"Impenetrable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tone of the building. It is also noticeable that the saints are more than a head taller than the Dukes, while the Madonna overtops the saints by more than another head. We are here in a region of pure conjecture; and if I hazard an opinion, it is only thrown out as a possible solution of a now impenetrable problem. I think, then, that Michelangelo may have meant to pose these three figures where they are, facing the altar; to raise the Madonna upon a slightly projecting bracket above the level of SS. Damiano and Cosimo, and to paint the wall ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... frame borne at arm's length by that Hercules. I followed as fast as I could, but having caught my foot in the flounce of my skirt, I had to stop for a second, and that second was enough to separate us completely. The crowd, having closed up after your passage, formed an impenetrable barrier. I can assure you, dear sister, that I felt anything but at ease, and it was M. Frechette ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... the islands of this archipelago; and that, the civilized nations of other kingdoms having conquered them, they fled to the mountains and settled there, and from there it has never been possible to exterminate them, because their sites are impenetrable. There they have lived and brought forth children until the present. In former times they were so elated with their primitive power that, although their forces were not able to cope with those of foreigners in the open, they were ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... surprise—for he had grown extremely sceptical—an Occult form, half man and half beast,[13] materialized. It informed them that it was Daramara, i.e. in Atlantis, the Unknown—that it had no beginning and no end, and that it would remain an impenetrable mystery to them during their existence in the physical sphere, but would be fully revealed to them when they passed over into Malanok—one of the superphysical planes. On this, and on several subsequent occasions, when it manifested itself to them, it gave them instructions with regard to evocation, ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... open and the children's father came in. A fur cap was drawn down over his ears and the thickest of gloves covered his hands. He had been working all day and was glad to get home. He smiled as he saw the children and their mother. His heart was tender, but his head was as hard and impenetrable as one of the iron pots that he sold in his hardware shop. At once, though, he perceived the little white stranger, playing in the garden, like a dancing snow wraith with the flock of snowbirds fluttering ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... but for many minutes could see nothing except a plain of waving grass higher than a man's head and almost as impenetrable as bamboo-country that carried small hope in it for man or beast, that would be a holocaust in the dry season when the heat set fire to the grass, and was an insect-haunted marsh at most other times. However, path across it there must be, for the Greeks had driven Brown's cattle that ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... of other peoples the egotism of a Roman is a blindfold, impenetrable as his breastplate. Oh, the ruthless robbers! Under their trampling the earth trembles like a floor beaten with flails. Along with the rest we are fallen—alas that I should say it to you, my son! They have our highest places, and the holiest, and the end ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... appearance of the chapel; the genial yellow glow was surrounded by fine dark shadows that draped the ugly walls as if with soft curtains; there were golden glittering bands on the roof beams, and above them all had become black, impenetrable, mysterious. When one glanced up one might have had the night sky over one's head, for all one could see of the roof. The light shone bright on crooked backs, slightly distorted limbs, the pallor of sickness, the stains of rough weather; on girls meekly ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... respects to my dear aunt," Felix answered, perfectly impenetrable to his ungracious reception, and perfectly comfortable in ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... England. This letter not only reflects the sentiments of his own heart, but formularizes in this particular the decrees of the Church, of which he was a distinguished ornament. "Above all," he writes, "never force your subjects to change their religion. No human power can reach the impenetrable recess of the free will of the heart. Violence can never persuade men; it serves only to make hypocrites. Grant civil liberty to all, not in approving everything as indifferent, but in tolerating with patience ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... de Bello Hastingensi," a poem attributed to Guy, Bishop of Amiens, living at the time of the battle, we are told that "the Saxons stood fixed in a dense mass," and Henry of Huntingdon records that "they were like unto a castle, impenetrable to the Normans;" while Robert Wace, a century after, tells us the same thing. So in this respect my newly-discovered chronicle may not be greatly in error. But I have reason to believe that there is something wrong with the actual ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... much about the poet, we now strike out in a new direction in search of his better half. Upon this point, unfortunately, there hangs a mist,—not impenetrable, as we conceive, but yet impenetrated,—a secret to which the given clue has been neglected, and which remains to the present day the opprobrium of a careless biography. The fact and the date of his marriage in Ireland are obtained ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... dear, to that line of circumvallation which has, ever since your birth, intercepted all civilisation on its way to Bartram. You are much obliged, Milly, to everybody who, whether naturally or un-naturally, turned a sod in that invisible, but impenetrable, work. For your accomplishments—rather singular than fashionable—you are indebted, in part, to your cousin, Lady Knollys. Is not she, Monica? Thank ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... exquisite, such glorious music, unconscious that the fine organization and delicate susceptibility of the minds of Genius which give such precious gifts to delight others, receive deep wounds from weapons that could not make an incision on impenetrable hearts like their own. Yes, the hearts of people of genius may be said to resemble the American maple-trees, which must be pierced ere they ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... sickly light into the shed, which it would not have been sufficient to illumine, under any circumstances. Except the scanty portion which the rays of this light fell on, all the shed was shrouded in impenetrable darkness. The rattling which ensued from the opening and shutting of doors, whenever the guards visited us, broke through the deep silence of night, and added to the discomforts of our situation. It was out of our power to enjoy a calm refreshing sleep, for besides the noise, frightful phantoms ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... there were always grounded snaggs in the channel which it would be impossible to make out, Davidson very prudently turned the Sissie round, and with only enough steam on the boilers to give her a touch ahead if necessary, let her drift up stern first with the tide, silent and invisible in the impenetrable darkness ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... thinks it was; but he is the very last person who would convince a man with the proper suspicious impartiality. One remembers a certain consultation of politicians which is recorded in the Spelling-book; and the opinion of that patriotic sage who avowed that, for a real blameless constitution, an impenetrable shield for liberty, and cheap defence of nations, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... day. We anxiously watched what we could see at the right, and noted the effect of the fire of the heavy guns of Benjamin's battery. We could see nothing distinctly that occurred beyond the Dunker Church, for the East and West Woods with farm-houses and orchards between made an impenetrable screen. A column of smoke stood over the burning Mumma house, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... the general tenor of the arguments addressed by believers to sceptics and opponents. Foremost of all, emblazoned at the head of every column, loudest shouted by every triumphant disputant, held up as paramount to all other considerations, stretched like an impenetrable shield to protect the weakest advocate of the great cause against the weapons of the adversary, was that omnipotent monosyllable which has been the patrimony of cheats and the currency of dupes from ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... no loop-hole where I could insert a wedge for Matty's moral regeneration; she appeared to remain hard, impenetrable, and suspicious. ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... is recorded and was satisfied that all the colonists were dead. Perhaps not. Nobody knows. Only a wandering tradition comes out of that impenetrable mystery and circles round the not impossible romance of young Virginia Dare. Her father was one of White's twelve 'Assistants.' Her mother, Eleanor, was White's daughter. Virginia herself, the first of all true ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... was lost somewhere behind the ragged peaks. The night grew deeper. The Old Meadow, shadowed by the range above it, grew dark, impenetrable, a place without boundary ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... and impenetrable had set in ere Kenneth and his escort clattered over the greasy stones of Waltham's High Street, and drew up in front ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... speak of thousands. State Granges were established in States where the year before the organization had obtained but a precarious foothold; pioneer local Granges invaded regions which hitherto had been impenetrable. Although the only States which were thoroughly organized were Iowa, Minnesota, South Carolina, and Mississippi, the rapid spread of the order into other States and its intensive growth in regions so far apart gave promise of its ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... continued by the daughter, two artists knowing nothing of economy. She had, moreover, other difficulties to conquer. She found the studio insupportable with its permanent atmosphere of tobacco smoke, an impenetrable cloud for her, in which the discussions on art, the analysis of ideas, were lost and which infallibly gave her a headache. "Chaff," above all, frightened her. As a foreigner, as at one time a divinity of the green-room, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... dried, blackened seaweed blown up among the small, prickly blush roses. In her green quilted petticoat and spencer she might have been one of the "good people's changelings," only the hue of her cheek was more like that of a brownie of the wold; and, truly, to her remote world there was an impenetrable mystery about the young mistress of Staneholme, in her estrangement and mournfulness. Some said that she had favoured another lover, whom Staneholme had slain in a duel or a night-brawl; some that the old Staneholmes had sold themselves to the Devil, and a curse was on ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... later remembrance of traversing that last hundred yards. The hillside seemed to whip under his feet. He paused at last, just at the dark margin of an impenetrable thicket. The wolf whined disconsolately just beyond the range of ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... hill and dale, we seemed in the darkness to be penetrating miles into the country; until, at last, passing, as well as we could see from the gloom, which was almost impenetrable, through a narrow glen between steep peaks, we suddenly turned a corner of a projecting rock, and found ourselves on an elevated plateau on the top of the mountains, where a strange scene awaited us. A number of ruddy watch-fires ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... yet only partially unveiled, and which probably will never be so entirely, is not so dark and impenetrable, however, as to prevent us from seeing, within the shadow thereof, fearful and criminal purposes, to which even the more open vices of the age are comparatively light. We are told by De Retz that the Marshal de Hocquincourt, with more frankness than the rest, proposed in direct terms to assassinate ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... Prussian armies, scattered over a district 100 miles by 40, had been keeping guard over the French frontier. Mighty hosts of Russians and Austrians were creeping slowly across Europe to join them. Napoleon, skilfully shrouding his movements in impenetrable secrecy, was about to leap across the Sambre, and both Bluecher and Wellington had to guess what would be his point of attack; and they, as it happened, guessed wrongly. Napoleon's strategy was determined partly by his knowledge of the ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... had always been aware of the chevalier's sex, but Cardinal Fleuri had taught him that it became kings to be impenetrable, and Louis remained ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... accustomed spirit, he was certain he should prove too hard for them both, and that one of them at least could not fail of becoming his prize. He further added that many ridiculous tales had been propagated about the strength of the sides of these ships, and their being impenetrable to cannon-shot; that these fictions had been principally invented to palliate the cowardice of those who had formerly engaged them; but he hoped they were none of those present weak enough to give credit to ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... thrust Maurice imitated Maddalena and reddened slightly. It seemed to him as if he had been living under glass while he had fancied himself enclosed in rock that was impenetrable by human eyes. He tried to laugh ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... days, but at the end of that time we were still trying to push through the tangle of these close-grown forests. To steer by compass sounded easy, but the wretched instrument seemed persistently to point to precipitous cliffs or impenetrable thickets. There were no barren hilltops after the first twenty miles. Occasionally we would stop, climb a tree, and try to get a view. But climbing a conifer whose boughs are heavily laden with ice and snow is no joke, ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... the liquid which in a correct, undelayed filtration is smoking hot at completion. The bag should also not be too long or be allowed to hang or soak in the liquid. A filter bag set tightly into a pot against its sides, thus surrounded with impenetrable walls, is greatly reduced in filtering surface, and the filtration is ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... askance at Butscha. Modeste, fully warned, recovered her impenetrable composure. Dumay's distrust was now thoroughly aroused, and he resolved to go the mayor's office early in the morning and ascertain if the architect had really been in Havre the previous day. Butscha, on the other hand, was equally ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... more than amazed at this evidence of weakness in one I had always considered as tough and impenetrable as flint rock. Thrusting back the hand with which he had half drawn into view the weapon I had mentioned, I put on my sternest sir and led the way across the street. As I did so, tossed back ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... reduced circumstances; while the Prince had, as usual, travestied his appearance by the addition of false whiskers and a pair of large adhesive eyebrows. These lent him a shaggy and weather-beaten air, which, for one of his urbanity, formed the most impenetrable disguise. Thus equipped, the commander and his satellite sipped their brandy ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... From that promontory he gazed up at a velvet-blue sky, deep and dark, bright with millions of cold, distant, blinking stars, and he grasped a little of the meaning of infinitude. He gazed down into the shadows, which, black as they were and impenetrable, yet have a ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... the almost impenetrable forest. Here and there were picturesque openings, where Indian villages, in peaceful beauty, were clustered in the midst of the surrounding foliage. The natives were dressed in garments of deer skin, very softly ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... Jedburgh-staff; and, latterly, dags, or pistols. Although so much accustomed to act on horseback, that they held it even mean to appear otherwise, the marchmen occasionally acted as infantry; nor were they inferior to the rest of Scotland in forming that impenetrable phalanx of spears, whereof it is said, by an English historian, that "sooner shall a bare finger pierce through the skin of an angry hedge-hog, than any one encounter the brunt of their pikes." At ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... need of a further principle to illuminate it, you maintain thereby that ideas exist which are not apprehended by any of the means of knowledge, and which are without a knowing being; which is no better than to assert that a thousand lamps burning inside some impenetrable mass of rocks manifest themselves. And if you should maintain that thereby we admit your doctrine, since it follows from what we have said that the idea itself implies consciousness; we reply that, as observation shows, the lamp in order to become manifest ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... Most literature (as opposed to scientific publications, for example), is typographically simple and can be rendered beautifully into type without encoding it into proprietary word processor file formats or impenetrable ...
— People of Africa • Edith A. How
... from the westward, is like sailing on to a line of high, rigid, impenetrable rocks, for, apparently, we are heading blindly on to land which discloses not the slightest indication of an opening; but, relying on the accuracy of our charts, and the skill of our officers, we assume ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... He met his father; he would not look at him, he could not speak to him. It seemed there was no living creature but must have been swift to recognise that imminent animosity; but the hide of the Justice-Clerk remained impenetrable. Had my lord been talkative, the truce could never have subsisted; but he was by fortune in one of his humours of sour silence; and under the very guns of his broadside, Archie nursed the enthusiasm of rebellion. ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of North America, they considered the various Indian tribes to be the true Aborigines of this continent. But long before the red man, even long before the growth of the present forests, there lived an ancient race, whose origin and fate are surrounded with impenetrable darkness. The remains of their habitations, temples and tombs, are the only voices that tell us of their existence. Over broad areas, in the most fertile valleys, and along the numerous tributaries of the great rivers of the central and western portions of the United ...
— Mound-Builders • William J. Smyth
... still looking at her with veiled, impenetrable eyes. He paid no attention to her protest. It was as if he had not ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... distinctly. Certain dank gardens cry aloud for a murder; certain old houses demand to be haunted; certain coasts are set apart for shipwreck. Other spots again seem to abide their destiny, suggestive and impenetrable, "miching mallecho." The inn at Burford Bridge, with its arbours and green garden and silent, eddying river - though it is known already as the place where Keats wrote some of his ENDYMION and Nelson parted from his Emma - still seems to wait the coming of the appropriate ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... made a bee-line right to where the smoke rose the task would have been comparatively easy, but we had to avoid this chasm, that piled-up mass of rocks, and, as we went lower, first thorny patches of scrub impeded our passage, and lower still there was the impenetrable forest. ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... a thousand difficulties and more than one danger—accomplished it with, as the sporting people say, plenty to spare—before the door behind them was opened by the attendant, and Karl Steinmetz, burly, humorously imperturbable and impenetrable, stood smiling gravely ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... the ground in that part of the country is such that a very small force could retard the progress of a much larger one for many hours. The roads usually run on narrow, elevated ridges, with deep and impenetrable ravines on either side. On the right were the divisions of Hovey, Carr, and Smith, and on the left the division of Osterhaus, of McClernand's corps. The three former succeeded in driving the enemy from position to position back toward Port Gibson ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... finest virgin forest that existed in the world. It consists of gigantic trees, grown up as straight as a rush, and to a prodigious height. Their tops, where alone their branches grow, are laced into one another, so as to form a vault impenetrable to the rays of the sun. Under this vault, and among those fine trees, prolific nature has given birth to a crowd of climbing plants of a most remarkable description. The rattan and the flexible liana ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... an attempt to undeceive her; but the dancing beginning also at the same time, she stayed not to hear her, hurrying, with a beating heart, to the place of action. Mr Monckton and his fair partner then followed, mutually exclaiming against Mr Harrel's impenetrable conduct; of which Cecilia, however, in a short time ceased wholly to think, for as soon as the first cotillon was over, she perceived young Delvile just walking ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... that array, Which in the final judgment thou shalt see." As when the lightning, in a sudden spleen Unfolded, dashes from the blinding eyes The visive spirits dazzled and bedimm'd; So, round about me, fulminating streams Of living radiance play'd, and left me swath'd And veil'd in dense impenetrable blaze. Such weal is in the love, that stills this heav'n; For its own flame the torch this fitting ever! No sooner to my list'ning ear had come The brief assurance, than I understood New virtue into me infus'd, and sight Kindled afresh, with vigour ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... along Holborn, where the thickening crowds jostled her as she walked. But she did not care for that now, nor did she seek the comparative seclusion of the side streets. Her fear of capture had passed away, and her only feeling was impenetrable isolation and loneliness. The people who were passing had no more existence to her than if they had been a troop of ghosts. She had the sensation of belonging to another world and could not have communicated with them if she had wished. But the ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... went wrong with our scheme of approaching the irrigation works from a picturesque angle. The dense fog thickened and shrouded the neighbourhood of the river in impenetrable mystery. We kept turning down by palm trees as directed, but to no purpose. We struck the river bank again after much wandering and kept to it, hoping the mist would clear. A man in a goufa appeared from nowhere and floated away out of sight into nowhere like a ghostly visitant ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... human form, appeared. A red gleam played over it. We had before us, stretched out upon the ground, a statue of pale bronze, wrapped in a kind of white veil, a statue like those all around us, upright in their niches. It seemed to fix us with an impenetrable gaze. ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... the selection as if it were the whole. Quite apart from the Gospel, the facts of human intercourse are full of evidence to wonderful and beautiful possibilities of insight and intercourse between human spirit and spirit. But if we want to read the best possible negative to the gloomy dream of impenetrable isolation, we must come to the Lord Jesus Christ. We must make experiment of what it is, in Him, to know and love others who are in Him too. Then indeed we shall find that we can, in the common possession of a living Lord who dwells in our hearts by faith, see as it were from heart into ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... in seniority is Mr. Timothy Snug, a man of deep contrivance and impenetrable secrecy. His father died with the reputation of more wealth than he possessed: Tim, therefore, entered the world with a reputed fortune of ten thousand pounds. Of this he very well knew that eight thousand was imaginary: but being a man of refined policy, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... vast dense masses of white cloud gathered below them, resting here and there in the hollows of the mountains like gigantic walls and bastions, and leaning against the abrupter face of the precipice in one great unbroken barrier of opaque, immaculate, impenetrable pearl. As you looked upon it the chief impression it gave you was one of immense thickness and crushing weight. It seemed so compressed and impermeable that one could not fancy how even a thunderbolt could shatter it, or the wildest blast of any hurricane dissipate its enormous ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... at present at Murray's head quarters in a township which we shall lay out for the provincials,[142] and we have already cut a road from his camp to the river, about three miles. We cut yesterday, with about 120 men, more than a mile through a forest hitherto deemed impenetrable. When we emerged from it, there opened a prospect superior to anything in the world I believe. A perfect view of the immense Bay of Fundy, on one side, and very extensive view of the river St. John's with the Falls, grand Bay and Islands on the other—in ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... and in its place there appeared a lofty wall of dim gray cloud, which rose high in the air, fading away into the faintest outline. Overhead, the blue sky became rapidly more obscured; Ile Haute changed again from its grayish blue to a lighter shade, and then became blended with the impenetrable fog that was fast enclosing all things; and finally the clouds grew nearer, till the land nearest them was snatched from view, and all around was alike shrouded under the universal veil; nothing whatever was visible. For a hundred yards, or ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... were generally splashed with it. Gigi smelt of glue and sawdust, and there were plentiful marks of his calling on his shiny old cloth trousers and his coarse linen shirt. Toto's face was square, stony and impenetrable; Gigi's was sharp as a bill and alive with curiosity. Gigi wore a square paper cap; Toto wore a battered felt hat of no shape at all. On Sundays and holidays they both shaved and turned out in immaculate white shirts, well brushed broadcloth and decent hats, recognizable to each ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... no poisoner could escape his exact analysis. His compressed cartridges, made waterproof and coated with collodion, were used in the blasting operations at the Mont Cenis tunnel through eight miles of otherwise impenetrable stone, solid Alpine rock, between ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... a Director of the Bango-Bango Exploration Company that he took up his life in the City. As its name implies, the Company was originally formed to explore Bango-Bango, an impenetrable district in North Australia; but when it came to the point it was found much more profitable to explore Hampstead, Clapham Common, Blackheath, Ealing and other rich and fashionable suburbs. A number of hopeful ladies ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... rings the sharp report, and the ball goes whizzing through the gloom, in the direction the vessel was seen. The bright flash of the gun, and the thick cloud of smoke make the darkness tenfold more impenetrable. For half an hour, we chase in every direction, then fire again toward the shore. It is just four; a gray light is working up through the mist, and we catch the faintest glimpse of the Daylight, one of our fleet. A few minutes later, and we see a speck ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... he bent over her; the warm breath reassured him; tired nature had simply succumbed. Irresolute he paused, little liking the sequestered gulch for a resting-place; divining the prickly thicket and almost impenetrable brushwood that lined the road. An unhealthy miasma seemed to ascend from below and clog the air; through the tangle of forest, phosphorus gleamed and glowworms flitted here ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... river. The bar, on which the water was unusually deep,—a few slight rollers only coming in over it,—was safely passed, when we began to stand up the stream. The shores on either hand were thickly covered with trees, forming impenetrable walls of foliage, and preventing us from seeing the country beyond, with the exception of some high hills which rose ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... circumstances or at other times, may be extreme in her abandonment. Not that her modesty is an artificial garment, which she throws off or on at will. It is organic, but like the snail's shell, it sometimes forms an impenetrable covering, and sometimes glides off almost altogether. A man's modesty is more rigid, with little tendency to deviate toward either extreme. Thus it is, that, when uninstructed, a man is apt to be impatient with a woman's reticences, and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... but the new Tory, i.e., Tory-tinted Whig, "divine right of property" made Bloody Sunday possible. I admit that I did not expect in 1886 that we should in 1887 and 1888 be having such a brilliant example of the tyranny of a parliamentary majority; in fact, I did not reckon on the force of the impenetrable stupidity of the Prigs in alliance with the Whigs marching under the rather ragged banner of ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... he reached to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs to the amphitheater; but no traces of such opening remained. The rocks presented a high impenetrable wall over which the torrent came tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a broad deep basin, black from the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip was brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog; he was only answered ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... against the western horizon, standing a gloomy advance guard of the shadows of the night. At its foot the newer green of the late spring foliage took a frivolous aspect, presenting the effect of deep-tinted foam breaking against the impenetrable mass of darkness. ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... not impenetrable to that low voice so full of pathos and love. But he was at a loss what to reply: strange influences were flowing round him, carrying him out of himself. He kissed the gentle head that reclined on his bosom. "Caroline," said he, "your advice is wise and good as yourself. I will think of it ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... by bestowal and in conjunction with the vaguely indeterminate lumps of matter that associate with man. As if in fifty centuries of man-herding they had made but one step out of the terrible isolation of brute species, an isolation impenetrable except by fear to every other brute, but now admitting the fact without knowledge, of the God of the Salt. Accustomed to receiving this miracle on open bowlders, when the craving is strong upon them, they seek such as these ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... in his buggy and looked at Leigh with the same impenetrable expression on his countenance that was always ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... Murray's imagination to appear to know that Edmund had any cause for care: he was not his solicitor, and he knew that his visitor had not come about his own affairs. But he could not conceal an added degree of respect, and liking even, under the impenetrable manner which hid his own aching sense of close personal suffering. Grosse answered the firm hand-grip with a ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... that bygone age would be unworthy of even so much as this notice, if we did not trace in them the ineradicable Italian tendency to cynical insinuation—a tendency which has involved the history of the Renaissance Popes in an almost impenetrable mist of lies and exaggerations. Henry was in truth upon his road to Italy, but with a very different attendance from that which Gregory expected. Accompanied by Bertha, his wife, and his boy son Conrad, the Emperor elect left Spires in the condition of a fugitive, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... to be impenetrable; and he was so far successful, that the Chevalier merely became convinced that the brothers were not simply riding to La Rochelle to embark for England, but had some hope and purpose in view; though as to what ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I receive the assurance that he is preparing to deal a heavy blow anent this; but the King's character is impenetrable. Time alone ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... liberality, the showerer, the slayer of the malevolent, profound, mighty, of impenetrable sagacity, the dispenser of prosperity, the enfeebler, firm, vast, the performer of pious acts, Indra has given birth to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... him: that on waiting on the princess to tell her what had passed, she was greatly agitated, and felt in the most sensible manner for the safety of her lover, whom she was afraid her father had devoted to death for his presumption, that she provided him with a suit of impenetrable armor and a trusty sword, with which he went, and having slain his adversary, and the most part of his warriors, returned victorious, and received her as the reward of his valor. Singular as this method of obtaining a fair lady by a price paid in blood may appear, ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... the brutality of Mr. Tyrrel, whom she affirmed to be a devil incarnate, and not a man. At another she expostulated, with bitter invective, against the hardheartedness of the bailiff, and exhorted him to mix some humanity and moderation with the discharge of his function; but he was impenetrable to all she could urge. In the mean while Emily yielded with the sweetest resignation to an inevitable evil. Mrs. Hammond insisted that, at least, they should permit her to attend her young lady in the chaise; and the bailiff, though the orders he had received ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... preparations of the heart in man, &c., is from the Lord.' And again, 'God maketh my heart soft, and the Almighty troubleth me' (Job 23:16). The heart, as it is by nature hard, stupid, and impenetrable, so it remains, and so will remain, until God, as was said, bruiseth it with his hammer, and melts it with his fire. The stony nature of it is therefore said to be taken away of God. 'I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... infinite. I love, for my own part, to believe that at his birth there appeared in this world an eternal and mighty spirit, a spirit perhaps from another age or sphere. Who knows? Why not? Who is there can look into the great unknown, the vast and impenetrable depths of the heavens, and say that this could not be, and was not so? How else explain this child of a French monarchy, brought up among the titled nobility of France, who amidst such conditions grew to manhood—the devotee of freedom and the ...
— The Spirit of Lafayette • James Mott Hallowell
... this royal felicity of utterance, this literary art, the minute cares of which had been really designed for the minute carefulness of a disciple such as this—all attention. Well! the sense of authority, of a large intellectual authority over us, impressed anew day after day, of some impenetrable glory round "the masters of those who know," is, of course, one of the effects we [218] look for from a classical education:—that, and a full estimate of the preponderating value of the manner of the doing of it in the thing done; which again, for ingenuous youth, is an ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... light we turned out of the main river, which was now a broad estuary as it neared the sea, and fled down a water lane not over fifteen or twenty feet wide, absolutely walled with impenetrable nipa growths. From this we emerged just as the day played its last spectacular effects, and found ourselves in a deep oval indentation, glassy as an inland lake, whose bosom caught the changing cloud tints like ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... to Uncle Tom's Cabin: a key to unlock any mind that is not rendered inaccessible by the rust of conservatism or party-spirit, and to open the fountain of every generous affection, which is not closed with impenetrable ice. With this key may every one become familiar, who would know, and both in word and deed "bear witness ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... time looking for a ford. The mare could swim. The moon, sloping down toward the west, still above the range, helped by the big white stars, made the valley bright almost as day. He scanned the mountain toward the peaks, passed over the dark impenetrable pines, surveyed the stretch of gently rising ground between the Elk and the trees and shifted his guns in their scabbards. His rifle he had left with Sam. Either Plimsoll had not passed the peaks, was in the woods, ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... than not be engaged in war, will do battle with their nearest neighbours, and challenge each other to mortal fight, as much in sport as we would defy a comrade to a chariot-race. They are covered with an impenetrable armour of steel, defending them from blows of the lance and sword, and which the uncommon strength of their horses renders them able to support, though one of ours could as well bear Mount Olympus upon his loins. Their foot-ranks carry a missile weapon unknown ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... a new difficulty that at first seemed insurmountable. How could he fasten the repellor to that great, impenetrable, opalescent bulk? ...
— The Planetoid of Peril • Paul Ernst
... before the hearth, she was warming her small feet, watching, as she did so, Madame d'Argy's profile, which was reflected in the mirror. It was severe—impenetrable. It was Fred ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... existing political order. It has a philosophy, the purport and bearing of which we will inquire of Mr. Holyoake. The following is the answer of the chief of the secularists:—"All that concerns the origin and end of things, God and the immortal soul, is absolutely impenetrable for the human mind. The existence of God, in particular, must be referred to the number of abstract questions, with the ticket not determined. It is probable, however, that the nature which we know, must be the God whom we inquire after. What ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... to us," went on Brown in a conversational undertone, "I had a sort of vision, a vision of him and all his universe. Yet he only said the same thing three times. When first he said 'I want nothing,' it meant only that he was impenetrable, that Asia does not give itself away. Then he said again, 'I want nothing,' and I knew that he meant that he was sufficient to himself, like a cosmos, that he needed no God, neither admitted any sins. ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... glittering like sapphires; uplands, clothed with grain-fields and orchards, and studded with farm-houses, each the centre of its own free domain; hills clothed from base to brow with every variety of forest tree; and woods, some wild, tangled, and all but impenetrable, others clear of underbrush, shady, moss-carpeted and sun-checkered; noble masses of granite rock, great slabs of marble (of which there are fine quarries in the neighborhood), clear mountain brooks and a full, free-flowing, sparkling river;—all this, under a cloud-varied ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... sign that such a professor is quite past grace is, when his heart is grown so hard, so stony, and impenetrable, that nothing will pierce it. Barren fig-tree, dost thou consider? a hard and impenitent heart is the curse of God! A heart that cannot repent, is instead of all plagues at once; and hence it is that God said of Pharaoh, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... ever; the two ships had neared each other considerably or it would have been impossible to distinguish. All that they could see from the deck of the Portsmouth was the jibboom and cap of the bowsprit of the Frenchman; the rest of her bowsprit, and her whole hull, were lost in the impenetrable gloom; but that was sufficient for the men to direct their guns, and the fire from the Portsmouth was most rapid, although the extent of its execution was unknown. After half an hour of incessant broadsides, the two vessels had approached each other so close, that the jibboom of the ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... scattered patches of clearing. Some of these hills have been cut half away for the new line—great generous "cuts," for to the giant 90-ton steam-shovels a few hundred cubic yards of earth more or less is of slight importance. All else is virtually impenetrable jungle. Travelers by rail across the Isthmus, as no doubt many ships' passengers will be in the years to come while their steamer is being slowly raised and lowered to and from the eighty-five-foot lake, will see little of the canal,—a ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... impenetrable Wragge. "A Rogue? Well, I waive my privilege of setting you right on that point for a fitter time. For the sake of argument, let us say I am a Rogue. ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... delineations both with the pencil and the pen. The actual fact, however, is that icebergs occur in far greater numbers in the seas which are yearly accessible than in those in which the advance of the Polar travellers' vessel is hindered by impenetrable masses of ice. If we may borrow a term from the geography of plants to indicate the distribution of icebergs, they may be said to be more boreal than polar forms of ice. All the fishers on the coast of Newfoundland, and most of the captains ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of person and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending; and so long as it is worth defending a patriotic militia will cover it with an impenetrable aegis. Partial injuries and occasional mortifications we may be subjected to, but a million of armed freemen, possessed of the means of war, can never be conquered by a foreign foe. To any just system, therefore, calculated ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... the finest test of high poetic quality, when purified and spiritualized, has no Byronic bitterness, no selfish morbidness, no impenetrable gloom, but in his own exquisite ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... come to his knowledge respecting his family history; a sort of history that is quite as liable to be mythical, in its early and distant stages, as that of Rome, and, indeed, seldom goes three or four generations back without getting into a mist really impenetrable, though great, gloomy, and magnificent shapes of men often seem to loom in it, who, if they could be brought close to the naked eye, would turn out as commonplace as the descendants who wonder at and admire ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... balcony looked particularly prison-like, even more so than some of its neighbours, perhaps because the greater number of its many windows were shuttered close, and showed no sign of life behind their impenetrable blackness. The only strong gleam of light radiating from the inner darkness to the outer, streamed across the balcony itself, which by means of two glass doors opened directly from the room behind ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... understandings of the people, and of the monarchical tendencies of the government. Crowned heads, it was loudly repeated, who were machinating designs subversive of the rights of man, and the happiness of nations, might well cover with an impenetrable veil, their dark transactions; but republics ought to have no secrets. In republics, those to whom power was delegated, being the servants of the people, acting solely for their benefit, ought to transact all national affairs ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... therefore, primary considerations, and not to be despised. The exhibition, however, of artistic care does not alone constitute great acting. The inspired warmth of passion in tragedy and the sudden glow of humour in comedy cover the artificial framework with an impenetrable veil: this is the very climax of great art, for which there seems to be no other name but genius. It is then, and then only, that an audience feels that it is in the presence of a reality rather than a fiction. To an ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... stealing down the side of the house in a darkness which during the last few minutes had become impenetrable. A shadow, where all was shadowy, I made for the woods and succeeded in reaching their shelter just as there rose in the distance behind me that most terrible of all sounds to a woman's ear, a man's loud cry of ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... manager of the Planet, was a man in middle life. There was something in his massive frame which suggested massiveness, and a certain quality in the poise of his great head which indicated a balanced intellect. His face was impenetrable ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... bed trying to believe he was warm enough, he would set off for it down the lanes of blinding city light through which the scream of the trolley pursued him, only to see it glimmer palely on him through impenetrable plate glass, or defended from him by huge trespass signs that appeared to have some relation to the fact that he was not yet so rich as he expected to be. Times when he would wake out of his sleep, it would be to a strange sense of severances ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... frequently only the introductory word is the object of the preposition, and the whole clause is not; thus, "The rocks presented a high impenetrable wall, over which the torrent ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... the whole kingdom, till a neighbouring prince, envious of our happiness, invaded our dominions with a mighty army; and penetrating as far as our capital, made himself master of it; and we had but just time to save ourselves in an impenetrable and inaccessible place, with a few trusty officers, who did not forsake us in ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... colorlessly, Rouletabille jumped off onto the shore and his rustic equipage crossed to the Sestroriesk side. It was a corner of land black and somber as his thoughts that he surveyed now. "Watch the Bay of Lachtka!" The reporter knew that this desolate plain, this impenetrable marsh, this sea which offered the fugitive refuge in innumerable fords, had always been a useful retreat for Nihilistic adventurers. A hundred legends circulated in St. Petersburg about the mysteries of Lachtka marshes. And that gave him his last hope. Maybe he would be able to run across some ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... building of a completely impenetrable defense against attack is still not possible, total defensive strength must include civil defense preparedness. Because we have incontrovertible evidence that Soviet Russia possesses atomic weapons, this kind of protection ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... spirits in solitude. He spoke of the demons that men had worshipped for centuries in the wilderness, and whose malice they invoked against the stranger who ventured into the gloomy forest. Gods, they called them, and told strange tales of their dwelling among the impenetrable branches of the oldest trees and in the caverns of the shaggy hills; of their riding on the wind-horses and hurling spears of lightning against their foes. Gods they were not, but foul spirits of the air, rulers of the darkness. Was there not glory ...
— The First Christmas Tree - A Story of the Forest • Henry Van Dyke
... planted by the recentest race of men, and lave the faded but still gorgeous skirts of Asiatic lands, older than Abraham; while all between float milky-ways of coral isles, and low-lying, endless, unknown Archipelagoes, and impenetrable Japans. Thus this mysterious, divine Pacific zones the world's whole bulk about; makes all coasts one bay to it; seems the tide-beating heart of earth. Lifted by those eternal swells, you needs must own the seductive god, bowing your head to Pan. But few thoughts ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... and long-winded sentences which passed for eloquence among the upper bourgeoisie of Arcis. The poor fellow belonged to that species of bore which desires to explain everything, even the simplest thing. He explained rain; he explained the revolution of July; he explained things impenetrable; he explained Louis-Philippe, Odilon Barrot, Monsieur Thiers, the Eastern Question; he explained Champagne; he explained 1788; he explained the tariff of custom houses and humanitarians, magnetism and the economy of the ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... baroness an answer to the confused presentiments which agitated his brain. But there was no longer any trace of the emotion which she had manifested when taken unawares. Having had time for reflection, she had composed for herself an impenetrable countenance. Somewhat surprised at M. ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... that the Britons assisted the Gauls with Ships. Hence we may infer that their Ships were of the same Construction with those of the Gauls, which Caesar says were built of Oak so strong that they were impenetrable to the Beaks of the Roman Ships, and so high that they could not be annoyed by the Darts of the Roman Soldiers. To the 9th Century, Alfred the great had a ...
— An Enquiry into the Truth of the Tradition, Concerning the - Discovery of America, by Prince Madog ab Owen Gwynedd, about the Year, 1170 • John Williams
... to spend the summer on the place. McNutt was an undersized man of about forty, with a beardless face, scraggly buff-colored hair, and eyes that were big, light blue and remarkably protruding. The stare of those eyes was impenetrable, because observers found it embarrassing to look at them. "Mac's" friends had a trick of looking away when they spoke to him, but children gazed fascinated at the expressionless blue eyeballs and regarded their owner ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... Yeddo. In France we have works of art in order to enjoy them; here they possess them merely to ticket them and lock them up carefully in a kind of mysterious underground room shut in by iron gratings called a godoun. On rare occasions, only to honor some visitor of distinction, do they open this impenetrable depositary. The true Japanese manner of understanding luxury consists in a scrupulous and indeed almost excessive cleanliness, white mats and white woodwork; an appearance of extreme simplicity, and an incredible nicety ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... almost impenetrable from the densely-wooded glens, frightful precipices, and sharp mountain ridges absolutely inaccessible, is but little known, even to the natives themselves; and so, instead of striking directly across from one village to ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... and timothy, piled high, held toward the hot incendiary their separate straws for the funeral pile. They bathed the murderer's retreat in beautiful illumination, and while in bold outline his figure stood revealed, they rose like an impenetrable wall to guard from sight the hated enemy who lit them. Behind the blaze, with his eye to a crack, Conger saw Wilkes Booth standing upright upon a crutch. He likens him at this instant to his brother Edwin, whom he says ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... would have appeared ungrateful on his part to refuse to follow the general, he returned with him. During the voyage he remained sad and impenetrable, until the English fleet was sighted near Corsica. Then only did he regain his wonted animation. Bonaparte told Admiral Gantheaume that he would fight to the death, and gave orders to sink the frigate sooner than haul down ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... and walking with as slow a step as the priest he had noticed, came opposite to him face to face. With impenetrable solemnity the holy man meekly moved aside,—with equally impenetrable coolness, Aubrey eyed him up and down, then the two passed each other, and Aubrey walked with the same unhasting pace, to the end ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... through which they passed was one tangled, most impenetrable forest; the axe of the pioneer had never sounded in this region, where every rod of the way might ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... front of the tent, and at no great distance from it, a thick network of vines stretched between two trees. These trees were large tupelos, and the vines, clinging from trunk to trunk and to one another, formed an impenetrable screen with their dark green leaves. Over the leaves grew flowers, so thickly as almost to hide them—the whole surface shining as if a bright carpet had been spread from tree to tree and hung down between ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... of abode, his daily course, were in the dominion of another, who inexorably ruled him. It was not the gentle influence which draws and persuades; it was not the power which can be propitiated by prayer; it was a tyranny which acted without reaction, energetic as mind, and impenetrable as matter. ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... forward to Great Britain (the last refuge of freedom) some materials which, though scanty and insufficient upon the whole, may, in part, rend the veil of destructive politics, and enable future ages to penetrate into mysteries which crime in power has interest to render impenetrable to the just reprobation of honour and of virtue." If, therefore, my humble labours can preserve loyal subjects from the seduction of traitors, or warn lawful sovereigns and civilized society of the alarming ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... stretch. At one moment the road would pass a dense banana plantation with the strange tall poles of the pawpaw trees standing sentinel, the next it would pass the dark recesses of a mangrove bay, where the sea ebbs and flows amid an impenetrable thicket of interlacing roots. And at frequent intervals a slight rise of ground would show the emerald sea beyond, gleaming as though ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... his eyes, therefore, when he saw the flame flicker and expire. His sight had surely deceived him. And now, since the light did not reappear, there must be some smoke wreath or impenetrable mist brooding about the tower's gray old head, and obscuring it from the lower world. But no! For right over the dim battlements, as the wind chased away a mass of clouds, he beheld a star, and moreover, by an earnest concentration of his sight, was soon able to discern even the darkened shrine ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... thy fine mouths shout Scorn upon dull-eyed doubt. Impenetrable fool Is he thou canst not school To the humility By which the angels see! Unfathomably framed Sister, ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... western fringe of settlement and established themselves in the foothills east of the Blue Ridge in what is now the Carolinas. Migration might just as well have moved west from Virginia and across the Alleghenies. However, not only did the mountains themselves present an impenetrable barrier, but settlers were forbidden to cross by "proclamation of the authorities" on account of the hostility of the Indians on the west of the mountain range. Then too there were inviting fertile valleys on this ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... them so many things, what can I tell you that you do not know of these white sirens, impenetrable apparently but easily fathomed, who believe that love suffices love, and turn enjoyments to satiety by never varying them; whose soul has one note only, their voice one syllable—an ocean of love in themselves, it is true, and he who has never swum there misses part of the poetry ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... in and out among the islands, and leaped into the mouth of a sluggish gulfward-stealing bayou. Here a few strokes of the paddle swept pirogue and paddler into a strange and lonely world. The tall cypress-trees on each bank, draped with funeral moss, cast impenetrable shadows on the water; the deathlike silence was broken only by the occasional ominous hoot of an owl or the wheezy snort of an alligator; the clammy air breathed poison. But the stars overhead were bright, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... for anyone to fire, because in a few seconds the smoke came back, a huge, impenetrable curtain, and hid the man and the hillock. But Dick had not the slightest doubt that it was the great Southern leader, and he was right. It was Stonewall Jackson on the hillock, rallying his men, and Dick's own cousin, Harry Kenton, rode by ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the situation. The neighbours were at first inclined to commiserate Big Anne, who was pronounced to be "a dacint, sinsible, poor woman," for the oddities of her household, the incalculable flightiness of Mad Bell, and the impenetrable silence of the Dummy. But to their condoling remarks she was wont to reply in effect—"Ah sure, ma'am, that's the way I'm used to them, the crathurs. Why, if Mad Bell said anythin' over-sinsible, or poor Winnie said anythin' at all, it's wond'rin' I'd be what was goin' ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... suggest, that the defensive is your best course. Here in the copse you have an enclosure capable with a little trouble of being converted into an impregnable fortress. Already the ditches are deep, the curtain wall of hawthorn high and impenetrable, the approaches narrow. By retiring hither with your forces, occupying every twig, and opposing a beak in every direction, you would be absolutely safe, and it is easy ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... stationed farther over on the right. Sam started out again, guiding himself as best he could by a compass which he had in his pocket. He selected the paths which seemed most promising, but the jungle between was impenetrable on horseback. The firing on the extreme right seemed to be farther in the rear, and he made his way in that direction. Again he came out at the edge of the woods, and to his surprise saw a battalion of the enemy at a short distance from him. He turned his horse, ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... Duke of Ormond. Both were among the conspirators, and would probably have accompanied Churchill, had he not, in consequence of what had passed at the council of war, thought it expedient to take his departure suddenly. The impenetrable stupidity of Prince George served his turn on this occasion better than cunning would have done. It was his habit, when any news was told him, to exclaim in French, "possible?" "Is it possible?" This catchword was now of great use to him. "Est-il-possible?" he cried, when he ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... must turn to the left, didn't you, Ned?" inquired Frank, who did not see the sense of wasting any time in standing there and staring into that impenetrable ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Louisa, you perceive, we do not perhaps make quite so swift a progress as we could wish: but we must be satisfied. The march of knowledge is slow, impeded as it is by the almost impenetrable forests and morasses of error. Ages have passed away, in labours to bring some of the most simple of moral truths to light, which still remain overclouded and obscure. How far is the world, at present, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... distinctions is his power to visualize scenes. The terror, beauty, caprice, and mercilessness of the sea; the silence and strangeness of the impenetrable tropical forest; atmospheres tense with storm or brilliant with sunshine,—these he records with strong effect. But though he has gained his fame largely as a chronicler of remote seas and shores, his handling of the human element ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... sobered, broadened. Our women do not vote. What is the result? Not one woman in a thousand has any interest in, and not one in two thousand has any acquaintance with, political affairs. Their ignorance would be laughable were it not sad. Every father, husband, brother, can testify to the impenetrable ignorance of his feminine belongings concerning matters of public moment. It forms the topic of universal comment in male circles. It is not because women are naturally incapable. It is because having no responsibility ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... of dawn. Already were visible the dark lines of the opposite shore, across the gleam of water, and beyond appeared the dim outlines of the higher bluffs. The slope between river and hill, however, remained in impenetrable darkness. The minds of both fugitives reverted to the same scene—the wrecked stage with its dead passengers within, its savage watchers without. She lifted her head, and the soft light reflected on ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish |
