"Imperceptibly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dizzy cleft—the sides bare and abrupt, without ledge or projection—the walls, like gigantic buttresses, presenting their inaccessible barriers to the deep—the distant horizon, raised to an unusual height by the point of sight and position of the spectator, seemed to mingle so softly and imperceptibly with the sky that it appeared one wide sea of cloud stretching to the foot of the cliff. From that fearful summit the billows were but as the waving of a summer cloud, undulating on the quiet atmosphere. The fishing bark, with its dun, squat, picturesque sail, looked as though floating in the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... Meanwhile each fancies that no harm will come of his neglect, that it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that for him; and so, by the same notion being entertained by all separately, the common cause imperceptibly decays. ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... not to calm the mind. Aiming at tranquillity I have almost destroyed all the energy of my soul, almost rooted out what renders it estimable. Yes, I have damped that enthusiasm of character, which converts the grossest materials into a fuel that imperceptibly feeds hopes which aspire above common enjoyment. Despair, since the birth of my child, has rendered me stupid; soul and body seemed to be fading away before the ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... that, if there is a delicate subject which we determine beforehand to avoid, this particular one is sure imperceptibly to ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... air of being a process independent of any collective or conscious will in man, as being the expression of a greater Will; it is working now, and may work out to its end vastly, and yet at times almost imperceptibly, as some huge secular movement in Nature, the raising of a continent, the crumbling of a mountain-chain, goes on to its appointed culmination. Or one may compare the process to a net that has surrounded, and that is drawn continually closer and closer upon, a great and varied ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... intended to defend the lower entrance of this mountain defile. At a proper distance, it looks not unlike the gray dilapidation of a Gothic castle, which has been crumbling and crumbling away for ages, until Time might be supposed to have imperceptibly stolen its massive pile from man, and given it back to Nature; its towers and battlements and arched entrances being so much defaced and decayed that all the marks of human labor had nearly been obliterated, and the angles of the hewn stone rounded away, while mosses and weeds and ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... suddenly and fearlessly uplifted when he saw the hostile crowd, and a half-scornful smile came to his straight thin lips. A man behind him put a detaining hand on his shoulder, but he shook it off impatiently. Almost imperceptibly men swerved this way and that until there was an open way through them to the State-house steps, and through that human lane, nearly every man of which was at that moment longing to take his life, the autocrat strode, meeting every pair of eyes with a sneer of cold ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... watching Jack keenly, to note if her words produced any effect on that immobile face. She was not disappointed: he started, almost imperceptibly, and as he fixed his dark eyes upon her own, she noticed, as never before, how keen and piercing, and how eloquently beautiful they were. Miss Gladden's eyes did not drop before his searching gaze; she was determined that he should read only sincerity and candor in their depths, and make his answer ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... crossing diagonally, produce to appearance the pointed arch; whilst some imagine it may have been derived from that mystical figure of a pointed oval form, the Vesica Piscis[76-*]. But whatever its origin, it appears to have been imperceptibly brought into partial use towards the middle ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... roads that undulated like narrow satin ribbons on a brocaded surface, was covered with moving objects, swarming, inundating the landscape. To the south a green hill grew black with the human tide, to the north long lines and oblongs and squares moved across the land, slowly, almost imperceptibly—but they ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... English. I had been newly initiated in the writings of our elder dramatists; Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger, were then a first love; and from what I was so freshly conversant in, what wonder if my language imperceptibly took a tinge? The very time, which I have chosen for my story, that which immediately followed the Restoration, seemed to require, in an English play, that the English should be of rather an older cast, than that of the precise year in which it happened to be written. I wish it had not ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the authority of the Lord himself would be endangered, inasmuch as He always recognizes, in these prophets, organs of divine inspiration and power. A vain attempt is made at mitigating this usurpation, by imperceptibly substituting the collective body of the prophets for the single prophet. This view thus leads to, and interferes with another which we shall immediately examine. But if we would not give up the sole argument by which this [Pg 231] exposition ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... by and imperceptibly, almost unnoticed by themselves, the coolness between husband and wife grew. There was no open quarrel, not even a cross word; but Stafford stayed out nearly every night and Virginia, left alone in the great library with only books for companions, ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... moment or two I heard nothing except the buzzing of flies. Then I stole a startled glance at my door. It was opening slowly, almost imperceptibly. ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... come upon the cause of the panic, and a spectacle more marvelous than that he had just witnessed. For the illimitable plain with its monotonous prospect was far from being level; a hundred yards further on he would have slowly and imperceptibly descended into a depression nearly a mile in width. Here he not only would have completely lost sight of his own cavalcade, but have come upon another thrice its length. For here was a trailing line of jog-trotting ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... twitched almost imperceptibly in Disko's hands. A few seconds later a hissing wave-top slashed diagonally across the boat, smote Uncle Salters between the shoulders, and drenched him from head to foot. He rose sputtering, and went forward ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... my life," writes Mr. Tazewell, "was spent in the freest intercourse with your dear father, and during this intercourse mere time effected changes in our relations so gradually and imperceptibly, that, until they were matured into their last state, I was often at a loss to determine what was their true character. We first met in the year 1780, at the house of your grandfather, in Greensville county, (who was also the paternal grandfather ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... he sprang. Above middle height, his erect figure gave him still much the air of a cavalier. His acute black eyes and trim white mustache made him certain to attract notice wherever he went—a fact of which he was not wholly unconscious. Even now, when gradually, almost imperceptibly, the springiness was fading from his step, he seemed a strong and virile man. His directors, most of them his contemporaries and whose insurance knowledge was limited to what they had learned on the Guardian directorate, trusted and believed in him with absolute ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... cultivation of my farm—in educating our children, a son and two daughters, in reading, music, painting—and in occasional visits to our friends in New-York and Philadelphia, seventeen years glided swiftly and imperceptibly away; at the end of which time death, in depriving me of an excellent wife, made a wreck of my hopes and enjoyments. For the purpose of seeking that relief to my feelings which change of place only could afford, ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... Isabel almost imperceptibly shook her head, but with a shade of mockery in her smile which prevented Lawrence from taking her in his arms. "Am I an unsatisfactory wife? Will you soon be tired of me? No, not yet," she said, moving away from him to put down her gloves ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... which attach the rake to the wanton; the first time you interpreted his kind looks and ardent prayers into tenderness and constancy; the first time you descended from the character of purity, you rushed imperceptibly on the blackest crimes. The more sincerely you loved, the more you plunged in danger: from one ungoverned passion proceeded a second and a third. In the fervency of affection you yielded up your virtue! In the excess of fear, you stained your conscience by the intended murder of your child! ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... Almost imperceptibly the bow of the "Dodger" began to rise. Lieutenant Jack, intent on preserving an even keel as nearly as possible, passed on to the middle station ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... gradually lost its hold over the human soul. On the other hand, however, from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries on, there developed that which may be called an ever increasing flow of cognition born of modern clairvoyant consciousness. This "hidden knowledge" flows even though at first quite imperceptibly, into the human concepts of that period. It is only natural that even up to the present time the purely intellectual forces should have maintained an antagonistic attitude toward this knowledge. But that which must come to pass will do so in spite of all temporary ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... to last long: for the tide had been imperceptibly making way and closing. I had always observed that after coming to a certain place, its velocity was greatly accelerated, and it was with feelings of alarm that I saw the danger which the almost unconscious people incurred. From regard to our own safety ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various
... said, 'but I really believe that Mervyn will be more susceptible of real repentance when he has imperceptibly been led to different habits and ways of thinking. In many cases, I have seen that the mind has to clear itself, and leave old things behind before it has the capacity of ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... little behind Mrs. Mansfield. Although the curtain was now up he noticed that Charmian, with raised opera-glasses, was earnestly looking at Mrs. Shiffney's box. He noticed, too, that her left hand shook slightly, almost imperceptibly. ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... interminable; but at length his anxious eyes were gladdened by the appearance of a faint paling of the sky low down on the horizon in the eastern quarter. Gradually and imperceptibly the pallor spread right, left, and upward toward the zenith, until a broad arch of it lay stretched along the horizon, within the limits of which the stars one after another dwindled in brightness and presently ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... a long, silent look, then the lieutenant almost imperceptibly shrugged his shoulders. Without moving, turned partly away from Rothwell, Aku said, simply, "No." The two started to ...
— Alien Offer • Al Sevcik
... books that have appeared, to our knowledge, since Miss Edgeworth. They are very unlike those, and yet they resemble them in some prominent features; especially in making it their chief object to be pleasing, and thus gently and imperceptibly opening a way for instruction to the mind and morals, without obtruding or forcing it in the least. For this the books before us are remarkable. They are entertaining throughout. The interest never flags, ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott
... in the morning, "You will see, sir, at Mr. Hector's, his sister Mrs. Careless, a clergyman's widow. She was the first woman with whom I was in love. It dropped out of my head imperceptibly; but she and I will always have a kindness for each other." He laughed at the notion that a man can never really be in love but once, and considered it as a ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... imperceptibly, fatefully onward, a streak of lightning tore them apart. They whirled like tortured smoke and grew suddenly black. Large spots of rain with jagged edges began to fall on the lead ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... acted with glaring profligacy, on others act with judgment, moderation and even patriotism, and become useful supporters or formidable opponents. Combinations are in this way formed which are in no degree wrong, but which tend to dull the edge of moral perception and imperceptibly to lower the standard of moral judgment. In the swift changes of the party kaleidoscope the bygone is soon forgotten. The enemy of yesterday is the ally of to-day; the services of the present soon obscure the misdeeds of the past; and men insensibly grow ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... minutes, fifteen. A moonbeam had glided through a window on the staircase. And, suddenly, Beautrelet became aware that the moonbeam was shifting imperceptibly, and that, before fifteen, before ten more minutes had elapsed, it would be shining full ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... useless to repeat the conversation that here ensued, suffice it to say, that Montraville used every argument that had formerly been successful, Charlotte's resolution began to waver, and he drew her almost imperceptibly towards ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... the south a speck moved, almost imperceptibly. The tramp's keen eyes told him that this was no horseman. He rolled a cigarette and lay back in the shade of a boulder. "He's a couple of points off his course, but he can't miss the ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... improved under his auspices. The entrance fee was imperceptibly raised, while the conditions of entry were relaxed. It was his lady's idea originally. She made it clear that the more numerous the members the greater the quantity of whisky consumed—the greater, therefore, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... what is in us: we can hardly bear the pressure of our hearts, as we think of it: the lonely wrestler, or victim, which imagination foreshadows to us, can hardly be one's self; it seems an outrage of our destiny that we should be led along so gently and imperceptibly, to so terrible a leaping-place in the dark, for more perhaps than life or death. At last, the great act, the critical moment itself comes, easily, almost unconsciously. Another motion of the clock, and our fatal line—the ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... to the dissipation and licentiousness of the town, Johnson, though his good principles remained steady, did not entirely preserve that conduct, for which, in days of greater simplicity, he was remarked by his friend Mr. Hector; but was imperceptibly led into some indulgencies which occasioned much distress to his ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... and sweet herbs. There should be only such use of them as will flavor well, delicately, and almost imperceptibly. No one flavor should predominate, and only a sense of general savoriness rule. Extracts, as of vanilla, lemon, bitter almond, &c., should be used with the greatest care, and if possible always be added to an article after it cools, as ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... the responsibility for the future of a child rests altogether with those intrusted with its rearing and training. The susceptibilities only are born with the heart, and these may be cultivated to good or evil, as imperceptibly as the light permeates the atmosphere. These capacities or susceptibilities are acute or obtuse as the cranium's form will indicate, and require a system suited to each. Attention soon teaches this: the one grows and expands beautifully with the slightest attention; ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... away very happily and imperceptibly. There were few changes in our mode of life; though Pussy, from a kitten, in due time became a full-grown cat, who left off running after her tail and climbing up the banisters, and walked up and down stairs as steadily as I did myself. In other respects our relations ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... shall be to give you any false lights knowingly. I am clear, I repeat it, against your resigning now; and there is no meaning in all I have taken the liberty to say to you, and which you receive with so much goodness and sense, but to put you on your guard in such ticklish times, and to pave imperceptibly to the world the way to your reunion with your friends. In your brother, I am persuaded, you will never find any alteration; and whenever you find an opportunity proper, his credit with particular persons will remove any coldness that may have happened. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... crusts. I should give them as playthings little bits of dry bread or biscuits, like the Piedmont bread, known in the country as "grisses." By dint of softening this bread in the mouth some of it is eventually swallowed the teeth come through of themselves, and the child is weaned almost imperceptibly. Peasants have usually very good digestions, and they are weaned ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... Epistolas, who mentions Roger Bacon as showing him a magnet at Oxford in 1258. Quoted in Beazley, Hakluyt Soc, Publications, 1899, cxliv., etc.] But its properties savored of magic; the earlier sailors, who hugged the shore, scarcely needed it, and it came into general use as slowly and imperceptibly as most of the other great inventions ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... Doors open; turning on their hinges like the membrane of some huge lobster, invisibly manipulated by thirty thousand men or women, of whom each individual occupies a space of six square feet, but has a kitchen, a workshop, a bed, children, a garden, little light to see by, but must see all. Imperceptibly, the articulations begin to crack; motion communicates itself; the street speaks. By mid-day, all is alive; the chimneys smoke, the monster eats; then he roars, and his thousand paws begin to ramp. Splendid spectacle! But, O Paris! he who has not admired your gloomy passages, your ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... the Franconia slipped slowly and silently away from the dock. Only three were there to bid us farewell—a man and two women,—and though they sang with great enthusiasm, "It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary," the effect was melancholy. Imperceptibly the pier and the lights of the city receded and we steamed on down the mighty St. Lawrence to our trysting place on the sea. The second morning afterwards we woke to find ourselves riding quietly at anchor in the sunny harbour of Gaspe, with all the other ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... leanness which might improve with time, though nothing could ever make them white. She was dark, on the whole. She was willing to admit that she was sallow, that her eyes had a rather sad look in them, and even that one was almost imperceptibly larger than the other, though the difference was so small that she had never noticed it before, and it might be due to the uncertain light of the candles in the dim room. But most assuredly there was no physical defect to be seen. She was not beautiful like poor Bianca Corleone; but she was ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... mind possessed with this persuasion of the perpetual progress of man, there may even imperceptibly steal both from the belief itself, and from many of the views on which it rests, something like a distrust of the wisdom of great men of former ages, and with the reverence, which no delusion will ever over-power in a pure mind, for their greatness, a fancied ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... harm if Mr. Mayfair did get in?" Imperceptibly prodded Mr. Pyecroft. "He would merely write a piece about you for ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... inevitable result of her nearness, were as agreeable to him after five years of marriage as in the first surprise of his introduction to them. Mrs. Nimick had kept house jerkily and vociferously; Ella performed the same task silently and imperceptibly, and the results were all in favor of the latter method. Though neither the Governor nor his wife had large means, the household, under Mrs. Mornway's guidance, took on an air of sober luxury as agreeable to ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... emitting a succession of musical sounds; but it is one continual flow of melody without interruption. From the moment he first strikes the keys, the harmonious melody gushes forth, note melts into note imperceptibly, wave after wave of melody goes forth and mingles into one as do the waves of the sea; and there is no breaking of the majesty of its harmony until the ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... ants may be seen perpetually engaged in, apparently, an unmethodical but extremely minute and critical inspection of the rhachis and the nerves or ribs of the leaf. Days pass. The ants are there all the time, examining the leaf and communicating with each other whensoever they meet. Imperceptibly the leaf begins to curl. The ants continue to make mesmeric passes over the nerves ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... space are flooding desolately. No voice can shout across those shores. No eye can bridge them, nor any desire bring them together until the blind god shall find them on the wavering stream—not as an arrow searches straightly from a bow, but gently, imperceptibly as a feather on the wind reaches the ground on a hundred starts; not with the compass and the chart, but by the breath of the Almighty which blows from all quarters without care and without ceasing. Night and day it urges from the outside ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... her fury. He saw her eyes contract to the gleam of a new idea. She was silent a moment, while her vibrant, tense body swayed in front of him almost imperceptibly. ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... sleep so splendidly before rain; but the old man had a hankering after serious, weighty thoughts; he wanted not simply to think but to meditate, and he meditated how good it would be, as death was near at hand, for the sake of his soul to give up the idleness which so imperceptibly swallowed up day after day, year after year, leaving no trace; to think out for himself some great exploit—for instance, to walk on foot far, far away, or to give up meat like this young man. And again he pictured to himself ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... through them will Man be saved from his Fall, princes and nations will disappear without violence from the earth, the human race will become one family and the world the abode of reasonable men. Morality alone will bring about this change imperceptibly. Every father of a family will be, as formerly Abraham and the patriarchs, the priest and unfettered lord of his family, and Reason will be the only code of Man. This is ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... banks of the river, to warn the few persons who still loitered on the bridge, to look out. The ice was in motion. Every one within hearing rushed to the river. We happened to be passing at the time, and, like the rest, hurried to the spot. The vast pile, slowly, almost imperceptibly, began to advance, giving an irresistible impulse to the shore ice, that still held good, and which was instantly communicated to the large pieces that blocked the arch of the bridge, over which the waves now poured in a torrent, pushing before them the great lumps ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... took a slice gingerly and respectfully. Mrs. Lowe and Mrs. Robbins nodded to each other imperceptibly. The cake was not iced with those fine devices which usually make a wedding-loaf, it was rather dry, and not particularly rich; but Mrs. Maxwell's perfect manner as she cut and served it, her acting on her own little histrionic stage, had swayed them to her will. Mrs. ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... savages in the contest that the snake-like approach of Acantow was unnoticed until he had cut the thongs that bound Manetabee's wrists and ankles—she did not cry out, for she had expected rescue—and both had imperceptibly slid away from them. Then, with a yell, one of the gamblers pointed to the receding forms, and straightway the fifteen ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... towered over him, absent-minded, with roaming eyes. Lupin, captivated by that powerful and sorrowful countenance, continued to watch her; and he was vainly seeking to remember of what or of whom she reminded him, when he noticed that she had turned her head slightly and that she was imperceptibly ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... a blue with the lustre of mother-of-pearl; in the zenith a stray star was imperceptibly shining; to the west floated ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... plant to be able to exist." {105a} Or again—"With sufficient time, favourable conditions of life, successive changes in the condition of the globe, and the power of new surroundings and habits to modify the organs of living bodies, all animal and vegetable forms have been imperceptibly rendered such as we now see them." {105b} Who can doubt that accident is here regarded as a potent factor of evolution, as well as the design that is involved in the supposition that modification is, in the main, functionally induced? Again he writes, ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... the changes were neither so abrupt nor so complete as in that of many others. But his course was still more meandering, skirting the bases of opposite systems, abiding with none. Never a blind adherent or a vehement opponent, he glided almost imperceptibly from camp to camp. He consorted, as we have seen, with legitimists and neo-Catholics, and allowed himself to be reckoned as one of them. Through the columns of the Globe, which had now become the organ ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... nation. It is read not only by the men and women of mature years, but it begins its offices as teacher in the home circle as soon as the child becomes a pupil in the school, and it is constantly although imperceptibly moulding the minds of millions of our youths of all classes and all conditions, and it has no vacations in its great work. It not only aids the more intelligent to a sound exercise of judgment on questions of public interest, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... bushes moved almost imperceptibly and an instant later one of the officers, without warning, fired into them; but Tarzan of the Apes was not there. In the interval between the moving of the bushes and the firing of the shot he had melted into the night. Ten minutes later he was hovering ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... such men, with a heart truly overflowing with gratitude for their past services and zeal in our cause, I humbly beg to examine this plot minutely, and see if the end which they have in view will be completely consummated by such a course of procedure. Our friends who have been imperceptibly drawn into this plot I view with tenderness, and would not for the world injure their feelings, and I have only to hope for the future, that they will withdraw themselves from it; for I declare to them, that the plot is not for ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... forcibly expresses the condition of one who is advancing imperceptibly, though surely, ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... imagined he was going to live his own life. O hapless delusion! Lo, as the same moulds awaited and confined the metal, so the same moulds awaited and confined the living stuff. Mysterious conventions, laws, labours; imperceptibly receiving; implacably binding and shaping. The last day he had come down the steps of Telfer's—jumped down—how distinctly he remembered it! It was his own life he was coming down, eagerly jumping down, into.—Well, here he was, passing those very ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... pince-nez: a sallow, wizened old fellow, beetlebrowed, with a bush of grizzled moustache and a jet-black tuft of beard on his chin. The most remarkable feature was the nose, which was broad and flat, merging almost imperceptibly in the wrinkled cheeks. Lightly beaked at the nether extremity, it drooped towards an enormous cigar which was pointing at us like a gun just discharged. He looked wise as Satan, and you would say he was ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... right and the right centre the green pastures, shorn for thirteen hundred yards of all obstacles save a few solitary cottages, sloped almost imperceptibly to the brook which is called Young's Branch. The left centre and left, however, were shut in by a belt of timber, from four hundred to six hundred yards in width, which we may call the Groveton wood. This belt closed in upon, and at one point crossed, the railroad, and, as regards ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... is only lava, which has flowed beneath the sea; but the eruptions must have been on the grandest scale. At the point where we first met this formation it was 120 feet in thickness; following up the river course, the surface imperceptibly rose and the mass became thicker, so that at forty miles above the first station it was 320 feet thick. What the thickness may be close to the Cordillera, I have no means of knowing, but the platform there attains a height ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... great social changes can only come by consent. The Capitalist system cannot be overthrown by a revolution or by a parliamentary majority. Wage slavery will disappear, as serfdom disappeared, not indeed imperceptibly, for the world is now self-conscious, not even so gradually, for the pace of progress is faster than it was in the Middle Ages, but by a change of heart of the community, by a general recognition, already half realised, that whatever makes for ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... Tunbridge with the first of the season, where he appeared in the uniform of Aesculapius, namely, a plain suit, full trimmed, with a voluminous tie-periwig; believing that in this place he might glide, as it were, imperceptibly into the functions of his new employment, and gradually accustom himself to the ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... written, in shaky capitals, what was evidently intended as the copy for an advertisement. She watched Henry eagerly as he read it, and when at first she could detect no change in his expression, her eyes widened, and her lips trembled imperceptibly. Then Henry, half-way down the page, began to grin: and his grin spread and spread until his whole face was abeam with joy. He came to the last line, gasped, looked up at Anna, and suddenly springing towards her, he caught her in his ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... exile. To me they were so many ages. Ardent and impetuous by nature, I scarcely know how I should have supported so long an absence, had I not felt assured that the faith of Bianca was equal to my own. At length my father died. Life went from him almost imperceptibly. I hung over him in mute affliction, and watched the expiring spasms of nature. His last faltering accents whispered repeatedly a blessing on me—alas! how has ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... many columns, drawn in perspective and very beautiful, seeing that, besides the drawing of the lines, which is perfect, he made it recede by means of the colouring, in a manner that little by little, almost imperceptibly, it is lost to view; thus showing clearly his knowledge of perspective. In the Badia of Florence, on a pilaster opposite to one of those that support the arch of the high-altar, he painted in fresco S. Ivo of Brittany, representing him within ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... Stanton paused imperceptibly before answering, while his ultrafast mind considered the problem and arrived at a decision. Just how much confidence should he show the colonel? Mannheim was a man with tremendous confidence in himself, but who was capable of recognizing that there were ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... out of every stream down which a scow could be thrust at flood-time; from tiny settlements far back among the hills; from those bustling sinks of iniquity, the river towns. But now, surely, yet almost imperceptibly, their commerce was slipping from them. At all the landings they were being elbowed by the newcomers—men who wore brass buttons and gold braid, and shiny leather shoes instead of moccasins; men with white hands and gold rings on their fingers and ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... years more went by, or perhaps three, for time passes imperceptibly in Tahiti, and it is hard to keep count of it; but at last a message was brought to Dr. Coutras that Strickland was dying. Ata had waylaid the cart that took the mail into Papeete, and besought the man who drove it to go at once to the doctor. ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... Suddenly, almost imperceptibly, the Sigma curve gave signs of flattening out. In that instant Cloud's mind pounced. Simultaneous equations: nine of them, involving nine unknowns. An integration in four dimensions. No matter—Cloud did not solve them laboriously, one factor at a time. Without knowing ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... the royal family in all sorts of postures, not omitting any of their important occupations; on foot, and on horseback, with a general's plumes or a gray hunting jacket, killing pigeons or riding in an automobile. He portrayed the beauties of the oldest families, concealing imperceptibly, with clever dissimulation, the ravages of time, giving firmness to the flabby flesh with his brush, holding up the heavy eyelids and cheeks that sagged with fatigue and the poison of rouge. After successes at court, the ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... woman who was giving the last touches to the very effective picture framed in her long looking-glass nodded almost imperceptibly. ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... which possesses the personages of whom he is writing; like a certain historian of witchcraft, whom we have somewhere read of, who had so industriously studied his subject that a faith in the black art imperceptibly gained upon him. The narrative goes on to say, that the unfortunate historian of witchcraft attempted to practise the knowledge he had obtained, and was burned for a wizard. But there the analogy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... and niece glided imperceptibly into that mode of life which is called humdrum, and which some wise people consider the best mode of getting through existence. Sketch number two was written, rewritten, liked, hated, and finally sent ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... her usual subdued and poverty-stricken air. There was nothing in Abigail Lassiter's dress or manner to indicate the slightest improvement in her worldly circumstances. She toiled as earnestly, dressed as simply, and lived as sparingly as ever. But quietly and almost imperceptibly a vast change was wrought in the aspect of her dwelling. It was carefully repaired and considerably enlarged, a small piece of pasture land was bought, and then a handsome Alderney cow made her appearance. A garden of some extent, at the rear of the cottage, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... native against the same number of foreign watches, the native group will be uniformly more accurate. In the case of two watches of exactly the same excellence, the regulator of one may be adjusted to the precise point, while that of the other may imperceptibly vary from that point. But that is a chance. The true test ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... unpleasant. As for ladies, it may not, indeed, be necessary to be thorough master of the three great histories, and the five classical texts; yet they ought not to be destitute of some knowledge of both public and private affairs, and this knowledge can be imperceptibly acquired without any regular study of them, which, though superficial, will yet be amply sufficient to enable them to talk pleasantly about them with their friends. But how contemptible they would seem if this made them vain of it! The Manna[43] style and pedantic phrases were not meant for them; ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... imaginary aquatic monster, residing in fresh water and endowed with supernatural power which enables it to consume the natives, although it generally attacks females. The person it selects for its victim pines away almost imperceptibly and dies. ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... coming. The fixed gaze of a bold human eye cowed at last even the king of the woods. The lion slowly and almost imperceptibly rose, and sidled gently round, with the intention, doubtless, of bounding into the jungle. I saw that if it did so it would pass very close to me so I cocked both barrels and held ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the seat, and with a trail of convolvulus tickling her ear she would stay there, looking up at the sky. It was just at the time of those beautiful summer days which fade away in silvery evenings. Imperceptibly her eyes and her thoughts were fascinated by the infinite whiteness of the sky, just ready to die away. As she watched she seemed to see more brilliancy and light coming from this closing day, a more dazzling brightness and serenity seemed to fall upon ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... and so sudden was his movement that Ringfield retreated as if caught guiltily; in doing so he very nearly slipped on the icy rocks that sloped imperceptibly towards the rushing fall, and he was about to warn the guide, who was farther down the bank than himself when the latter, rising ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... his hand and almost imperceptibly drew nearer to him. Her face was lifted to him in a manner that few would have mistaken. But Seth gently withdrew his hand, and, as the train began to move, climbed down and dropped ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... well known, leads into Russell Square. In fact the straight line of the Row merges imperceptibly into one side of the Square, whence it continues under the name of Woburn Place, the East side of Tavistock Square, Upper Woburn Place, and Euston Square, losing itself at last in the Northern wilderness of the crowded Euston Road. It was at a house which he passed in his straight course ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... poetical conception of the early thinkers, it would be impossible, even if it were desirable, at this time of day, to disentangle the fibres of all these various elements. Fact and theory, the natural and the supernatural, the legendary and the philosophical, shade off so imperceptibly one into the other, in the stories of the Olympians, or of their first offspring, that we can never assure ourselves that we are on historic ground, or that, antecedent to the really historic age, there is any such ground to ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... who had nodded imperceptibly in my direction as Bettina called my name, motioned limply toward a room on my right, and as I entered it I looked at her and saw at once that she, too, belonged to the unqualified and unfit. She must once have been a pretty woman, but her hair and eyes were now ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... Nemo's intent. By leaving the pearl buried beneath the giant clam's mantle, he allowed it to grow imperceptibly. With each passing year the mollusk's secretions added new concentric layers. The captain alone was familiar with the cave where this wonderful fruit of nature was "ripening"; he alone reared it, so to speak, in order to transfer it one day to his dearly beloved ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... had for a moment imperceptibly changed. Lines had come out in his face which were not usually visible, his upper lip had stiffened. One could fancy that he might have led his men into battle looking something ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Gradually, imperceptibly almost, something stole on my ear—a sound that resolved itself into a faint murmur. Quickly it developed and grew into a muffled but hideous chorus of bestial shrieks. It appeared to rise from the bowels of ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... Henley broke in, with a grin, "if you don't git cured of that complaint you was telling me about just now," and Henley winked almost imperceptibly to any one not familiar with the tricks of his face. He bent his head and smiled behind his broad hand. "I'll tell you, sir," he went on to the salesman, after another sly wink at Cahews, "none of us here happen to want anything in your line, but there is a rich old codger across the way—Mr. ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... fellow!" said the emperor, turning his eyes involuntarily to the window of the castle. He nodded almost imperceptibly, and laid his hand on his heart for a moment. The marshal's eyes had followed the glances of his master, and he beheld a strange object at one of the windows of the emperor's rooms. The curtain was cautiously drawn aside, and the beautiful ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... remarkable example of adaptation in the genus. The variations are mostly those associated with changes of environment—dimensions of cone and leaf and the number of leaves in the fascicle. These are so accurately correlated with altitude and exposure, and are so imperceptibly graded, that no specific segregations among them ...
— The Genus Pinus • George Russell Shaw
... coming and going of artists and men of letters to her court, and the resuming of all those ancient Cyprian customs that might minister to the content of the nobles—whom it was ever most needful to satisfy with a sufficient show of gaiety—there had nevertheless been an imperceptibly increasing tightening of the threads of government which stretched far across the waters to Venice's own blue Adriatic, into the very Council-Chambers of the ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... attended the king in the character of secretary of state, suspected there was treason in the case. It was common, when requests were granted, for the king to take water into his mouth and pour some of it into the hand of the suppliant, and therefore the secretary, by the assistance of magic, slipped imperceptibly down the prince's throat, in order to prevent the water being thrown out. The magic had not the desired effect; for the king, finding something in his throat, forced a sharp instrument into it, which put out one of the secretary's eyes, and the water gushed out, ratifying the agreement. Vixnu ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... road. Always a girl of sudden impulse, she had just made a curious discovery, to wit, that she was enjoying herself. There was something so novel and exhilarating about this midnight ride that imperceptibly her dismay and resentment had ebbed away. She found herself struggling with ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... you that very thing," the foreman answered in a thin, menacing voice. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he widened the distance between himself and his accuser. It was not a retreat, he merely drew himself together defensively, holding himself under control with the last ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... word, Donald slipped the gloves from his hands, and leaped upon Tom, smashing him to right and left with one well-directed blow after the other. The Indian was unarmed, and no match for the captain. But not so his mother. Almost imperceptibly, the leering hag crept closer to the combat, one hand glued to ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... before us, we almost lose note that there is development. The fair young heathen first presented to us, linked on to classic times and moralities through all the surroundings of her life, passes on so imperceptibly into the "visible Madonna" of the after-time, that we scarcely observe the change till it is accomplished. From the first, we know that the mature is involved in the young Romola. The reason of this is, that from first to last the essential principle of life is in her the ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... wealth and employment is unquestionably that which was established by Moses on the basis of the ancient patriarchal rule. But it is worthy of notice, that this model, so convenient in the earliest stage of social existence, was imperceptibly changed by the increasing power and intelligence of the people at large, until, as happened towards the close of Samuel's administration, the public voice made itself be heard recommending an entire departure from obsolete notions. They glorified in the progress ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... mutations and the disasters of barbarian invasions. Goths, Lombards, and Franks blend successively with the masses of this complex population, and lose the outlines of their several personalities. The western Empire melts imperceptibly away. The Roman Church grows no less imperceptibly, and forms the Holy Roman Empire as the equivalent of its own spiritual greatness in the sphere of secular authority. These two institutions, the crowning monuments ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... immaculate amid the untidy debris of the meal; and as Edwin and Clara became gradually indifferent to jam, and then inimical to it; and as the sounds of the street took on the softer quality of summer evening, and the first filmy shades of twilight gathered imperceptibly in the corners of the room, and Mr Clayhanger performed the eructations which signified that he had had enough; so Mrs Hamps prepared herself for one of her ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... who had become an inmate of his house, while she ministered to all the tastes that the Squire had built up as a screen between himself and either the tragic facts of contemporary life, or any troublesome philosophizing about them, was yet gradually, imperceptibly, drawing the screen aside. Her humanity was developing the feeble shoots of sympathy and conscience in himself. What she felt, he was beginning to feel; and when she hated anything he must at ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... slipping backward so that she could not do it; it was as if he had built a wall behind her, and in time her mind accepted that wall as impregnable and took a forward movement. And with every step she took he pushed the wall after her, so that still if she moved it must be forward. Thus Grizel progressed imperceptibly as along a dark corridor towards the door that shut out the light, and on a day in ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... community had to fight its first hard battles against nature and men. The father commanded then as monarch in his family; the woman was without right, liberty, personality; had but to obey, to bear children and rear them. But success, power, wealth, greater security, imperceptibly loosened the narrow bondage of the first struggles; then the feminine spirit—the spirit of freedom, of pleasure, of art, of revolt against tradition—gradually acquired strength, and began bit by bit to undermine at its bases ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... the atmosphere was a little heavy, and then flung his arm out over the sill and crossed his feet, as if he had an hour at his disposal. Chris had noticed before that extraordinary appearance of ease and leisure in such monks, and it imperceptibly soothed him. Neither would Dom Anthony speak on technical matters, but discoursed pleasantly about the party at Overfield Court and the beauty of the roads between there and Lewes, as if Chris were only come to ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... some gently, imperceptibly, creeping in as the tide, through unsuspected creeks and inlets, creeps on a sleeping man, until he wakes to find himself surrounded. But to others it comes as a wave, breaking on them, beating them down, whirling ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... a broad park-like area that tended downward almost imperceptibly to a deep defile. They dismounted and walked to the edge and looked down the steep sides. A little creek flowed out of the wood and emptied itself with a silvery rush into the vale, caught its breath below, and became a creek again. A slight suspension bridge flung across ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... vehicle even when it had become lost to view. Then he re-entered the drawing-room, seated himself upon a chair, and surrendered his mind to the thought that he had shown his guest most excellent entertainment. Next, his mind passed imperceptibly to other matters, until at last it lost itself God only knows where. He thought of the amenities of a life, of friendship, and of how nice it would be to live with a comrade on, say, the bank of some river, and to span the ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... that mudbank as well as anywhere else, and it was not from a multiplicity of events, but from the lapse of time alone, that he expected relief. Yet in the sameness of days upon the Shallows, time flowing ceaselessly, flowed imperceptibly; and, since every man clings to his own, be it joy, be it grief, he was pleased after the unrest of his wanderings to be able to fancy the whole universe and even time itself apparently come to a standstill; ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... other men were betting with him, animated purely by greed and craze of the sport. First one, then another joined till game after game was closed, and each moment the crowd had grown in size and enthusiasm so that its fever crept into him, imperceptibly at first, but ever increasing, ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... exterior could be broken through one would find warmth and life beneath," Prince Egon had declared more than once, half jestingly. Now this transformation had been partially effected, slowly, almost imperceptibly. But this soft, half-pained expression, which had taken the place of the haughty, cold one, this sorrowful glance, gave the young widow the one charm which had ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... invited them all into the dining-room. When the Mayakins stepped out Foma imperceptibly tugged Lubov by the sleeve, and she remained with ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... wild tempestuous storm. Deep chasms obstructed the way on all sides, and a misstep or slip would send one down the blue steps where no friendly rope could rescue, and only the rushing water could be heard. To view the solid phalanxes of icy floes, as they fill the mountain fastnesses and imperceptibly march through the ravines and force their way to the sea, fills one with awe indescribable. The knowledge that the ice is moving from beneath one's feet thrills one with a curious sensation hard ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... Christians. They are the force in the place which influences the heathen for or against it. It is of the utmost importance that they should be reckoned first, and treated first, as the force which above all others works slowly, quietly, imperceptibly, but mightily. The whole body of those who profess and call themselves Christians should be put ...
— Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions • Roland Allen
... the counsel at Exeter. This work was pushed with increased eagerness after the argument at Washington, and the object now was to create about the three doubtful judges an atmosphere of public opinion which should imperceptibly bring them over to the college. Johnson, Livingston, and Story were all men who would have started at the barest suspicion of outside influence even in the most legitimate form of argument, which was all that was ever thought of or attempted. This made the ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... some few Words to describe the secret Operations of those nice Qualities when they reach the human Soul; how effectually they form a Hell within us, and how imperceptibly they assimilate and transform us into Devils, meer human Devils, as really Devils as Satan himself, or any of his Angels; and that therefore 'tis not so much out of the Way, as some imagine, to say, such a Man is an incarnate Devil; for as Crime made Satan a Devil, who was ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... bit, and went on learning, getting imperceptibly to know a good deal about gardening, and so a couple of years slipped away, when one day I was superintending the loading of the cart after seeing that it was properly supported with trestles. Ike was seated astride one of the large baskets as if it were ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... of a woman? The thing was done, the inquiry over. The most punctilious inquirer could have bowed now, and walked away down the steps. Cally imperceptibly hesitated. ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Imperceptibly dusk deepened to darkness. A gust of anger swept Buddy's soul because he was tired, because he was hungry and he was yet a long way from the camp, but chiefly because Ezra persisted in calling after Buddy had several times answered. He heard someone whom he recognized ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... window-sill and her cheek on her hand in a manner that betrayed weariness, and looked out upon the ever-turning landscape, he murmured to his wife, "I haven't a doubt in my mind," and nodded significantly at the preoccupied little shape in his arms. His manner with the child was imperceptibly adroit, and very soon her prattle began to be heard. Mary was just turning to offer a gentle check to this rising volubility, when up jumped the little one to a standing posture on the gentleman's knee, and, all ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... the streets were clear of dead and of black powder. It was near South Kensington that I first heard the howling. It crept almost imperceptibly upon my senses. It was a sobbing alternation of two notes, "Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla," keeping on perpetually. When I passed streets that ran northward it grew in volume, and houses and buildings seemed to deaden and cut it off again. It came in a full tide down Exhibition ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... bygone modes of thought and indicate many-sided friendly relations with good and eminent men; above all, he has lost no opportunity to illustrate that life of the past, near in date, yet alien in manners, whose current glides so imperceptibly from one generation into another that we fail to mark the shiftings of its bed or the change in its nature wrought by the affluents that discharge into it on all sides,—here a stream bred in the hills to sweeten, there the sewerage of some great city to corrupt. We cannot but lament ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... happen at a blow. If it had, Rosalie would have noticed it. It slipped imperceptibly from stage to stage and she did not ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... cedar-trees at Laughton sat that accursed and abhorrent being who sat there, young, impassioned, hopeful, as Lucretia Clavering,—under the old cedar-trees, which, save that their vast branches cast an imperceptibly broader shade over the mossy sward, the irrevocable winters had left the same. Where, through the nether boughs the autumn sunbeams came aslant, the windows, enriched by many a haughty scutcheon, shone brightly against the western rays. From the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... accumulation of wordy common-places, the gaudy pretensions of poetical fiction, had enfeebled and perverted our eye for nature. The study of the fine arts, which came into fashion about forty years ago, and was then first considered as a polite accomplishment, would tend imperceptibly to restore it. Painting is essentially an imitative art; it cannot subsist for a moment on empty generalities: the critic, therefore, who had been used to this sort of substantial entertainment, would be disposed to read poetry with the eye of a connoisseur, would be ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... the theme of conversation. From the nearest they went to the next, whereupon Paula as hostess took up one of the candlesticks and held it aloft to light up the painting. The candlestick being tall and heavy, De Stancy relieved her of it, and taking another candle in the other hand, he imperceptibly slid into the position of exhibitor rather than spectator. Thus he walked in advance holding the two candles on high, his shadow forming a gigantic figure on the neighbouring wall, while he recited ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... waned the young walnut tree sent down its roots to vigour and imperceptibly lifted its crest. Its leaves did not wither but gained in greenness and lustre, and as it prospered so Kenneth Thornton also prospered, until when the season of corn shucking came again, he and Dorothy stood beside ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... these words. In the meantime, the banca carried along imperceptibly by the waves, neared the shore. Elias was the first to ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... arranged four sandwiches, two cookies, and an orange on it. Then, with her fat legs crossed before her, she waited in silence. Between the sun at her back and the fire on her face, she grew pleasantly drowsy; the sounds about her melted imperceptibly to a soft, rhythmic ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... oil and tempera lend themselves to the production of broad-coloured surfaces that merge imperceptibly into one another. There are men the fundamental unit of whose picture language is a blot or shape; as children or as savages, they would find these most capable of expressing what they saw. There are others for whom the scratch or line is the ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... the trouble to recollect, will not be able to put his finger on the precise periods at which new views of every thing suddenly opened before him, and he emerged at once, if not into new powers, at least into a new use of them. The frame may grow like a tree; the faculties may grow as imperceptibly as the frame; but the mind acquires that knowledge of life which forms its exercise, its use, and perhaps its essence, by bounds and flights. This moonlight walk with my old and honoured Mentor, was the beginning of my mental adolescence. My manhood was still ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... section of the Union and those islands, and the neighboring parts of the main land, that are the chief scenes of piratical depredation and resort; the crews of the New-England vessels trading, and occasionally smuggling, in bye-ports, become gradually and imperceptibly acquainted with those of piratical vessels frequenting those bye-ports and obscure harbors, for the purpose of refitting their vessels or disposing of their plunder; and that these acquaintances ripen into intimacies, that terminate ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... this holy state of the spirit endure? No—it will fade, and fade, and fade away, so imperceptibly, so unconsciously (so like the shortening of the long summer-days, that lose minute after minute of the light, till again we hear the yellow leaves rustling in autumnal twilight), that the heart within that snow-drifted bosom will know not how great ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... the lower carbon is stationary, the luminous point descending in measure as the carbons wear away through combustion. The upper carbon descends by its own weight, and imperceptibly, so as to keep the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... one's chin jerked up. To the trained eye of Cluff, swift to interpret physical indications, it seemed that Perkins's weight had almost imperceptibly ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... She could only stand and let the tide of love she felt sweep over her again and again, until softly and almost imperceptibly the Heavenly Pinions faded away ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... prominent object on the horizon of paternal affection, and which, though imperceptibly, yet rapidly approaches our increasing colony, and that is the imperious necessity of a separation; for so very limited are the available portions of the island, that some families who number ten ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... remarked, and with a great deal of truth, that the chapters of a novel bear a certain resemblance to those pleasing illusions known as dissolving views, where one scene glides almost imperceptibly into another. The reader has been gazing mentally on woods, landscapes and water in the South of England, when lo! in the twinkling of an eye, the busy haunts of men in the world's great capitol, London, stands unveiled before him. It must, however, be admitted ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... peculiar to itself, which adapts itself with great flexibility to the exigencies of the time, and accommodates itself to all the movements of the social body: but this party extends over the whole community, and it penetrates into all classes of society; it acts upon the country imperceptibly, but it finally fashions it ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... snarled Gary, and he stepped back. Gary's very attitude was a challenge. Pete knew that he could not drop his rope and pull his own gun quick enough to save himself. He saw Gary's hand move almost imperceptibly toward his holster. ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... looked blank, but Mike narrowed his eyes imperceptibly. Vaneski was practically echoing Mike's ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett |
