"Imposing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... leader in Gotham before the days of the nouveaux riches, and her sway was that of an autocrat. Her presence was in every way imposing. She possessed many charming characteristics and was in more respects than one an uncrowned queen, retaining her wonderful tact and social power until the day of her death. I love to dwell upon Mrs. Clinton because, apart from her remarkable personal ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... from the main highway a half mile or so below Ostrander Lane, it ran diagonally back to the bridge, where it received a turn which sent it south and east again towards the lower town. A high bluff rose at this point, which made the farther side of the ravine much more imposing than the one on the near side ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... I made a sketch of the present residence of the bishop, the second among the remarkable edifices of Cettigna and its environs. It was built within these five years, under the auspices of no less than my trusty attendant Petrarca. The style is not, strictly speaking, imposing. Perhaps this arose from suggestions of economy, or possibly from the mind of the architect being at that moment unprepared with any other. Simplicity in design and execution characterize it throughout. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... to Li Kuang-pi's night ride to Ho-yang at the head of 500 mounted men; they made such an imposing display with torches, that though the rebel leader Shih Ssu-ming had a large army, he did not dare ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... hardly comprehend how a solidly constituted government, supported by an imposing army, can be overthrown by a few rioters, naturally attributed the fall of Louis-Philippe to deep-seated causes. In reality the incapacity of the generals entrusted with his defence was the ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... chargeable with all his wrongs, with all his crimes, all his enormities. He had repeatedly told it so, pointing for proof to that literal observance of the rule by which man is made mere merchandise. Society had continued in its pedantic folly, disregarding legal rights, imposing no restraints on the holder of human property, violating its spirit and pride by neglecting to enforce the great principles of justice whereby we are bound to protect the lives of those unjustly considered inferior beings. Thus ends a sketch ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... on the imposing-surface, and counted the pile. He had some fifty shillings over and above the ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... (wings)—the first inhabited by men-folk; the second sacred to the ladies and their attendants. Behind it stood the kitchen; and the Pujardalan (family temple) occupied a conspicuous place in front, facing south. The usual range of brick cattle-sheds and servants' quarters made up quite an imposing ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... the creature's pretty looks, that I selected one of the younger generation and cut off the much criticised caudal appendage with a red-hot shovel. The little rat bore the operation very well, grew apace, and became an imposing fellow with mustaches. But though he was the lighter for the loss of his tail, he was much less agile than his comrades; he was very careful about trying gymnastics and fell very often. He always brought up the rear when the company ascended the balusters, and looked like a tight-rope dancer trying ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... rising indignation against Mary, as "the daughter of Debate, who discord fell doth sow," was shown in a statute, which declared any person who laid claim to the Crown during the Queen's lifetime incapable of ever succeeding to it. The disaffection of the Catholics was met by imposing on all magistrates and public officers the obligation of subscribing to the Articles of Faith, a measure which in fact transferred the administration of justice and public order to their Protestant opponents, by forbidding conversions to ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... you, remain immovable within the rules of discipline and of honor. By your imposing attitude help the country to manifest its will ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... he was making for an imposing group of tents on the outskirts of the town. As he drew nearer he ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... features were regular and majestic: and his mantle, clasped with a single jewel of rare price and lustre, and wrought at the breast with a silver cross, waved over a vigorous and manly frame, which derived from the composed and tranquil dignity of habitual command that imposing effect which many of the renowned knights and heroes in his presence took from loftier stature and ampler proportions. At his right hand sat Prince Juan, his son, in the first bloom of youth; at his left, the celebrated Rodrigo Ponce de Leon, Marquess of Cadiz; along the table, in ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... we think of a governor's playing such pitiful tricks, and imposing so grossly on a poor ignorant boy! It was a habit he had acquired. He wish'd to please everybody; and, having little to give, he gave expectations. He was otherwise an ingenious, sensible man, a pretty good writer, and a good governor for the people, tho' not for his constituents, ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... manifestations of impatience. The genuine President at Washington and the sham President at Montgomery were assailed by the like pressing demand: Why did they not do something to settle this matter? Southern irascibility found the situation exceedingly trying. The imposing and dramatic attitude of the Confederate States had not achieved an appropriate result. They had organized a government and posed as an independent nation, but no power in the civilized world had yet recognized them in ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... west as far as the range of view permitted, like a yellowish ribbon of towering height with innumerable flexures and alternations of light and shade. Their base was enlivened by the bustle of those who dwelt in caves all along the foot of the imposing rocky wall. Where to-day only vacant holes stare at the visitor, at the hour on the day when our story begins, human eyes peered through. Other doors were closed by deer-hides or robes. Sometimes a man, a woman, or a child, would creep out of one of these openings, and climbing ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... Philip de Comines, gives of this Transaction; who in his 5th Book and 18th Chapter, gives this Account of it, which we will transcribe Word for Word.—"But to proceed: Is there in all the World any King or Prince, who has a Right of imposing a Tax upon his People (tho' it were but to the Value of one Farthing) without their own Will and Consent? Unless he will make use of Violence, and a Tyrannical Power, he cannot. But some will say there may happen an Exigence, when the Great Council of the People ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... unfathomable ocean of a London world, which, for her, was wrapped in darkness as regarded its dangers, and thus for her the chances of shipwreck were seven times multiplied. It was notorious that Mrs. Lee had no protector or guide, natural or legal. Her marriage had, in fact, instead of imposing new restraints, released her from old ones. For the legal separation of Doctors' Commons—technically called a divorce simply a mensa et thoro, (from bed and board,) and not a vinculo matrimonii (from the very tie and obligation of marriage)—had removed her by law from the control of her ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... Atlantic steamer, a storm at sea—that spectacle which has, in former times, been so often described as the most grand and sublime of all the exhibitions which the course of nature presents to man—is divested almost entirely of that imposing magnificence for which ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... event. A neat, though not imposing figure, in a snug blue flannel suit, with his cap turned round on his head, he went to the flap of the rickety tent which served as his hangar. A fierce cry of "Fly! Fly! Why don't he fly?" was coming from the long black lines edging the ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... the spinning of specks in a drop of dirty water. Size was nothing in itself. There were mountains and seas in a morsel of wet mud, picturesque enough for microscopic tourists. A billion billion morsels of wet mud were no more imposing than one. Geology, chemistry, astronomy—they were all in the splashes of mud from a passing carriage. Everywhere one law and one futility. The human race? Strange marine monsters crawling about in the bed of an air-ocean, unable to swim upwards, oddly tricked out in the stolen ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... grove to which old Alexis had alluded was, indeed, a magnificent dwelling, suitable in every respect for the residence of an oriental monarch. It was built in the Turkish fashion and its exterior was singularly beautiful and imposing. Huge palm trees surrounded it; they were planted in regular rows upon a vast lawn that was adorned with costly statues and fountains, while at intervals were scattered great flower beds filled with choice exotics and blooming plants of endless variety. A wide graveled walk and carriage-road ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... naturally, too, for he was a foreigner, and had taken the life of a citizen of Florence, and one closely allied to the nobility and gentle blood. But after the decision of the court-which the duke took good care to have made in the most imposing and public form-was thoroughly understood, and the memory of the matter had grown a little dim, Carlton again resumed his place at court, as the protege of the Grand Duke, and royal favor was ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... September, 1888, to lay the corner stone of the First Presbyterian Church at Far-Rockaway, and amid the imposing ceremonies I predicted the great future of Long Island. It seemed to me that Long Island would some day be the London of America, filled with the most ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... "Knowing Ashby's ascendency over his men, and finding himself thus deprived of legitimate power, the general was constrained to pause, and the cavalry was left unorganised and undisciplined. One half was rarely available for duty. The remainder were roaming over the country, imposing upon the generous hospitalities of the citizens, or lurking in their homes. The exploits of their famous leader were all performed with a few hundreds, or often scores, of men, who followed him from personal ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... mortgage, the interest of which he drew himself and added to the quarterly payments made to him by Fougeres. The painter was awaiting the fortunate moment when his property thus laid by would give him the imposing income of two thousand francs, to allow himself the otium cum dignitate of the artist and paint pictures; but oh! what pictures! true pictures! each a finished picture! chouette, Koxnoff, chocnosoff! His future, his dreams of happiness, the superlative ...
— Pierre Grassou • Honore de Balzac
... will not have actually to be made, since the right of tenure is too valuable to be forfeited. The system requires that prompt action be had whenever a strike or a lockout is impending, but it enforces decisions only by imposing on workmen who choose to be recalcitrant the penalty of forfeiting the right of ownership of positions, the claim to which they esteem so highly that they are ready literally to ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... the prayer that he might be happier than Augustus, better than Trajan. He was free from every vice except an occasional indulgence in wine. His mind was naturally strong, his manners pleasing, his appearance noble and imposing. He desired only to restore the simple manners and virtuous ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... Parliament alone originated and were responsible for the policy and measures which had led to the calamities so ruinous to the Loyalists, who now claimed compensation. The claimants had had nothing to do with passing the Stamp Act; with imposing duties on tea and other articles imported into the colonies; with making naval officers collectors of customs; with erecting courts of admiralty, and depriving the trading colonists of trial by jury, and of rendering the officers ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... settled again, they went to business in a quieter way, for they did not wish to be again driven off in such a sweeping manner; so at last they decided that the owl should be judge, because he looked big and imposing. ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... visibly the most distinguished of them all, Marius noted the great sophists or rhetoricians of the day, in all their magnificence. The antique character of their attire, and the ancient mode of wearing it, still surviving with them, added to the imposing character of their persons, while they sat, with their staves of ivory in their hands, on their curule chairs—almost the exact pattern of the chair still in use in the Roman church when a Bishop pontificates ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... sometimes called "foolish" with her. Not a word to which she could object had ever come from his lips. By no action had he ever claimed anything from her. And yet she felt that in some way he was governing her, was imposing his will on her. Certainly he had once followed her in the street. But on that occasion he had not known who she was. Now, as he gazed at her, she felt certain that he had formed some definite project with regard to her, and meant to carry it out at whatever cost. Garstin said he, Arabian, was ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... solemn destination; no meretricious ornaments, no false sentiment, mar the purity of its design. The genius which devised it has succeeded in cheating the tomb of its horrors, without depriving it of its imposing gravity. The simple portal is surmounted by a plain massive cross of stone, and a door, secured by an open work of bronze, leads into a sepulchral chamber, the key of which ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... representation most frequent and imposing is that which pictures the creation simply as having the earth in the centre, and the sun with his attendants as circulating around it in the brightness of the superior, and the darkness of the infernal, firmament. Souls at death ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... which we hoped a change might occur), it was but to be met with the view of another beyond. Distressing and fatal as the continuance of these cliffs might prove to us, there was a grandeur and sublimity in their appearance that was most imposing, and which struck me with admiration. Stretching out before us in lofty unbroken outline, they presented the singular and romantic appearance of massy battlements of masonry, supported by huge buttresses, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... approached the beach, on which the long waves rolled and curled, now gently, now with imposing force. With the water yet half-leg deep, Du Mesne and two of the paddlers sprang bodily overboard and held the boat back from the pebbles, so that its tender shell might not be damaged. Law himself was as soon as they in the water, and he waded back along ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... disturbers at B—— House showed great respect for the press. When a leading Edinburgh editor's son was there all was quiet; and although they flew at their pet prey the priests, yet a bishop was too imposing for them; and after he had blessed the house from top to bottom, they left it quiet for the remaining ...
— Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men • John Harris
... outside imposing show of mourning cannot make us any the more sorry for the loss of our dear little one," and his voice gave way and slightly trembled at the last word, and the moisture dimmed ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... might be postponed or rudely interrupted by an outburst of "straffing" from Achi Baba or Asia. So Captain Simson applied himself to the construction of a dining saloon, at the digging of which the defaulters sweated for several days. The result was imposing, a large rectangular excavation not unlike an empty swimming bath, with a massive table of solid clay, and benches of the same simple design and material round the walls. Though, of course, roofless, it afforded a measure of safety from shells, but one shudders to think what ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... it's as thrue as the sun to the dial." This certainly leaves "the five crasses" immeasurably behind. However, be cautious, and not too confident in taking so sweeping and learned an oath upon trust, notwithstanding its imposing effect. We grant, indeed, that an oath which comprehends within its scope all the learned libraries of Europe, including even the Alexandrian of old, is not only an erudite one, but establishes in a high degree the taste ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... lineage. The father was not quick of mind in the ordinary occupations of life, but nature was now big within him. There needed no second glance, to say how cruelly his hopes had been deceived. A smothered groan struggled from his chest, and then his self-command returned with the imposing grandeur of Christian resignation. He arose, and, thanking the chiefs for their indulgence, he made no secret of the mistake by which he had been led so far on a fruitless errand. While speaking, the signs and gestures of Dudley gave him ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... engagement was fought was purchased by the State of Pennsylvania for a burial-place for the Union soldiers who were slain in that bloody encounter. The tract included seventeen and a half acres adjoining the town cemetery. It was planned to consecrate the ground with imposing ceremonies, in which the President, accompanied by his Cabinet and a large body of the military, was invited to assist. The day appointed was the 19th of November; and the chief orator selected was Massachusetts' eloquent son, Hon. Edward Everett. Following him ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... want to distinguish clearly the aristocratic class from the Philistines proper, or middle class, name the former, in my own mind, The Barbarians. And when I go through the country, and see this and that beautiful and imposing seat of theirs crowning the landscape, "There," I say to myself, "is a great fortified post ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... are, in some respects, like the rude of all countries. They manifest but little respect for the female; imposing on her not only the duties of the hut, but also the more laborious operations of husbandry; and observing towards them the hauteur and ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... society is in committee. The president is preceded on his entrance and departure by the beadle of the society, bearing this mace. He has beside him, on his table, a little wooden mallet for the purpose of imposing silence when occasion arises, but this is very seldom the case. With the exception of the secretaries and the president, everyone takes his place hap-hazard, at the same time taking great pains to avoid causing ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... him in the installation of the iron bed. By six in the evening, when Somerset went forth to dine, he was able to look back upon the mansion with a sense of pride and property. Four-square it stood, of an imposing frontage, and flanked on either side by family hatchments. His eye, from where he stood whistling in the key, with his back to the garden railings, reposed on every feature of reality; and yet his own possession seemed as flimsy ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had deposited the proceeds of his foreign sales of arms with a European banking house, ostensibly subject to draft for the materials of his manufactures, has already been alluded to. This deposit had been augmented by subsequent sales, until it amounted to an imposing sum, which Mrs. Dillingham ascertained, from the little account-book, to be drawing a low rate of interest. With the proprietor, this heavy foreign deposit was partly a measure of personal safety, and partly a measure of projected iniquity. He had the instinct to ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... imposing list of notables with an air of quiet satisfaction. Sir Leonard made mental notes of personages to whom he might send presentation copies of his new work "Frederick-William, the Great Elector, a Popular Biography," as a souvenir of ...
— When William Came • Saki
... contributed, as the State was evacuated, to strengthen the army. He was very soon joined by the forces from Pensacola, about ten thousand strong, and a splendid body of men. They were superior in arms, equipment, instruction and dress, to all of the Western troops, and presented an imposing appearance and striking contrast to their weather-stained, dusty and travel-worn comrades. Nothing had ever occurred to them to impair their morale; they seemed animated by the stern spirit and discipline which characterized ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... abroad if he will; he can do nothing in this age. There is another personage abroad,—a person less imposing,—in the eyes of some, perhaps, insignificant. The schoolmaster is abroad; and I trust to him, armed with his primer, against the soldier ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... supports the exiled Sahrawi Polisario Front and rejects Moroccan administration of Western Sahara; Algeria's border with Morocco remains an irritant to bilateral relations; each nation has accused the other of harboring militants and arms smuggling; in an attempt to improve relations afer unilaterally imposing a visa requirement on Algerians in the early 1990s, Morocco lifted the requirement in mid-2004 - a gesture not reciprocated by Algeria; Algeria remains concerned about armed bandits operating throughout the Sahel who sometimes destabilize southern Algerian towns; dormant disputes include Libyan ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... our arms ached with the weight of the hamper, when we stopped before the gate of Number 5 Argyle Road. It was an imposing house in its own grounds; large clipped trees stood about; and a bent old gardener was doing something to one of those, while a tall grey-haired woman in mannish tweeds superintended the work. A Scottish terrier, fit mate for Giftie, was digging furiously at the root of the tree. He discovered ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... cold and hunger, and the tedious melancholy of a hopeless exile, at length extorted the reluctant consent of the bishops of Rimini. The deputies of the East and of the West attended the emperor in the palace of Constantinople, and he enjoyed the satisfaction of imposing on the world a profession of faith which established the likeness, without expressing the consubstantiality, of the Son of God. [95] But the triumph of Arianism had been preceded by the removal ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... honey away. It matters not how rich the materials we have gleaned from the years of our study and toil in youth, if we go out into life with no well-defined idea of our future work, there is no happy conjunction of circumstances that will arrange them into an imposing structure, and give ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Byron silence accusations? First, by keeping silence to her nearest relatives; second, by shutting the mouths of servants; third, by imposing silence on her friends,—as Lady Anne Barnard; fourth, by silencing her legal counsel; fifth, and most entirely, by treating Mrs. Leigh, before the world, with unaltered kindness. In the midst of the rumours, Lady Byron went to visit her; and ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... notion that the fittest engine to redeem England from the mischiefs and mistakes of oligarchical feudalism was to be found in the imposing machinery and deception of the Roman Church; overlooking the great truth that it was not the Romish Church, but the genius of Christianity, working its vast but silent change, which was really guiding on the chariot of civilization; but in this broad principle there was not ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... said. "Confess that you lie, and that it is a final trial which you are imposing upon me. Or else have you, then, never loved me? That's impossible! I would not believe you if you were to say so. A woman who does not love a man cannot be to him what you have been to me: she does not give herself up thus so joyously and so completely. ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... founded upon the traditions and theogony of the ancients, which consisted of various detached fables. Those Ovid has not only so happily arranged, that they form a coherent series of narratives, one rising out of another; but he describes the different changes with such an imposing plausibility, as to give a natural appearance to the most incredible fictions. This ingenious production, however perfect it may appear, we are told by himself, had not received his last corrections when he was ordered ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... ordinance imposing circumcision on the descendants of Abraham, is in these words. "And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou and thy seed after thee in their generations. This is my covenant which ye shall keep, between me and you, and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... appears to have been that of half-waking in trance; or, perhaps, a shade nearer the lightest form of trance-sleep. To increase the force of the scene, they appear to have exhibited some degree of trance-perceptive power. But, without this, the mere aspect of such persons is wonderfully imposing. If the pure spirit of Christianity finds a bright comment and illustration in the Madonnas and Cherubim of Raffaelle, it seems to shine out in still more truthful vividness from the brow of a young person rapt in religious ecstasy. The hands clasped in prayer,—the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... the outskirts of the town, and noted the massive and imposing gateways to the great estates. She knew the grandeur inside, she had been there. Cubist landscapes, some of them, others were Russian steppes, and in one instance a magnate was having the ruins of an Egyptian temple excavated on his grounds, which ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells
... "that there can be no dinner until the court has disposed of its first case. This is a murder trial, therefore the chief object of the court is to find the murderer of one friendship, done to death in cruel fashion. I wish I had Emma Dean's glasses to make me look more imposing. I wonder what kind of voice a prosecuting attorney would have. Dearly beloved," went on Grace impressively, "they don't say that in court, I know, but then I'm going to be different from ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... bribe itself. Evil is never embraced undisguised, as evil, but under some fiction which the mind accepts and with which it has the singular power of blinding itself in the face of daylight. The power of imposing on one's self is an essential preliminary to imposing on others. The man first argues himself down, and then he is ready to put the whole weight of his nature to deceiving others. This letter ran so smoothly, so plausibly, that it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... and fifteen years Spain and the Spanish missionaries had exclusive possession in Florida, and it was during this period that these imposing results were achieved. In 1680 a settlement of Scotch Presbyterians at Port Royal in South Carolina seemed like a menace to the Spanish domination. It was wholly characteristic of the Spanish colony to seize the sword at once and destroy its nearest Christian neighbor. It took the sword, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... among the slimy stones, whilst long swelling billows dashed into the harbour, broke under the Custom House, and rolled great names and gloomy memories over the stocks round the fleet's anchorage, where lay the old dismantled wooden frigates in all their imposing uselessness. ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... any style about him, Not imposing on parade, Couldn't make him look heroic, With no end of golden braid. Figure sort o' stout and dumpy, Hair and whiskers kind of red, But he's always moving forward, When there's trouble on ahead. Five foot five, of nerve and daring, ...
— Rhymes of the Rookies • W. E. Christian
... a fine attitude, under a tinted illumination. He lacked the subtle intimacy of Faith. In his descriptions of Nature, too, the same characteristics appear. Compared with Rousseau's, they are far bolder, far richer, composed on a more elaborate and imposing scale; but they are less convincing; while Rousseau's landscapes are often profoundly moving, Chateaubriand's are hardly ever more than splendidly picturesque. There is a similar relation between the egoisms of the two men. Chateaubriand ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... and, indeed, not without excuse; for though there was a nasal whine in the tone of the little General, and no great fire in his unmeaning eye, there was yet a quiet self-reliance about him extremely imposing, and which, as I thought, reached back of any temporary sufflation as tyrant of Rivas, and was based upon perennial character. Nor is it contrary, so far as I know, to the laws of psychology, for a man to be endued with all the self-reliance of Bonaparte, with, at the same time, an unusually ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... does about me," returned Gray, with a half perplexed face; "for he saw enough to admonish me about my extravagance, and even to intimate that that rascal Saunderson, my steward, was imposing on me. SHE took me to task, too, for not laying the yacht up on Sunday that the men could go 'to kirk,' and for swearing at a bargeman who ran across our bows. It's their perfect simplicity and sincerity in all this that gets me! You'd have thought that the ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... gift of the governor-general, is composed of schooners and gun-sloops, intended to protect the coasts and the trading-vessels against the pirates of Sulu. But it cannot be said that the organization, imposing as it is, has achieved any great results. Of this Bougainville gives the following curious illustration:—In 1828 the Suluans seized 3000 of the inhabitants upon the coast of Luzon, and an expedition sent against ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... fine thoroughfare, lined on both sides with large and often imposing mansions, surrounded with trees and shrubbery, which served somewhat to screen them. We came at last to the Willoughby house, a sizable colonial residence set up on a hill. It was dark, except for one ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... eyes of the civilian the first-named of these famous fortifications is by far the most imposing. The Rock looks so tremendous, that to ascend it, even without the compliment of shells or shot, seems a dreadful task—what would it be when all those mysterious lines of batteries were vomiting fire and ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... went down before Rome. Which was the better race, meaning by "better" the more capable of imposing its language and manners on the world? Yet who doubts that Greek was the ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... who is the latest biographer of Lincoln says of Chase: "Unfortunately, this imposing person was a sneak." But is Lord Charnwood justified in that surprising characterization? He finds support in the testimony of Secretary Welles, who calls Chase, "artful dodger, unstable, and unreliable." And yet there is another side, ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... administration of Western Sahara; Algeria's border with Morocco remains an irritant to bilateral relations, each nation has accused the other of harboring militants and arms smuggling; in an attempt to improve relations after unilaterally imposing a visa requirement on Algerians in the early 1990s, Morocco lifted the requirement in mid-2004 - a gesture not reciprocated by Algeria; Algeria remains concerned about armed bandits operating throughout the Sahel who sometimes destabilize southern Algerian towns; dormant disputes ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... stalwart, handsome man; not pursey like Deacon Pettibone, nor slim to bean-poleishness like the circuit preachers that live about, and only pick up a little roundness at camp-meetings; but tall, and what young ladies call imposing. Well, the man gave me another long look at ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... to learn! The artificial lilies that decorate the chapel of the church hard by have an assurance that is absent from those which will soon fade over there, on the table. The false boasts an unvarying brilliance, an imposing emphasis which we never find in the true. And, no doubt, the qualities of which he vouchsafed me the sight would never have had such value in my eyes, if his fatuousness had not displayed them to my youthful admiration as one shows an object behind ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... and servants stood motionless. There was that in the bearing of the master which seemed, in the silence, to detach itself, and to come toward them like an emanation, cold, pure, and quiet, determined and imposing. He spoke. "I supposed that you had heard the news. Along the railroad and in Charlottesville it was known; there were great crowds. I see it has not reached you. Mr. Lincoln has called for seventy-five thousand troops with which to procure South Carolina and ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... surly. It lined the sidewalks in the vicinity of the station and stared with curious, half-closed eyes at the portly capitalist and his party, which, by the way, was rendered somewhat imposing in size by augmentation in the shape of lawyers from Paris and London, clerks and stenographers from the Paris office, and four plain clothes men who were to see to it that Midas wasn't blown to smithereens by envious anarchists; to say nothing of a lady's maid, a valet, ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... for them that the Duke of Norfolk and his son, the Earl of Surrey, were joined in the commission with the Lord Mayor. The upper end of the great hall was filled with aldermen in their robes and chains, with the sheriffs of London and the whole imposing array, and the Lord Mayor with the Duke sat enthroned above them in truly awful dignity. The Duke was a hard and pitiless man, and bore the City a bitter grudge for the death of his retainer, the priest killed in Cheapside, and in spite of all his poetical ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... imposing historical argument could of course have been built up for the Calhoun theory of the Union. The Union emerged from the preceding Confederacy without a shock. Most who voted for it were unaware how radical a change it embodied. The Constitution, one may even admit, could not have been adopted ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... of the century saw the forts at the mouth of the Peiho captured for the third time since the beginning of 1858. It was the opening scene in the last act of a long drama, and more imposing than any that had gone before, not in the number of assailants nor in the obstinacy of resistance, but in the fact that instead of one or two nations as hitherto, all the powers of the modern world were now ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... a trained memory, I occasionally backed my replies with a string of French, German, English, and Italian authorities that looked imposing. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... Europe, might easily, as the events of 1848 proved, shatter the whole rotten structure of the Habsburg monarchy, which survived only owing to the apathy of the populations it oppressed. This, then, is the explanation of the system of "stability" which Metternich succeeded in imposing for thirty years upon Europe. If he persuaded Frederick William III. that the grant of a popular constitution would be fatal to the Prussian monarchy, this was through no love of Prussia; the Carlsbad Decrees and the Vienna Final ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... her. That she should rebel against him was of course on the cards. But he was aware that within the last month, since the date, indeed, at which the Marquis had threatened to turn him out of the house, he had made considerable progress in imposing himself upon her as a master. He gave himself in this respect much more credit than was in truth due to him. Lady Kingsbury, though she had learnt to fear him, had not so subjected herself to his influence as not to be able to throw him off should a time come at which it ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... conducting the machine of government, the king was accustomed of himself to assume. His own revenues supplied him with money sufficient for his ordinary expenses. And when extraordinary emergencies occurred, the prince needed not to solicit votes in parliament, either for making laws or imposing taxes, both of which were now became requisite ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... which they brought into being. They did this with a clear consciousness of the object which they had in view—the stability of the new government and the protection of certain fundamental rights and liberties. But they did not for a moment entertain the idea of imposing upon future generations, through the extraordinary sanctions of the Constitution, their views upon any special subject of ordinary legislation. Such a proceeding would have seemed to them far more monstrous, ...
— What Prohibition Has Done to America • Fabian Franklin
... straight to the hotel, but as there was nothing to do, I decided to take in a little of the town, and started walking about following my nose. I saw prefectural building; it was an old structure of the last century. Also I saw the barracks; they were less imposing than those of the Azabu Regiment, Tokyo. I passed through the main street. The width of the street is about one half that of Kagurazaka, and its aspect is inferior. What about a castle-town of 250,000-koku ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... poets to include them all in the same imagery, and to take a general survey of the people itself. Democractic nations have a clearer perception than any others of their own aspect; and an aspect so imposing is admirably fitted to the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... arose, who should go. Neither made a suggestion until Harry ventured this opinion: "I am perfectly willing to take John with me. I am sure he can be trusted. It will be imposing too much of a burden on you," said he, looking at the Professor, "and I am active and strong enough to stand ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... say, both as to guilt and filth. Guilt hath dominion over him, because he is under the curse: and filth, because the law giveth him no power, neither can he by it deliver his soul. And for this cause it is that it is called beggarly, weak, unprofitable; imposing duty, but giving no strength (Gal 3:2, 4:9). Expecting the duty should be complete, yet bendeth not the heart to do the work; to do it, I say, as is required (Rom 8:3). And hence it is again that it is called a 'voice of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Sansovino of Doge Francesco Venier (1554-1556), with beautiful figures in the niches from the same hand—that of Charity, on the left, being singularly sweet. When Sansovino made these he was nearly eighty. Sansovino also designed the fine doorway beneath the organ. The most imposing monuments are those of Caterina Cornaro (or Corner) the deposed queen of Cyprus, in the south transept; of three Cardinals of the Corner family; and of the Doges Lorenzo and Girolamo Priuli, each with his patron saint above him. The oddity of its architecture, together with its situation at a ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... the lord of this warrior nation, is a man of imposing stature, so broad-shouldered that his height seems far less than it really is, walking with head erect and firm tread and clad in the rich national costume. The stranger involuntarily doffs his cap and receives in return a short military salute, but accompanied ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... young king is allowed by all contemporary writers to have arrived at a pitch of excellence which left most of the competitors of his own age behind him; and, as he advanced to maturity, his figure, although not so tall as to be majestic or imposing, was, from its make, peculiarly adapted for excellence in such accomplishments. His chest was broad and full, his arms somewhat long and muscular, his flanks thin and spare, and his limbs beautifully formed; so as to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... problems—and, chatting, agreed that, in spite of, or perhaps BECAUSE of, its many acknowledged disadvantages, the simple, primitive bush-life is the sweetest and best of all—sure that although there may have been more imposing or less unconventional feasts elsewhere that Christmas day, yet nowhere in all this old round world of ours could there have been a happier, merrier, healthier-hearted gathering. No one was bored. No one wished himself elsewhere. All were sure of their welcome. All were light-hearted and at ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... dignified and grave; but his concern and anxiety seem to soften the lineaments of his countenance. The government over which he presides is yet in the crisis of experiment. Not free from troubles at home, he sees the world in commotion and arms, all around him. He sees that imposing foreign powers are half disposed to try the strength of the recently established American government. We perceive that mighty thoughts, mingled with fears as well as hopes, are struggling within him. He heads a short procession over these then naked fields; he crosses yonder ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... necessary relations between the particular churches and their cathedral centre. In defence of these same members of the local and general ecclesiastical body he was obliged to resent the attempted interference of two kings of the realm. Henry I. wished to fill his pockets by imposing fines upon the clergy. To oppose this the bishop closed all the churches in the diocese and blocked up the entrances with thorns; and so, except in the monasteries, the offering of public worship ceased. The restriction ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) - A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The - Diocese And See • Hubert C. Corlette
... vanity that is causing even grandparents to aspire to svelte figures, but whatever the cause, people are putting much less food on their tables than formerly. The very rich, living in the biggest houses with the most imposing array of servants, sit down to three, or at most four, courses when alone, or when intimate friends who are known to have moderate appetites, are dining ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... indicated, on the slope of the mountain, a green spot where, in the midst of the foliage, were seen roofs and facades of imposing buildings. ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... was a Catholic and while not at all devout, he still held in reverence the sacred observances of the church. He it was who explained to us that the New England Puritans were bitterly hostile to anything and everything savoring of what they called Popery, imposing severe penalties on misguided wretches who dared to show respect for old beliefs. He said that the General Court of Massachusetts had enacted a special law against the keeping of Christmas, visiting with fine and imprisonment the transgressors who dared to celebrate that ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... completed, and was a most imposing structure. Wheat ears and dried oats were sticking out from between the stones, and pressed autumn leaves added a touch of colour. At the base of the rockery were a large pink-lined conch-shell and several smaller shells. On the walls ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... perhaps, nothing so imposing, nothing that carries a greater sway over a mind of any refinement, than simplicity, when we feel assured that it springs from a genuine contempt of show and ostentation. Lord Lindore was aware of this, and he did not attempt to vie with the ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... deep precipices; they are haunted by wild beasts and birds of prey. In the very middle of the river a rocky island, called Mount Kesa, rose to the height of nearly 300 feet, and its steep sides had an imposing appearance. ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... different. In the former cases, when making Pranam (salutation) my hands passed through his form, while on the latter occasions they met solid garments and flesh. Here I saw a living man before me, the original of the portraits in Madame Blavatsky's possession and in Mr. Sinnett's, though far more imposing in his general appearance and bearing. I shall not here dwell upon the fact of his having been corporeally seen by both Col. Olcott and Mr. Brown separately for two nights at Lahore, as they can do so better, each for ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... drilled. Everywhere there were squads: Scots in plaid kilts with khaki tunics; less picturesque but equally imposing regiments in the field uniform, with officers hardly distinguishable from their men. Everywhere the same grim but cheerful determination to get over and help the boys across the Channel to assist in holding that ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to what the prefect says. He is a sensible man, and is turning out of his way, I believe, on your account. He is going to lay a foundation-stone at Corte. I should fancy the ceremony will be very imposing, and I am very sorry not to see it. A gentleman in an embroidered coat and silk stockings and a white scarf, wielding a trowel—and a speech! And at the end of the performance manifold and reiterated ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... was imposing. The first portion was solemnized at Leipsic, attended by crowds of musicians and students, one of the latter bearing on a cushion a silver crown presented by his pupils of the Conservatory. Beside the crown rested the Order "Pour le Merite," conferred on ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... it ran a moat, over which was a drawbridge,—no longer capable of being drawn up,—while a flight of stone steps led to the entrance door, ungraced by a porch. The large hall, the walls of which were merely whitewashed, with a roof of plain oak, had from its size an imposing appearance. The walls of the hall were decked with firearms,— muskets, pistols, arquebuses, blunderbusses,—pikes, and halberts, symmetrically arranged in stars or other devices; stags' horns, outstretched eagles' wings, extended skins of kites, owls, and king-fishers, ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... delay.[70] One measure indicative, people said, of undisputed wisdom which was resorted to was the appointment of Lord Kitchener as Secretary for War.[71] If this step deserved the fervent approval it met with, its efficacy was considerably impaired by imposing on the new Secretary the task of purveying munitions and other supplies, in addition to the multifarious duties of his office. And with this solitary exception everything was allowed to go on "as usual," with consequences which every one has since had an opportunity of meditating. Internal ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... respectable man. There was a certain plump, well-fed rosiness about him, which, aided by a bright-coloured dress, joined to a continual fumble in the pockets of his drab trousers, gave him the air of a 'well-to-do-in-the-world' sort of man. Moreover, he sported a velvet collar to his blue coat, a more imposing ornament than it appears at first sight. To be sure, there are two sorts of velvet collars—the legitimate velvet collar, commencing with the coat, and the adopted velvet collar, put on when the ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... There the slaves were not only encouraged to earn money for themselves in every way they might, but the discipline of the plantations was vested in courts composed wholly of slaves, proceeding formally and imposing penalties to be inflicted by slave constables except when the master intervened with his power of pardon. The regime was maintained for a number of years in full effect until in 1862 when the district was invaded by ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... and imposing in size and appearance, had a floor of pure white marble. The mantels and window-sills were of white onyx, with delicate vinings of pink and green. The floor was strewn with richly colored mats and rugs. ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... curses. For only lately—lately, do I say? only yesterday or the day before—did he become at once an Athenian and an orator, and by the addition of two syllables converted his father from Tromes into Atrometus, and gave his mother the imposing name of Glaucothea,[n] when every one knows that she used to be called Empusa[n]—a name which was obviously given her because there was nothing that she would not do or have done to her; for how else should she have acquired it? {131} Yet, in spite of this, you are of so ungrateful ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... would have gone forward, but her feet were paralyzed, and she remained with outstretched arms. With her heart she had seen him who now appeared upon the threshold. The person, whose coming had so agitated the young girl, was a man of scarcely forty years, of a lofty imposing carriage, and of prepossessing features. His large, blue eyes rested upon Therese with a glance of power, which thrilled through every fibre of her being. He held out his right arm toward her; then slowly lowering ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... room, though not more than three had been occupied in his tenure of office; but all were beautifully set with flowers and bright silver and napkins in complicated foldings. Pasteboard cards with large black numbers from one to eight stood erect on eight of the tables, and on the ninth an imposing placard bore ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Ministers had come and gone, they had in turn accepted Sir Henry's kind offer of a box for the first night, but latterly Prime Ministers had gathered popularity and actor-managers had lost it, so great had been the deterioration of the public mind since the introduction of cheap newspapers, imposing upon every public character the necessity of a considerable waste of energy in advertising.... In the old days, a great man's advertising was done for him in acknowledgment of his greatness. Sir Henry was uneasy, could not shake off the gathering gloom, and a deep-seated conviction ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... of seven on the evening of January 13, 1915, a train steamed out of Pretoria station to the accompaniment of roars of cheering. And few in the imposing string of carriages that made the train were sober within the meaning of the act. But everyone was in the highest spirits. The Rebellion was over. The New Year was with us. After weary days our real business was on hand. We were off to German ...
— With Botha in the Field • Eric Moore Ritchie
... and was buried in Lexington, Kentucky, where an imposing column, surmounted by his statue, marks his tomb. In the Capitol grounds at Richmond there is also a fine monument and statue to his memory. It has been said of him that no man ever had more devoted friends and more bitter enemies. See Benton's account of his ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... Scotland to the English throne, as James I. of England, upon the death of queen Elizabeth. Its design was formed by superimposing the red cross of St. George upon the white cross of St. Andrew, on a dark blue field; in other words, by imposing the cross of St. George, taken from the English ensign, upon the Scotch flag, and creating there by the ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... yet his quarter—a banking away like smoke at Tellson's, and a cocking their medical eyes at that tradesman on the sly, a going in and going out to their own carriages—ah! equally like smoke, if not more so. Well, that 'ud be imposing, too, on Tellson's. For you cannot sarse the goose and not the gander. And here's Mrs. Cruncher, or leastways wos in the Old England times, and would be to-morrow, if cause given, a floppin' again the business to that degree as is ruinating—stark ruinating! Whereas them ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... at the celebration of his golden wedding, over one hundred and forty of his descendants and relatives assembled to congratulate him. He lost a promising son during the war, and his wife died two years ago. Not long since he married a second time. He is still one of the handsomest and most imposing men in New York, and will doubtless live to ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... interminable perspective of the East India Dock Road, the great perspective of drab brick walls, of grey pavement, of muddy roadway rumbling dismally with loaded carts and vans lost itself in the distance, imposing and shabby in its spacious meanness of aspect, in its immeasurable poverty of forms, of colouring, of life—under a harsh, unconcerned sky dried by the wind to a clear blue. It had been raining during the night. The sunshine ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... members. It did not try to include everybody in one big union but brought together the employees of each particular craft whose interests were clearly the same. To prepare for strikes and periods of unemployment, it raised large funds by imposing heavy dues and created a benefit system to hold men loyally to the union. In order to permit action on a national scale, it gave the superior officers extensive powers over ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... soldier sick, he visits him; penitent, he shrives him; dying, he comforts him. One such I knew, a Catholic priest, six feet two, and a mighty hunter of buck in his day, who was often longing for a shot at the Huns, and as often imposing penances upon himself for such un-ghostly desires. He found consolation in confessing the Irishmen before they went into the trenches: "The bhoys fight all the better for it," he explained. He was sure of the salvation of his flock; ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... a halt directly over the imposing edifice within which Bradley was incarcerated, and a mighty beam had flared downward, digging a fiery well through floor after floor of stubborn metal. The ceiling of the amphitheater pierced, the beam expired; and down into that assembly ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... aware that Tom Mann is not a world figure. But he is a world type. And as the editor of the Syndicalist, the leader of the most imposing and revealing labour rally the world has seen, he is of universal interest. Those of us who believe in crowds are deeply interested in finding, recognizing, creating, and in seeing set free out of the ranks of men the labour leaders who shall express the nobility and dignity ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... Lord Montfort's proud castle, and his labours and reputation had attracted the attention of Lady Montfort. Under the influence of his powerful character, the services of his church were celebrated with a precision and an imposing effect, which soon occasioned a considerable excitement in the neighbourhood, in time even in the county. The pulpit was frequently at his command, for his rector, who had imbibed his Church views, was not equal to ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... discovering as fully as possible what the original character of the structure had been. These operations have added greatly to the interest of the ruin, which both by position and aspect is one of the most imposing ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... whom this art is a necessity,—men so convinced that they have a mission of instruction to their kind, that they will permit no temporary disabilities to divert them from their end,—men who must needs open their school, no matter what oppositions there may be, to be encountered, no matter what imposing exhibitions of military weapons may be going on just then, in their vicinity; and though they should find themselves straitened in time, and not able to fit their words to their mouths as they have ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... the French gave was really imposing, so far as numbers make efficient armies. But the French were not the warlike people in the reign of Louis XV. that they were under Henry IV., or Napoleon Bonaparte. They fought, without the stimulus of national enthusiasm, without a cause, as part of a great machine. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... Desert. That is to say, it is a very unfortunate error to give to either a picture or a book a name which raises false expectations; especially is this the case when the name of the picture is a great or imposing one which greatly excites the imagination. What could be more so than this, 'Elijah in the Desert, fed by Ravens'? Extreme and fatal was the disappointment to many, on entering the room, when, looking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... the assassination, the more imposing and tremendous the event becomes. The destruction of a city is a large event, but it is one which repeats itself several times in a thousand years; the destruction of a third part of a nation by plague and famine is ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... dirty jobs about the place because he was willing. Said he'd repent it some day. When you know father picks out those jobs for him because he's such a clever old chap and does the things better than the clumsy workmen from the town. But as for imposing upon him," said the boy, proudly, "father would ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... spelling?), and because the style of address seems suitable to King Arthur's Castle—which isn't really his castle, you know, but an hotel. I thought it was the castle, though, when I first saw it standing up gray and massive on an imposing hill. I supposed it had been restored, and was rather disappointed to find it an hotel—though it's very jolly to live in, with all the latest feudal improvements and fittings, and King Arthur's Round Table ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... must diffuse ourselves as much as we can. He must represent me somewhere. You see, Captain Sarrasin, it is only in obedience to Hamilton's policy that I have consented to go to any of these smart dinner parties at all, and he must really bear his share of the burden which he insists on imposing upon me.' ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... legions, executing their murderous purposes, grouped like a troop of Sabbath-dancing witches around him. Mysterious twilight, admitted through the deep, dark, mullioned windows, revealed the antique furniture of the room, which still boasted a sort of mildewed splendor, more imposing, perhaps, than its original gaudy magnificence; and showed the lofty hangings, and tall, hearse-like canopy of a bedstead, once a couch of state, but now destined for the repose of Lady Rookwood. The stiff ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... advance-guard, being the bravest and most stalwart of the men mounted on their best steeds, and with rifle in hand; immediately behind followed the women and children, also mounted, and the pack-horses with the goods and camp equipage. Another band of trappers formed the rear-guard to this imposing cavalcade. There was no strict regimental order kept, but the people soon came to adopt the arrangements that were most convenient for all parties, and at length fell naturally into their places ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... delicate little woman at the end of the car, with a baby and four other children, a young girl across the aisle with a pale, pretty face, a sunburned lad three seats ahead in a khaki uniform, a very handsome, imposing old lady in a sealskin coat ahead of him, and a thin young man ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... people!" Werner suddenly smiled and at once lost all that was imposing in his pose; he again became a prisoner who finds his cell narrow and uncomfortable under lock, and he was tired of the annoying, searching eye staring at him through the peephole in the door. And, strange to say, almost instantly ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... His rage and agitation were so intense that it was with the utmost difficulty that he concealed it. Luckily for him, Gaston was not paying the slightest attention to his companion; for having, at the clerk's invitation, taken a chair, he assumed an imposing attitude, which struck the shabby young man behind the railing with ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... peculiar to Scotland, being a perpendicular tablet of marble or other stone, within a frame-work of the same material, somewhat resembling the frame of a looking-glass; and, all over the churchyard, these sepulchral memorials rise to the height of ten, fifteen, or twenty feet, forming quite an imposing collection of monuments, but inscribed with names of small general significance. It was easy, indeed, to ascertain the rank of those who slept below; for in Scotland it is the custom to put the occupation of the buried personage (as "Skinner," "Shoemaker," "Flesher") on his tombstone. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Berry, in her Journal (1866, in. 49) records, May 8, 1815, that "Lord and Lady Byron persuaded me to go with them to Miss [Lydia] White (vide post, p. 587). Never have I seen a more imposing convocation of ladies arranged in a circle than when we entered ... Lord Byron brought me home. He stayed to supper." If he did not affect "your blue-bottles," he was on intimate terms with Madame de Stael, "the Begum ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... was dismissed on his account. And I detected him in imposing on Miss Morton. Yet—where does ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... state of unstable equilibrium through the whole period of history. A slight change[22] in the details of the conflict for existence could tilt the balance. A weapon a little better adapted to one class than the other, or a slight widening of the educational gap, worked out into historically imposing results, to dynastic changes, class revolutions and ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... we saw that the crowds on the hills had doubled since yesterday, and, although the chimes were pealing for some religious service, it seemed prudent first to make sure of our quarters for the night. Accordingly we set out for the imposing house of guests beside the monastery, arriving in company with the visitors we had brought with us from Serdopol. The entrance-hall led into a long, stone-paved corridor, in which a monk, bewildered by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... right bank, and some miles above the mouth, is a small town, which rejoices in the imposing name of Fort Opus, albeit it possesses neither walls, fortifications, nor other means of defence. As the night was already far advanced when we arrived, I resolved to stay there a few hours before continuing the row to Metcovich, which I should otherwise ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... a big town. We charged into it, going right through the guard-house gateway, at one end, in single file, as its narrowness obliged us, and into the street-shaped town, and formed ourselves into as imposing a looking party as possible in the centre of the street. The Efouerians regarded us with much amazement, and the women and children cleared off into the huts, and took stock of us through the door-holes. There were but few men in the town, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... United States attended, their signatures were attached to the general act in the same manner as those of the plenipotentiaries of other governments, thus making the United States appear, without reserve or qualification, as signatories to a joint international engagement imposing on the signers the conservation of the territorial integrity of distant regions where we have no ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... hovered above his head imparted such an imposing majesty to his person that the soldiers ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... really above the livery servants in position, looked meek in his black suit and white vest and cravat, though he had a right to look down on the varlet in small-clothes. This last, however, was much the most imposing, in figure, and fair round red cheeks, and splendid shining black hair. Dear me, what is man! At the sound of a bell, when the dessert was put upon the table, the children came in. They never dine with mamma and papa, . . . and all troop in at dessert, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... oppression of America were the work of the modern school, of men who executed one king and expelled another. It was the work of parliament, of the parliaments of Cromwell and of William III. And the parliament would not consent to renounce its own specific policy, its right of imposing taxes. The crown, the clergy, the aristocracy, were hostile to the Americans; but the real enemy was the House of Commons. The old European securities for good government were found insufficient protection against parliamentary oppression. The ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... preliminaries of an evening which would inevitably run into the small hours, Joan went over to the piano and, with what was a quite unconscious touch of irony, played one of Heller's inimitable "Sleepless Nights," with the soft pedal down. The large imposing room, a chaotic mixture of French and Italian furniture with Flemish tapestries and Persian rugs, which accurately typified the ubiquitous mind of the hostess, was discreetly lighted. The numerous screened windows were open and the soft warm air came in tinged with ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... wagons in a line, each with its six yoke of oxen, rolled slowly out of Leavenworth over the western trail. Wagon-master assistants, bull-whackers—thirty men in all not to mention the cavayard driver—it was an imposing sight. This was to be a long journey, clear to the Utah country, and I eagerly ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... and by ill arts should obtain it, under the pretense of God's command, while, contrary to laws, he had given the priesthood to Aaron, the common suffrage of the multitude, but by his own vote, as bestowing dignities in a way on whom he pleased." He added, "That this concealed way of imposing on them was harder to be borne than if it had been done by an open force upon them, because he did now not only their power without their consent, but even they were unapprised of his contrivances against them; for ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... approached close inshore to the rocky wall of the cliff; and, if it had seemed formidable at a distance, it looked ten times more imposing now that only a few hundred yards of sea divided them from it. Its bold precipitous face appeared to ascend right up into the clouds, while the counterscarp, or base, seemed to dive abruptly into the deep without a slope. It was really just like a ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... half-hour of conversation." Mary nearly yielded. For a moment she hesitated as though she were going to put up her hand and help the lady out. But then the memory of her own unhappiness steeled her heart, and the feeling grew strong within her that this nasty woman was imposing on her,—and she refused. "I am afraid, madam," she said, "that my time is altogether occupied." "Then let him take me to 10, Alexandrina Row, Maida Vale," said the Baroness, throwing herself sulkily back into the carriage. ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope |
