"Imperious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... provisions was transacted by his orders; that it was therefore needless for them to complain, as they would get no redress, he being the fittest judge of what was right or wrong, and that he would flog the first man who should dare attempt to make any complaint in future. To this imperious menace they bowed in silence, and not another murmur was heard from them during the remainder of the voyage to Otaheite, it being their determination to seek legal redress on the Bounty's return to England. Happy would it have been had ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... he recall every incident of the parting with Mahommed, every word, every injunction—the return of the ruby ring, even then doubtless upon the imperious master's third finger, a subject of hourly study—the further speech, "They say whoever looketh at her is thenceforward her lover"—and the final charge, with its particulars, concluding: "Forget not that in Constantinople, when I come, I am to receive her from thy ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... daughter of Nature, attracted by a bowl of cream, covered by a muffin, knocked the muffin off with my paw, and lapped the cream. Then in joy, and perhaps also on account of the weakness of my young organs, I delivered myself on the waxed floor to the imperious need which young Cats feel. Perceiving the proofs of what she called my intemperance and my faults of education, the old woman seized me and whipped me vigorously with a birchrod, protesting that she would make me a lady or she would ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... assumption of authority, calm and proud as it was, had a mixture of tenderness which partly soothed her. The demand however was imperious. Eleanor answered. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... the powder off a butterfly's wings.... If he and Archelaus had been more truly brothers it would have been a very nice arrangement ... little Phoebe would make a sweeter sister in some ways than the imperious Vassie.... ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... barque, the excited blue-clad figure appeared to suddenly go demented altogether, for, rushing to the barque's gangway, he threw himself over rather than descended the vessel's side into a boat which was towing alongside, and with imperious gestures seemed to command the boatmen to convey him to the approaching ship. They obeyed, and the distance of the two vessels being but short, in less than a minute a voice—well known, ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... word. With an imperious wave of the hand, which was justly interpreted into a command to clear the passage, he strode on and on through the corridors of the Hotel de Soissons, crushing with his foot Monsieur Louis's choicest garlands, that lay on the floor ready to wreathe the walls ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... needs keep step with the imperious march of Time, and my poor friend's Art (as himself in later years would sorrowfully admit) is now almost as extinct as the glass-staining of old, or "Robbia's craft so apt and strange''; while our thin-blooded ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... in which both were interested. It must have been an interesting meeting. It was as if Prince Charlie and Cromwell had met to arrange a campaign. It was a meeting between Puritan and Cavalier. Toombs was full-blooded, hotheaded, impetuous, imperious. Joe Brown was pale, angular, awkward, cold, and determined. It was as if in a new land the old issues had been buried. Toombs was a man of the people, but in his own way, and it was a princely and a dashing way. Brown was a man of the people, but in the people's way; and it was a cold, calculating, ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... fellow that to know how to be rich is an art difficult to master, and that he had not mastered it; that as an official his first duty in exercising power was to learn that of humility; and that it is the irritating authority of such very lofty and imperious beings as himself, who say, "I am the law," that provokes insurrection. However, I was dumb, and could only return his contemptuous glance now ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... the Mena House seemed to be doubly enhanced by the mere fact of his presence. In truth Gervase was in a singular mood of elation and excitation; a strong inward triumph possessed him and filled his soul with an imperious pride and sense of conquest which, for the time being, made him feel as though he were a very king of men. There was nothing in his nature of the noble tenderness which makes the lover mentally exalt his beloved ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... which speak for themselves, and they show the urgent necessity, not only for a loan, but for a national loan—a loan far larger in its scale, far broader in its basis, and far more imperious in its demand upon every class and every section of the community than ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... was usually so gentle, could be prettily imperious when she chose. And now, wrought up by Malcom's reference to Barbara and her own fast crowding thoughts, her voice took on this tone, and she turned with high head to ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... late; we were barely through with the meal and back once more in the living room when the latch of the French window rattled, the window itself was pushed open, and a high imperious voice proclaimed, ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... and old, the little things (she regarded a grand wine as a little thing) twisting and changing them, amazed her. And these are they by whom women are abused for variability! Only the most imperious reasons, never mean trifles, move women, thought she. Would women do an injury to one they loved for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... is that there are two modes of ruling: the one imperious and violent, like that of masters toward their slaves, and in this way the soul commands the body; the other more mild and gentle, like that of good princes by means of laws over their subjects, and in this way the reason commands the appetite; and both of these modes ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... retreat then became unavoidable.—Between this place and Camden they fell in with Gen. Caswell, at the head of about seven hundred North Carolina militia, whose object had been the same, and whose retreat became equally imperious. At Camden these two corps unfortunately separated; Caswell filed off to Pedee, and Buford pursued the road to Salisbury. This measure was accounted for by the want of correct intelligence of Tarleton's prompt and ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... by the Guises, who chafed a good deal under the stern rule of the Constable. This party had almost extinguished its antagonists; in the struggle of the mistresses, the pious and learned Anne d'Etampes had to give place to imperious Diane, Catherine, the Queen, was content to bide her time, watching with Italian coolness the game as it went on; of no account beside her rival, and yet quite sure to have her day, and ready to play parties against one another. Meanwhile, she brought to her royal husband ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... His customary imperious manner was struggling with a special feeling for this woman before him. She did not reply, but waited to hear where her part might come in. Her eyes did not fall from ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Berkeley.[511] It was doubtless through the influence of this relative that the young man attained a position of great influence, and was appointed to the Council itself.[512] But submission to the will of the imperious Governor was the price paid by all that wished to remain long in favor in Virginia. Bacon did not approve of Berkeley's arbitrary government; he disliked the long continuation of the Assembly, the unjust discriminations, the ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... Glad indeed should I have been to have declined this painful interference. But no one would hear of a refusal. The Bishop of London, Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Wilberforce, considered my appearance on this occasion as an imperious duty to the cause of the oppressed. It may be perhaps sufficient to say, that I was examined; that Mr. Norris. was present all the time; that I was cross-examined by counsel; and that after this time, Mr. Norris ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... following him and swooping at him with imperious savagery, because they were still angry and upset, though never really coming near him, bustled him into taking that awful path at a loose hand canter, not so much, I think, because he, the king of the forest—and this, this ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... young man's imperious eye, assented feebly, but Mrs. Shaw laughed. She perfectly remembered Mildred having mentioned on that very occasion that she did not know Lady Wolvercote ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... won't sell it I'll take it anyhow." The miller said, "Your majesty, you won't." "Yes," said the king, "I will take it." "Then," said the miller, "if your majesty does take it, I will sue you in the Chancery Court." At that threat Frederick the Great yielded his infamous demand. And the most imperious outrage against the working-classes will yet cower before the law. Violence and contrary to the law will never accomplish anything, but righteousness and according to law ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... avenger, who reigned in the Capitol, alarmed the fears and jealousy of the popes. The absolute term of his life was superseded by a renewal every third year; and the enmity of Nicholas the Third obliged the Sicilian king to abdicate the government of Rome. In his bull, a perpetual law, the imperious pontiff asserts the truth, validity, and use of the donation of Constantine, not less essential to the peace of the city than to the independence of the church; establishes the annual election of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... fools, and young fools too. You've often said so you silly man," the imperious beauty said, with a conscious glance at the old gentleman. "If Pendennis has not enough money to live upon, it's folly to talk about marrying him: and that's the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rather an imperious man, with theories that a woman is happiest when she finds a master; but when the details of the wedding came up for decision I was astounded to find myself not only flouted but actually forced to humiliating surrender. Since then I have learned that my own case was not glaringly exceptional. ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... said Isabella; "her manner is too imperious and unrefined, it appears to me. No wonder that Otho is ill at ease in her presence. It is evident that her way of talking is not agreeable to him. He is afraid that she will commit herself in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... undertaken to rear them, and had called them by the names of dogs to cover the matter. When the young men found themselves dragged from their hiding by the awful force of her spells, and brought before the eyes of the enchantress, loth to be betrayed by this terrible and imperious compulsion, they flung into her lap a shower of gold which they had received from their guardians. When she had taken the gift, she suddenly feigned death, and fell like one lifeless. Her servants asked the reason ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... will be there," said Jack, but the professor, at the imperious bidding of Melissa, had hung up ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... urged her. "Tell me." There was something imperious in his voice. "What is her name?—Where does she ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... affect a man's whole character and not merely store his memory with facts. Let us add, too, that it may be got in various ways, through home influences as well as through schools or colleges; through living in a highly organized society, making imperious demands on one's time and faculties, as well as through the restraints of a severe course of study. A good deal of it was obtained from the old Calvinistic theology, against which, in the days of its predominance, the most bumptious youth hit his ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... followed on my arrival in France, I was rather the sport of circumstances than the originator of any scheme; and the prominent part which I played was forced upon me, at first by whimsical chance, and later on by the imperious calls made upon me by the position ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... the cars and began washing my face and hands in the ditch at the side of the road. The Rebel Captain, noticing me, said, in the old, hateful, brutal, imperious tone: ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... the estates made answer on the 21st March. It could not be called hard, they said, to require the withdrawal of the Spanish troops, for this had been granted in 1559, for less imperious reasons. The estates had, indeed, themselves made use of foreigners, but those foreigners had never been allowed to participate in the government. With regard to the assembly of the states-general, that body had always ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of promise that this prayer would be fulfilled; and as the day advanced, Bulstrode felt himself getting irritated at the persistent life in this man, whom he would fain have seen sinking into the silence of death imperious will stirred murderous impulses towards this brute life, over which will, by itself, had no power. He said inwardly that he was getting too much worn; he would not sit up with the patient to-night, but leave him ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... loyally strove to quench that music in the sound of Beatrice's voice, deep in his heart he knew that the night would come when he would take his lantern and spade, wearily, as one who at length after hopeless striving obeys once more some imperious weakness—and look on ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne
... inconsiderable velocity, and no power manifested by which that speed could be obtained, set their minds a wondering, and obtained for Lander the character of the devil. As the devil, therefore, had arrived in their country, it became an act of the most imperious duty to force him to abandon it, by any means which could suggest themselves, and no one certainly could be more effectual than to put themselves in ambuscade, and take the first opportunity of killing him at once. It must also be taken into consideration, that ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... with the brute creation; and by which animals are governed in their choice of some things and their rejection of others. If the will, properly so called, consisted in this blind instinct, man would be inferior to the ass and the mule, whose attractions and repugnances are more imperious than those of other animals. The will, as understood in the true Christian sense of the term, acts in contradiction to this brutal appetite; hence they alone have a strong will who can, when duty and conscience require it, obey their voice with docility, in spite ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... happiness that this man, whom she had never ceased to love for a moment, to whom she had been unconsciously faithful, alone could give her. Moreover, her reason working side by side with her imperious desires, assured her that if he really were spying, and, whatever his passion, meant to remold her will to his and snatch the keystone from the arch, it were wise to keep him here. It was evident that he had no suspicion of ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... he pondered proudly over his pecuniary misfortunes, the more grave the situation appeared to him, and the more imperious the necessity of ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... took created a great deal of delay in the formal annulling of the marriage with Catharine, which Henry was too impatient and imperious to bear. He would not wait for the decree of divorce, but took Anne Boleyn for his wife before his previous connection was made void. He said he was privately married to her. This he had, as he maintained, a right to do, for he considered his first marriage ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... such as this, or, to speak with greater exactness, so notable an act of usurpation, created an imperious necessity that Mexico, for her own honor, should repel it with proper firmness and dignity. The supreme Government had beforehand declared that it would look upon such an act as a casus belli, and as a consequence of this declaration negotiation was by its very ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... be petted and waited upon; if she gratifies every idle whim and indulges every depraved desire and perverted appetite—as thousands of mothers do—the result will surely be a peevish, fretful child, that will develop into a morose and irritable man or woman, imperious, unthankful, ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... slights which his daughter Margaret had suffered. Eleanor, at once wife and mother, born probably in 1122, had now reached an age when she must have felt that she had lost some at least of the sources of earlier influence and consideration. Proud and imperious of spirit, she would bitterly resent any lack of attention on her husband's part, and she had worse things than neglect to excite her anger. From the beginning, we are told, while Henry was still in Ireland, she had encouraged her son to believe himself badly treated by ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... having conquered the enemy in a great battle, he transferred the fruits of it to him, and handed over to him the empire of Cyprus. This is true kingship, to choose not to be a king when you might. Manlius conquered his father, imperious [Footnote: There is an allusion to the surname of both the father and the son, "Imperiosus" given them on account of their severity.] though he was, when, in spite of his having previously been banished for a time by his father on, account ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... very sharply, "do not like an obstinate, passionate, imperious woman. It is in general the men themselves who spoil them; they are too patient, too conceding, too obliging. But in my house it shall be different. I do not intend to spoil my wife. On the contrary, she shall ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... her accession, indeed, she evidently meditated a partial reconciliation with Rome; and, throughout her whole life, she leaned strongly to some of the most obnoxious parts of the Catholic system. But her imperious temper, her keen sagacity, and her peculiar situation, soon led her to attach herself completely to a church which was all her own. On the same principle on which she joined it, she attempted to drive all her people within its pale ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Themis; well thou know'st How haughty and imperious is his mind; Thou for the Gods in haste prepare the feast; Then shalt thou learn, amid th' Immortals all, What evil he designs; nor all, I ween, His counsels will approve, or men, or Gods, Though now ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... to over-rate his own merits and importance, and of course to magnify his claims on others, and in return to under-rate their's on him; a disposition to undervalue the advantages, and over-state the disadvantages, of his condition in life. Thence spring rapacity and venality, and sensuality. Thence imperious nobles, and factious leaders; and an unruly commonalty, bearing with difficulty the inconveniences of a lower station, and imputing to the nature or administration of their government the evils which necessarily flow from the very constitution of our species, or which perhaps are chiefly the ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... a good while about some of his Tangier accounts; and, discoursing of the condition of Tangier, he did give me the whole account of the differences between Fitzgerald and Norwood, which were very high on both sides, but most imperious and base on Fitzgerald's, and yet through my Lord FitzHarding's means, the Duke of York is led rather to blame Norwood and to speake that he should be called home, than be sensible of the other. He is a creature of FitzHarding's, as a fellow that may be done with what he will, and, himself certainly ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... and thirsty, may be switched from deadly despair to frantic joy by the approach of a rescuing vessel, so may a man change his moods who is swayed by what is, next to hunger and thirst, the most powerful and imperious of all appetites. We must not, therefore, make the reckless assumption that the Greek and Sanscrit writers must have known romantic love, because they describe men and women as being prostrated or elated by strong passion. ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... younger than her years, plump, but with a slender waist, with light hair, lighter than mine, and very blue eyes, rather round; on the whole very good-looking. She had an odd swaggering walk, a toss of her head, and a saucy and imperious, but rather good-natured and honest countenance. She talked rather loud, with a good ringing voice, and a ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... and you have half an hour's drive. We can't have you catching cold, just to have your feet looking pretty in a dark carriage. Go along now, and 'Good-night,' for I shall be in bed when you come back. I'll hear all your adventures in the morning," and she waved the girl away in the imperious fashion ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the unhappy Pott, with a grim smile. Alas for the knout! The nervous arm that wielded it, with such a gigantic force on public characters, was paralysed beneath the glance of the imperious Mrs. Pott. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... power in private conversation should have so little control, even of her own feelings, before an assembly. Mrs. Harvey has never distinguished herself as a public speaker. Resolute, impetuous, confident to a degree bordering on the imperious, with power of denunciation to equip an orator, she yet shrinks from the gaze of a multitude with a woman's modesty, and the humility of a child. She does not underestimate the worth of true womanhood by attempting to act a distinctively ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... all the interest which attaches to her as the sentimental heroine of the play, possesses an intellectual beauty of her own. When she has Beatrice at an advantage, she repays her with interest, in the severe, but most animated and elegant picture she draws of her cousin's imperious character and unbridled levity of tongue. The portrait is a little overcharged, because administered as a corrective, and ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... own. The look she gave him would have caused a less determined man to quail. It was her way of closing an argument, no matter whether it was with her butcher, her grocer, of the bishop himself. Such a look is best described as imperious, although one less reserved than I but perhaps more potently metaphorical would say that she simply looked a hole through you, seeing beyond you as if you were not there at all. She had found it especially ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... really decided, Ruth?" she said. Her tone was imperious. Ruth felt her gentle heart beat high. She turned and looked with dignity first at Kathleen and then ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... heart, only that disregard so incident to husbands, that made Nei Takauti despise the sufferings of Nan Tok'. When my wife was unwell she proved a diligent and kindly nurse; and the pair, to the extreme embarrassment of the sufferer, became fixtures in the sick-room. This rugged, capable, imperious old dame, with the wild eyes, had deep and tender qualities; her pride in her young husband it seemed that she dissembled, fearing possibly to spoil him; and when she spoke of her dead son there came something tragic in her face. But I seemed to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... outrage to their modesty of an acknowledged lover. But, as usual, she submitted to her husband. Had she not done so, there would have come that glance from the corner of his eye, and that curl in his lip, and that gentle breath from his nostril, which had become to her the expression of imperious marital authority. Nothing could be kinder, more truly affectionate, than was the heart of her husband towards her niece. Therefore Madame Voss yielded, and comforted herself by an assurance that as the best was being done for Marie, she need not subject herself to her husband's displeasure ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... down there, my man. Do you hear?" The voice was still smooth, but through the silky tones there ran a fibre of steel. Still the desperado stood gazing at him. "Quick, do you hear?" There was a sudden sharp ring of imperious, of overwhelming authority, and, to the amazement of the crowd of men who stood breathless and silent about, there followed one of those phenomena which experts in psychology delight to explain, but which no man can understand. ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... as the soul of a sucking babe by his wicked soul; but, as for his body, the imperious gods who mock us have given him a most exquisite outside, the case of an angel masking ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... before their gleaming axes, and they made the wilderness to blossom like the rose. Comfort, and even wealth, came to them at the imperious beck of industry. Stern and earnest, reckoning frivolity a sin, finding their pleasure in a growing capacity for self-denial and a growing scorn of needless luxury, they cherished in their blood the iron which had been bequeathed by ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... supplication—hath sought us for itself and desired our alliance; but yours is the land that heaven's high ordinance drove us forth to find. Hence sprung Dardanus: hither Apollo recalls us, and pushes us on with imperious orders to Tyrrhenian Tiber and the holy pools of Numicus' spring. Further, he presents to thee these small guerdons of our past estate, relics saved from burning Troy. From this gold did lord Anchises pour libation at the altars; this was Priam's ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... On my right sat the cayenne-peppery Indian Colonel, a small man with a fierce face and a tight collar, who roars like a bull and says, "Zounds, Sir," on the slightest provocation. Opposite to him was his wife, a Roman-nosed lady, with an imperious manner, and a Colonel-subduing way of curling her lip. On my left was the funny man. As usual he was of a sea-green colour, and might be expected at any moment to stagger to a porthole and call faintly for the steward. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... in a passion that fear—surely it was that and nothing else—made imperious. I could not understand her, for I knew nothing of the confession which she had made, but would not for the world should reach my ears. Yet it was not very likely that Carford would tell me, unless ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... had taken any nourishment, and they already knew what a miserable pittance hers had been at the best. Mrs. Kelland gave her up at once, and protested that she was following her mother, and that there was death in her face. Rachel made an imperious gesture of silence, and was obeyed so far as voice went, but long-drawn sighs and shakes of the head continued to impress on her the aunt's hopelessness, throughout the endeavours to change the position, the moistening of the ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the faces of Hunsa and Sookdee she had caught flitting expressions of treachery. She knew that Ajeet had been guiltless of treason to the others, for she had been close to him. Besides she had, when roused, an imperious temper. The Bagree women were allowed greater freedom than other women of Hindustan, even greater freedom than the Mahratta females who, though they appeared in public unveiled, in the homes were treated as children, almost as slaves. The Bagree women at times even led ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... with mildness. She had not the least notion of what he was feeling. Her voice responded to him, but her imagination did not respond. True, as he had always known, she had no ambition! The critical quality of his mood developed. The imperious impulse came ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... can also tell when I am pulling against the current. I like to contend with wind and wave. What is more exhilarating than to make your staunch little boat, obedient to your will and muscle, go skimming lightly over glistening, tilting waves, and to feel the steady, imperious surge of ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... Sid Hahn could only follow after, the showman in him anticipating the scene that was to follow. When he reached the fourth floor of the storehouse Sarah Haddon was there ahead of him. The two women—one tall, imperious, magnificent in furs; the other shrunken, deformed, shabby—stood staring at each other from opposites sides of the worktable. And between them, in a crumpled, grey-black ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... complement to any but a very yielding nature. The direct influence a passive, merely receptive spirit would have accepted, and gratefully, was soon felt as an intolerable burden by a mind in many ways different from her own, but with the same imperious instinct of freedom, and as little capable of playing anvil to another mind for long. He rebelled against her ascendancy, but suffered from the spell. She was no Countess Guiccioli, content to adore and be adored, and exercise an indirect power for good on a capricious ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... you are as imperious as ever—because I can only save myself by giving the real murderer ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... you and the city, O king, what awful things they do, things beyond marvel; and I wish to hear whether in freedom of speech I shall tell you the matters there, or whether I shall repress my report, for I fear, O king, the hastiness of thy mind, and your keen temper, and too imperious disposition.[40] ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... the politic weekly papers; I found the writer had fallen into this scheme, and I happened to light on that part, where he was describing a person, who from small beginnings grew (as I remember) to be constable of France, and had a very haughty, imperious wife.[8] I took the author as a friend to our faction, (for so with great propriety of speech they call the Queen and ministry, almost the whole clergy, and nine parts in ten of the kingdom)[9] and I said to a gentleman near me, that although I knew ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... nature, and never troubled himself beforehand about vexations that might come to him. He was not in the habit of brooding over his worries, but on the contrary always tried to forget them. He was tall and strongly made, and his mischievous brown eyes had sometimes a look of imperious audacity which was in perfect keeping with the scar on his sunburnt cheek that bore witness that he had not devoted his whole time and energy to the study of dogmatic theology. "Yes," he said to himself as he sat there waiting for his cousin, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... laid claim to the general legislative power. The most violent and imperious Plantagenet never fancied himself competent to enact, without the consent of his great council, that a jury should consist of ten persons instead of twelve, that a widow's dower should be a fourth part instead of a third, that ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and two men and a woman rode toward the governor. One of the men was tall and dark, and his somber military attire became the stern sadness of his face. Castro was not Comandante-general of the army at that time, but his bearing was as imperious in that year of 1840 as when six years later the American Occupation closed forever the career of a man made in derision for greatness. At his right rode his wife, one of the most queenly beauties of her time, small as she was in stature. Every woman's eye turned to her at once; she was ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... place of their birth; and neither time nor distance had been able to extinguish the hatred he had conceived to Sophron. Scarcely did he deign to send an ambassador before his army; he, however, despatched one with an imperious message, requiring all the inhabitants of Lebanon to submit to his victorious arms, or threatening them with the ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... a woman on the wrong side of fifty. The complexion was extremely fair, with gray shades in it. The eyes, pale in color but singularly imperious and direct, were sunk deep under straight brows. The nose was long, prominent, and delicately sharp in the nostril. These features, together with the long upper lip and severely cut mouth and chin, the slightly hollow cheeks and the thin containing oval of the face, set in ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the ladies acquired a strange intensity of color. Then there was a band playing, and a good deal of chatting going on, and one old gentleman with a grizzled mustache humbly receiving lessons in lawn tennis from an imperious small maiden of ten. Macleod was here, there, and everywhere. The lanterns were to be lit while the people were in at supper. Lieutenant Ogilvie was directed to take in Lady Beauregard when the ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... the most perfect manner of any gentleman in New France," was the remark of the Lady de Tilly to Amelie, as he left them again to receive other guests. "They say he can be rough and imperious sometimes to those he dislikes, but to his friends and strangers, and especially to ladies, no breath of spring can be more gentle and balmy." Amelie assented with a mental reservation in the depths of her dark eyes, and in the dimple that flashed upon her cheek ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... your tongue," said the imperious husband; "or, rather, go away and leave us. I have a word or two to say to Harry Clavering, which had better be said ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... for the middy felt that, to use his own term, he ought to hate this "filibustering young ruffian" with all his heart. As for speaking to him unless it were to give him some imperious order, he mentally vowed he would ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... indeed a woman apulse with life as she plucked the strings of an ukulele and lifted her voice in a barbaric love-call such as might have come from the dark forest-depths of the primeval world. The air tingled with her cry, softly imperious and seductive. Upon a mat, timing his rhythm to the woman's song Kiloliana danced. It was unmistakable. Love danced in all his movements, and, next, dancing with him on the mat, was a woman whose heavy hips and generous ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... can boast a father great And honored in the service of the State. Public Instruction all his mind employs— He guides its methods and its wage enjoys. Prime Pedagogue, imperious and grand, He waves his ferule o'er a studious land Where humming youth, intent upon the page, Thirsting for knowledge with a noble rage, Drink dry the whole Pierian spring and ask To slake their fervor at his private flask. Arrested by ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... The familiar cry—that imperious call which makes an Harrovian feel himself master of more or less willing slaves—echoed through the house. Immediately the night-fag came running; it was not considered healthy ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... honoured of your grace: And here in sight of Rome, to Saturnine,— King and commander of our commonweal, The wide world's emperor,—do I consecrate My sword, my chariot, and my prisoners; Presents well worthy Rome's imperious lord: Receive them then, the tribute that I owe, Mine honour's ensigns ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... tracked it down until I am the master who by a touch can liberate elemental forces, which will not destroy, like those of Illowski's, but will elevate the soul and make mankind one great nation, one loving brotherhood. Ah! to open once more those doors of faith closed by the imperious dogmas of science—open them upon a lovely land of mystery. Mankind must have mystery. And beyond each mystery lies another. This ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... place, and vocation, and profession, could not well be made without a glance at those difficulties, which the clashing claims of authorship, and other professions, would in this case create; without a glance at the imperious necessities which threaten the life of the new science, which here also imperiously prescribe the form of its TRADITION; he could not go by this place, without putting into the reader's hands, with one bold stroke, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... The sweet triumphant smile revealed the secret of the Catholic religion, which sums up all things in the precept, "Love one another." This picture breathed the spirit of prayer, enjoined forgiveness, overcame self, caused sleeping powers of good to waken. For this work of Raphael's had the imperious charm of music; you were brought under the spell of memories of the past; his triumph was so absolute that the artist was forgotten. The witchery of the lamplight heightened the wonder; the head seemed at times to flicker in the ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... calculated to promote the happiness of the people and facilitate their progress toward the most complete enjoyment of civil liberty. On an occasion so interesting and important in our history, and of such anxious concern to the friends of freedom throughout the world, it is our imperious duty to lay aside all selfish and local considerations and be guided by a lofty spirit of devotion to the great principles on which our ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... repeated Mrs. Byron, with imperious disgust. "What nonsense! You must give up everything of that kind, Cashel. It is very silly, and very low. You were too ridiculously proud, of course, to come to me for the means of keeping yourself in a proper position. I suppose I shall have to ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... the stuffs one can be master of, How I divined their capabilities! From the soft-rinded smoothening facile chalk That yields your outline to the air's embrace, Half-softened by a halo's pearly gloom: Down to the crisp imperious steel, so sure To cut its one confided thought clean out Of all the world. But marble!—'neath my tools More pliable than jelly—as it were Some clear primordial creature dug from depths In the earth's heart, where itself breeds itself. And whence all baser substance may be worked; Refine it ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... forgiving, imperious, affectionate, improvident, bewitching, in short—was Laura at this period. Could she have remained there, this history would not need to be written. But Laura had grown to be almost a woman in these few years, to the end of which we have now come—years which had seen ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... marriages we can not now know. The one who went with Cambyses into Egypt was of a humane, and gentle, and timid disposition, being in these respects wholly unlike her brother; and it may be that she merely yielded, in the transaction of her marriage, to her brother's arbitrary and imperious will. ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... of Mr. Davis. On the platform were gathered nearly all those restless spirits which have, during the past twenty years, disturbed the peace of the country. Conspicuous among them appeared the bristling head of Mr. Toombs. He sat during the whole ceremony, with his face, wearing the imperious expression which had become habitual to it, turned upon the people. With uncovered heads, and in perfect silence, the crowd listened to the oath of office. Immediately on the completion of this ceremony the two presidents and the congress ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of this duel, to think himself raised to the highest pinnacle of human glory; triumph sat exulting on his brow; he looked down on whoever he deigned to look at all, and shewed that he thought his notice an honour, however imperious the manner in which it ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... Combray was of a "haughty and imperious nature; her soul was strong and full of energy; she knew how to brave danger and public opinion; the boldest projects did not frighten her, and her ambition was unbounded." Such is the picture that one of ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... neglected for unborn generations." Her once considerable ambitions had been submerged, and her own vivid personality overshadowed by a man she was afraid to meet at breakfast, and glad to avoid at dinner. A woman of immense talent and a spark of genius linked to a man of vast genius and imperious will, she had no choice but to adopt his judgments, intensify his dislikes, and give a sharper ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... us recognise the great part that is played in life by eating and drinking. The appetite is so imperious that we can stomach the least interesting viands, and pass off a dinner-hour thankfully enough on bread and water; just as there are men who must read something, if it were only "Bradshaw's Guide." But there is a romance about ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... incomprehensible to Miss Wodehouse as to Dr Rider, but not of such engrossing interest. Bessie Christian, after all, grew tame in the Saxon composure of her beauty before this brown, sparkling, self-willed, imperious creature. To see her among her self-imposed domestic duties filled the doctor with a smouldering wrath against all surrounding her, which any momentary spark ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... out," spoke Peggy Morrison, with an imperious sweep of the arm; and the half-breed authoritatively hurried the other slaves back to their doorway. The submissive race understood and obeyed, anxiously watching Peggy as she wavered in her erectness and groped with ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... during the second quarter of this century is the sense of unrest. The long period of European peace which began in 1815 was not one of internal repose; the very absence of those engrossing and imperious interests which belong to a time of warfare gave freer play to the feelings of discontent and the vague longings for a better political order which remained behind after the convulsions of the revolutionary epoch and the military rule of Napoleon had passed away. During thirty years of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... speak humbly, as becomes the servant of your highness. A fatal love was the cause of all. Love is the most imperious of the passions. To make me forget that your highness had cast your eyes on Diana, I must have been no longer master ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... man with a bald head, fringed with the remains of red hair, and a little reddish beard. He was dressed in a black leather coat and trousers. He complained bitterly that all his plans for engineering works to improve the productive possibilities of the country were made impracticable by the imperious demands of war. As an old Siberian exile he had been living in France before the revolution and, as he said, had seen there how France made war. "They sent her locomotives, and rails for the locomotives to run on, everything she needed they sent her from ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... tolerably free from any sort of restraint, I acknowledge. In fact, it is he who keeps myself and Mrs. A. in the most abject servitude. He holds our nasal appendages close to the grindstone of his imperious will. And yet—please take him into the next car, Madam, while I speak of him. You cannot? What is this? Let me see, I pray you. As I live, it is his mother's apron-string. Ah! I fear, Madam, that all your efforts cannot ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... gliding through the avenues, charioted in splendor, and now and then a deep thinker, struggling against poverty and want, would thus soliloquize: "Why do we thus toil to minister to the useless luxury of these our imperious masters? Why must I eat black bread, and be clothed in the coarsest garments, that these lords and ladies may glitter in jewelry and revel in luxury? Why must my children toil like bond slaves through life, that the children of these nobles may be ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... paddle, and in a few minutes he helped the girl to land. After this, their acquaintance ripened fast and Agatha went fishing with him on the lake and, by disused logging trails, long distances into the shadowy bush. Thirlwell imagined she knew this excited some remark, but he saw there was an imperious vein in the girl, who did what she thought fit, without heeding conventions. Besides, no touch of sentiment marked their friendship; she accepted him as a comrade who could teach her something about lake and forest, and he was satisfied ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... allow him to be disturbed, and Anna sat and faced her. The sleep was long. The eyes of the two women met from time to time, and Vittoria thought that Barto Rizzo's wife, though more terrible, was pleasanter to behold, and less brutal, than Anna. The moment her brother stirred, Anna repeated her imperious gesture, murmuring, "Away! out of my sight!" With great delicacy of touch she drew the arm from the pillow and thrust it back, and then motioning in an undisguised horror, said, "Go." Vittoria rose ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the recollection is apt to make most men smile. He then waved his hand to D'Artagnan, as if requesting him to have a moment's patience, and approaching the door leading to the anteroom, he called out in an imperious and angry tone— ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... hand a boy of scarcely six years, walked hastily in the direction of a wood which skirted the banks of the River Tyne. It was evident from her dress and the jewels she wore that she was a lady of no ordinary importance, and a certain imperious look in her worn face seemed to suggest that she was one of those more used to ruling than obeying, to receiving honour rather than rendering it. The boy who accompanied her was also richly dressed, and reflected in his handsome face the proud nature of his mother, as this ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... himself and all he had at her disposal. He was perfectly sincere in his desire to win her for his wife, and she almost regretted she could not return his affection: it might be true affection—something beyond and above the dominant whim of an imperious nature. And what a solution to all her difficulties! But it was impossible she could overcome the repulsion which the idea of marriage with any man she did not love inspired. There was to her but one in the world to whom she could hold allegiance, and he was forbidden ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... met G. P. Cluseret, a French soldier of fortune, but recently appointed a Brigadier-General. He held a command under Milroy in the Cheat Mountain Division. He assumed much military and other learning, was imperious and overbearing by nature, spoke English imperfectly, and did not seem to desire to get in touch with volunteers. With him I had my only personal difficulty of a ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... up some private stairs, the duke led them into an oak-panelled room, of comparatively small size, lighted by numerous tapers, which displayed the rich hangings and furniture. A lady was sitting by the fire. A tall, handsome woman, with a somewhat imperious face, stood on the rug before her, talking to her, while a pleasant-looking man, who by his appearance and manner might have been taken for a country squire, was sitting opposite, playing with the ears of a spaniel lying on ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... for bearing the orator's sceptre were a voice of singular fulness, depth, and variety of tone; a falcon's eye with strange imperious flash; features mobile, expressive, and with lively play; a great actor's command of gesture, bold, sweeping, natural, unforced, without exaggeration or a trace of melodrama. His pose was easy, alert, erect. To these endowments of external mien was joined the gift and the glory ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... without patience to acquire it, confusion reigned in the missions as in a tower of Babel,' and he goes on to say 'an imperious tone of order was substituted for the paternal manner (of the Jesuits), and as a deaf man who cannot hear has to be taught by blows, that was the teaching they (the Indians) had to bear.' Shortly, he says, 'a wall of hatred and ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... Philip of Macedon had every free man's child taught Art! I would have every boy and girl taught its sacredness; so, we might in time get back some accuracy of taste in the public, some conscientiousness of production in the artist. If artistic creation be not a joy, an imperious necessity, an instinct of all the forces of the mind, let the boy go and plough, and the girl go ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... her arm. There is a quick, sudden movement, and she is once again free. Such a little, fragile creature! She seems to have grown a woman during this encounter, and to be now tall to him, and strong and imperious. ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... stop when you saw me coming?" an imperious young voice demanded in tones of distinct anger, and Charlotte, my name daughter of the house of Morgan, calmly climbed up on the running board, over the door next to father, and settled herself in between him and the silent Bill. "Now you can go on," she calmly announced, in a ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... wait, Ormsby lounged into the telegraph office. Here the bonds of ennui were loosened by the gradual development of a little mystery. First the telephone bell rang smartly, and when the telegraph operator took down the ear-piece and said "Well?" in the imperious tone common to his kind, he evidently received ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... man was dreaming of the apparently fair fortune of Amanda; of the ingenuous Claude, and of his father, the importunate and imperious Seigneur, when the clang rung through the mansion, and rudely dispelled his visions. At first he was doubtful as to the reality of the alarm, and was dropping again to sleep, when once more the riding-whip sent the startling summons, and leaping from his bed, he threw open the window, ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... be about thirty-six, tall, graceful, of a contemplative air, yet with a haughty and imperious, carriage of the head. In other respects he sported with ease the language and manners which gave him a perfect resemblance to the Ogress's other guests. He represented himself as a painter ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... rather hard blue eyes, her arched eye-brows, and the lines of her eye-lids, her haughty and pronounced nose, the supercilious prominence of the lower part of the face, and her imperious grace, reminded one of Georges, when young, in the role of Agrippina. Mlle. Bourjot had strongly marked brown eye-brows. Between her long, curly lashes could be seen two blue eyes with an intense, ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... They may be fancies, and one may live to repent them; but while they last they are imperious, not to be resisted. It's an instinct, I suppose; perhaps even a form of insanity! But I love Leah's little-finger nail better than Julia's lovely face and splendid ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... towards him along the kind of path that Lagardere had made in the bundle of hay, and as he came he spoke, and his tone was menacing and imperious. "Let me feel your blade. I can ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... from the crowd," said Jaffery, and with an imperious gesture he swept the three of us along the quay to the stern of the boat, where only a few idle sailor men were lounging, and a sergeant de ville was pacing on his ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... dust falls on her; fumbles at the slide-bolt, till she exclaims that "of course it catches!" At last he succeeds in getting the window opened, and her only direct acknowledgment is to ask him if she "shall find him something else to spoil." But this imperious petulance, curiously as it contrasts with the patience which, a little later, she will display, is native to Ottima; she is not the victim of her nerves this morning, though now she passes without transition to a mood ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... dearly. Sunderland's violent and imperious temper differed widely from the supple and unscrupulous nature which had carried his father, the Lord Sunderland of the Restoration, unhurt through the violent changes of his day. But he had inherited his father's ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... catch the murmurs of that vague uncertain heart—Public Opinion. And why? It follows: if it is in this life alone that triumphs must be won—if on this stage alone the drama is to be played out, and the time is short—it is that imperious will that you must conciliate; therefore employ every power to gain the art ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... into a broad-shouldered man, nearly six feet in height. His quiet, courteous elegance did not disguise from one who had known him so well in boyhood an imperious, self-pleasing nature, and a tenacity of purpose in carrying out his own desires. He accepted of his quondam friend's uniform without remark. That was Strahan's affair and not his, and by a polite reserve, he made the mercurial fellow feel that his affairs were his own. ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... such as we have described him, that the Prince addressed his imperious command to make place for Isaac and Rebecca. Athelstane, utterly confounded at an order which the manners and feelings of the times rendered so injuriously insulting, unwilling to obey, yet undetermined how to resist, opposed only the "vis inertiae" ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... one thinking. He has made me think many a time when I would have travelled a day's journey to escape the thoughts he forced upon me. He was not made to bask in the sunshine of life. He is a stormy petrel. It was for his ugliness I chose him. Those dark stern features, that imperious mouth, and a brow like the Olympian Jove. He scared me into loving him. I sheltered myself upon his breast from the thunder of his brow, ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... succeeding; then, suddenly, when he was least expecting it, he would find her name, inaudibly, on his lips, and seem to see her eyes meeting his eyes. All this made him uncomfortable, and seemed to portend a possible discord. Discord was not to his taste; he shrank from imperious passions, and the idea of finding himself jealous of an unsuspecting friend was absolutely repulsive. More than ever, then, the path of duty was to forget Mary Garland, and he cultivated oblivion, as we may say, in the ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... above; and the mere fact that their informant mentioned one village and not another will compel their footsteps with inexplicable power. And yet a little while, yet a few days of this fictitious liberty, and they will begin to hear imperious voices calling on them to return; and some passion, some duty, some worthy or unworthy expectation, will set its hand upon their shoulder and lead them back into the old paths. Once and again we have all made the experiment. We know the end of it right well. And yet if we ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... imperious wretch, I charge you, lifting up his hands and eyes. Then turning to my uncle, Do you hear, Sir? this is your once faultless niece! This is ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... railroad, a line as harshly uncompromising as the cold mathematics of the engineers who had mapped it. To the north spread unfathomably a forest of scrub pine and pinon, rising, here and there, into loftier growth. It was as if man, with his imperious interventions, had set those thin steel parallels as an irrefragable boundary to the mutual encroachments of forest and desert, tree and cactus. A single, straggling trail squirmed its way into the woodland. ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... her something that no one else, as it were, had presumed to do. What she felt was that a territorial, a political, a social magnate had conceived the design of drawing her into the system in which he rather invidiously lived and moved. A certain instinct, not imperious, but persuasive, told her to resist—murmured to her that virtually she had a system and an orbit of her own. It told her other things besides—things which both contradicted and confirmed each other; that ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... handicap of a thousand years woven in the nerves of our bodies, the swiftness of our minds, and the delights of our limbs. Others of us are born with the thousand years binding us down to blindness and hobbling, holding us back to disease, but all with the same Imperious Timepiece held above us, to run the same race, to overtake the same truth—before the iron curtain and the dark. Some of us—a few men in every generation—have two or three hundred years given to us outright the ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... the natural endowment, by no means uncommon, of right-minded youth. Or it may be that he had simply reached the "critical" age, when Idealism calls the Daily Practicalities to its bar and delivers its harsh, imperious judgments; when it puts the world, if but for a few brief months, "where it belongs." His natural tendency toward generalization helped him here—helped, perhaps, too much. He passed judgment not only on his parents, whom he had been finding very unsatisfactory, and on most of his associates ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... Picture Shakespear has drawn of him! His Manners are every where exactly the same with the Story; one finds him still describ'd with Simplicity, passive Sanctity, want of Courage, weakness of Mind, and easie Submission to the Governance of an imperious Wife, or prevailing Faction: Tho' at the same time the Poet do's Justice to his good Qualities, and moves the Pity of his Audience for him, by showing him Pious, Disinterested, a Contemner of the Things ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe
... rowing or sailing; their afternoons in driving through the budding and blossoming country. Always the baby lay in Hetty's lap: from the beginning, his nurse had found herself perpetually set aside by Hetty's imperious affection. As Eben Williams looked, day after day, on the picture which Hetty and the baby made, he found himself day after day more and more bewildered by Hetty. She had adopted towards him a uniform manner of cordial familiarity, which had in it, however, no shade of intimacy. If Hetty ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... studies. But he found the domestic situation much changed for the worse. His mother (who, as we have seen, was several years older than her husband) was an invalid, and his father's habits and temper were not improving with time. He was by nature imperious, and had always (it would seem) been liable to intemperance of another kind. Moreover, a contested election for the Borough in 1774 had brought with it its familiar temptations to protracted debauch—and it is significant that in 1775 he vacated the office of churchwarden that he had ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... An imperious gesture from Croustillac closed De Chemerant's mouth; both of them gave an attentive ear to the conversation of Angela, and the filibuster, who, we must say, knew perfectly ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... these young lieutenants could be so imperious and cruel? It does seem past belief. But pardon just one paragraph of digression while we recall the conduct of a younger class only last year on the Hudson. To me the real question before the courts in the Whitaker case is not whether this quiet stranger, with a tinge of black man's ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... a demon now, but as a woman of imperious beauty, is awakened by Klingsor to seduce Parsifal. She yearns for pardon, for sleep and death, but she struggles in ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... Mr. Burr than for Mr. Jefferson; that, out of complaisance to the known intention of the party, they would vote a decent length of time for Mr. Jefferson, and, as soon as they could excuse themselves by the imperious situation of affairs, would give their votes for Mr. Burr, the man they really preferred. The states relied upon for this change were New-York, New-Jersey, Vermont, and Tennessee. I never, however, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... interest the calm and commanding manner with which, under these circumstances, the father controlled the people. They yielded in an instant to his will: one tall blacksmith seemed scarcely to relish his somewhat imperious demeanour, and stood rooted to the ground; but Baroni, placing only one hand on the curmudgeon's brawny shoulder, while he still continued playing on his instrument with the other, whirled him away like a puppet. The multitude laughed, and ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... the pocket of which she jingled her household keys. Her screeching voice was agony to the drums of all ears. Her rigid glance, conflicting with the soft blue of her eyes, was in visible harmony with the thin lips of a pinched mouth and a high, projecting, and very imperious forehead. Sharp was the glance, sharper still both gesture and speech. "Zelie being obliged to have a will for two, had it for three," said Goupil, who pointed out the successive reigns of three young postilions, ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... the imperious stranger, "after, you shall make a bed for me in your inner room, and sit before this house that none may disturb me, for it is to my high purpose that no word shall go to M'ilitani that I stay in ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... before George comes up?' asked Mrs. Fordyce, involuntarily rising; but Gladys made answer, with a shade of imperious command,— ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... therefore, no longer delay to demonstrate to the squadron, and the world, that I am no partner in the deceptions and oppressions which are practised on the naval service; and as the first, and most painful step in the performance of this imperious duty, I crave permission—with all humility and respect—to return those honours, and lay them at the ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... with you now, and see to that poor woman at the post office." The minister took the good doctor's arm, and they went away dinnerless to attend to the wants of Matilda Nagle, suddenly smitten down with fever while on the way to obey the imperious infelt summons of the unseen Rawdon. Mr. Newberry was with her, having been driven over by that strange mixture of humanity, Yankee Pawkins, and Mrs. Tibbs was acting as the soul of kindness. The woman's case was ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... means one who speaks on behalf of another: and a prophet is defined to be a spokesman on behalf of GOD. He is essentially a man with a message. In so far as he is a true prophet he is one who by an imperious inner necessity is constrained to declare to his fellows a word which has come to him from the Lord. And the prophet's word is urgent: it brooks no delay. It is impatient of conventionalisms and shams. It breaks through the established order of things in matters both social and ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... of others. I pictured her a queen, among the whites, by reason of her wealth from the sale of her jewels, who would doubtless have many noble suitors at her feet. Her beauty was such as I had never seen equalled, and her imperious and sometimes wilful ways only added to her indescribable charms. It was now forced upon me that unless help came soon we must starve. Our stock of fruit was almost exhausted, and scarce three quarts of water remained in the tank. ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... his admiral's dash into the Channel. But Villeneuve, who knew Keith had a squadron in the Channel, and had a vague dread of Nelson suddenly making his appearance, had a better appreciation of the small chance of the scheme giving any result than the imperious soldier-Emperor, who had come to believe that what he ordered must succeed. From Vigo, Villeneuve wrote to the Minister of Marine, Decres, that his fleet was hardly in condition for any active enterprise. It had met with trying weather in the Atlantic. His flagship, the "Bucentaure," had been ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... That slightly imperious tone, the impatient glance of the dark eye, the unmistakably foreign accent, convinced him that he had to do with one of the tourists—English or American signori—who occasionally paid a visit to San Stefano. The porter himself was a lay-brother, and ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... prince still capable of exerting the abilities and the virtue, which had raised him to the throne. [10] But the absence, and, soon afterwards, the death, of the emperor, confirmed the absolute authority of Rufinus over the person and dominions of Arcadius; a feeble youth, whom the imperious praefect considered as his pupil, rather than his sovereign. Regardless of the public opinion, he indulged his passions without remorse, and without resistance; and his malignant and rapacious spirit rejected every passion that might have contributed to his own glory, or the happiness of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... for the somewhat austere life she had led as a young girl, and gave no thought to any thing but her beauty, her dress, and all the amusements within her reach. Wholly inexperienced, she declined to ask or to receive advice, and chose in every respect to be guided by her inclinations alone. Imperious with her equals, haughty with her superiors, she gave herself all the airs imaginable, and treated her mother-in-law with the most supreme contempt, hardly paying her more attention than if she had been the lowest menial in the house. In the gay societies which she frequented, ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... favoured us over so many miles of the pathless ocean, suddenly forsook us. Sails were of no further use, and we braced up our sweat glands for four or five days of increasing heat. In obedience to the demands of an imperious, ever-rising, thermometer, we reduced our rig to the least possible articles consistent with decency and the regulations of the Service—which latter, by the way, discriminates not between the caloric of the north pole ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... with great zeal, you have greatly exceeded your powers, and overstepped the bounds to which they extend. For even if your Lordship had known and seen that I transgressed due limits, your Lordship had neither license nor authority to treat in so imperious a manner your bishop, whose instruction and advice your Lordship is bound to follow, and your Lordship should not undertake to constrain your master. The worst thing would be that your Lordship should think that what you have said pertains to your duty, because that would be ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair
... accurate as far as they went, they erred in leaving out of the calculation a most important consideration,—the maintenance of the communications with England, which had assumed vital importance since the general defection of the Italian States, caused by Bonaparte's successes and his imperious demands. It would be more true to say that he underestimated this factor than that he overlooked it; for he had himself observed, six weeks earlier, when the approach of a Spanish war first became certain: "I really think they would do us more damage by getting off Cape Finisterre;[40] it is there ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... widow after this new sarcasm stood up erect. Although her step was firm and resolute, the executioner obligingly wished to assist her; she made a gesture of impatience and said, in a harsh and imperious tone: ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... and a table was brought, with writing materials. Gershom grasped a pencil, and said, with imperious and feverish impatience, "Come on, now, and don't waste the time of ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... dispatched to make the decent inquiries are not suffered to return home till they have undergone the ceremony of a previous ablution. Yet this selfish and unmanly delicacy occasionally yields to the more imperious passion of avarice. The prospect of gain will urge a rich and gouty senator as far as Spoleto; every sentiment of arrogance and dignity is subdued by the hopes of an inheritance, or even of a legacy; and a ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... this point she fairly broke down; and she cast her round white arms about the heap of trinkets, and strained them close to her, and bowed her imperious golden head ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... autobiography might be reasonably doubted, but from the unstudied tenderness of her allusions to him; from the fact, which indirectly appears, that he first cooled towards her, and the pang—not of wounded vanity—which this gave her; and yet more unmistakably from the forgiveness which she, imperious and relentless as she was, extended, manifestly, again and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various |
