"Impetuosity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... magistrates, &c. Evidently the logic of the famous passage is this that whereas every age has its peculiar and appropriate temper, that profession or employment is selected for the exemplification which seems best fitted, in each case, to embody the characteristic or predominating quality. Thus, because impetuosity, self-esteem, and animal or irreflective courage, are qualities most intense in youth, next it is considered in what profession those qualities find their most unlimited range; and because that is obviously the military profession, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... of horror. These were throes which would terminate in the birth of some gigantic and sanguinary purpose. Did he meditate to offer a bloody sacrifice? Was his own death or was mine to attest the magnitude of his despair or the impetuosity of his vengeance? ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... man who stood with his elbow on the mantelshelf, his eye fixed eagerly on the speaker's face, here broke in with a quick impetuosity of manner, which seemed in keeping with his restless, mobile features, his flashing dark eyes, and the nervous motion of his hands, which ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... into fine order to exhibit to Jewel's father and mother. Fresh ferns had been planted around the still pond where Anna Belle's china dolls went swimming, and fresh moss banks had been constructed for their repose. The brook was beginning to lose the impetuosity of spring and now gurgled more quietly between its verdant banks. It delighted Jewel that the place held as much charm for her mother as for herself, and that she listened with as hushed pleasure to the songs of birds in the treetops too high to be disturbed by the ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... to be embarrassed, and he found that he had got himself into a dilemma. The color deepened in his face as he hesitated how to answer. She watched him furtively but searchingly. At last he said, with sudden impetuosity, as if he could not restrain himself: "I would either make a man of him or break with him forever. It's horrible that a girl like you should be irrevocably ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... fled to return no more. The cavalry of course followed them up, and our colonel, Monsieur de Bellechasse, an old soldier of Napoleon's, ever foremost where cut and thrust are passing, headed the squadron to which I belong. Carried away by his impetuosity, and charging home the flying Bedouins, he lost sight of prudence, and we soon found ourselves surrounded by a raging host, who, perceiving how few we were, stood at bay, and in their turn assumed the offensive. Seen in the dim starlight, with ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... headed by Mr., afterwards Capt. George Bell, boarding through the main-deck ports, and fought their way along the gangways to the quarter-deck. The republicans, though much superior in numbers, could not resist the impetuosity of the attack. At ten minutes past seven they had all fled below, or submitted, and the pennant of ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... as we emerged into the roadway, the unfortunate girl, at whose side I still remained, turned, and raising her tearful face to mine, with sudden impetuosity ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... of power! O caprices of the human heart! it was by this childish impetuosity, these very defects of his age, that this young man governed the King of France as effectually as did the first politician of the time. This Prince believed, and with some show of reason, that a character so hasty must be sincere; and even his fiery rage did not anger him. It ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... for his time of life, knock off more chips from an extremely hard marble in one quarter of an hour than three young stone-cutters could have done in three or four—a thing quite incredible to one who has not seen it. He put such impetuosity and fury into his work that I thought the whole must fly to pieces; hurling to the ground at one blow great fragments three or four inches thick, shaving the line so closely that if he had overpassed it by a hair's-breadth he ran the ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... The water rushed boiling and seething upward, and spread far over. There was not a moment to lose. It was now or never; so, snatching her hand, I rushed forward. The water was up to my knees, and sweeping past and whirling back with a furious impetuosity. Through that flood I dragged her, and she followed bravely and quickly. I pulled her up to the first block, then onward to another. Leaping over a third, I had to relinquish her hand for a moment, and then, extending mine once more, I caught hers, and she sprang after me. All ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... down the ravine. He was brought up unhurt against a bush some twenty feet below, the fagots of wood being scattered in his descent in all directions. For a moment the girl's large, fierce eyes flashed upon me with anger; but the impetuosity with which I went headlong after the donkey, with a view of repairing my error, and the absurd attempts I made to reverse the position of his feet, which were in the air, converted her indignation into a hearty fit of laughter, as, ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... into the room with great impetuosity; for, supposing her son-in-law to be still a-bed, she had come to relieve her feelings by pronouncing a strong opinion upon his general conduct and character. Seeing that he was up and dressed, and that the room appeared to have been occupied ever since ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... The words "Hell of waters," used by Lord Byron, would not have occurred to me while looking at this cataract, which impresses the astonished mind with an overwhelming idea of power, might, magnificence, and impetuosity; but blends at the same time all that is most tremendous in sound and motion, with all that is most bright and lovely in forms, in colours, and ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... regularly and irresistibly as the moon makes our tides. Here is richness. The breathless impetuosity of the whole narrative, the inconceivable truculence of the man, fascinates me, who am so different. When I looked at that "Perseus" in Florence, when I leaned over the medal-cases in South Kensington and stared hard at the work of his murderous hands, I ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... is told of Rossetti amidst these environments which aptly illustrates almost every trait of his character: his impetuosity, and superstition especially. It was his daily habit to ransack old book-stalls, and carry off to his studio whatever treasures he unearthed, but when, upon further investigation, he found he had been deceived as to the value of a book that at first looked promising, he usually revenged ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... laid the little Speedy on board his big antagonist. He had ordered his men to blacken their faces; and one party, led by his gallant Lieutenant Parker, boarded at the bow, and soon gained a footing on the enemy's deck. Their begrimed faces and the impetuosity of their onset struck dismay into the hearts of the Spaniards, and they incontinently gave way. Meantime Lord Cochrane headed the aftermost division; and the enemy, thus unexpectedly assailed fore and aft, were driven a confused ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... small foot pointed on the huntsman's hand. But the Duke, stiffly and as though rebuking her impetuosity, "stepped rather aside than forward, and welcomed her with his grandest smile." The sick tall yellow Duchess, his mother, stood like a north wind in the background; the rusty portcullis went up with a shriek, and, like a sky sullied ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... beseeching them to maintain their ground with resolution. He ordered fresh squadrons from the reserve to advance to the support of those that were exhausted; but perceiving at length that it was impossible any longer to sustain the conflict or to withstand the impetuosity of the Tartars, the greater part of his troops being either killed or wounded, and all the field covered with the carcasses of men and horses, whilst those who survived were beginning to give way, he also found himself compelled to take ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... were not barriers enough to his success, he was still an alien in heart, from France. He wore her uniform and served under her flag, but he was Corsican through and through—still resenting with a Southern impetuosity the means by which the ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... rear, coming quickly to the rescue, drove them back; and Captain Doll's gun being now brought into play, many solid shot were thrown into the jungle where they lay concealed, with the effect of considerably moderating their impetuosity. Further skirmishing at long range took place at intervals during the day, with little gain or loss, however, to either side, for both parties held positions which could not be assailed in flank, and only the extreme of rashness in either could prompt a front attack. My left was protected ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... interrupted, with impetuosity, "I have heard his step; he eats in the room below; I am convinced, for I know of old that bronchial cough of his—the ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... footman of the highest-bred woman of quality knocks with more impetuosity than Wild did at the count's door, which was immediately opened by a well-drest liveryman, who answered that his master was not at home. Wild, not satisfied with this, searched the house, but to no purpose; ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... what is true," cried they all. "To arms, to arms!" Nothing could stem the tide of their impetuosity; although, it is said, a few she-rats shed tears. It was no matter. Every one overhauled his equipment, and filled his wallet with cheese. To risk life was the determination of all. They set off, as if to a fete, with happy ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... allowing any amount of latitude to his speculative thought in the direction of scientific theorizing. For it follows from the above distinctions that the danger of speculation does not reside in the width of its range, or even in the impetuosity of its vehemence. Indeed, the wider its reach, and the greater its energy, the better will it be for the interests of science. The only danger of speculation consists in its momentum being apt to carry away the mind from the more laborious work of adequate verification; and therefore a true ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... The impetuosity, the suspense in the words astounded me. I stared at the coroner and lost the thread of my story—What had I to say more? How account for what must be ever unaccountable to him, to the world, to my own self, if in obedience ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... proud of you for it." Her father stared steadfastly at her, and he only lifted his eyebrows, for change of expression, when she went over to where Burnamy stood, and put her hand in his with a certain childlike impetuosity. "And as for the rest," she declared, "everything I have is his; just as everything of his would be mine if I had nothing. Or if he wishes to take me without anything, then he can have me so, and I sha'n't be afraid ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the natural impetuosity that causes rash natures to rush into danger, Lord Byron's courage was quite as much the result of reflection as of impulse. His was courage of the noblest kind, a quality mixed up with other fine moral faculties, shining with light of its own, yet all combining to ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... the most effective kind of tragic hero, because, first, he has been great and glorious, and secondly he has not been "pre-eminently virtuous or just." This is true in its way. Oedipus is too passionate to be just; but he is at least noble in his impetuosity, his devotion, and his absolute truthfulness. It is important to realise that at the beginning of the play he is prepared for an oracle commanding him to die for his people (pp. 6, 7). And he never thinks of refusing that "task" any more ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... peculiarity over ordinary orchestras is the vast strength of stringed instruments, which gives a peculiar verve and light vigour to the performances. The rush of the violins in a rapid passage is overwhelming in its impetuosity and vigour, and is said, of late years especially, to beat the 'attack,' as it is technically called, of any of the continental Philharmonic Societies. The Philharmonic concerts are very fashionable. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... from Paris, that this barrenness proceeded from the fact, that both she and her husband, always more lovers than spouses, allowed pleasure to interfere with business, and by this means engendering was prevented. Then she endeavoured to restrain her impetuosity, and to take things coolly, because the physician had explained to her that in a state of nature animals never failed to breed, because the females employed none of those artifices, tricks, and hanky-pankies with which women accommodate the ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... stared at me wonderingly. He saw me as a man fighting with some strange anxiety, with his forehead damp and shining, his spectacles aslant on his nose and the heavy folds of his frock-coat shaken with a sudden impetuosity. ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... vindicate his honour, yet at the same time conscious of his own impetuosity, and confiding in the management of his friends, Evellin fretted at his situation, and yielding his mind to irritability, became incapable of cool discrimination or vigorous action. He had borne a long banishment with melancholy patience, disdaining to complain, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... to depend upon scattered hints, uncertain inferences, and conflicting rumours. We know that he stayed for some time at Wandsworth with a certain Everard Falkener in circumstances which he described to Thieriot in a letter in English—an English quaintly flavoured with the gay impetuosity of another race. 'At my coming to London,' he wrote, 'I found my damned Jew was broken.' (He had depended upon some bills of exchange ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... small washout he almost ran over a bear which was feeding on the carcass of a steer that had died in an alkali hole. After a moment of stunned surprise the bear hurled himself at the intruder with furious impetuosity; while the cowboy, wheeling his horse on its haunches and dashing in the spurs, carried it just clear of his assailant's headlong rush. After a few springs he reined in and once more wheeled half round, having drawn his revolver, only to find the bear again charging and almost ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... separation, even, so odious, that the most noble, virtuous, and sensitive men and women choose a life of concealed misery, rather than a partial, disgraceful release. Secondly, those who, in their impetuosity and despair, do, in spite of public sentiment, separate, find themselves in their new position beset with many temptations to lead a false, unreal life. This isolation bears especially hard on woman. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... has always troubled me," she answered with the impetuosity which characterized her. "I have often worried about it. I mean," she added, as he laughed at her incoherence, "all that race distinction. Does it really mean so much? Will it never be ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... saying he would, and affectionately kissing him and putting his helmet on his head, Cleomachus with a proud joy put himself at the head of the bravest of the Thessalians, and charged the enemy's cavalry with such impetuosity that he threw them into disorder and routed them; and the Eretrian infantry also fleeing in consequence, the Chalcidians won a splendid victory. However, Cleomachus got killed, and they show his ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... led the attack upon these. They were also carried; but the general fell, mortally wounded. Colonel Monson, who now succeeded to the command, reformed the troops—who were in some disorder, owing to the impetuosity of their charge—and led them forward again. Battery after battery was captured. Numbers of Holkar's men tried to cross the morass, but sank in the mud and lost their lives. The rest took refuge under the walls of Deeg, whose guns at once opened ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... end of his days he could never write Italian, much less French, with accuracy; and his tutor at Paris not inaptly described his boyish composition as resembling molten granite. The same qualities of directness and impetuosity were also fatal to his efforts at mastering the movements of the dance. In spite of lessons at Paris and private lessons which he afterwards took at Valence, he was never a dancer: his bent was obviously for the exact sciences rather than the arts, for the geometrical ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... celerity, haste, expedition, dispatch, posthaste; impetuosity. Associated Words: tachymeter, tachometer, trechometer, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... Dr Johnson did not practice the art of accommodating himself to different sorts of people. Had he been softer with this venerable old man, we might have had more conversation; but his forcible spirit; and impetuosity of manner, may be said to spare neither sex nor age. I have seen even Mrs Thrale stunned; but I have often maintained, that it is better he should retain his own manner. Pliability of address I conceive to be inconsistent with that majestick power of mind which he possesses, and which produces ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... that" (I shall here steal Plutarch's own words, which are better than mine) "he by so doing deprived himself of the violent impression the motion of running adds to the first shock of arms, and hindered that clashing of the combatants against one another, which is wont to give them greater impetuosity and fury, especially when they come to rush in with their utmost vigor, their courages increasing by the shouts and the career; 'tis to render the soldiers' ardor, as a man may say, more reserved and cold." This is what he says. But, if Caesar had come by the worse, why might it not as ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... Boasting. The inhabitants of Gascony (Gascogne) a province in the south-west of France, are proverbial not only for their impetuosity and courage, but for their willingness to brag of the possession of these qualities. Excellent examples of the typical Gascon in literature are D'Artagnan in Dumas's Trois Mousquetaires (1844) and Cyrano in Rostand's splendid drama, Cyrano de ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... we looked down upon a troubled, rolling, restless mass of waters, each wave seeming to buffet its neighbour with an angry determination to put it down. In the midst of all this chaos, one monster wave rose superior to all the rest, and rolling forward with giant strength and resistless impetuosity, threatened instant destruction to the vessel. A cry, a terrific roll, a shudder through the vessel, and again we were in the valley of waters; and during the comparative lull the captain roared in my ear, "Is it ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... with them by other means than the rifle or bayonet. [Footnote: Annales Algriennes, Tom. ii. p. 72.] In his capacity of Lieutenant-Colonel of Zouaves he showed talents of a high order. He infused into them the spirit, the activity, the boldness and impetuosity which he himself so remarkably possessed, with a certain independence of character which demanded from those who commanded them a resolute firmness on essential, and a dignified indulgence on unessential points. [Footnote: Conqute d'Alger. Par A. Nettement. p. 546.] ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... constriction of his lips, and had no intention of revealing his soul to a young lady. "The ass is eating my hat," he remarked, and stretched out for it instead of answering her. Evelyn blushed very slightly and then turned with some impetuosity upon Mr. Perrott, and when they mounted again it was Mr. Perrott who lifted her to ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... of the field, on the banks of a small stream, which was spanned by a bridge about fifty paces further down, Gascoyne and Henry Stuart contended, almost alone, with about thirty savages. These two had rushed forward with such impetuosity at the first onset as to have been separated from their friends, and with four Christian natives, had been surrounded. Henry was armed with a heavy claymore, the edge of which betokened that it had once seen much service in the wars of the youth's Scottish ancestors. ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... "the Writer has a certain fire and alacrity inspired into him by a consciousness that (let it fare how it will with the subject) his ingenuity will be sure of applause: and this alacrity becomes much greater, if he acts upon the offensive; by the impetuosity that always accompanies an attack, and the unfortunate propensity which mankind have to finding and exaggerating faults." Pref., Vindic. ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... devour the Eureka Hotel with the same impetuosity as we got up our stockade. Peter Lalor gave the order: Vern had the charge, and was all there with his tremendous sword. "Wo ist der Raffaello! Du, Baricaden bauen," and all heaps of slabs, all available timber was soon higgledy-piggledy thrown all round our camp. Lalor ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... may note as we read the story. There were three years between the beginning of the friendship of Jesus and Simon and the time when the man was ready for his work. The process was not easy. Simon had many hard lessons to learn. Self-confidence had to be changed into humility. Impetuosity had to be chastened and disciplined into quiet self-control. Presumption had to be awed and softened into reverence. Thoughtfulness had to grow out of heedlessness. Rashness had to be subdued into prudence, ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... with Madge Frettlby, and having decided in his own mind that she and none other was fitted to grace the visionary halls of his renovated castle, he watched his opportunity, and declared himself. She, woman-like, coquetted with him for some time, but at last, unable to withstand the impetuosity of her Irish lover, confessed in a low voice, with a pretty smile on her face, that she could not live without him. Whereupon—well—lovers being of a conservative turn of mind, and accustomed to observe the ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... briskly onward to escape the unwelcome orders which he felt were coming. Soon he had led his men into the suburbs of the city, while Worth and Quitman charged inward over the neighboring causeways with equal impetuosity. ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... they were going to fight; never were troops more strongly animated with emulation, national antipathy, mutual resentment, and all the passions which inspire obstinate bravery. On the one hand, a gallant young monarch, seconded by a generous nobility and followed by subjects to whose natural impetuosity indignation at the opposition which they had encountered added new force, contended for victory and honor. On the other side, troops more completely disciplined, and conducted by generals of greater abilities, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... and arbitrary. The youthful Emperor unbosomed himself to Prince Shotoku, avowing his aversion to the o-omi and his uncontrollable desire to be freed from the incubus of such a minister. Shotoku counselled patience, but Sushun's impetuosity could not brook delay, nor did he reflect that he was surrounded ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... wider; and, as the pendulum must always swing back to the right as far as it bounded to the left, he came in his repentance as much closer to his cousin than did I as his deviations had exceeded mine. No wonder Jack loved him—not with impetuosity, for Jack was never impetuous: all his feelings were deep, calm, patient, tender, unconquerable by time or chance. The two felt that mutual attraction which opposites and counterparts possess. Harry was the most popular man in his class. Nature had done everything ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... and preserves. He never sported, but spent hours in watching the tribes of lovely and almost tame animals with which it was stocked, and ordered that greater care should be taken of them than ever. Here was an opening for my plans of offence, and I made use of it with all the brute impetuosity I derived from my active mode of life. I proposed the enterprize of poaching on his demesne to my few remaining comrades, who were the most determined and lawless of the crew; but they all shrunk from the peril; so I was left to achieve my revenge myself. At first ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... was the most formidable debater in the House. He was full of resources, while the rapidity of his utterance and the impetuosity of his speech bore down every thing before it. The fire and force of his personality seemed to make him irresistible, and can only be likened to the power displayed by Mr. Blaine in the House, in his later and palmier years. ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... and announcing his intentions. "I want peace!" said he. That was true; he wanted peace, nothing but peace, and everything had proved it in a blinding fashion for eighteen years; everything—his arguments, his alliances, that union of peoples banded together against our impetuosity. M. de Guilleroy concluded in a tone of profound conviction: "He is a great man, a very great man, who desires peace, but who has faith only in menaces and violent means as the way to obtain it. In short, ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... to be my historian's principles. As for diction and style, he is not to set about his work armed to the teeth from the rhetorician's arsenal of impetuosity and incisiveness, rolling periods, close-packed arguments, and the rest; for him a serener mood. His matter should be homogeneous and compact, his vocabulary fit to be understanded of the people, for the clearest possible setting forth of ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... know my father?" Solomona had appeared not to hear it, and had instantly started some quite irrelevant topic of conversation. Abishai doubtless knew much about the brother of his wife, but Zarah shrank from questioning him; from his fierce impetuosity of character, he was not one to draw out the confidence of a gentle and timid girl. Zarah almost felt as if her uncle disliked, and for some reason which she understood not, regarded her with mingled pity and contempt. Thus the daughter of Abner, cut off from all means of gaining ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... could confer. Having overcome every enemy that dared to dispute his path, he spared the city of Mexico. The entire campaign is most honorable to the American character and to the reputation of him who led it. The impetuosity of his campaigns in the war of 1812 seemed mingled with and subdued by the results of a profound study of the science of war, in this contest. He dared boldly, and executed cautiously, courageously and successfully. Erring in nothing, and failing in nothing, he encountered dangers, and passed ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... sea returning after five minutes, and a ship anchored in the harbour broke from her moorings. Again, at Antibes, the sea was suddenly lowered by about a metre, so that ships afloat in the harbour were aground for some instants, and then returned with some impetuosity to its ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... living room, and made no effort to resist a rush to the open fire. Flo and her mother were amused at Carley's impetuosity. "You'll like that stingin' of the air after you get used to it," said Mrs. Hutter. Carley had her doubts. When she was thoroughly thawed out she discovered an appetite quite unusual for her, and she enjoyed her breakfast. Then it was time to ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... that if he were to remain at Crailing, if they were to continue seeing each other almost daily, there could be but one end to the matter—her conviction that no happiness could result from such a marriage would go by the board. It could not stand against the breathless impetuosity of Max's love-making—not when her own heart was eager ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... roused all that was amiable in the mind of Caliste, and with the impetuosity of her nature which made her too often show her contempt of her neighbours and acquaintances, she seized her uncle's hand and pressed it to her lips. "Our Lady bless you!" she murmured; "our Lady bless you for your kindness to me, but yet I must not accept ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... was Agostino, who three times drove back the crowd as they were approaching the choir, where Savonarola and his immediate friends were still praying. Father Antonio, too, seized a sword from the hand of a fallen man and laid about him with an impetuosity which would be inexplicable to any who do not know what force there is in gentle natures when the objects of their affections are assailed. The artist monk fought for his master with the blind desperation with which a woman fights over the cradle of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... the Germans of Germany proper had been left to their own resources, assisted only by the lessons of the Roman clergy. Now, at the beginning of the Crusades, the various divisions of the German race met again, but they met as strangers; no longer with the impetuosity of Franks and Goths, but with the polished reserve of a Godefroy of Bouillon and the chivalrous bearing of a Frederick Barbarossa. The German Emperors and nobles opened their courts to receive their guests with ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... they were helpless. They could not leave the rock. It was surrounded by rapids. Sharp, jagged points peeped out of the water, and between these the current rushed with impetuosity. In the darkness no human being could have crossed to either shore in safety. To attempt it would have been madness, and our voyageurs soon came to this conclusion. They had no other choice than to remain where they were until the morning; so, seating themselves upon the rock, they prepared ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... few details, the Celtic tribes of future England were similar to those of future France.[3] Brave like them, with an undisciplined impetuosity that often brought them to grief (the impetuosity of Poictiers and Nicopolis), curious, quick-tempered, prompt to quarrel, they fought after the same fashion as the Gauls, with the same arms; and in the Witham and Thames have been found bronze shields similar in shape and ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... encourage him to follow this plan; by visiting crime with punishment it ought to deter those who are willing to interrupt it. Thus the hope of a true welfare, the fear of real evil, will be passions suitable to countervail those which by their impetuosity would injure society; these last will at least become very rare, if instead of feeding man's mind with unintelligible speculations, in lieu of vibrating on his ears words void of sense, he is only spoken to of realities, only shewn those interests which are in unison ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... nothing for the man who had so shamefully involved himself; and, not content with his own ruin, had so wickedly implicated him. This was the outbreak of the excited youth, but he sobered down, and, in a few hours, the creature of impulse and impetuosity had argued himself into the expediency of adapting his conduct to existing circumstances—of stooping, in short, to all the selfishness and meanness that actuate the most unfeeling and the least uncalculating ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... from the fire of the Southern troops under General Barksdale, commanding the line at that point; but, subsequently forming an assaulting column for a straight rush at the hill, he went forward with impetuosity; drove the Southern advanced line from behind the "stone wall," which Generals Sumner and Hooker had failed in reaching, and, about eleven in the morning, stormed Marye's Hill, and killed, captured, or dispersed, the entire Southern force there. The Confederates fought hand to ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... endeavoured to accelerate my steed. The roads were rough and stony, and I had scarcely got the tired animal into a sharper trot, before—whether or no by some wrench among the deep ruts and flinty causeway—he fell suddenly lame. The impetuosity of Tyrrell broke out in oaths, and we both dismounted to examine the cause of my horse's hurt, in the hope that it might only be the intrusion of some pebble between the shoe and the hoof. While we were yet investigating the cause of our misfortune, two men on ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his presence. One day he threw a biscuit at my head, calling me at the same time a name which reflected on the legitimacy of my birth, in language the most coarse and vulgar. In a moment all the admonitions which I had received, and all my sufferings for impetuosity of temper, were forgotten; the blood boiled in my veins, and trickled from my wounded forehead. Dizzy, and almost sightless with rage, I seized a brass candlestick, the bottom of which (to keep it steady at sea) was loaded with lead, and threw it at him with all my ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... vulgar fame, spending far more pains in the invention of machinery and the discovery of laws, than in their publication to the world. His service was to knowledge, not to glory. Self-control was another of his eminent qualities. With the natural impetuosity of a large heart, and the vivacity of a trained athlete, he yet never allowed himself to be subdued by anger or by sensual impulses, but took pains to preserve his character unstained and dignified before the eyes of men. A story is told of him which may remind us of Goethe's ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... what he hoped to hear, she had not said it as he hoped to hear it. There were shades of tone even to impetuosity, and this one lacked the note his ear was listening for. None the less, he told himself, a wise man would have stopped right there; and he was conscious of his folly in ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... its critical character as all the younger officers of the army. And thus we were defeated, disastrously defeated and routed, in spite of all warnings of our consciousness of the danger, and of all predictions. This time it was not the inexperience and impetuosity of youth, but the antiquated method and slowness of age, ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... printed, on the motion of the member for the district. The captain engaged two hackney-coaches and a cab for Bung's people—the cab for the drunken voters, and the two coaches for the old ladies, the greater portion of whom, owing to the captain's impetuosity, were driven up to the poll and home again, before they recovered from their flurry sufficiently to know, with any degree of clearness, what they had been doing. The opposite party wholly neglected these ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... event been grappled with in its verity; not typically nor symbolically, but as they may see it who shall not sleep, but be changed. Only one traditional circumstance he has received with Dante and Michael Angelo, the boat of the condemned; but the impetuosity of his mind bursts out even in the adoption of this image, he has not stopped at the scowling ferryman of the one, nor at the sweeping blow and demon dragging of the other, but, seized Hylas-like by the limbs, and tearing up the earth in his agony, the victim is dashed into his destruction; nor ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... the paper. I shall not attempt to describe my feelings of rage (for I believe I was more angry than any thing else) when the egregious oversight I had committed flashed suddenly upon my perception. The blunder itself would have been unimportant, had not my own folly and impetuosity rendered it otherwise—in my disappointment at not finding some words upon the slip, I had childishly torn it in pieces and thrown it away, it ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... steady march, as well as their clean and glittering armour, showed steadiness and discipline, although they lacked alike the fiery glance of the French soldiery, or the look of dogged defiance which characterized the English, or the wild ecstatic impetuosity of eye which then distinguished the Welsh. The mothers and the maidens of the colony came next; then followed the children, with faces as chubby, and features as serious, and steps as grave as their parents; and last, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... of architect and inventor; and he was at that time busy with a scheme of model dwellings for the poor, to which churches and schools were to be attached; an affair of considerable magnitude, planned none too well, however, and in which, with his customary impetuosity, the lack of foresight of an imperfect artist, he was risking the three hundred thousand francs that he possessed. A similarity of religious faith had drawn Madame de Guersaint and Madame Froment together; ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... and some concern. In Miss Montenero's countenance I thought I saw more concern than surprise; she was alarmed— she grew pale, and I repented of some haughty answer I had made to Lord Mowbray, in maintaining a place next to her, which he politely ceded to my impetuosity: he seated himself on the other side of her, in a place which, if I had not been blinded by passion, I might have seen and taken as quietly as he did. I was more and more vexed by perceiving that Mr. ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... simple annals of the town, of the importance of which the residents of large places can form no idea. During months together a population of eight or ten thousand people do nothing but discuss the merit of the forthcoming music and singers with the eager impetuosity which belongs to the Italian character and climate. The first representation, if successful, is generally followed by twenty or thirty more of the same piece, after which the company breaks up.... From this ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... himself is odd and whimsical and has his periods of persistent wrong-headedness. He is Slav in every fibre—not a pseudo-Slav whose ancestors were or deserved to be whipped out of the temple in Jerusalem. He has all the Slav's impetuosity and hot blood, his love of glaring and noisy colour, his love of sheer beauty of a certain limited kind, and—alas!—his unfailing brainlessness. His impetuosity and hot blood are manifested in his frequent furious rhythms and the abrupt changes in those rhythms; ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... said Syd, colouring at his boyish impetuosity, as he resigned the line to the boatswain's hands. "Haul steadily! that's the way. Now, then, ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... disputatious in ordinary conversation, as because it called out his fighting force and stimulated his whole nature. "I am never nervous in reply," he once said, "though I am sometimes nervous in opening a debate." And although his impetuosity sometimes betrayed him into imprudence when he was taken unawares, no one could be more wary or guarded when a crisis arrived whose gravity he had foreseen. In the summer of 1881 the House of Lords made some amendments to the Irish Land Bill which were deemed ruinous to the working of the ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... back, scarce wondering more at what had just occurred, than at the excitement and impetuosity of him who spoke. Nicholas, taking the insensible girl in his arms, bore her from the chamber and downstairs into the room he had just quitted, followed by his sister and the faithful servant, whom he charged to procure a coach directly, while he and Kate bent over their beautiful charge and endeavoured, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... or the hypnotized sets in, and the awakening is almost painful. Chopin, adopting the relative minor key as a pendant to the picture in B flat, thrills the nerves by a bold dissonance in the next prelude, No. 22. Again, concise paragraphs filled with the smoke of revolt and conflict The impetuosity of this largely moulded piece in G minor, its daring harmonics,—read the seventeenth and eighteenth bars,—and dramatic note make it an admirable companion to the Prelude in F minor. Technically it serves as an octave study ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... and then receiving a fire from the foot, they gave a loud huzza, returning the fire, upon which Gairdner's dragoons run off, and the Highlanders, throwing away their muskets, attacked the foot with incredible impetuosity, who immediately gave ground. Upon the left of the enemy the resistance, if such behaviour merits the name, was much less, for before the D. of P. was within three score yards of them, Hamilton's dragoons began to reel and run off before they could receive ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... untested in real work. With inviting jungles constantly within easy reach, not to experiment with this lordly implement on something bigger than a wild pig demanded abnegation beyond my philosophy. I had no companion, but then I would control my impetuosity, do nothing rash, and, if I could, keep out of the way of temptation. One day, therefore, breakfast despatched, I shouldered my lovely Switzer, and struck off at random across the open. Woodland was not far to seek, and before I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... the longer because Mr. Kendal did not answer immediately, was shocked at his own impetuosity; but a rattling peal of thunder was not more ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... imagination?"—"Hold," said Corinne, "you do not know me; of all the faculties I possess, the most powerful is that of suffering. I am born for happiness, my disposition is open, my imagination animated; but pain excites in me a certain impetuosity, powerful enough to disturb my reason or bring me to my grave; therefore I beseech you, spare me. My gaiety and mobility are only superficial; but there are in my soul abysses of sadness, which I can only ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... not essentially brave. He did not produce any warrior of the type of Alexander. It is acknowledged that the valorous impetuosity of the barbarians, Gauls, Cimbri, Teutons, made him tremble. But to the glorious courage of the Greeks, to the natural bravery of the Gauls he opposed a strict sense of duty, secured by a terrible discipline in the masses. It was inspired in the ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... from the others seemed to express a general assent to this vigorous statement, and, giving the hand a grateful shake, Mac retreated to the door, anxious to be off now that he had freed his mind with such unusual impetuosity. ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... all a lover's impetuosity. He gave her to the full that reassurance of which she stood in need. But for all his sincerity it was as useless as if it had ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... head of white, shocky, stiff hair led his soldiers to dub him the "Gray Eagle." He had much military learning, and had fought in many of the bloodiest battles of the war, notably at the second Bull Run under Pope. He had seen service also in the Mexican War. Notwithstanding his excessive impetuosity, he was a just, generous, kind-hearted man, and possessed the confidence of his troops to a high degree. He incurred the ill-will of Secretary of War Stanton, and, regarding himself as unjustly treated, more than reciprocated the Secretary's dislike. He ardently admired ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... fall. The clouds gathered in dense masses upon the neighbouring hills, and poured down such copious showers that the mountain streams were turned into roaring avalanches, tearing their way down to the sea with an impetuosity that nothing ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... soon developed into a veritable passion. Bitterly disappointed, vexed with a husband whose coldness constantly irritated her ardent nature, fretful and nervous, there naturally developed a morbid state of mind which explains the impetuosity with which she ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... Brewster in patronizing Barbara's booth, and he rushed into the conflict with an impetuosity that seemed destined to carry everything before it. Monty was brushed aside, Barbara was preempted as if she were a mining claim and ten days after his arrival in New York, Grimes was the most talked-of man in town. Brewster ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... the chevalier and his companions flung themselves upon the whole three hundred; but the Milanese were no cowards, and for one hour they withstood even the firebrand impetuosity of Bayard himself. They were not many who could stand so long before Bayard. At length the knight, impatient at this stubborn resistance, cried out to ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... more experience. But I had the advantage of being thoroughly angry and wanting to hurt someone, without caring whether I was hurt myself or not, while he was feeling entirely peaceable, and not in the least anxious to hurt me or anybody else. The consequence was that the impetuosity of my first rush was more than he could stand. Of course he was up to meet me, and I expect that under my coat my skin on the left shoulder still carries the marks of his claws where he caught me as we ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... counsels of Horn, Egmont, and Orange, and to take no important measure without their concurrence—if, above all, she would convoke the states-general, then, and then only, were the confederates willing to exert their energies to preserve peace, to restrain popular impetuosity and banish ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... her misfortune that the mental atmosphere which surrounded her during these years of adolescence was almost entirely feminine. No father, no brother, was there to break in upon the gentle monotony of the daily round with impetuosity, with rudeness, with careless laughter and wafts of freedom from the outside world. The Princess was never called by a voice that was loud and growling; never felt, as a matter of course, a hard rough cheek on her own soft one; never ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... Reverence is creative of hope; nay, a more definite emphasis can be given to the assertion; reverence is a constituent of hope. Annihilate reverence, and life loses its fine sensitiveness, and when sensitiveness goes out of a life the hope that remains is only a flippant rashness, a thoughtless impetuosity, the careless onrush of the kine, and not a firm, assured perception of a triumph that is only delayed. A reverent homage before the sublimities of yesterday is the condition of a fine perception ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... astride on his chair, attacking me, as it were, with the chairback, and went on with his usual impetuosity:— ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... large streams, till it arrives at the Grand Falls, in lat. 46 deg. 54'. Here its channel is broken by a chain of rocks, which run across the river at this place, over which its waters are precipitated with resistless impetuosity. The river, just above the cataract, makes a short bend of nearly a right angle, forming a small bay a few rods above the precipice, in which there is an eddy, which makes it a safe landing place, although very near the main precipice, where canoes pass with the greatest ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... him; for in this one character of Lovelace, you have united these two dissimilar and discordant characters of Achilles and Ulysses; you have given him all the fierceness, cruelty, and contempt of laws, impetuosity, rashness, in short, all the furious ungovernable passions of the one, and have at the same time provided him with all the cunning, craft, dissimulation, and command over his passions, which so much distinguish the other. How to reconcile to ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous
... the affray was doubtful; for the Christians had the advantage of the ground, and were rapidly gaining upon the enemy, when the overwhelming forces of Soliman arrived in the rear. Godfrey and Tancred flew to the rescue of Bohemund, spreading dismay in the Turkish ranks by their fierce impetuosity. The Bishop of Puy was left almost alone with the Provencals to oppose the legions commanded by Kerbogha in person; but the presence of the Holy Lance made a hero of the meanest soldier in his train. Still, however, the numbers of the enemy seemed ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... him. They would find him ready to vindicate such measures as tended to promote the stability of government, and resolute and steady in carrying them into execution. Nor is any thing to be apprehended from the supposed impetuosity of his temper. To the friends of the King you will find him a lamb, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... descending into a space of rarified atmosphere, and encountered by an Arab simoom from the south, may well require from us some farther attention; for the differences in all these schools are more in the degrees of their impetuosity and refinement (these qualities being, in most cases, in inverse ratio, yet much united by the Arabs) than in the style of the ornaments they employ. The same leaves, the same animals, the same arrangement, are used by Scandinavians, ancient Britons, Saxons, Normans, Lombards, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... shackling, strengthens the movement of his argumentation. Parts of his "Religio Laici" and the "Hind and Panther" resemble portions of Duns Scotus or Aquinas set on fire. Indeed, keen, strong intellect, inflamed with passion, and inspirited by that "ardour and impetuosity of mind" which Wordsworth is compelled to allow to him, rather than creative or original genius, is the differentia of Dryden. We have compared him to a courser, but he was not one of those coursers of Achilles, who fed ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... his hand to it. On this I, who have always offered and wished for peace, in order that I might devote myself to calmer and more useful pursuits, and who for this very purpose have acted with so much spirit and vehemence, in order to put down by the strength and impetuosity of my words, as well as of my feelings, men whom I saw to be very far from equal to myself—I, I say, not only gladly yielded, but even accepted it with joy and gratitude, as the greatest kindness and benefit, if you should think it ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther
... and impetuosity which seem always to have made half measures impossible to him, Mr. Durant declared that so far as he was concerned, the Law and the Gospel were irreconcilable, and gave up his legal practice. A case which he had ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... wish I had never exacted that promise! It did no good; it did not save Geraldine, and it seems to have made you miserable. Good gracious me," cried Lady Laura with sudden impetuosity, "I have no patience with the man! What is one man more than another, that there should be so ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... places see the nature of the country through which he is passing. The point at which he reached the lane was so overgrown with gorse and brambles that it was necessary to search for a passage through them. This not being readily found, he gave way to the impetuosity of his disposition, stepped back a few paces, cleared the obstacles with a light bound, and alighted on the edge of the bank, which gave way under his weight, and he descended into the lane in a shower of stones and dust, ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Saxons fight that for some time the day went favourably for them. Gradually the Danes were driven from their post of vantage, and after some hours' fighting turned to fly; but, as at Merton and Kesteven, the impetuosity of the Saxons proved their ruin. Breaking their compact ranks they scattered in pursuit of the Danes, and these, seeing how small was the number of their pursuers, rallied and turned upon them, and the Saxons were ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... up, and found Bertie's Nellie behind the black boys' humpy shyly peeping round a corner. With childlike impetuosity she had scampered along the four miles from the Warlochs, only to be ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn |
