:1] that in various cities, such as Smyrna, Caesarea, and Jerusalem, the senior presbyter continued to be the president until about the ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... smile upon Honora, and not smile upon him; but she would not meet her cousin's true eyes, nor would she grant me one minute apart from the rest in which I could utter my fears or demand the breaking of that spell whose effects were so visible, even if its workings were secret and imperceptible. But at last the stomacher was finished, and as it dropped from her hands I threw myself at her feet, and from this position, looking ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... case of nearly all deductive reasoning the handwriting expert becomes sensitive to slight suggestions. If called upon, as he sometimes is, to explain to others how and why one of these slight and almost imperceptible signs fit in with his theory, he fails. Therefore the cautious expert, like a good judge, is careful in giving reasons for his judgment only to cite those which ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... bow with an almost imperceptible movement of the head, and for a moment they looked hard ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... this moment the most essential need of our country. We have known power extremely active and strong, capable of great and difficult undertakings; but whether from the inherent vice of its nature, or by the evil of its position, moral ascendency, that easy, regular, and imperceptible empire, has been almost entirely wanting. The King's government, more than any other, is called upon to possess this. It does not extract its right from force. We have not witnessed its birth; we have not contracted towards it those familiar associations, ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... on the duchess's part—not policy. He was on the point of saying something himself, to make the chance which he had determined to give her still better, when the servant announced another visitor. The duchess, on hearing the name—it was that of an Italian prince—gave a little imperceptible pout, and said to Newman, rapidly: "I beg you to remain; I desire this visit to be short." Newman said to himself, at this, that Madame d'Outreville intended, after all, that they should discuss the ...
— The American • Henry James
... month that followed an imperceptible change crept over the three. The older woman was much alone—variable as an April day, now merry and caressing, now sombre and withdrawn. The girl clung to her mother more closely, sat for long minutes holding her hand, ...
— The Courting Of Lady Jane • Josephine Daskam
... found him. My words, I feel, in this sermon, have been very poor, set by the side of the greatness of the theme; but, poor as they have been, you will not be exactly the same man after them, if you have listened to them, as you were before. The difference may be very imperceptible, but it will be real. One more, almost invisible, film, over the eyeball; one more thin layer of wax in the ear; one more fold of insensibility round heart and conscience—or else some yielding to the love; some ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... Stirling's box, Machin!" Robert Brindley greeted the alderman with an almost imperceptible wink. Edward Henry had encountered this wink once or twice before; he could not decide precisely what it meant; it was apt to make him reflective. He did not dislike Robert Brindley, his habit ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... nations lose in moments what they had acquired in years; but the remark is applicable rather to the accelerated speed with which the last stages of a nation's ruin are accomplished, than to the slow and imperceptible progress which usually marks its commencement. Unless when cut off by the sudden stroke of war, it requires five centuries at least to consummate the fall of a great people. One must pass, therefore, over those hideous abuses which are the immediate harbingers of national disaster, ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... manure that has been well prepared beforehand out of doors or in a shed, and as it is brought into the greenhouse it should at once be built solidly into the beds. Then very little steam will arise from the beds; in fact, it will be imperceptible to sight or smell. ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer
... wrappers, enclosing layers of dried leaves, would he swathe his rosy and contented face, if his mother suspected him of a toothache! What botanical blotches would he cheerfully stick upon his cheek, or forehead, if the dear old lady convicted him of an imperceptible pimple there! Into this herbaceous penitentiary, situated on an upper staircase-landing: a low and narrow whitewashed cell, where bunches of dried leaves hung from rusty hooks in the ceiling, and were spread out upon shelves, in company with portentous bottles: would the Reverend Septimus submissively ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... wide, staring eyes that questioned his so urgently, Lanyard promptly nodded grave reassurance. He hadn't stirred since his first, involuntary and almost imperceptible start, and before the last fragment of splintered glass had tinkled on the floor above, he was calming her in the most ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... each of us the imperceptible movement which newspaper writers represent in Parliamentary reports by the ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... This fishmonger had been a member half an hour previously of the group which surrounded Jacquin Labarre, and had himself related his disagreeable encounter of the morning to the people at the Cross of Colbas. From where he sat he made an imperceptible sign to the tavern-keeper. The tavern-keeper went to him. They exchanged a few words in a low tone. The man had again ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... born, and although she was not exactly estranged from Clem, for neither he nor she would have admitted any coolness, she had learned that she was nothing specially to him. I have often noticed what an imperceptible touch, what a slight shifting in the balance of opposing forces, will alter the character. I have observed a woman, for example, essentially the same at twenty and thirty—who is there who is not always essentially the same?—and yet, what was a defect at twenty, has become transformed and transfigured ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... The elderly officer had dined to repletion and drank well too. The woman had roused herself; she was plainly urging him to come on out; and as Peter glanced over, she made an all but imperceptible sign to a waiter, who bustled forward with the man's cap and stick. He took them stupidly, and the woman helped him up, but not too noticeably. Together they made for the door, which the waiter held wide open. The woman tipped him, and he bowed. The door closed, and the pair disappeared ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... really, but still ... the eye glances along the line of strained white faces. Someone MUST go under; still, it might not be you. Anyhow, if it is, funk will make no difference, so—one wild scramble over the top, an almost imperceptible pause and then forward. A cry, a fall here or there, and then on again. As in a dream you find yourself still carrying on unhurt ... it's ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... child! we can see many beauties in those we love that are imperceptible to other eyes," Elsie ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... night there was an almost imperceptible tap at Lane's door. He opened it noiselessly, and saw Suwanee with her finger on ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... was now about a point on the starboard bow, not more than a mile distant, and was evidently not under command, as she had swung round head to wind, and lay there in the bright moonlight swaying with an almost imperceptible swing over the long, low hummocks of glassy swell, with her canvas— gleaming softly and spectrally under the showering moonbeams. All hands—O'Gorman included—except the man at the wheel, were on the forecastle-head, intently watching her, ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... along its edge. Little pools meshed from the sea by the numberless rocks round me engrossed my attention. How white and pellucid was the shallow near me—no shadow but the shadow of my face bending over it—nothing to ripple its surface, but my imperceptible breath! By and by a bunch of knotted wrack floated in from the outside and lodged in a crevice; a minute creature with fringed feet darted from it and swam across it. After the knotted wrack came the fragment of a green and silky substance, delicate enough to ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... reality, there are many little circumstances too often omitted by injudicious historians, from which events of the utmost importance arise. The world may indeed be considered as a vast machine, in which the great wheels are originally set in motion by those which are very minute, and almost imperceptible to any but ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... the general said, with all his heart: but he looked upon the Chevalier Grandison to be a man of art; and he was sure he must have entangled his sister by methods imperceptible to her, and to them; but yet more efficacious to his ends, than an open declaration. Had he not, he asked, found means to fascinate Olivia, and as many women as he came into company with?—For his part, he loved not the Chevalier. He had forced him ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... there is the more need that the General Government should maintain all its authority and as soon as practicable resume the exercise of all its functions. On this principle I have acted, and have gradually and quietly, and by almost imperceptible steps, sought to restore the rightful energy of the General Government and of the States. To that end provisional governors have been appointed for the States, conventions called, governors elected, legislatures assembled, and Senators and Representatives chosen to the Congress ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson
... tendency in the hurd stock to crush a little at the "dandy roll," and although the marks are not removed by the calender stack which was employed in those tests it was found that one "nip" on the supercalenders renders them practically imperceptible and it is believed that the proper size and weight of calender stack would entirely remove these marks. All of the papers produced up to this point are somewhat lacking in the bulk desired in a book paper; therefore, ...
— Hemp Hurds as Paper-Making Material - United States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 404 • Lyster H. Dewey and Jason L. Merrill
... Aldebaran, all these suns are luminary only? Do you believe that this old Phoebus, who incessantly forces into space, wherein we are swimming, his inordinate surge of heat and light, has no other function but to light the earth and some other paltry and imperceptible planets? What a candle! A million times greater ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... banks of the stream; and having performed about ten miles more, we halted on the immediate banks of it. These were considerably lower, being about six feet above the water; the current was almost imperceptible, and the depth did not exceed four feet, and was extremely muddy; the trees growing on the banks were neither so large nor so numerous as before, and a new species of eucalyptus prevailed over the old blue gum. The north-east side was precisely of the same description of country as the south-east. ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... thought and feeling. Lorenzo the Magnificent was at the very height of his power and popularity; printing-presses gave letters an impetus; art flourished; the people were dazzled by display and were dipping deep into the love of pleasure. The austerity of Christian religion had glided off by imperceptible degrees into pagan pageantry, and the song of bacchanals filled the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... worked within the open royal cells, and also watched on those that were shut. They made a waved work on them, not by applying wax cordons, but by removing wax from the surface. Towards the top this waved work is almost imperceptible; it becomes deeper above, and the workers excavate it still more from thence to the base of the pyramid. The cell, when once shut, also becomes thinner; and is so much so, immediately preceding the queen's metamorphosis from a nymph, that all its motions are perceptible through the thin ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... the answer, with an almost imperceptible change of manner— a change as of gradual petrifaction, "I am not Mrs. Gregory." And with that the lady, who was not Mrs. Gregory, quietly but ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... horses' hoofs, sped on swift wing into quarters secure from their approach; while the parti-colored pies, like curious village gossips, congregated to peer at the strangers, expressing their astonishment by loud and continuous chattering. Though so gentle of ascent as to be almost imperceptible, it was still evident that the path they were pursuing gradually mounted a hill-side; and when at length they reached an opening, the view disclosed the eminence they had insensibly won. Pausing for a moment upon the brow of the hill, Luke pointed to a stream that wound ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... turning-point of the year, when vegetation might be thought to share the incipient though still almost imperceptible decay of summer, might very well be chosen by primitive man as a fit moment for resorting to those magic rites by which he hopes to stay the decline, or at least to ensure the revival, ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... natural dialectical ability had been tempered and sharpened in many campaigns. There is noticeable, too, on the American side, a labored effort at acuteness of discrimination, an adroitness to exaggerate shades of difference practically imperceptible, and an aptitude to give and take offence, not so evident under the preceding Administration. These suggest irresistibly the absence, over Madison the President, of a moderating hand, which had been held over Madison the Secretary of State. It may be due also to the ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... to himself, "there is but one road;" and going back to the table, he nerved himself for the effort, and began to draw it softly away by almost imperceptible degrees. ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... there drew down from spruce-clad hills a faint fragrance which thrilled the bear's nostrils, and stirred formless longings in his heart, and made his ears deaf to the wild music of the falls. That fragrance, imperceptible to nostrils less sensitive than his, was the breath of his native wilderness, a message from the sombre solitudes of the Squatook. He did not know that the lonely peak of Sugar Loaf was but thirty or forty miles away. He ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... no apparent extraordinary occasion for supernatural operation, but the ordinary course of things appears sufficiently armed and made capable of all the effects that heaven usually directs by a contagion. Among these causes and effects, this of the secret conveyance of infection, imperceptible and unavoidable, is more than sufficient to execute the fierceness of Divine vengeance, without putting it upon ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... at that instant Leonard heard a noise behind him and felt his left foot clasped by a human hand. There was a jerk that nearly dragged them off their sledge, but he held fast to the front edge of the stone, and though he could still feel the hand upon his ankle, the strain became almost imperceptible. ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... latitudes, where the transition from one season to another is so slow and almost imperceptible, can hardly realise the suddenness with which the Frost King can set up his throne and begin his despotic reign. There are no long premonitions of his coming. No noisy heralds for weeks warn of his approach. The birds and beasts seem to have some mysterious intimations that he draweth near, ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... forward to confront the silence and solitude and the mild terrors that lowered before me in the growing dusk. The tide of darkness rose by imperceptible degrees and drowned the landscape. The infinite of starry eyes winked in the sky, while in the gloom below the fireflies spangled the bushes ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... thrown back, that the large bonnet, with which her face was shrouded, might not interrupt her steady gaze at Brown. At every gesture he made, and every tone he uttered, she seemed to give an almost imperceptible start. On his part, he was surprised to find that he could not look upon this singular figure without some emotion. "Have I dreamed of such a figure?" he said to himself, "or does this wild and singular-looking woman recall to my recollection ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... An almost imperceptible flush crossed M. Leblanc's brow, and he replied with a voice which neither trembled nor rose above its ordinary level, with his ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... misunderstand a person's words. Oh yes, I spoke to her, and she answered me; but I must not tell you things in this desultory fashion, or you will never understand. I have told you that I do not know when my attachment to Miss Hamilton commenced. It was gradual and imperceptible at first,—very real, no doubt, but it had not mastered my reason. I always admired her: how could I help it?' with some emotion. 'Even you, who are not her lover, have owned to me that she is a beautiful ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... you argued from a positive, about ten pounds of positive, I should judge from the size of that volume, while Charlotte certainly argued from a negative viewpoint," said father, and his eyes twinkled as he gave me an almost imperceptible wink. By his answer he also avoided answering the question of ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... She seemed indeed to be in no hurry. Her room was luxuriously comfortable; Madge tended her there, and Mrs. Wishart visited her; and Lois sat in her great easy-chair, and rested, and devoured the delicate meals that were brought her; and the colour began gently to come back to her face, in the imperceptible fashion in which a white Van Thol tulip takes on its hues of crimson. She began to read a little; but she did not care to go down-stairs. Madge told her everything that went on; who came, and what was said by one and another. Mr. Dillwyn's name was ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... forms another dune. This process has been going on for ages. The sands are for ever shifting, but moss begins to grow in sheltered spots; such wild flowers as can flourish there bloom and decay; the poplars shed their leaves, and nourish by imperceptible degrees the fibres of the moss; some hardy grasses take root; and at length a scanty greensward appears. By such means slowly, in the microcosm of the dunes, have been evolved out of the changing sands places fit for men to live ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... those unjust judges grew aweary. Nevertheless, the mere sight and sound of a frank English face and voice were more effectual restoratives than all the cunning tonics and incentives with which the prison surgeon had been striving to quicken an imperceptible pulse, and to revive a deceased appetite. I have always thought since, that the rest at that one conversational oasis, just enabled me to hold on to the ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... below: all the life and youth in him rose in rebellion against unnecessary death. He watched with teeth hard set as the small boat climbed to the crest of a wave, then plunged into the trough again, crawling by imperceptible inches toward the bobbing spot in the water. He longed to be in the boat, in the water even, helping to save that human life that only on the verge of extinction had gained significance. What if the man wished to die? No matter, he must be saved, ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... vibrating just underneath the skin. After this the patient gets no more sleep. About mid-day the pulse has come down to 80; and though feeble and compressible is a very respectable pulse. At night, if the patient has had a day of excitement, it is almost imperceptible. But, if the patient has had a good day, it is stronger and steadier and not quicker than at mid-day. This is a common history of a common pulse; and others, equally varying during the day, might be given. Now, in inflammation, which may almost always be detected by the pulse, in typhoid fever, ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... sentiment, and fell into a melancholy train of reflection. It has been more than once remarked that the particular day now under consideration was the one in which the plague exercised its fiercest dominion over the city; and though at first its decline was as imperceptible as the gradual diminution of the day after the longest has passed, yet still the alteration began. On that day, as if death had known that his power was to be speedily arrested, he sharpened his fellest arrows, and discharged them with unerring aim. ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... an hour we came upon one or two outlying houses. Then the trees gradually here grew sparser, and soon ceased, except in occasional patches. It was growing dusk; but as we emerged from the wood we found that we were on a height, the forest road having been a steady, though almost imperceptible, ascent. Far below gleamed already some twinkling cottage lights, and the silvery reflection of a ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... could not last always. Though still alive, he was, to all intents and purposes, imperceptible. He could now only be heard; he was reduced to a mere essence—the very echo of human existence, vox el praiterea nihil. It is true the schoolmaster asserted that he occasionally caught passing glimpses of him; but that was because he had been himself nearly spiritualized by affliction, ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... lake to their elegant villas on the seacoast of Puteoli and the Caieta, they compare their own expeditions to the marches of Caesar and Alexander. Yet should a fly presume to settle on the silken folds of their gilded umbrellas, should a sunbeam penetrate through some unguarded and imperceptible chink, they deplore their intolerable hardships, and lament in affected language that they were not born in the land of the Cimmerians, the regions of eternal darkness. In these journeys into the country the whole body ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... voyage in a day; but you have to imagine that the going is much easier when one turns on one's axis instead of walking on one's feet. So there they were, back where they started, after having seen the nearly imperceptible pond we call the Mediterranean, and the other little pool that, under the name Ocean, encircles the molehill. The dwarf never got in over his knees, and the other hardly wet his heels. On their way they did all they could to see whether the planet was inhabited or not. They crouched, ...
— Romans — Volume 3: Micromegas • Voltaire
... turned his head, Dion could see the little Albanian village of Marathon, a huddle of tiny houses far off under the hills. He looked at it for a moment, then again looked out over the plain, rejoicing in its emptiness. Along the sea edge the cattle were straying, but their movements were almost imperceptible. Still they were living things and drew Dion's eyes. The life in them sent out its message to the life in him, and he earnestly watched them grazing. Their vague and ruminating movements really emphasized the profound peace which lay ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... you, madam, we are alone,—pray contain yourself and hear me. You know you loved your nephew when I first sighed for you; I quickly found it: an argument that I loved, for with that art you veiled your passion 'twas imperceptible to all but jealous eyes. This discovery made me bold; I confess it; for by it I thought you in my power. Your nephew's scorn of you added to my hopes; I watched the occasion, and took you, just repulsed by him, warm at once with love and indignation; ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... northerly winds. It has gradually swept over the country, destroying vegetation and covering up buildings as effectually as has been done by ashes from burning mountains. The progress of the sand is sometimes gradual and almost imperceptible; at other times, in the course of a gale, whole villages have been overwhelmed, allowing the inhabitants scarcely time to escape. Such was the case with this ancient church and the surrounding habitations. So completely ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... Balsamides watched the man. He looked about the shop, and then approached the old glass case in the corner. He had hardly glanced at it when he turned and tried to catch Marchetto's eye. The latter made an almost imperceptible motion of the head. Gregorios was satisfied that the pantomime referred to the watch, which was no longer in its place. He continued to talk with the Jew for a few minutes, and then ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... by the layer of pigment-cells. When the impressions of all the visual rods are added together, the sum will be a mosaic of the object, but such a perfect one that the junction of its many portions will be absolutely imperceptible. ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... carefully brushing an imperceptible crumb of bread and butter from her left-hand mitten, 'are trustworthy, punctual, and industrious, ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... much value as a record unless its history is well known, and unless it has been in the hands of responsible persons. The measurements of antler spread can be considered authentic only when the skull is intact. If the skull is split an almost imperceptible paring of the skull bones at the joint would suffice to drop the antlers either laterally out of their proper plane, or else pitch the main beam backward. By either of these devices a couple of inches can be gained ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... and the splendid Dog Star guided his steps toward the pole of Cassiopeia. He admired those vast globes of light, which appear to our eyes but as so many little sparks, while the earth, which in reality is only an imperceptible point in nature, appears to our fond imaginations as something so ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... of bells, and, as his eyes slowly opened, the sorrowful people of a dream, who seemed to be bending over him, weeping, swam back into the darkness of the night whence they had come, and returned to the imperceptible, leaving their shadows in his heart. Slowly he rose, stumbled into the outer room, and released the fluttering shade; but the sunshine, springing like a golden lover through the open window, only dazzled him, and found no answering gladness to greet it, nor joy in the ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... people. As far as my memory can return back into my past life, before I knew or was capable of guessing what the world, or glories, or business of it were, the natural affections of my soul gave me a secret bent of aversion from them, as some plants are said to turn away from others, by an antipathy imperceptible to themselves and inscrutable to man's understanding. Even when I was a very young boy at school, instead of running about on holidays and playing with my fellows, I was wont to steal from them and walk into the fields, either alone with a book, ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... complaining that they did not see any one, and all the while they were in the midst of the higher angels. Afterwards they were instructed that those angels were invisible to them because their love and wisdom were imperceptible to them, and that love and wisdom are what make an ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... the evening, he came unexpectedly face to face with Sharlee Weyland in the vestibule of Mrs. Byrd, Senior's, handsome house. In the days intervening, Sharlee's state of mind had remained very much where it was on the first morning: only now the tiny open corner of her mind had shrunk to imperceptible dimensions. Of West she entertained not the smallest doubt; and she greeted him like the excellent friend ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... abundant space for it to meander over, and a sleekly subservient "Head of Department." Principal looks irritated, Head of Department apprehensive, the former angrily shuffling some papers, the latter nervously "washing his hands with invisible soap, in imperceptible water." ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various
... was going out, slipping so quietly to the sea that here, at this remote anchorage, the receding of the water was imperceptible. The marsh had not yet begun to prick through the sinking tide, and as the eye wandered across the wide, unbroken stretches of the lagoon, it seemed like a vast sea of glass. The day was so clear and so still that the distant spires of ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... near the coast, it became now very obvious she was driven by a current that set along the land, but which, it was probable, had set towards it more in the offing. The imperceptible drift between the observation of the previous day and the discovery of the coast, had sufficed to carry the vessel a great distance; and to this simple cause, coupled perhaps with some neglect in the steerage during the past night, was her present situation to be solely attributed. Just at this ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... quite imperceptible. During the whole time of our stay, Reaumur's thermometer stood between ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... again, stretched himself, and looked around him dully. For a long time he eyed the grave. The half-darkness changed by imperceptible degrees to full day; the sun was about to appear. The sky was nearly cloudless. The whole wonderful extent of the mighty ridge behind him began to emerge from the morning mist... there was a part of Sarclash, and the ice-green crest of gigantic Adage itself, which he could only take in by throwing ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... to the state as an incorruptible official, his worth to his family as a devoted husband and father, his worth to literature or art as a thinker or maker,—these values are imprinted upon his personality, howbeit with almost imperceptible lines. ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... them over him an advantage of intelligence or of feeling, leaving him in ignorance of some circumstance or some secret motive by which they would be the most admired or the least esteemed; they delight in hiding themselves behind a cunning interrogatory smile of imperceptible mockery. Having on every occasion a taste for the pleasure of mystification, from the most witty and droll to the most bitter and lugubrious kinds, one would say that they see in this mocking deceit a form of disdain for the superiority which they inwardly adjudge to themselves, but which they ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... stay in those insignificant notches, is a problem to me and a never diminishing matter of interest. I am afraid I study the gondolier's marvelous skill more than I do the sculptured palaces we glide among. He cuts a corner so closely, now and then, or misses another gondola by such an imperceptible hair-breadth that I feel myself "scrooching," as the children say, just as one does when a buggy wheel grazes his elbow. But he makes all his calculations with the nicest precision, and goes darting in and out among a Broadway confusion of busy ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and examining it well, Herbert perceived on his negative an almost imperceptible little spot on the sea horizon. He endeavored to make it disappear by reiterated washing, but ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... brae in sight of the Jean and the sea. In his absence a great change had come upon the wave, upon the hilly distance, upon the whole countenance of nature. The rain was no longer in drumming torrents, but in a soft and almost imperceptible veil; but if the rain had lost the wind had gained. And as he passed from the edge of the wood, all the trees seemed to twang and creak, or cracked loudly, parting perhaps at some dear nerve where sap and beauty would ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... conceived that he would be more likely than many less passionate men to love a woman without telling her of it. Sprinkle food before a delicate-eared bird: there is nothing he would more willingly take, yet he keeps aloof, because of his sensibility to checks which to you are imperceptible. And one man differs from another, as we all differ from the Bosjesman, in a sensibility to checks, that come from variety of needs, spiritual or other. It seemed to foreshadow that capability of reticence in Deronda that his imagination was much occupied with two women, to neither of whom would ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... knew she liked that "struggling journalist" immensely. She would couple me and my own epithet together before her friends. She would enjoy unconsciously an imperceptible, but exquisite, sensation of patronage by having me at her house. Even if she discussed me with Margaret I was safe. For Margaret would give an altogether different interpretation of the smile with which I described myself as struggling. My smile would be mentally catalogued ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... move up and down as though to weigh the object, but the movement must be as imperceptible as possible. These little movements should diminish as the capacity and attention for perceiving the weight of the object becomes more acute and the exercise will be perfectly performed when the child comes to perceive the weight almost without any movement of the hands. It is only by the ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... is before the purifier, and immediately after the condenser or washer which adjoins the generator. By this method of design the holder is filled up irregularly, the gas passing into it sometimes at full speed, sometimes at an imperceptible rate; but if the holder is well balanced and guided this is a matter of no consequence. Out of the holder, on the other hand, the gas issues at a rate which is dependent upon the number and capacity of the burners in operation at any moment; ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... 18—. The beams of the sun had not yet fallen upon the light veil of mist that hovered over the tranquil bosom of the river Severn, and rose and gathered itself into folds, as if preparing for departure at the approach of an enemy it were in vain to resist. With a murmur, so soft it was almost imperceptible, glided the stream, blue as the heaven it mirrored, between banks now green and gently shelving away, crowned with a growth of oak, hickory, pine, hemlock and savin, now rising into irregular masses of grey rocks, overgrown with moss, with here and there a stunted bush struggling out of a fissure, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... slowly ascended into the evening sky a pillar of cloud so vast that all measurements sank into insignificance beside it. Its color was of softest gray just touched with the flush that deepens the inmost chamber of a shell, or blushes in the unfolded petals of a wind flower. With majestic yet almost imperceptible motion this cloud mounted the blue background of the sky. The spectre of a faded moon hung motionless above it an instant only, and then was swiftly drawn within its soft eclipse. Changing from moment ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... is Krestov!" said the staffcaptain, when we had descended into the Chertov Valley, as he pointed out a hill covered with a shroud of snow. Upon the summit stood out the black outline of a stone cross, and past it led an all but imperceptible road which travellers use only when the side-road is obstructed with snow. Our drivers, declaring that no avalanches had yet fallen, spared the horses by conducting us round the mountain. At a turning we met ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... religious scruples reawakening, he would not only have to seek another second, but would have to defer a solution so near. However, the struggle which was taking place in the heart of the "old leaguer" between the gentleman and the Christian, was displayed during the drive only by an almost imperceptible gesture. As the carriage passed the entrance to the catacomb of St. Calixtus, the former soldier of the Pope turned away his head. Then he resumed the conversation with redoubled energy, to pause in his turn, however, when the landau took, a little beyond the Tomb of Caecilia, a transverse road in ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... blocks, oars, boxes, part of a whale's vertebrae, and the blades of sword-fish. Drawn up on the beach of a little cove before the house lay a canoe. As the night thickened and the fog grew more dense, these details grew imperceptible, and only the windows of the pilot-house, lit up by a roaring fire within the hut, gleamed redly ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... in the still line of the squadron when the fatal order was read, except a slight tremor, almost imperceptible, like the first faint rustling of leaves in the dead quiet that precedes a storm. Then from the right of "B" Troop there came a deep, indrawn breath, and the first sergeant's horse sprang sideways, in amazement, against ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... not mean to imply," answered Allan, "that being an heiress renders the blemish imperceptible—no, it is her truly amiable disposition, her goodness, and engaging manners which makes her so ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... across the valley before he saw anything beyond the crowded pines, and then for a moment he caught sight of a second faint streak athwart their sombreness. It was a mere film that vanished and rose again, illusory and almost imperceptible, but for some reason it ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... consideration in Acredale, treated him here with the chivalrous decorum that the code of the South demanded in those days to a guest. Wesley ground his teeth under the burden, not quite sure whether it was mockery or malevolence. He watched with malignant attentiveness the imperceptible change of tone and manner that marked the family's treatment of the Spragues. There was none of the grave ceremoniousness he resented in the Atterburys' ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... conventions, wars, sciences, arts; but only one business is of importance to it, and with only one business is it occupied: it is elucidating to itself those moral laws by which it lives. The moral laws are already in existence; humanity is only elucidating them, and this elucidation seems unimportant and imperceptible for any one who has no need of moral laws, who does not wish to live by them. But this elucidation of the moral law is not only weighty, but the only real business of all humanity. This elucidation is imperceptible just ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... smell in breath, anxious countenance, burning pain in the throat, stomach, and region of the abdomen, staggering gait, coldness of the extremities, vomiting, insensibility, deepening into coma, with stertorous breathing, dilated pupils, and imperceptible pulse. When inhaled, much the same as ether, but produces insensibility and muscular relaxation more rapidly. It would be impossible to instantly render a person insensible by holding a pocket-handkerchief saturated with chloroform over the face. ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... door and opened it. Quarrier, passing the corridor, turned an expressionless visage toward him, and passed on with a nod almost imperceptible. ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... temperature had changed, and in the cooler air the almost imperceptible melting of the snow had ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... felling of one of the gigantic pines or oaks of the forest. Proudly and immoveably it seems at first to resist the storm of blows that assail its massy trunk, from the united axes of three or even four choppers. As the work of destruction continues, a slight motion is perceived—an almost imperceptible quivering of the boughs. Slowly and slowly it inclines, while the loud rending of the trunk at length warns you that its last hold on earth is gone. The axe of the chopper has performed its duty; the motion of the falling tree becomes accelerated ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... the folly and fun—but even as the idea came to him he knew it to be impossible. It was just one of the half-bitter remarks which wives made. Bitterness in a woman was horrible. The flush on his face had been imperceptible to her in the roseate light of the pink candle-shades, he was glad to think; but he waited until it had subsided before he spoke with ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... made, like the track along snowy roads; and every traveller, whether on foot or in carriage, must direct his steps by this scarcely beaten path. Now and then he passes a high, strong post, placed where there is any dangerous spot upon the plain; for there are perilous quicksands, imperceptible to any eye, lurking in sullen and patient treachery for any unwary footstep. The river itself, which creeps sluggishly in a straight black line across the brown desert, has its banks marked out by rows ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... be very happy," Clara replied, and put on a new face. An imperceptible nervous shrinking was met by another force in her bosom, that pushed her to advance without a sign of reluctance. She seemed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... It is lodged a little behind the eye. With respect to their ears, this important difference is to be observed between the sperm whale and the right. While the ear of the former has an external opening, that of the latter is entirely and evenly covered over with a membrane, so as to be quite imperceptible from without. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Rugufu River—not the Ukawendi Rugufu, but the northern stream of that name, a tributary of the Malagarazi. It was a broad shallow stream, and sluggish, with an almost imperceptible flow south-west. While we halted in the deep shade afforded by a dense clump of jungle, close to the right bank, resting awhile before continuing our journey. I distinctly heard a sound as of distant thunder ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... With an almost imperceptible gesture, like a greeting, she disappeared. Gilbert began to walk up and down, his hands behind him, his eyes on the ground, and he did not see the tennis-ball which Henry had lost until he almost stumbled over it. The boy's words had roused an entirely ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... played with stacked cards, and so far every hand had been theirs. Fairchild's credit, and his standing, was ruined. He had been stamped by the coroner's jury as the son of a murderer, and that mark must remain upon him until it could be cleared by forces now imperceptible to Fairchild. His partner was under bond, accused of four crimes. The Rodaines had won a victory, perhaps greater than they knew. They had succeeded in soiling the reputations of the two men they called enemies, damaging them to such an extent ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... whose services have been chiefly auxiliary to the war, at present absorb the visible wealth of the nation. Amongst them are many respectable persons. The lower orders of the people have been taught, by restless visionaries, to consider the destinations of Providence, which had before, by an imperceptible gradation of social colouring, united the russet brown to the magisterial purple, as usurpations over those natural rights which have been impressed without illustration, and magnified by a mischievous mystery. In the fierce pursuit ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... find it convenient to distribute the productions of nature into classes, and her operations into epochas, yet let it be remembered, that her progress is silent and imperceptible. Between a perfect animal and vegetable, the distinction is of the highest order. Between distant periods we may remark the most important differences. But the gradations of nature are uninterrupted. Of her chain every link is compleat. ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... Il y a un reste de vie dans le cadavre, says Diderot, {150c} speaking of the more gradual decay of the body after an easy natural death, than after a sudden and violent one; and so Buffon begins his first volume by saying that "we can descend, by almost imperceptible degrees, from the most perfect creature to the most formless matter—from the most highly organised matter to the ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... an almost imperceptible shake of the head from the sick woman, making his heart melt swiftly again. Then, dragging his limbs, he got out of the room ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... thought itself. To use the clear, wise words of Mr. Whewell; "Language is often called an instrument of thought, but it is also the nutriment of thought; or, rather, it is the atmosphere on which thought lives—a medium essential to the activity of our speculative powers, although invisible and imperceptible in its operation; and an element modifying, by its changes and qualities, the growth and complexion of the faculties ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... Indians used for fuel only dry wood and bark, the smoke from which would be a negligible factor. The varying pressure of the atmosphere outside creates a current of air in or out which is usually imperceptible but which penetrates to the deepest recesses ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... to be some mode of communication between the doctor and his spider, for on some sign given by the former, imperceptible to Septimius, the many-legged monster let himself down by a cord, which he extemporized out of his own bowels, and came dangling his huge bulk down before his master's face, while the latter lavished many epithets ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the trough of its predecessor. The upward stroke is vertical, the downward an inclined plane. For instance, from Duccio to Giotto is a step up, sharp and shallow. From Giotto to Lionardo is a long and, at times, almost imperceptible fall. Duccio is a fine decadent of that Basilian movement which half survived the Latin conquest and came to an exquisite end under the earlier Palaeologi. The peak of that movement rises high above Giotto, though Duccio near its base is below him. Giotto's art is ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... which her admirer was gathering; and Francine saw with pleasure that he was asserting his claim to Emily's preference, in the way of all others which would be most likely to discourage his rival. These various impressions—produced while Alban's enemy was ominously silent—began to suffer an imperceptible change, from the moment when Mirabel decided that his time had come to take the lead. A remark made by Alban offered him the chance for which he had been on the watch. He agreed with the remark; he enlarged on the remark; he was brilliant ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... sink and disappear. There was no sign of ant-hills in the turf; but after a while I detected an almost imperceptible orifice, through which we saw them vanish in less time than it takes to write these words. I supposed that probably this was the entrance to their own home; but in less than a minute they showed me that I was mistaken. ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... another of his sonorous roars, and all laid on their oars and listened, when, so softly as to be almost imperceptible as the men held their breath, there came a low hail, which grew fainter and fainter and then ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... same wondrous works in his body, the church. Through the apostle Peter he healed a lame man, restored to life a dead woman, etc. He is "the very same Jesus." When he was here in the flesh he could be seen and his marvelous works witnessed by the natural eye. The Holy Spirit is imperceptible to the natural eye, and therefore can only reveal himself to the world as he works in the midst of his people. It is thus that Christians reflect the ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... Perhaps he might have returned; if not, to Athlone I should set off at once. So resolving, I stole noiselessly up-stairs, and reached the door of the count's chamber; I opened it gently and entered; and though my step was almost imperceptible to myself, it was quite sufficient to alarm the watchful occupant of the room, who, springing up in his bed, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... powers of patience and immobility that mocked his own, he moved again, edging toward the entrance-hall, a progress so gradual he could have sworn it must be imperceptible. Yet he had a feeling, a suspicion, perhaps merely a fear, that he did not stir a finger without the ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... leaning against the wall to save himself from falling. As he finished giving utterance to this overpowering, overwhelming thought, which seemed to crush all others in his mind, the sharp sound of the lock was again heard, and, although the sound was almost imperceptible, his overexcited senses detected it instantly. An indefinable shudder ran through the young man's whole frame; again he listened with eager attention. So profound a silence reigned around him on every side that he could hear the throbbings of his own heart. A few minutes passed away without ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... palpitate with every slow ripple of the surrounding waters. He hesitated,—with that often saving hesitation a noble spirit may feel ere willfully yielding to what it instinctively knows to be wrong,—and for the briefest possible space an imperceptible line was drawn between his own self-consciousness and the fascinating personality of his lately found friend—a line that parted them asunder as though by a ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... natural operations now going on will account for all geological changes in a quiet and easy way, only give them time enough, so connecting the present and the proximate with the farthest past by almost imperceptible gradations,—a view which finds large and increasing, if not general, acceptance in physical geology, and of which Darwin's ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... roughened bark, steadying her as she balanced. A quick glance upward showed her a bare stretch of bole with the nearest limb on her side of the tree just barely beyond her reach. Slowly she straightened, lengthening her pliant body the imperceptible fraction of an inch, gradually thrusting her two arms up high above her head, still with her hands steadying her as they clung to the bark, her moccasined feet curving to the limb on which she stood. And now she could just touch with the tips of her ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... died down and save for the droning hum of a billion mosquitoes the silence was absolute. A thin column of smoke streamed from the bowl of the neglected pipe. In profound fascination Wentworth watched it flow smoothly upward. An imperceptible air current set the column swaying and wavering, and a light puff of breeze dispersed it in a swirl of heavy yellow smoke from the smudge. Dully, impersonally, he sensed that the half-breed had just told him that he would squeeze the red blood from his heart and watch it splash upon ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... from the right. Turning his head, he thought that he saw a ray of light penetrating the darkness of space. By what effort of energy, by what imperceptible movements he succeeded in dragging himself to the spot he was never able exactly to realize. But suddenly he found himself on the ledge of a fairly wide opening, at least three yards deep, which dug into the wall of the cliff like a passage, while its ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... for a time to have been affected by them. The two works named are, however, of the highest importance; in them, if we are not mistaken, are to be found the first signs of the disappearance, as it were, of the sonata of three movements, and, perhaps, of the sonata itself, into the "imperceptible." After Op. 90 Beethoven wrote sonatas in four movements, but that does not affect the argument, neither does the fact, that after Beethoven are to be found several remarkable sonatas with the same number. The process of evolution of the sonata was gradual; so also will be that of its dissolution. ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... of the tides. Over this the long, salt grass is artfully arched, to conceal it from the view above; but this very circumstance enables the experienced egg-hunter to distinguish the spot at the distance of thirty or forty yards, though, imperceptible to a common eye. The eggs are of a pale clay color, sprinkled with small spots of dark red, and measure somewhat more than an inch and a half in length by an inch in breadth, being rather obtuse at the small end. These eggs are delicious eating, far surpassing those of the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... corner of the chasm, far away and almost imperceptible, he saw a faint cloud rising up from the chasm's floor. It was impossible to tell what it was and it ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... ready?" asked the referee. There was no reply. Only here and there a foot moved uneasily as weights were thrown forward, and there was a general, almost imperceptible, tightening ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... cannot convey with accuracy and fulness his ideas of the external objects from which his figures and metaphors are drawn. If a bird flits before him, he discerns hues, and remarks circumstances in its notes and motions, which are imperceptible to the white man. The same acuteness which enabled an Indian scout to apprise his commander, and to apprise him correctly, that an "Indian, tall and very cowardly, with a new blanket, a short gun, and an old dog," had passed[A] where the utmost industry of ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... adequately describe the beauty of the circulatory system. The constant vital flow through the larger vessels, and the incessant activity of those so minute that they are almost imperceptible, fully illustrate the perfectness of the mechanism of the human body, and the wisdom and goodness of Him who is ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... Tellier the final benediction of the Company, as one of its members; that Pere Tellier made the King offer up prayers, partly heard, of a kind to leave no doubt of the matter; and that he had given him the robe, or the almost imperceptible sign, as it were, a sort of scapulary, which was found upon him. To conclude, the majority of those who approached the King in his last moments attributed his penitence to the artifices and persuasions of the Jesuits, who, for temporal interests, deceive ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... sails shaped like wings. It soon passed out of sight, descending amidst the shades of a forest. Right above me there was no sky, but only a cavernous roof. This roof grew higher and higher at the distance of the landscapes beyond, till it became imperceptible, as an atmosphere of ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... curtains the valley below bathed in autumn, the glistening rivers half spent with the long summer drought, and the green slopes rolling upward into crest after crest of ascending pines. At times a drifting haze, always imperceptible from below, veiled the view; a chill wind blew through the vehicle, and made the steel sledge-runners that hung beneath the wagon, ready to be shipped under the useless wheels, an ominous provision. A few rude "stations," ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... clinking hoofs of the posse; the quiet was so perfect, the air so clear, that he even caught the chorus of straining saddle leather and then voices of men. All this time the effects of the whisky had been wearing away by imperceptible degrees and at that sound all his old self rushed back on Vic Gregg. Why, they were his friends, his partners, these voices in the night, and that clear laughter floated up from Harry Fisher who ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... the introduction of trams which in due course became electric trams; and a change no less decisive in customs and habits, the older folk marvelling at the new-fangled independence of the young; the whole being nothing less than a revolution which has descended with the sure but imperceptible advance of a glacier, so that within living memory the face and character of England have been altered. In Milestones he has more recently given us another account of ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... grazes it. The contact is scarcely noticeable, we divine it rather than see it. It would have been profane to insist upon it, it would have been cruel not to have made us believe in it. All Rubens's furtive sensitiveness is in this imperceptible contact that says so many things, respects them all, and makes ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... and tranquilly away. Ernest still dwelt in his native valley, and was now a man of middle age. By imperceptible degrees, he had become known among the people. Now, as heretofore, he laboured for his bread, and was the same simple-hearted man that he had always been. But he had thought and felt so much he had given so many of the best hours of his life to ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... produced by a voltaic pile, and applied to the nervous system of a dead man? Whether the formation of Ideas and their constant diffusion was less incomprehensible than evaporation of the atoms, imperceptible indeed, but so violent in their effects, that are given off from a grain of musk without any loss of weight. Whether, granting that the function of the skin is purely protective, absorbent, excretive, and tactile, the circulation of the blood and all its mechanism would not ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... difficulty. The education of an individual is a slow process. The education of a family, of a community, or of a state is slower still. The education of a nation or of a race is so slow that its progress is difficult of measurement. Indeed, the movement of the race as a whole is so imperceptible that it leaves room for debate as to whether humanity is ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... child, what could Grant or Sherman have done, if it had not been for the thousands of brave privates who were content to do each their imperceptible little,—if it had not been for the poor, unnoticed, faithful, never-failing common soldiers, who did the work and bore the suffering? No one man saved our country, or could save it; nor could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... in their decoration, colours very finely blended; nor do they find any transition too delicate. This, as in all principles of ornament, has to be employed according to the feelings intended to be produced on the mind of the spectator—whether for absolute contrast or for imperceptible progression, when the tenderest ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... the same moment a sickening vision of disappointment. He could not trust his mother's insight; she had seen what she wished to see. And yet—and yet, now the suggestion had been made to him, he remembered so many things, very slight things, like the stirring of the water by an imperceptible breeze, which seemed to him some confirmation of his ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... connection of things visible and things invisible, finite and infinite, objects of sense and objects of faith, is utterly imperceptible to human thought, we might reply by quoting the words of that Sacred Book whose supreme authority our author is seeking, by this argument, to establish. "The invisible things of God, even his eternal power and god-head, from the creation, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... forced to admit in their hearts that the methods by which Mr. Parr had made his fortune and gained his ascendency would not bear scrutiny . . . . Some of them were disturbed, indeed, by the discovery that there had come about in them, by imperceptible degrees, in the last few years a new and critical attitude towards the ways of modern finance: moat of them had an uncomfortable feeling that Hodder was somehow right,—a feeling which they sought to stifle when ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... must move up and down as though to weigh the object, but the movement must be as imperceptible as possible. These little movements should diminish as the capacity and attention for perceiving the weight of the object becomes more acute and the exercise will be perfectly performed when the child comes to perceive the weight ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... are reproached with believing with the sages of old, that Fate is blind, and as such presides over our lot. And why should we not believe it?... Humbling and sad as is this admission, still we must make it: imperceptible elements of the great social organization appearing upon this earth as living beings, fragments of matter agitated by a spirit, we are born, we live, and we die, unconscious of our destiny, playing our part without any precise notion of the end, and ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... Ugh-lomi slept on. The waning moon rose and lit the gaunt white cliff overhead with a light that was pale and vague. The gorge remained in a deeper shadow and seemed all the darker. Then by imperceptible degrees, the day came stealing in the wake of the moonlight. Eudena's eyes wandered to the cliff brow overhead once, and then again. Each time the line was sharp and clear against the sky, and yet she had a dim perception of something lurking there. The red of the fire grew deeper and ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... these observations, we should consider that the unattenuated fermentable matter is perpetually furnishing a gradual supply of fixed air and spirit, by means of the imperceptible fermentation always ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... mere dawn, aminority, or a majority of new formations, but do not draw a fast and hard line, cutting off one stratum from the other. Natural growth, and even merely mechanical accumulation and accretion, here as elsewhere, are so minute and almost imperceptible that they defy all strict scientific terminology, and force upon us the lesson that we must be satisfied with an approximate accuracy. For practical purposes Humboldt's classification of languages ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... if two plates of silex or quartz, which are but large crystals of sand, give out a musical sound when mutually struck, the impact or collision of two minute crystals or particles of sand must do the same, in however inferior a degree; and the union of all these sounds, though singly imperceptible, may constitute the musical notes of the Bell Mountain, or the lesser sounds of the trodden ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... A slight, almost imperceptible flush floated over that livid cheek—the eyes unclosed, but so quickly closed again that it was more like the convulsive quivering of the muscle than the effort of the will; and Marie alone ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... girl, it seemed that she was not quite sure in her judgment. For now she turned to her father with a faint frown of wonder. And again it seemed to Terry that Joe Pollard made an imperceptible sign, such as he had made to the four ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... Powers;—and so on to the summit of the planetary system, where, in the sphere of Saturn, the Thrones had their station. Above this was the habitation of the Cherubim in the sphere of the fixed stars; and still higher, in the region of those stars which are so distant as to be imperceptible, the Seraphim, we are told, the most perfect of all ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... time. Naturally neither Mr. Hubbard nor Mr. Saunders wanted to swamp any more money until they had received results for what they had spent already; and those results, alas, were not forthcoming. Over and over again poor Watson blamed himself lest some imperceptible defect in his part of the work was responsible for Mr. Bell's lack of success. The spring of 1875 came and still no light glimmered on the horizon. The harmonic telegraph seemed as far away from completion as ever. Patiently the men plodded on. Then on a ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... Culture streamed upon them from all sides. As their numbers were small, and as they lived, in most cases, in the larger cities of the empire, their contact with the Christian world was immediate and continuous. And then the irresistible fascination of German literature, and the easy, almost imperceptible transition from the Judeo-German to the Teutonic-German! All this and many minor allurements were potent enough to draw even the heretofore callous German Jews out of their isolation, and their Germanization by the middle of the nineteenth ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... large pieces of turf, they would present rather the appearance of natural mounds of earth than of human dwellings, were it not that the projecting wooden chimneys, the low-browed entrances, and the almost imperceptible windows, cause the spectator to conclude that they are inhabited. A dark narrow passage, about four feet high, leads on one side into the common room, and on the other to a few compartments, some of which are used as storehouses for provisions, and the rest as winter stables for the ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... they are pretty and ubiquitous. Now stone-crops grow for the most part in chinks of the rock or thirsty sandy soil; they are essentially plants of very dry positions. Hence they have thick and succulent little stems and leaves, which merge into one another by imperceptible gradations. All parts of the plant alike are stumpy, green, and cylindrical. If you squash them with your finger and thumb you find that though the outer skin or epidermis is thick and firm, the inside is sticky, moist, and jelly-like. The reason ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... of every object throughout the system of human perception, is, according to my sentiment of that pleasure, the same intellectual principle, moral good, however diversified, modified, and diminished, even to an unconsciousness or almost imperceptible degree of relation to it. In fine, the true principles of beauty, in every object, may be all resolved into the ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of - our Ideas of Beauty, etc. • Frances Reynolds
... spot to which there is a gradual and imperceptible ascent on all sides, and was approached by two avenues of two hundred stones each. Its general form was that of a snake, in by gone ages, the symbol of eternity and omniscience. "To make the form still more elegant and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various
... (Mesohippus) had only three toes and a splint. Then the splint again disappeared, and one large and two dwindling toes only remained, till finally these two became mere splints, leaving one large toe or hoof with almost imperceptible splints, which may be seen on the ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... one movement seems always to spring erect from the trough of its predecessor. The upward stroke is vertical, the downward an inclined plane. For instance, from Duccio to Giotto is a step up, sharp and shallow. From Giotto to Lionardo is a long and, at times, almost imperceptible fall. Duccio is a fine decadent of that Basilian movement which half survived the Latin conquest and came to an exquisite end under the earlier Palaeologi. The peak of that movement rises high above Giotto, ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... matched with an adversary whose natural dialectical ability had been tempered and sharpened in many campaigns. There is noticeable, too, on the American side, a labored effort at acuteness of discrimination, an adroitness to exaggerate shades of difference practically imperceptible, and an aptitude to give and take offence, not so evident under the preceding Administration. These suggest irresistibly the absence, over Madison the President, of a moderating hand, which had been held over Madison the Secretary of State. It may be due also ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... notice how the influence of this odd straight ridge, ever before their eyes, has unconsciously guided and influenced their architectural tastes. All the roofs of the houses are straight—straight as the mountain; a gable is almost unknown, and even the few steeples are dwarfed to an imperceptible departure from the prevailing straight line. The very trees which shade the Parade-ground and border the road in places have their tops blown absolutely straight and flat, as though giant shears had trimmed them; but I must confess, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... for the East, and gradually, by imperceptible degrees, life crept back into his weary bones and leaden brain. His friend was patient and considerate, and they travelled slowly and talked little. At first Faxon had felt a great shrinking from whatever touched on familiar things. He seldom looked ...
— The Triumph Of Night - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... sunset is, the sunrise is more full of mystery, poetry, and even, I had almost said, pathos. But often ere he was well up I had begun to imagine what the evening would be like, and with what softly mingled, all but imperceptible, gradations it would steal into night. Then, when the night came, I would wander about my little field, vainly endeavouring to picture the glory with which the next day's sun would rise upon me. Hence the morning and evening became well known to me; and ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... themselves say or do; they will not own to their hearts that they mean exactly this or that. It is this phase which in its perfect freedom is the most American of all; under other conditions it is an instant, perceptible or imperceptible; under ours it is a distinct stage, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... circumstances too often omitted by injudicious historians, from which events of the utmost importance arise. The world may indeed be considered as a vast machine, in which the great wheels are originally set in motion by those which are very minute, and almost imperceptible to ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... did so, the old man uttered a sound very like a snore. Mr Armstrong gave an imperceptible shrug of his shoulders and inwardly meditated a retreat, when the sound came through the darkness again. There was something in it which brought the tutor suddenly to his feet. He struck a match ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... descendants, to be lepers for evermore. Name, Cagots or Gahets; Gahets, Gehazites. What can be more clear? And if that is not enough, and you tell us that the Cagots are not lepers now; we reply that there are two kinds of leprosy, one perceptible and the other imperceptible, even to the person suffering from it. Besides, it is the country talk, that where the Cagot treads, the grass withers, proving the unnatural heat of his body. Many credible and trustworthy witnesses will also tell you that, if a Cagot holds a ...
— An Accursed Race • Elizabeth Gaskell
... electricity exists immovable or in circulation everywhere, latent or imperceptible, around us, and within ourselves, and that it enters as a cause into the majority of the chemical, physical, and mechanical phenomena that are constantly taking place before our eyes. A body cannot change state, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... partly by natural, gradual, almost imperceptible diffusion, partly by violent crises, we see the mania for luxury and the appetite for pleasure beginning, growing, becoming aggravated from generation to generation in all Roman society, for two centuries, changing the mentality and morality ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... magnificent enterprises; a spirit of inquiry and freedom breathing all around them; and the healthful contact and stimulus of multitudes of young minds, in the like process of intellectual and moral training. It is such nameless imperceptible influences, that awaken intellectual life, from the mind, and determine the future man more than the teaching, which is nominally education. Why else does the acknowledged excellence of the teaching in the Prussian schools do so little to quicken intellectual ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington
... Dan hesitated an almost imperceptible instant at the plate. Swift as lightning he made a wry little mouth at Prescott. It nearly broke Dick up with laughter as Dalzell stalked moodily to the bench and ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... separation would otherwise have occasioned. It was the nature of Cornelia's disorder to wear a changeful but flattering aspect. Though she had long been declining, her decay was so gradual and imperceptible as to lull the apprehensions of her friends into security. It was otherwise with herself; she was conscious of the change, but forbore to afflict them with the knowledge of the truth. The hour of her dissolution was sudden, even to herself; ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... round the luxurious private sitting-room and over the perfect "idea" of Mrs. Mellish was so swift as to be almost imperceptible. ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... listened with an almost imperceptible frown while he minutely studied his brother. The items he collected were not calculated to inspire confidence or quicken fraternal feeling. Jack, whom he remembered as fastidious in old times, was sadly ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... vagabond and nomad habits, and returned to the towns and cities. Yet from this temporary association were produced two results; European fraud became sharpened by coming into contact with Asiatic craft, whilst European tongues, by imperceptible degrees, became recruited with various words (some of them wonderfully expressive), many of which have long been stumbling-stocks to the philologist, who, whilst stigmatising them as words of mere vulgar ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... the House, he always moved to strike out this one. Year after year his motion was voted down, but year after year he renewed it with invincible perseverance. The majorities against him began to dwindle till they became almost imperceptible; in 1842 it was a majority of four; in 1843, of three; in 1844 the struggle was protracted for weeks, and Mr. Adams all but carried the day. It was evident that victory was not far off, and a kind fate (p. 306) had destined him to live not only to see but ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... weep in the prison. With difficulty I comforted him, and although from that day forth, he began to serve me more zealously than ever, if that were possible, and to watch over me, yet I perceived, from almost imperceptible signs, that his heart could never pardon me for my reproach; and yet the others laughed at us, persecuted him at every convenient opportunity, sometimes cursed him violently—but he lived in concord and friendship with them and never took offense. ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... prevented by this means. If the nostrils are firmly compressed by the thumb and finger of the left hand, while taking a nauseous draught, and so retained till the mouth has been washed out with water, the disagreeable taste of the medicine will be almost imperceptible. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... the year, when vegetation might be thought to share the incipient though still almost imperceptible decay of summer, might very well be chosen by primitive man as a fit moment for resorting to those magic rites by which he hopes to stay the decline, or at least to ensure the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... past two o'clock yesterday afternoon. The chaste white mystery of Shigo Mountain was already taking on a faint, almost imperceptible, hint of pink, like the warm cheek of a girl who hears a voice and anticipates a blush. Yet the rays of the afternoon sun rested with undiminished radiance on the empty pork-barrel in front of McMullin's shebang. A small and vagrant ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... he!" he murmured, in utter despair, and leaning against the wall to save himself from falling. As he finished giving utterance to this overpowering, overwhelming thought, which seemed to crush all others in his mind, the sharp sound of the lock was again heard, and, although the sound was almost imperceptible, his overexcited senses detected it instantly. An indefinable shudder ran through the young man's whole frame; again he listened with eager attention. So profound a silence reigned around him on every side that he could hear the throbbings of his own heart. A few minutes passed away without ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... scarcely any indication that the rough and uncouth nature of the man was susceptible to the impulses of a refined revenge, or of an exalted ambition. But when, on closer inspection, the duchesse perceived the small, piercingly black eyes, the longitudinal wrinkles of his high and massive forehead, the imperceptible twitching of the lips, on which were apparent traces of rough good-humor, Madame de Chevreuse altered her opinion of him, and felt she could say to herself: "I have found ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... it worth the bowing and the smirking?" she asked, looking past him with innocent eyes. She made an imperceptible little movement toward him as if she expected him to whisper. She was of that school. But he was not. His was not the sort of mind to conceive any thought that required whispering. Some persons in fact went so far as ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... I suppose, that Man will continue to enjoy the highest glory, of which his human nature is capable.—That all who in past ages have endeavoured to ameliorate the state of man will rise and enjoy the fruits and flowers, the imperceptible seeds of which they had sown in their former Life: and that the wicked will during the same period, be suffering the remedies adapted to their several bad habits. I suppose that this period will be followed by the passing away of this Earth and by our entering the state of pure intellect; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... With an imperceptible movement Morani's knife was out again, swishing back and forward across his palm with a low hissing sound. And every eye was rivetted on it. Koppy dragged ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... reading his account, it is impossible not to be struck with the very small share that men have had in this movement; it was purely a natural process directed by a merciful God. As with all natural processes, it began by an almost imperceptible movement among a few disconnected atoms, which, by seeming accident approaching and coming into contact, begin to form groups, which gather other groups toward them in ever-increasing numbers, thus giving shape to an organism which defines itself after a time, to be finally developed into a strong ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... instant the sensation was terrible, as he saw the green water closing over him, and the sunlight dimming overhead. Then an almost imperceptible jerk, and he knew that Bob had stayed his fall downward, and was lowering him more gradually. He had no fears as to Bob's capability, and after that first instant he slowly collected himself ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... washing against), a word taken from Roman law, in which it was one of the examples of accessio, that is, acquisition of property without any act being done by the acquirer. It signifies the gradual accretion of land or formation of an island by imperceptible degrees. If the accretion or formation be by a torrent or flood, the property in the severed portion or new island continues with the original owner until the trees, if any, swept away with it take root in the ground. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... given on the following page. It was produced "in a twinkling," if I may use the term to express the rapidity with which it was "switched." The chief source of the gracefulness of these curves consists in the almost imperceptible manner in which they pass in their course from one degree of curvature into another. I have had the pleasure of showing this simple mode of producing graceful curves to several potters, who have turned the idea to good ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... bowed low as he glanced significantly towards Roger, the favourite valet of the King, who replied to the meaning look by an almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders as he adjusted the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... once as obscure among the nations of the earth, as savage in our manners, as debased in our morals, as degraded in our understandings, as these unhappy Africans. But in the lapse of a long series of years, by a progression slow, and for a time almost imperceptible, we had become rich in a variety of acquirements. We were favoured above measure in the gifts of Providence, we were unrivalled in commerce, pre-eminent in arts, foremost in the pursuits of philosophy and science, and established in all the blessings of civil ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... Vigorously, lusty, the perfection physically of young manhood, the four runners sped on with the swiftness of the wind, but when they touched the tape it was evident that Mott was first by a small margin and that Ogden was second, being an almost imperceptible distance in advance of Will Phelps, who had finished third in ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... lilies and the roses in the flower-beds, the inward nature makes another life of it, and the restless soul can never be made to vegetate, even though the body does little else.... My days roll on in a sort of dreamy, monotonous succession, with an imperceptible motion, like the ceaseless creeping of the glaciers. I teach S—— to read. I order my household, I read Mrs. Jameson's book about Canada, I write to you, I copy out for Elizabeth Sedgwick the journal I kept on the plantation, I ride every day, and play on the piano just enough not to forget my ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... absorb the visible wealth of the nation. Amongst them are many respectable persons. The lower orders of the people have been taught, by restless visionaries, to consider the destinations of Providence, which had before, by an imperceptible gradation of social colouring, united the russet brown to the magisterial purple, as usurpations over those natural rights which have been impressed without illustration, and magnified by a mischievous ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... pushing it down to the coral. The instant it touched the tip of a tentacle, it adhered, and was drawn in with the surrounding tentacles between the plates. With a lens I saw the small mouth slowly open, and move over to that side, the lips gaping unsymmetrically; while with a movement as imperceptible as that of the hour hand of a watch, the tiny prey was carried along between the plates to the corner of the mouth. The mouth, however, moved most, and at length reached the edges of the plates, gradually closed upon ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... There can be no doubt, if the mental faculties of an animal can be improved, that the higher complex faculties such as abstraction and self-consciousness have developed from a combination of the simpler ones; this seems to be well illustrated in the young child, as such faculties are developed by imperceptible degrees. These high faculties are very sparingly possessed by the savage; as Buchner[57] has remarked, how little can the hard-worked wife of a degraded Australian savage, who uses very few abstract words and cannot count above four, exert ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
... to make the chance which he had determined to give her still better, when the servant announced another visitor. The duchess, on hearing the name—it was that of an Italian prince—gave a little imperceptible pout, and said to Newman, rapidly: "I beg you to remain; I desire this visit to be short." Newman said to himself, at this, that Madame d'Outreville intended, after all, that they should discuss the ...
— The American • Henry James
... sunset die away, and live not upon canvas. How difficult, then, the task you have imposed upon me, amigo mio—to seal up in a wicker flask that moonlight; chain down, by words, that flitting and almost imperceptible perfume—to tell you anything about that music which, embodied in a material form, was known ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... greasewood and sparse yellow sage led to the first almost imperceptible rise of the valley floor on that side. The distant cedars beckoned to Slone. He was not patient, because he was on the trail of Wildfire; but, nevertheless, the ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... American legislatures it is to be hoped that downright bribery is rare. As for log-rolling, or exchange of favours, there are many phases of it in which that which may be perfectly innocent shades off by almost imperceptible degrees into that which is unseemly or dishonourable or even criminal; and it is in this hazy region that Satan likes to set his traps for the ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... generally something to do, and that quickened us. Even the showers of rain had a revivifying effect, and shook up the brain from torpor. But now, when the river no longer ran in a proper sense, only glided seaward with an even, outright, but imperceptible speed, and when the sky smiled upon us day after day without variety, we began to slip into that golden doze of the mind which follows upon much exercise in the open air. I have stupefied myself in this way more than once; indeed, I dearly love the feeling; but I never ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were all the nicest, kindest people, and everything was as happy and charming as possible among them. They did no harm to anyone, and were all enjoying it. What struck Levin was that he could see through them all today, and from little, almost imperceptible signs knew the soul of each, and saw distinctly that they were all good at heart. And Levin himself in particular they were all extremely fond of that day. That was evident from the way they spoke to him, from the friendly, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... laid on the same inclination, forms a rapid stream, carrying away the heavy silt which was deposited in the broad sewer. As a consequence of this, it has been found, where pipe sewers are used, even on almost imperceptible inclinations, that silt is very rarely deposited, and the waste matters of house and street drainage are carried immediately to the outlet, instead of remaining to ferment and poison the atmosphere of the streets through which they pass. In the rare cases of obstruction which occur, the pipes ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... exist for him—they two were the gigantic figures on a shadow background—and what he sometimes could not believe was, that such feelings as these should be seething in him, and she remain ignorant of them. He lost touch with reality, and dreamed dreams of imperceptible threads, finer than any gossamer, which could be spun from soul to soul, without the ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... cheer arose, and as every man tugged and strained, the vessel began to move, so little that it was almost imperceptible, and Oliver's heart sank at the thought of two miles to go at that rate; but in less than a minute, as she was rocked a little more, she gained momentum, the men at the capstan strained and cheered, and away she went, ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... a quantity in God? There is; but not a physical quantity, But a supernatural quantity; One nevertheless that is plainly imperceptible to ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... crater and glance down into its interior. It is very deep. The walls are perpendicular, and at the bottom of the abyss there are to be seen several clefts from which vapours arise. In the same way "smoke" forces its way at some places at the edge of the crater through small imperceptible cracks in the mountain. Both on the border of the crater, on its sides and its bottom there is to be seen a yellow efflorescence, which at the places which I got at to examine it consisted of sulphur. The edge of the ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... supped with Aurelia alone, and at seven I was supposed to retire—either to my own room for study and bed, or into the town upon my private pleasures. These, I say, were the rules laid down by Aurelia and her husband at the beginning of my residence in Padua. By almost imperceptible degrees they were relaxed, by other degrees equally hard to measure they were almost ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... philanthropists: we are far from undervaluing either the importance or the utility of their labours; but as we have hitherto seen no diminution of crime whatever from their efforts, so we anticipate a very slow and almost imperceptible improvement in society from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... I do know that it must have been administered with a caution that is almost diabolical in its ingenuity—so slowly, by such imperceptible degrees, that you have scarcely been aware of the change which it has worked in your system. It was a most providential circumstance that you came to me when you did, as I have been able to discover the treachery to which you are subject while ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... rings, bracelets, jewels; with a long black wig, powdered, and curled in front; with ribbons wherever he could put them; steeped in perfumes, and in fine a model of cleanliness. He was accused of putting on an imperceptible touch of rouge. He had a long nose, good eyes and mouth, a full but very long face. All his portraits resembled him. I was piqued to see that his features recalled those of Louis XIII., to whom; except in matters of courage, he was ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... not far to seek. For my own part, I disliked him—I had done so from the moment when first I had set eyes on him—and since hatred, like affection, is often a matter of reciprocity, the Chevalier was not slow to return my dislike. Our manner gradually, by almost imperceptible stages, grew more distant, until by the end of a week it had become so hostile that Lavedan found occasion to comment ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... watching the rest with a comprehensive glance, making them laugh, and tossing up her head, too lively and arch not to be pretty. She appeared to rule the first group of girls, who were the daughters of bankers, notaries, and merchants,—all rich, but aware of the imperceptible though cutting slights which another group belonging to the aristocracy put upon them. The latter were led by the daughter of one of the King's ushers, a little creature, as silly as she was vain, proud of being the daughter of a man with "an office at court." She was a girl who ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... while smoke from the fires would in time become annoying. But Indians used for fuel only dry wood and bark, the smoke from which would be a negligible factor. The varying pressure of the atmosphere outside creates a current of air in or out which is usually imperceptible but which penetrates to the ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... in the old man's room. The sun had set, the short twilight was drawing to a close, church bells were ringing, down in the city yellow lights were gleaming in windows here and there, above, the great sky rounded upward from a faint glow on the horizon through imperceptible gradations of tint, to pure depths of transparent blue overhead, where stars were beginning to flash and tremble; within, in the gloom, the musician sat playing a sacred melody of Spohr's, and as Madelon listened, some subtle affinity between this hour and the first one she had spent in the ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... regarding my statements, I will just give you a little illustration," said Arletta, and before I was aware of her intentions she arose, and with an almost imperceptible spring went straight up to the ceiling, and then with a graceful movement somewhat similar to a fish swimming in the water, she went half way across the room and slowly descended to the floor again. "There is no good reason why a man should not fly as well as swim," said ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... ocean was once covered with verdure, and the seat of the sorrows and joys of myriads of human beings, who erected cities, and built pyramids, and monuments, which Time has long since swept away, and wrapt in his eternal mantle of oblivion. That a constant, but almost imperceptible change is hourly taking place in the earth's surface, appears to be established; and independent of the extraordinary bouleversements, which have at intervals convulsed our globe, this gradual revolution has ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... syllable of her silvery voice lingered in his ear. He had caught meanings where perhaps no meaning was, and missed the key to others which he knew were there—never, perhaps, to be revealed to him. But although he questioned in the name of love, and found many divine echoes in her words, imperceptible to every ear but his own, he could not wholly solve the riddle of his life. Still ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... nigh, mum,' and indeed after scraping the dish all round with his knife and carrying the choice brown morsels to his mouth, and after taking such a scientific pull at the stone bottle that, by degrees almost imperceptible to the sight, his head went farther and farther back until he lay nearly at his full length upon the ground, this gentleman declared himself quite disengaged, and came forth ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... seldom spoke, but respectful silence permitted the lowest of his syllables to be audible. On the present occasion, when his voice was first heard, such a stillness came over all in presence, that he finished the sentence amid the nearly imperceptible breathings of the listeners. In this momentary but death-like quiet, there arose a blast from the conch at the gate, that might have seemed an echo of that which had so lately startled the already-excited inmates of the dwelling. At the repetition ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... of this fact had been gradual. She wasn't fully conscious of it, even on this March morning. But something had happened this morning that made a difference. If she'd been ascending an imperceptible gradient for the last three months, to-day she had come to a recognizable step up and taken it. Oddly enough, the thing had happened back there in the class-room as she stood before the professor's desk and caught his eye wavering between ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... of life is that Reason has taken charge of the administration of Justice, and by mere identification it has achieved the crown and sceptre of its master. But the imperceptible usurpation was recorded, and discriminating minds understand the chasm which still divides the pretender Law from the exiled King. In a like manner, and with feigned humility, the Cold Demon advanced to serve Religion, and by guile and violence usurped her throne; ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... past life, before I knew or was capable of guessing what the world, or glories, or business of it were, the natural affections of my soul gave me a secret bent of aversion from them, as some plants are said to turn away from others, by an antipathy imperceptible to themselves and inscrutable to man's understanding. Even when I was a very young boy at school, instead of running about on holidays and playing with my fellows, I was wont to steal from them and walk into the fields, either alone with a book, ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... compare their own expeditions to the marches of Caesar and Alexander. Yet should a fly presume to settle on the silken folds of their gilded umbrellas, should a sunbeam penetrate through some unguarded and imperceptible chink, they deplore their intolerable hardships, and lament in affected language that they were not born in the land of the Cimmerians, the regions of eternal darkness. In these journeys into the country the whole body of the household marches ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... French wit, nor, like the Irish wit, throws a double portion of severity into his countenance while laughing inwardly; but preserves a look peculiarly his own, a look of demure serenity, disturbed only by an arch sparkle of the eye, an almost imperceptible elevation of the brow, an almost imperceptible curl of the lip. His tone is never that either of a Jack Pudding or of a Cynic. It is that of a gentleman, in whom the quickest sense of the ridiculous is constantly tempered by good nature and ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... would prove of interest. No head, however, is of much value as a record unless its history is well known, and unless it has been in the hands of responsible persons. The measurements of antler spread can be considered authentic only when the skull is intact. If the skull is split an almost imperceptible paring of the skull bones at the joint would suffice to drop the antlers either laterally out of their proper plane, or else pitch the main beam backward. By either of these devices a couple of inches can be gained on each side, making ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... Hutchins at home and sitting morosely before his kitchen fire. Rightly assuming that his luxuriant car would involve him in a certain amount of public attention in Klondyke Street, the blind man dismissed it some distance from the house, and walked the rest of the way, guided by the almost imperceptible touch of ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... so near the coast, it became now very obvious she was driven by a current that set along the land, but which, it was probable, had set towards it more in the offing. The imperceptible drift between the observation of the previous day and the discovery of the coast, had sufficed to carry the vessel a great distance; and to this simple cause, coupled perhaps with some neglect in the steerage during ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... displays our fallen nature, than that of reprobation. All mankind agree in opinion, that there ever has been an elect, or good class of society; and a reprobate, or worthless and bad class; varying in turpitude or in goodness to a great extent and in almost imperceptible degrees. All must unite in ascribing to God that divine foreknowledge that renders ten thousand years but as one day, or hour, or moment in his sight. All ascribe to his omnipotence the power to ordain or ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Unemployment in fact is at least as old as the days of Queen Elizabeth, when the great Poor Law of 1601 was passed to cope with it. Whilst labour was scattered and the artisan still frequently his own master, unemployment was indefinite and relatively imperceptible. When masses of men and women came to be employed in factories, the closing of the factory made unemployment obvious to those on the spot. But two generations ago Lancashire and Yorkshire were far away from London, and the nation as a whole knew little and cared ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... question the doctor about this living problem; but the latter made a sign to him, which was almost imperceptible, not to pursue his investigations, and he changed the conversation. They then talked about court affairs, the city news, and all that had taken place since the departure of the doctor. Then Dame Greta came, and opened the card-table, and laid out the cards. Soon silence ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... to face with Sharlee Weyland in the vestibule of Mrs. Byrd, Senior's, handsome house. In the days intervening, Sharlee's state of mind had remained very much where it was on the first morning: only now the tiny open corner of her mind had shrunk to imperceptible dimensions. Of West she entertained not the smallest doubt; and she greeted him like the excellent friend ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... finding no food on the sun-parched meadows. Only at night and in the forests while the dew lasted was there any freshness. But on the road, the highroad along which the troops marched, there was no such freshness even at night or when the road passed through the forest; the dew was imperceptible on the sandy dust churned up more than six inches deep. As soon as day dawned the march began. The artillery and baggage wagons moved noiselessly through the deep dust that rose to the very hubs of the wheels, and the infantry sank ankle-deep in that ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... himself a king, gave himself laws, and built up great empires in Egypt, Assyria, China, and Peru. He raised him altars, Stonehenges and Karnaks. His picture-writing grew into hieroglyphs and cuneiforms, and finally emerged, by imperceptible steps, into alphabetic symbols, the raw material of the art of printing. His dug-out canoe culminates in the iron-clad and the 'Great Eastern'; his boomerang and slingstone in the Woolwich infant; his boiling pipkin and his wheeled car in the locomotive engine; his picture-message ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... successively appear in view, enumerated 6,000 stars. This number may be regarded as including all the stars in the heavens that are visible to the naked eye. With the aid of an opera glass thousands of stars can be seen that are imperceptible to ordinary vision. Argelander, with a small telescope of 2-1/2 inches aperture, was able to count 234,000 stars in the Northern Hemisphere. Large telescopes reveal multitudes of stars utterly beyond the power of enumeration, nor do they appear to diminish in number as ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... as his father had had his breakfast, he told him what he had discovered during the dark hours. The laird listened with the light of a smile, not the smile itself, upon his face, and made no answer; but Cosmo could see by the all but imperceptible motion of his lips ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... person so marked being destined to trouble and misfortunes. A mole on the left knee portended a good spouse, with great riches, to the happy individual so marked. A mole on either foot foreboded sudden illness, or unexpected misfortune, and one on any part of the shoulders indicated imperceptible decline and gradual decay in health and fortune. There were many other ways of divining the fate and dispositions of man, such as by the hand, foot, hair, mouth, ears, tongue, eyes, chin, walk, conversation, and complexion; but as it would be unprofitable ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... hallucinations. Since then I have often been completely taken in by appearances under certain conditions of light, and the novelty has worn off. Sastrugi are the hard waves formed by wind on a snow surface; these are seldom more than a foot or so in height, and often so obscured as to be imperceptible irregularities. On this occasion they often appeared like immense ridges until you walked over them. After going about 10 miles we spotted a tiny black triangle in the dead white void ahead, it was over a mile away and was the lunch ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... of one or more members, or of the tongue, may follow the awakening. These are the effects of the contractions of the internal muscles, due often to almost imperceptible touches. The diaphragm—and therefore the respiration—may be stopped in the same manner. Catalepsy and more especially lethargy, produce ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... to be fading away in remote distance. This was the case with Mars, Venus, and that unknown orb which was moving in the orbit of the minor planets; but Jupiter, on the other hand, had assumed splendid proportions; Saturn was superb in its luster, and Uranus, which hitherto had been imperceptible without a telescope was pointed out by Lieutenant Procope, plainly visible to the naked eye. The inference was irresistible that Gallia was receding from the sun, and traveling far away across ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... over the country and struck root there, it would seem that no power on earth is strong enough to eradicate it. In the United States, general principles in religion, philosophy, morality, and even politics, do not vary, or at least are only modified by a hidden and often an imperceptible process: even the grossest prejudices are obliterated with incredible slowness, amidst the continual friction of men and things. I hear it said that it is in the nature and the habits of democracies to be constantly changing their opinions and feelings. This may be ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... here quite imperceptible. During the whole time of our stay, Reaumur's thermometer stood ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... inlet, which was named by the governor Port Dalrymple, in compliment to Alexander Dalrymple, esq takes its course from the SE between two chains of rounded mountains, stretching inland from the sea with an almost imperceptible increase of elevation; and, after gradually approximating each other, seemed to unite, at the distance of between thirty and forty miles, in a body of rugged mountains more lofty than themselves. These two chains in their relative positions formed an acute angle, being at their greatest ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... Only, the beautification has been quiet and unobtrusive, while the uglification has been obvious and concentrated. It takes half a year to jerry-build a dingy street, but it takes a decade for newly-planted trees to give the woodland air by imperceptible stages to a stretch ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... a gentle and almost imperceptible jar, the Flying Fish rose from the ground to the height of about two hundred feet, and, with her engines only just turning, began to circle slowly round the somewhat extensive outcrop, while the party on deck keenly searched with their binoculars the several irregularities of ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... such circumstances you cannot too rapidly turn your horse's head and his attention from the fancied, to the substantial ill. But on common occasions the turning his head from what he shies at should be as gradual and imperceptible as possible. No chastisement should be allowed in any case. If he makes a start, you should endeavour not to make a return start. You should not, indeed, take more notice of a shy than you can ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... be capturing tiny insects housed away there. Much more like a large sphynx moth hovering and humming over the flowers in the dusky twilight, than like a bird, appears this delicate, fairy-like beauty. How the bright green of the body gleams and glistens in the sunlight. Each imperceptible stroke of those tiny wings conforms to the mechanical laws of flight in all their subtle complications with an ease and gracefulness that seems spiritual. Who can fail to note that fine adjustment of the organs of flight to aerial elasticity and gravitation, ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [December, 1897], Vol 2. No 6. • Various
... was almost imperceptible. The first officer did not apparently realize that the great ship had received her death wound, and none of the passengers had the slightest suspicion that anything more than a usual minor sea accident had happened. Hundreds who had gone to their ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... through my mind I took a fair look at him. He was a spare young fellow, not more than thirty, with sandy hair and eyebrows, and eyelashes so white as to be almost imperceptible. He was dressed in black, somewhat to the "rearward o' the fashion," and I had an odd idea that it had been his wedding suit, and it afterwards appeared I was right. His manner had the precision and much of the dogmatism of the country schoolmaster, accustomed ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... corresponds exactly with the other females of the Pammon group; and though, from the peculiar marking of the fore wings, it has at first sight a very different aspect, yet a closer examination shows that every one of its markings could be produced by slight and almost imperceptible modifications of the various allied forms. I fully believe, therefore, that I shall be correct in placing P. Romulus as a third Indian form of the female P. Pammon, corresponding to P. Melanides, the third form of the Malayan ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... the sarsenet of her bodice, and, as it were wrapped in these odours as her body was wrapped in its clothes, the faint fleshly perfume of her body itself. Her face, viewed so close that he could see the almost imperceptible down on those fruit-like cheeks, was astonishingly beautiful; the dark eyes were exquisitely misted; and he could feel the secret loyalty of her soul ascending to him. She was very slightly taller than her lover; but somehow she hung from him, her body curved backwards, and her bosom pressed ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... for the re-entrance of these unfortunate people into ordinary life. According to this method females, after a prolonged period of imprisonment, are not thrown all of a sudden upon the world; they re-enter it by slow and imperceptible stages, and are thus enabled to commence life afresh ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... have done nothing," replied Mrs. Weldon, "and here is the reason. The letters spread out on the table, Munito walked about through this alphabet. When it arrived before the letter which it should choose to form the word required, it stopped; but if it stopped it was because it heard the noise—imperceptible to all others—of a toothpick that the American snapped in his pocket. That noise was the signal for Munito to take the letter and arrange it ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... lawyer and the young woman had raised their heads from earnest conversation when Stephen Langdon entered the room. The lawyer, with a startled, although amused, expression on his professional face; the daughter with a cold smile and an almost imperceptible nod of her shapely, Junoesque head. But her black eyes snapped with something very nearly approaching defiance, and she replied, before Melvin ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... moment, conscious only of the faint hum of a generator at the other end of the room, and the quivering hand of the meter. I turned the dial back an imperceptible degree, and the hand steadied down exactly upon the numerals "2700." Then ...
— The Infra-Medians • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... balance whereby an unattached creature can go in a new direction with a new wind. The merry beggar was the only adventurer free to yield to the lighter touches of chance, the touches that a habit of resistance has made imperceptible to the seated ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... M'Nicholl; "there shall be no disorder whatever; nothing will quit its place; the movement of the Projectile will be effected by such slow degrees as to be imperceptible." ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... is no other than the image of the principle: it is a delineation to the eye, and from thence to the mind, of a principle that would otherwise be imperceptible. The triangle does not make the principle, any more than a candle taken into a room that was dark, makes the chairs and tables that before were invisible. All the properties of a triangle exist independently of the figure, and existed before any triangle was drawn or thought of by ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... of hatred and an awakener of indefinable suspicion. Scepticism had been born into the world, almost more hateful than heresy, because it had the manners of good society and contented itself with a smile, a shrug, an almost imperceptible lift of the eyebrow,—a kind of reasoning especially exasperating to disputants of the old school, who still cared about victory, even when they did not about the principles involved in ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... manner: "We are well acquainted with the advantages resulting from the system of government established among us, and will on no account run the hazard of any change. We know that great revolutions are often brought about by imperceptible degrees, and are therefore resolved to cure the itch of novelty by the rod of chastisement." Upon this maxim a law is established in Japan, by which all the subjects of the empire are prohibited from leaving the country; or, if any ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... those invisible, imperceptible steps by which a man's honor first descends; show me the way back to the serene altitude of clean conscience, and I will undertake to enlighten you upon the secret of every great historical event, tragic or otherwise. If you will search history carefully, ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... the chiming of bells, and, as his eyes slowly opened, the sorrowful people of a dream, who seemed to be bending over him, weeping, swam back into the darkness of the night whence they had come, and returned to the imperceptible, leaving their shadows in his heart. Slowly he rose, stumbled into the outer room, and released the fluttering shade; but the sunshine, springing like a golden lover through the open window, only dazzled him, and found no answering gladness to ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... her waist. She was quietly and, somewhat sadly considerate for her husband, and extremely kind to all her visitors, though with a tinge of difference in her behaviour according to their position. She received Nekhludoff as if he were one of them, and her fine, almost imperceptible flattery made him once again aware of his virtues and gave him a feeling of satisfaction. She made him feel that she knew of that honest though rather singular step of his which had brought him to Siberia, and held him to be an exceptional ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... long in scouring the country and pillaging the flowers, live exclusively out of doors, and would in no wise serve their end. But the moment comes when the Anthophora pays court to the fair sex, and the imperceptible creature immediately profits by the amorous encounter to change its winged courser. "These pigmies therefore have a memory, an experience of facts" (and how one is tempted to add, a glimmering of intelligence!). ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... the poppies, and like fairies' draughts of yellow wine in the enamelled hollows of the buttercups; on the brown earth of the pathways, where the long shadows were purple, it lay white like hoar-frost. The shadows were still long, the sunbeams still almost level; the sun shone gently, as through an imperceptible thin veil, gilding with pinkish gold the surfaces it touched—glossy leaves, and the rough bark of tree-trunks, and the points of the spears of grass. A thicker veil, a gauze of pearl and silver, dimmed the blue ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... expression, like a rabbi who comments upon the Bible, and deciphered the erasures with the patience of a seeker after hieroglyphics, so as to detach from them some particle of the idea they had contained. After analyzing and criticising this note in all its most imperceptible shades, he crushed it within his hand and began to pace the floor, uttering from time to time some of those exclamations which the Dictionnaire de l'Academie has not yet decided to sanction; for all lovers resemble the lazzaroni who kiss San-Gennaro's feet ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the atmosphere—impalpable, imperceptible, but all-pervading, and the source of life itself. Most leading decisions of our courts of last resort, involving great constitutional questions, refer to the spirit of our institutions as interpreting our Constitution. It is our institutional law which, flowing like our blood through ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... this slight ordinary fact of his birth, which happened almost unnoticed by the inhabitants of Thagaste, and in truth it seems to him a great event, not because it concerns himself, bishop and Father of the Church, but because it is a soul which at this imperceptible point of time comes ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... looked up at her, and their eyes met, hers with desperate expectation and his holding her gaze in an unmoved questioning. "Did she give it to you?" he asked, and she shook her head with a negation almost imperceptible. "No," said Jeffrey to himself. "She didn't have it. ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... traversed before. There were two or three subordinate gardeners in or about the houses, but upon reflection he forbore to question them. He tried to assume an idly indifferent air as he sauntered past, nodding almost imperceptible acknowledgment of the forefingers they jerked ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... imperceptibly crept over the senses of persons entering this tiny apartment. It must have been in the atmosphere; for some rooms more luxuriously furnished are without it. It certainly does not lie in the furniture—this imperceptible sense of companionship; it does not lurk in the curtains. Some mansions know it, and many cottages. It is even to be met with in the tiny cabin ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... movements which would have sent him home glowing and refreshed and fancying himself half-way back to boyhood again; the slight ache and weariness of next day would have been cured by next day's exercise; and after six months' patience, by a progress almost imperceptible, he would have found himself, in respect to strength and activity, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... him. My words, I feel, in this sermon, have been very poor, set by the side of the greatness of the theme; but, poor as they have been, you will not be exactly the same man after them, if you have listened to them, as you were before. The difference may be very imperceptible, but it will be real. One more, almost invisible, film, over the eyeball; one more thin layer of wax in the ear; one more fold of insensibility round heart and conscience—or else some yielding to the love; some finger put out to take the salvation; some lightening of the pressure of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... predilections, than on discovering mine. He had not the tact, or the art, to effect such a purpose by skilfully drawing out my sentiments or ideas through the real or apparent statement of his own, or leading the conversation by imperceptible gradations to such topics as he wished to advert to: but such gentle abruptness, and such single- minded straightforwardness, ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
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