"Impassiveness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who seemed now to assume to his fancy the form of his uncle. A great deal was no doubt delirious, and this betrayed the struggles which he had been for weeks fighting out in silence and apparent impassiveness; but it was impossible not to feel that therewith was manifested the wrestling with the Prince of Darkness, ere his subject should escape from his territory, and claim the ransom of his manumission. Mr. Audley—after the second night—would not let Felix remain, but took the watch entirely ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... impassiveness of this ascetic, that the ants had thrown up their mound as high as his waist without being disturbed, and birds had built ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... power that had become his, he noticed a letter, on the envelope of which was written 'On Active Service,' and breaking the seal, found that it was from Douglas Watson, written at a British hospital in France. As Selwyn read it the impassiveness of his face gave way to a look of trouble. For the first time in many months there was the quick play of expression about his lips and his eyes that had always differentiated him from ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... the den in the morning twilight, and the 'lamentable voice,' so unlike royal impassiveness, indicate the agitation of an impulsive nature, accustomed to let the feeling of the moment sway it unchecked. Absolute power tends to make that type of man. The question thrown into the den seems to imply that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... spirits still weighted by the impending crisis. He tried to read in Sudden's face what attitude he might expect, but Sudden was wearing what his friends called his poker expression, which was no expression at all. His very impassiveness warned and steadied Johnny. ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... purity, and personal excellence. His command over his feelings, even in moments of great difficulty and danger, was such as to convey the impression, to those who did not know him intimately, that he was a man of inborn calmness and almost impassiveness of disposition. Yet Washington was by nature ardent and impetuous; his mildness, gentleness politeness, and consideration for others, were the result of rigid self-control and unwearied self-discipline, which he diligently practiced even from his ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... hear of the cause of his daughter's return from his daughter's lips. Not that day, not on any other day did she ever allude to her Singapore life. He did not care to ask, awed by the calm impassiveness of her face, by those solemn eyes looking past him on the great, still forests sleeping in majestic repose to the murmur of the broad river. He accepted the situation, happy in the gentle and protecting affection the girl showed him, fitfully ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... our Roman eagles with money or with glory?' he asked, with what I thought was an insolent sneer. I shook him off, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. However," smiling again as he saw a familiar impassiveness settle upon his host's face, "for you to-night there shall be neither Parthians nor budgets. I offer myself as the victim of your thoughts. You may even ask me why I have not published my odes since you last ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... information, and witnessed the most appalling tragedies by poison or the block, without anything more than a vocal protest or command, always delivered to the audience and never to the actors, but I think my poor friend's utter impassiveness to the wild carnage and the terrible exhibitions of incendiarism that were going on around him transcended even that. Dressed in a costume that seemed to be the very soul of anachronism, he stood a little outside the proscenium, holding a spear, the other hand pressed apparently upon the secret within ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... glanced at the formidable array of bottles. "And he calls this a quiet life!" thought the care-taker, losing his impassiveness and viewing ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... day after day, unmoved by events that might have disturbed other men and unstirred by emotions that might have turned other men from their paths, he looked out over the city and "played his game" with all the cold impassiveness of a gambler operating an infallible system in roulette. No detail was too small to escape his notice, no agent too ignoble ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... civilised world, when justice reigns supreme, and loving-kindness takes the place of jealousy and hate.' We looked round the room while these fervid words were being triumphantly rolled forth, and were struck with the calm impassiveness of the listeners. There seemed to be no partisanship either for the speaker or the Grand. Once, when the former was more than usually emphatic in his denunciations, a tall pale man, with a Shakespeare ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... were exchanged. Having indicated an easy chair before the fire to his guest, the South American merchant sank back again into his own. The electric light was switched on. Faull's prominent, clear-cut features, metallic-looking skin, and general air of bored impassiveness, did not seem greatly to impress the medium, who was accustomed to regard men from a special angle. Backhouse, on the contrary, was a novelty to the merchant. As he tranquilly studied him through half closed lids and the smoke of a cigar, he wondered ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... clear out like this?" Razumov wondered at himself with an impassive countenance. And he was aware of this impassiveness concealing ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... Blake saw him; she started slightly, but took no further notice. The tears were streaming down Mat's face, and Mollie, with girlish sympathy, had slipped her hand through his arm; but the mother stood in stony impassiveness beside them, until Kester whispered something to her and led her away. The rest of the mourners had dispersed, but Audrey stood there still, looking thoughtfully down into the grave. Dr. Ross and his wife had followed the others, but Michael had ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... came singing across the sunny hill-tops. Sir James Lee, who acted as the Earl's equerry for the day, rode at a little distance, and there was an almost pathetic contrast between the grim, steadfast impassiveness of the tough old warrior and ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... character's defects. You will seek in vain, in studying the fictitious people of Guy de Maupassant, for any indication of the author's approval or disapproval of them; and there is something very admirable in this absolute impassiveness of art. But on the other hand, there is a certain salutary humanness about an author who loves or hates his characters just as he would love or hate the same sort of people in actual life, and writes about them with the glow of personal emotion. ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... off!"—somewhat as if she had retired into the grave to avoid the trouble and expense of the function. Cards inscribed— "Sympathy and kind enquiries"—were left for Lord Blythe in the care of his dignified butler, who received them with the impassiveness of a Buddhist idol and deposited them all on the orthodox salver in the hall—and a few messages of "Deeply shocked and grieved. Condolences"—by wires, not exceeding sixpence each, were despatched to the lonely widower,—but beyond these purely formal observances, the handsome brilliant ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... turned, looking at his late clerk with absolute impassiveness. He made no remark, and stood like a statue, waiting ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... drink. It interfered with a profession which required coolness, impassiveness, and presence of mind, and, in his own language, he "couldn't afford it." As he gazed at his recumbent fellow exiles, the loneliness begotten of his pariah trade, his habits of life, his very vices, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... from which nothing in the world can divorce them. In outward social intercourse, on the other hand, they will gladly and easily allow themselves to take their tone from the person with whom at the moment they are occupied; and thus by a mixture of impassiveness and susceptibility, by persisting and by yielding, they continue to keep the government to themselves, and no man in the cultivated world can ever ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... thoughts which had suddenly flashed across his mind, and a look of intense hatred and cruel satisfaction for a moment chased away the studied impassiveness of ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Cynthia's impassiveness, her complete poise, had fascinated Miss Duncan with the others. Had there been nothing beneath that exterior, Janet would never have guessed it, and she would have been quite as happy. Cynthia saw very clearly that Mr. Worthington or no other man or woman ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... he stand there and argue the case for the Queen? He was the newest joined, the greenest member of her crew. Already his mouth was dry and his nerves tense. But Dane didn't know that none of that was revealed by his face or manner. The usual impassiveness which had masked his inner conflicts since his first days at the Pool served him now. And the others never noted the hesitation with which he approached the ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... bronzed their English complexions and deepened the lines about the quiet steadfast lips and anxious eyes. Already Bradford's shoulders were a little bowed, partly by the burden of his responsibility, partly by arduous manual labor, but upon his face had grown the serenity and somewhat of the impassiveness into which the Egyptians loved to mould the features of their kings,—that expression which of all others belongs to a man who uses great power firmly and decisively, and yet looks upon himself as but a steward, who soon or ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... that then our fate would be decided. But there is something in the constant repetition of stimulants, be they moral or physical, which blunts the feelings, hardens the heart, and at last allows the person long submitted to their influence to look upon everything with indifference and impassiveness. We had had so many "shocks" during the last three months—so many times we expected to be tortured or killed—that when the day arrived that we were in reality placed almost beyond hope, the crisis ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... the performance was a representation of Windsor Castle, with the Emperor's reception there, when "God save the Queen" was splendidly sung, and received with acclamation. The Emperor's happy animation, in contrast to his usual impassiveness, was ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... her, tall and spare, in a new, black alpaca suit as incongruous-looking as the old one. He made no response at once; and there was no change in his perfectly chiseled, tan features; but for all his impassiveness he managed remarkably to convey the impression that an immense calamity had befallen him. His full eyelids remained lowered, as if he were considering his whole unfortunate destiny; and a sort of loneliness, produced no doubt by his strangeness in ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... probably no actress but Sarah Bernhardt who could render all the various phases of this character as they should be rendered. There is only one phase of it that comes fairly within Miss Anderson's grasp. Of vivacity there is not a spark in her nature; a heavy-footed impassiveness weighs upon all her efforts to be sprightly. The refinement, the subtlety, the animation, the ton, of an actress of the Comedie Francaise she does not so much as suggest. Womanly sympathy, tenderness, and trust, those qualities which constitute a far deeper ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... her room, followed by Count Ville-Handry, and his young wife. He could, of course, not remain in Henrietta's room; but it looked as if he could not tear himself away. For some time the servants, quite amazed, saw him walk up and down the passage with feverish steps, and, in spite of his usual impassiveness, giving all the signs of extraordinary excitement. Every ten minutes he paused in his walk to ask at the door, with a voice full ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... the silver top-knot of his brushed-up hair completed the character of his physiognomy, all bony ridges and sunken hollows, clothed in a perfect impassiveness of expression. His meagre brown hands emerging from large white cuffs came and went breaking bread, pouring wine, and so on, with quiet mechanical precision. His head and body above the tablecloth had ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... he said with a bow; and as he handed it to me, his eyes opened wide in surprise. He, too, perceived the change in my appearance. But he was dignity itself, and instantly suppressed his astonishment into the polite impassiveness of a truly accomplished waiter, and gliding from the room on the points of his toes, as was his usual custom, he disappeared. The note was from ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... with the proof of his employer's crimes in his possession, repeated these words with an indifference and impassiveness that seemed unnatural, while the smouldering fire in his eyes gleamed fitfully, as though he knew some secret of which the ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... kid-glove gang have n't been able to do," he avowed. And having delivered himself of that ultimatum, he promptly relaxed into his old-time impassiveness, like a dog snapping from his kennel and shrinking back into its shadows. At the same moment that Blake's thick forefinger again prodded the buzzer-button at his desk end the watching woman could see the relapse into ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... garments of no shape, nor fashion, nor color, to mark his date—his hair flowing in loose waves to the throat, from under the high, conical hat, his full curling beard and moustache obscuring the lines of the face and intensifying its impassiveness—only in the eyes, without curiosity, a mild look of question at the strangeness of the ways and sights of cities—such as some shepherd-god ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... stopped and glanced around at the little group. The blacksmith's wife and daughter had put down their work, and were gazing at him with an air of horrified curiosity. The blacksmith held his pipe in his hand, and regarded the narrator with the steadiness and impassiveness of an anvil. The school-master was listening with the greatest eagerness. He was an enthusiast on Natural History and Mythology, and had written an article for a weekly paper on the reconciliation of the beasts of tradition with the fauna of to-day. ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... of prayer-paper which he would assuredly burn when he was actually through the gates, he stepped out more quickly, until suddenly, at a turn in the glade, he stopped altogether, while the watchful expression into which he had unguardedly dropped at once changed into a mask of impassiveness and extreme unconcern. From behind the next tree projected a long straight rod, not unlike a slender bamboo at a distance, but, to Kai Lung's all-seeing eye, in reality the barrel of a matchlock, which would come into line with his breast if he took another step. Being ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... gunpowder, their arms bare, and their keen cutlasses firmly clutched in their strong right hands. The Americans took the alarm at once, and crowded forward to repel the enemy. The marines, whose hard duty it is in long-range fighting to stand with military impassiveness, drawn up in line on deck, while the shot whistle by them, and now and then cut great gaps in their straight lines,—the marines came aft, with their muskets loaded and bayonets fixed. Before them were sailors with sharp-pointed boarding-pikes, ready to receive the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... must recognise the laws and limitations of your being," replied the Tail, with flexions appropriate to the sentiments uttered, "and try to be great some other way. The Sphinx has one hundred and fifty qualifications for impassiveness which you lack." ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... windows from being broken; and once Clarence actually saw our nation's hero, 'the Duke,' riding quietly and slowly through a yelling, furious mob, who seemed withheld from falling on him by the perfect impassiveness of the eagle face and spare figure. Moreover a pretty little boy, on his pony, suddenly pushed forward and rode by the Duke's side, as if proud and resolute ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... by this apparition, I took the seat into which she motioned me, while her wonderful eyes regarded my face with stony impassiveness. I could hear the hoarse murmurs of the house and feel the stifling heat as it swept upwards from the pit. The strange woman did not stir except to keep up the ceaseless ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... all other respects she appeared and acted as usual. With a fineness of tact she was at home among her plain entertainers, and put them at ease. Mrs. Hobson continued to speak of her as Graydon's sister, and he had darted a humorous glance at the girl; but it met such grave impassiveness of expression that ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... shock, the anguish, the struggle had well-nigh passed; she was at once subdued and resolved, like one into whom some spirit had entered and bound her own spirit, and acted through her. So strange did all appear to her, so strange the impassiveness of her own will, of her habits and affections, that should have rebelled and warred against her purpose that she sometimes thought herself not herself, or insane, or the subject of a monomania, or some strange hallucination, a dreamer, a somnambulist, ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... would meet the necessities of the case; and on that understanding he allowed his man to depart. At the end of the month he reappeared on duty, a subdued but mellow cheer shining through his wonted impassiveness. His Colonel ventured to inquire of him, in a general way, if the business in question were satisfactorily concluded. And he replied: "I got him from ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... train has made the usual stop, THE PORTER, with his lantern on his arm, enters the car, preceding a gentleman somewhat anxiously smiling; his nervous speech contrasts painfully with the business-like impassiveness of THE PORTER, who refuses, with an air of incredulity, to enter into the confidences which the gentleman ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was terrible in its very impassiveness. There was no trace of emotion in those rigidly-set features and piercing eyes. He looked at Dino for some minutes before he spoke. The young man retained his kneeling posture until the ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant |
