"Impressiveness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we may be summoned to give an account of our stewardship, and that without dying, just suddenly, without a moment's warning, translated bodily and with all the sense of the daily life we have been living upon us into the presence of Him whose name we have been professing—impressiveness has reached its ultimate and exhortation the ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... ceremony of which they were secretaries, and the three walked abreast the length of the Galeria de Iturbide, where they were joined by the Lesser Service of Honor. Thus, swelling by cumulative degrees of impressiveness, Trooper Driscoll came at last into the Sala de Audiencias, and gazed with admiration at its ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... to set the time of execution one hour earlier than had been announced to Tacon-a piece of villany that had nearly cut off the young soldier from the clemency that the governor had resolved to extend to him at the very last moment, when the impressiveness of the scene should ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... of a whole race-history of partial error, partial truth; and we take up the matter where our fathers laid it down, with the respect due to their earnest toil, their sincere effort and trial, their convictions; and the youth who does not feel their impressiveness as enforcing his responsibility has as nascent a life in religion as he would have, in the similar case, in learning or ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... sadness; the sombre picture, with its single ray of relief; the stern picture, with only one tender group of lines; the soft and calm picture, with only one rock angle at its flank; and so on. Hence the variety of their work, as well as its impressiveness. The principal bearing of this law, however, is on the separate masses or divisions of a picture: the character of the whole composition may be broken or various, if we please, but there must certainly be a tendency ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. She was lady-like, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterized by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace, which is now recognized as its ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... her during her sleeplessness, now entered a protest against the proposed marriage at the American legation. She believed that people of the position which Edna and the captain should now assume ought to be married in a church, with all proper ceremony and impressiveness, and urged that the wedding be postponed for a few days, until suitable ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... microscope and loomed up gigantic. Fairbridge was like an insect, born with the conviction that it was an elephant. There was at once something ludicrous, and magnificent, and terrible about it. It had the impressiveness of the abnormal and prehistoric. In one sense, it was prehistoric. It was as a giant survivor ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... impressiveness of the minister's death won him undisputed favour, yet it failed to establish unity in his society. Supply after supply filled his pulpit, but the people found them all unsatisfactory when they remembered his preaching, and could not make up ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... hate like a flower in my breast," she said, with a sort of stern impressiveness. "I have fostered it year after year, and now,—it has grown too strong for me! When Olaf Gueldmar was young he told me I was fair; once he kissed my cheek at parting! For those words,—for that ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... the world, and the massive pine-board pillars are unscrupulously smoked to look like marble; but our tourists enjoyed it as if it had been St. Peter's; in fact it has something of the barnlike immensity and impressiveness of St. Peter's. They did not ask it to be beautiful or grand; they desired it only to recall the beloved ugliness, the fondly cherished hideousness and incongruity of the average Catholic churches of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... that will touch them; else it is not good. And I have to trace for you through the history of the past, and possibilities of the future, the expedients used by great sculptors to obtain clearness, impressiveness, or splendor; and the manner of their appeal to the people, under various light and shadow, and with reference to different degrees of public intelligence: such investigation resolving itself again and again, as we proceed, into questions absolutely ethical; as, for instance, whether ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... planet, and is thus seen up to the moment of the eclipse. In an occultation the satellite in passing behind the planet is, at the time of disappearance, close to the planet's bright edge, and the extinction of the light from the small body cannot be observed with the same impressiveness as ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... hurling thunderbolts and carrying a shield blazoned with the portrait of King Louis, while Bellona, Spain, Holland and Germany are shown crouching in awe. The colored marbles of the walls contrasted brilliantly with gilded copper bas-reliefs. Six portraits of Roman emperors contributed to the impressiveness of the Salon, and on the wall was a stucco relief of the King of France on horseback, clad like a Roman. The Salon of Peace was also decorated by Lebrun's adept brush. A ceiling piece portrays France and her conquered enemies rejoicing in the fruits of Peace. And, again, there are portraits ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... imagined that the Grand Canyon lost its depth and impressiveness below Diamond Creek. We were to learn our mistake. The colour was missing, that was true, for the marble and sandstone walls were brown, dirty, or colourless, with few of the pleasing tones of the canyon found in the upper end. ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... seven chapels at the east of the church, but none are found in the naves. The plainness of the nave, in comparison with the ornate character of the exterior, is very remarkable, but this plainness detracts nothing from the impressiveness of its long arcades, its towering roof, the noble lines which rise from the ground and support, as it were, on slender sinews of stone, the shadowy ceiling. The rose-windows, four in number, are filled with glass of the thirteenth century, and the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... a vivid picture, so calm and strange with the cat. She had a true static impressiveness, she was a social artist in ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... the lady secretary pronounced the foregoing resolves, with strong impressiveness of tone and manner. As she retired, Dea. Allen rose. The lady president sprang from ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... the unfettered imagination of its episodes, the vividness of its characters, the easy brilliancy of its literary manner—these things, with French diction and French wit, alternate with startling descriptive impressiveness. It is a French combination of Cervantes and Dante, in an Oriental and bizarre narrative. It is not always delicate, but it is never vulgar, and the sprightly pages are as admirable as the weird ones. Its pictures, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... circumstances, in particularities of time and place. This leaves all the more room for historic error, and historic error in a work of imagination dealing with actual and known occurrences is obviously fatal, not only to legendary truth, but to legendary beauty and poetic impressiveness. And then the pitfalls which lie about the feet of the Frenchman who has to speak of 1793,—the terrible year of the modern epoch! The delirium of the Terror haunts most of the revolutionary historians, and the choicest examples in all literature ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... story, told with all the impressiveness of a man who knew himself to be speaking the truth—emphasised as it was by the persistent presence of those two remorseless brutes under our own stern,—affected the listeners powerfully; and at its close there was not one of us, I will venture to say, but was firmly convinced that at least ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... hymn-writer mingles these symbolical imitations with the outlines of the original story; and, in his Demeter, the dramatic person of the mysteries mixes itself with the primitive mythical figure. And the worshipper, far from being offended by these interpolations, may have found a special impressiveness in them, as they linked continuously its inner sense with the ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... is held in the bachelor's own apartments, where there is only one servant, the chaperon is asked to pour the tea while the host himself serves it. This is a very pretty custom; it certainly lends dignity and impressiveness to the bachelor entertainment to see a charming, matron at the head of the table. And having the bachelor himself serve the refreshments, a certain companionship and friendliness is ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... elements of our historic life which that sense raises into the same region of poetry;—the faint beginnings of faiths and institutions, and their obscure lingering decay; the dust and withered remnants with which they are apt to be covered, only enhancing for the awakened perception the impressiveness either of a sublimely penetrating life, as in the twin green leaves that will become the sheltering tree, or of a pathetic inheritance in which all the grandeur and the glory have become ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... suscitation[obs3], galvanism, stimulation, piquance, piquancy, provocation, inspiration, calling forth, infection; animation, agitation, perturbation; subjugation, fascination, intoxication; enravishment[obs3]; entrancement; pressure, tension, high pressure. unction, impressiveness &c. adj. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... found Lady Torridon prepared to treat her chaplain with the kind of respect that she gave to her butler. But the chaplain's position was secured by now, owing in a large measure to his own tact and unobtrusiveness, and he went about the house a quiet, sedate figure of considerable dignity and impressiveness, performing his duties punctually and keeping his counsel. He had been tutor to both the sons for a while, to Ralph only for a few months, but to Chris since his twelfth birthday, and the latter had formed with him a kind of peaceful confederacy, often looking in on him at unusual hours, ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... York, a woman of rare grace and culture, with an address packed with thought and wisdom, uttered in the choicest language. Mrs. Caroline M. Severance, of Boston, succeeded her with another speech of like polish and impressiveness, and then the great congregation rose, and closed the interesting meetings of the two days with the singing of the grand old doxology, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow," after which the Convention adjourned ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... cayuse," he asserted with extreme impressiveness. "He is one of them broncs you jest loves. An' he's jes 's cheap! I likes you a lot, sonny; I deems you as a face-card shore, an' ef any one ever tries fer to climb yore hump, you jest calls on pore Old Mizzou an' he mingles in them ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... procession, and at once began to sing. Nothing could exceed the impression of the scene from this point. As the lowly strains arose tears were trickling down many a hard, rough face, whilst a spirit of holy quietude appeared to pervade others. Few funerals have been characterised by greater impressiveness. All the avenues at the cemetery were crowded, and hundreds had been waiting or a long time to ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... see, sir," he continued, instinctively lowering his voice to a confidential impressiveness, "he married an actress; a noble lady too she was, a fine dashing merry lady as ever you saw. All went well for a time, and then it suddenly got whispered about that she and the village schoolmaster were meeting each other at nights, in the meadow-bottom at the end of her own park. ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... hearing a heavy, jarring sound, she looked out the window and descried in the road, a long black column moving rapidly along, noiseless save for now and then a hoarse word of command. It was the expedition setting out for Lee. The impressiveness of this silent, formidable departure gave her a new sense of the responsibility she had taken on herself in frustrating the design of so many grave and weighty men, and interfering with issues of life and death. And then for the first time a dreadful thought occurred to her. ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... prestige by Germany and Austria. These "Central Powers," as they were called, had gone out of their way to encourage first Turkey, and then Bulgaria, and both these countries had been badly beaten. In any future diplomacy the opinions and desires of the Central Powers would have less weight and impressiveness than formerly. To regain their lost influence it was practically certain that these nations would, at the earliest opportunity, make an attempt to impose their will upon the ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson
... it, man, if you value the repose of your own soul!" said Zelma, with an awful impressiveness, raising herself on one elbow and looking him out ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... wonderful experience to ride for such a distance in a perfectly level valley, and see an uninterrupted range of mountains, eight thousand feet in height, rising abruptly from the plain like the long battle-line of an invading army. What adds to its impressiveness is the fact that these peaks are, for the entire country which they dominate, the arbiters of life and death. Beyond them, on one side, the desert stretches eastward for a thousand miles; upon the other, ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... fallacy in this analogy of martyrdom. The truth is that the special impressiveness which does come from being persecuted only happens in the case of extreme persecution. For the fact that the modern enthusiast will undergo some inconvenience for the creed he holds only proves that he ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... a great fund of stories of the supernatural that were current in this neighborhood in his youth, and one that had this very kitchen for its scene, he told with much impressiveness. It was the story ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... that was merely testimony to its mighty structure. Five or six palaces have been built of the marbles and other materials which have been taken away, and still the Colosseum stands in all its architectural impressiveness. But the thing this amphitheatre was built for ruined Rome. The taste for brutal pleasure which the emperors encouraged debauched the spirit of the Romans, and deprived them of that traditional virtue of which they had been so proud. Panem et circenses, the giving of bread unworked for, ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... trump of God; and the dead in Christ should rise first; then she, as one of them that were alive, would be caught up with other saints into the air, and would possibly receive while rising some distinguishing token of confidence and approbation which should fall with due impressiveness upon the surrounding multitude; then would come the consummation of all things, and she would be ever with the Lord. She died peaceably in her bed before she could know that a commercial panic was the nearest approach to ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... frail earthly tabernacle was the habitation of a master mind; and though mere connoisseurs in idioms and pronunciation might designate "his speech contemptible," [102:6] he riveted the attention of his hearers by the force and impressiveness of his oratory. The presence of this extraordinary stranger could not remain long unknown to the Athenian literati; but, when they entered into conversation with him, some of them were disposed to ridicule him as an idle talker, whilst others seemed inclined to denounce him as ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... striking instances of sudden changes of fortune than the later times of political equality. It was in this respect that the high rank of the principal characters was essential, or at least favourable to tragic impressiveness; and not, as some moderns have pretended, because the changing fortunes of such persons exercise a material influence on the happiness or misery of numbers, and therefore they alone are sufficiently important to interest us in their behalf; nor, again, because internal elevation of sentiment must ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... upright impressiveness seemed to demand some comment, but I could not manage a sound; for at her words there rushed back to me, with humiliating clearness, my own hysterics of the night before. Was it possible that Hallie thought I was in love with him, too? My cheeks ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... going about under that broiling sun of July, peddling starch, was very probably an impostor. He computed a good day's profits of seventy-five cents, and when asked if that was not very little for the support of a sick wife and three children, he answered with a quaint effort at impressiveness, and with a trick, as I imagined, from the manner of the regimental chaplain, "You've done your duty, my friend, and more'n your duty. If every one did their duty like that, we should get along." So he took leave, and shambled out into the furnace- heat, the sun beating ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... stern impressiveness which startled his hearers. They were only playing idly with the pros and cons of a newspaper tale; but this man, it would seem, treated the matter ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... glinting on Bill's immovable eye-glasses, that gave extraordinary impressiveness to his words; or it may have been Bressant's reflection, that this young country bumpkin, sullied with drink, coarse and ignorant though he was, would have probably found his sense of equality in no way diminished, had he known more of the ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... very impressive. It gives the supreme touch of grandeur to all the main Columbia views, rising at every turn, solitary, majestic, awe-inspiring, the ruling spirit of the landscape. But, like mountains everywhere, it varies greatly in impressiveness and apparent height at different times and seasons, not alone from differences as to the dimness or transparency of the air. Clear, or arrayed in clouds, it changes both in size and general expression. Now it looms up to an immense height ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... with the subject. This is by no means the case: for Angelico, although a saint, was a man of the fifteenth century, and, despite all his obvious efforts, he was not a real follower of Giotto. What impressiveness of actual artistic arrangement these frescoes really possess, is due, I think, to no imaginative effort of the artist, but to the exigencies of the place; as any similar impressiveness is due in Signorelli's Annunciation to the quality of his form, and in Botticelli's ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... I think her extremely beautiful, Miss Garnett. (He takes the photograph up; looks at it; and adds, with even greater impressiveness) EXTREMELY beautiful. How fine her ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... life's work is done have been always regarded as holy ground; cities of the dead, solemn and suggestive. But this was more; in its lonely seclusion, in its dark and terrible history, it was exciting in its impressiveness. In the still sunlit evening, wooed to rest, one could imagine, by the gentle murmurs of the Ilen, its little clump of gnarled trees grouped around its scanty ruin was a picture of such complete repose as to make the most thoughtless reflective. I entered. ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... of white lace on her head, a lace collar and soft lace cuffs which all but cover her emaciated, sensitive hands. A book and a handkerchief of delicate material lie in her lap. MRS. FLAMM'S features are not without magnanimity and impressiveness. Her eyes are light blue and piercing, her forehead high, her temples broad. Her hair, already gray and thin is plainly parted in the middle. From time to time she strokes it gently with her finger tips. The expression of her face betrays kindliness and seriousness without ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... with an impressiveness of tone that greatly subdued his wife, "I read in the Bible sometimes, and find much said about little children. How the Savior rebuked the disciples who would not receive them; how he took them up in his arms, ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... youthful century were still in men's souls, and were driving them to conspiracy, to prison, to scaffold, to barricades, to bloody fields. There is also a deliberation in the delivery—a sonorousness in the phraseology—that has something of a bygone day. But all this adds to the impressiveness of the address. The fervour is all there, the unalterable conviction, the lofty purpose. There is reason for the warm note of welcome which comes from the Irish benches; for this man—perhaps disappointed—perchance ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... cried Ferrier, as he carried off his papers. But his gayety soon departed. He stood awhile at the window in his room, looking out upon the sodden park—a rather gray and sombre figure. Over his ugly impressiveness a veil of weariness had dropped. Politics and the strife of parties, the devices of enemies and the dissatisfaction of friends—his soul was tired of them. And the emergence of this possible love-affair—for the moment, ardent and deep as were the man's affections and sympathies, toward ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of intellect, and well understanding the disposition of the people and the art of controlling them, used every appliance to attain that object, and give importance and impressiveness to their ceremonies. As they covered those ceremonies with the veil of Secrecy, so they preferred that Night should cover them with its wings. Obscurity adds to impressiveness, and assists illusion; and they used ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... nothing very remarkable; and, indeed, a cloudy and rainy day takes the varnish off the scenery, and causes a woful diminution in the beauty and impressiveness of everything we see. Much of our way lay along a flat, sandy level, in a southerly direction. We reached Ayr in the midst of hopeless rain, and drove to the King's Arms Hotel. In the intervals of showers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... soldier on foreign service when he hears the chant of his own mountain "Rans des vaches." Something may doubtless be laid to the account of early association; but, we think, more is justly due to the great impressiveness and power of his native tongue. The poems, original and translated, contained in the first part of the ensuing collection, may convey to the English reader some idea of this class of ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... reality it will possess, not only because it is true, but because it is also true to life. And it is to be remembered that because of the unusual setting in a romantic tale the truth it presents stands out very clearly with much impressiveness. Red Riding Hood is a more impressive tale than ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... strange creatures, doomed, it is hoped, to extinction in favor of more intelligent and gracious forms of life. They are big, powerful, "necessitous," and have therefore an impressiveness, even an aesthetic appeal, not to be denied. So subtle and sensitive an old-world consciousness as that of M. Paul Bourget was set vibrating by them like a violin to the concussion of a trip-hammer, and to the ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... the fortune of a dozen ordinary dramatists; and withal you feel as you read that he is writing, as Augier says of him, to amuse himself merely, and that he could an if he would be solemn and didactic with all the impressiveness that a perfect acquaintance with men and things and an admirable dramatic aptitude can bestow. The fact that he is always in a good temper has done him some wrong in that it has led him to be to all appearances amusing only, where he might well have posed as a severe and serious artist. ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... distributing by post and in every way all over the land. When I read it at home that night I realized its importance, but as the next day (the Fourth) was excessively warm, I very nearly gave up going, and then I should have missed the impressiveness of her reading. When she first commenced, her voice seemed choked with emotion. She must have realized what she was doing, as we all knew it was the grandest thing that had been done in a hundred years. Thrill after thrill went through my veins, and the whole scene formed ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... tribute to yourself which brought tears of gladness to my own eyes when I heard it. In talking to some of the old workers, I referred to your life-long sacrifice and wondered how we could develop a similar spirit in our younger women, when Mrs. Zerelda Wallace said with great impressiveness: "My dear sisters, I want to say this, and to say it with a profound realization of all that it means, that to me, the person who, next to Jesus Christ himself, has shown to the world a life of perfect unselfishness, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... of Boston, has made one of the ablest chief executives that the city has ever possessed. Indeed, few past Mayors can at all compare with him either in personal impressiveness or financial acumen. No man living understands Boston's true interests better than he, and no one has the future prosperity of the New England metropolis more sincerely at heart. Possessing an earnest desire for the public welfare, he has, with ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... the setting sun lit up the grand and extensive ruins. The massive Norman keep stood up with melancholy dignity, and attracted my attention more than any other part of the ruined building. To me there is an impressiveness in the simple massive dignity of the Norman castles and cathedrals, which no other buildings possess. There is an expression of terrible earnestness about them. The last look I had of the Norman keep ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... He seemed to speak by rote. His manner was too eager to suit the impressiveness of his words. "The sheep are without a shepherd," he said. "The young men marry among the Gorgios, or they are lost in the cities and return no more to the tents and the fields and the road. There is disorder in all the world among the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... greater reason, and that is that there is a point in the intenser actuality of things at which all human language fails to do justice to it. Yet—as simply told as possible—there are many incidents of this great tragedy which nothing has ever surpassed or ever can surpass in impressiveness. It is a consolation, too, that human nature at such times does betray here and there a gleam of that side of it which gives forth a reflection of the ideal manhood or womanhood. Bits of heroism and of tender devotedness scattered throughout ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... continually burning before the richly decorated shrines of saints. In the audacity of my ignorance, as I humbly acknowledge it to have been, I criticized this great interior as too much broken into compartments, and shorn of half its rightful impressiveness by the interposition of a screen betwixt the nave and chancel. It did not spread itself in breadth, but ascended to ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... a time, those things which he did see were duplicate images of the same object, and he lurched up to the dual Loring and the hazy figures that seemed floating about him, and, with an attempt at majestic impressiveness, thickly said: "Mr. Loring, I'm bearer of a message from my fren' Mr.—Captain Nevins, d'manding the me'dy't r'turn of the diamon's an' valu'bles he placed ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... of The Concert, one of David Belasco's productions. The Mildenburg is a giantess, with a voice like an organ. She is also an uneven singer, being hugely temperamental. The night in question she was keyed up to the occasion, and for the first time I realised the impressiveness of the part of Klytemnestra, its horrid tragic force, its abnormal intensity, its absolute revelation of the abomination of desolation. Mildenburg played it as a mixture of Lady Macbeth and Queen Gertrude, Hamlet's mother. And when she sang fortissimo all the Strauss horses and ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... passing headlights displayed her closed, oblique eyes, her parted, flat lips, her idol-like aspect, which bestowed on her the impressiveness, the seeming infallibility, of those oracles that were anciently supposed to describe some future mood of the chaotic ebb and surge ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... where he had made the first, but a little higher up the stream. Experience made the construction more easy. The bridge was begun and finished in a few days, but this time the labor was thrown away. The operation itself lost its impressiveness by repetition, and the barrenness of practical results was more evident than before. The Sueves, who had gone home, were far away in the interior. To lead the heavily armed legions in pursuit of wild light-footed ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... reverentially, from my childhood upward, than any other in the world, and which I then beheld, and now look back upon, with profound gratitude to the men who built it, and a kindly interest, I may add, in the humblest personage that has contributed his little all to its impressiveness, by depositing his dust or his memory there. But it is a characteristic of this grand edifice that it permits you to smile as freely under the roof of its central nave as if you stood beneath the yet grander canopy of heaven. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... often proved the most eloquent apostles of civilization, but the impressiveness of their arguments was, perhaps, never more strikingly illustrated than at the little railway station of Gallegos, in Northern Mexico. When the first passenger train crossed the viaduct, and the Wizards of the North had covered the festive tables with the dainties of all zones, the governor ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... not the easiest thing in the world under the circumstances, but Sir Nigel led the way steadily after he had taken his seat and accepted the hospitalities offered. What a place it was—this! He had been struck for the hundredth time with the impressiveness of the mass of it, the sweep of the park and the splendid grouping of the timber, as he had ridden up the avenue. There was no other place like it in the county. Was there another like ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... addressing him with a gravity that should have overwhelmed him, "I am going away from you for an hour or so, and Mr. Dysart has kindly accepted your invitation to lunch with him. I do hope," with increasing impressiveness, "you will ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... Finally Watson said, with a sort of mournful impressiveness: "Boys, let us all bid each other good-bye. For some of us may ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... been heard. Every one felt the fitness of his making the closing argument and exhortation, and right nobly did he honor their demand. A silence full of emotion filled the assembly as for a moment before beginning his tall form stood in commanding attitude on the rostrum, the impressiveness of his theme and the significance of the occasion reflected in his thoughtful and earnest features. The spell of the hour was visibly upon him; and holding his audience in rapt attention, he closed in a brilliant peroration ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... your remarks on Shirley. Some of your strictures tally with some by Mr. Williams. You both complain of the want of distinctness and impressiveness in my heroes. Probably you are right. In delineating male character I labour under disadvantages: intuition and theory will not always adequately supply the place of observation and experience. When I write about women I am sure of my ground—in the ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... afternoon on understanding. I wish you could hear the lectures as she gives them, with all her grace and beauty and impressiveness. Here is the essence ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... impressiveness of Rome. All Europe has been serious to me; Rome is even sad in its seriousness. You cannot help feeling, in the Coliseum, some little of the influence of the scenes that have been enacted there, even if you know little about them; you must remember that the vast numbers of people ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... had cried death to the Prophet, John of Leyden calmly, with great impressiveness, made them cower ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... great crowd of people. But this little dark room, with its sharply defined oval of light, was utterly shut off from the scene of gaiety. I was aware of an involuntary shiver, and for the life of me I could not keep my gaze steadily on the face of the tall woman who sat so still, with such impressiveness, on the other side of the table. I waited for her to proceed, and after what seemed a long ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... duration. Mr. Lane seldom occupied the time of the Senate by speech-making, but when he felt it his duty to speak, none upon the floor attracted more marked attention, both from the importance of his matter and the impressiveness of ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... and jerry-built suburbs seem almost attractive when seen in mass from a height. Slums, the dead uniformity of long rows of houses, sordid back-gardens, bourgeois public statues—all these eyesores are mercifully hidden by the roofed surface. The very factory chimneys have a certain air of impressiveness, in common with church towers and the higher buildings. Once, on flying over the pottery town of Coalport—the most uninviting place I have ever visited—I found that the altered perspective made it ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... pleased and delighted with this evening service of praise and prayer. Their weird surroundings added to its impressiveness. Then the fact that they were out in the cold forest, with no roof above them but the starry heavens and no walls around them but snowbanks, and the temperature so many degrees below zero, made the petition in the beautiful hymn ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... tall, full-bodied man, with flashing dark eyes, and a fine, dramatic presence. I believe he was an indefatigable worker among the poor. I know he had a keen appreciation of the dramatic element in his priestly calling, and in the ritual of his church, with its rich symbolism and elaborate impressiveness. Even from my brief glimpses of the situation, I realized that this priest (the words clergyman and vicar were discouraged at St. Jude's) played a very important, a vital part, in the scheme of Sylvia's ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... the touch of impressiveness that always marks this ceremony in the North; and then Hooliam, with a shifty glance, extended his hand to Garth. At the same time he ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... church murmured with low talking. Ordinarily, the congregation would have been absorbed in silent contemplation before the Presence of the Divine One, but the impressiveness of the occasion made the people depart from their usual fervor. The little church was only partly filled when the great procession arrived and every head instinctively turned in the direction of the entrance at the sound of their many footsteps. As they marched ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... keeping with the hot languor of the day, the hum of the children's voices as they chanted their task in unison on the open verandah of the school-house. Marmot, listening and heeding, thought, and the thoughts grew in importance in his mind and in impressiveness, until, forgetful that the court was not sitting and that he was alone, he took the pipe from his lips, and, pointing the stem down the ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... ashes. He looks upon the wife of his bosom with anguish as he thinks of it. He gazes ruefully into his children's eyes; pretty innocents, they know naught of the impending blow. It is a Shadow, as Thackeray would have solemnly said, with Bulwerian impressiveness, which Pursues Him at Mid Day. It Awakens Him at Mid Night, and Says to Him, Sleep No More! What is it, do you ask? inquires Mr. Tibs, in his most startling manner. Brethren, 'tis the fell hand of improvement. ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... grave and sad, as he stood listening. It was possible to hear almost all the prayer through the red baize door, and the words, hackneyed though they were, and almost absurd in their pious sing-song, had a naif impressiveness and, to the ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... human form of strangely mingled materials, of giant size no doubt, and of majestic aspect. Barbarous enough it would have looked beside the marble lovelinesses of Greece, but it was quite like the coarser art which sought for impressiveness through size and costliness. Other people than Babylonian sculptors think that bigness is ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... thirty-nine girl voices chanted the Wo-he-lo Cheer with weird impressiveness. The scene alone would have been impressive enough, but Camp Fire Girls are not satisfied with that kind of "enough." Once their imagination is stimulated with the almost limitless possibilities of the craft, they are not easily pleased with ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... Sylvanus Starr's fluency Symes's response seemed halting and slow, but it gained thereby in impressiveness. When he clenched his huge fist and struck at the air, declaring for the third time that "it was good to be home!" nobody doubted him. And they need not have doubted him, for, since his salary did not begin until his return to Crowheart, and the offerings of night-lunch carts ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... a Convention was now done. President Green arose to make the concluding address. The circumstances under which it was uttered may have lent it an impressiveness not its own; but as I now recall it, it seems to me the most powerful and eloquent speech to which I have ever listened. He passed in review the work that had been done, the constitution of the new society, the declaration of sentiments, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... me. So I was ushered into the long low dining-room, with its old hunting prints and black oak furniture, and, best of all, with its huge log fire. Mrs. Moyat greeted me with her usual negative courtesy. I do not think that I was a favourite of hers, but whatever her welcome lacked in impressiveness Blanche's made up for. She kept looking at me as though anxious that I should remember our common secret. More than once I was almost sorry that I had ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... were planted with rows of trees which would afford a fine shade in warm weather. Above the mercantile houses and dwellings rose the lofty spire of St. George's Chapel in Nassau Street, which had been completed less than three years before, and which secured Robert's admiration for its height and impressiveness. ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... that enabled them to recast their romanesque choir in the newer "perpendicular" fashion of architecture, and embellish their church with all the rich additions which contrast so strangely with the grim impressiveness of the stately Norman nave. There was only one impediment to the people's worship of the dead king. The secrecy which enveloped his end led to rumours that he was still alive, and the prevalence of these reports soon proved almost as great a source ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... Reybold. He was a singular object; tall, grim, half-comical, with a leer of low familiarity in his eyes, but his waxed mustache of military proportions, his patch of goatee just above the chin, his elaborately oiled hair and flaming necktie, set off his faded face with an odd gear of finery and impressiveness. His skin was that of an old roue's, patched up and chalked, but the features were those of a once handsome man of style ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... institutions of this early people and left upon them the imperishable imprint of his own unique individuality. Although the traditions regarding him have been transmitted for centuries from mouth to mouth, they portray the character and work of Moses with remarkable clarity and impressiveness. Moses was primarily a patriot. He was also a prophet-statesman, able to grasp and interpret the significance of the great crises in the life of his people and to suggest practical solutions. Moreover, he was able to inspire confidence, and to lead ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... friends; and charity regenerates its objects. These saintly methods are, as I said, creative energies; and genuine saints find in the elevated excitement with which their faith endows them an authority and impressiveness which makes them irresistible in situations where men of shallower nature cannot get on at all without the use of worldly prudence. This practical proof that worldly wisdom may be safely transcended is the saint's magic gift to mankind.[215] Not only does his vision of a better world ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... to apply to the criminal the methods of psychology, psychiatry and anthropology," he answered with jesting impressiveness. ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... apartment than the Hall of the Double Axes at the sister palace, the area of the Phaestos chamber being over 3,000 square feet, as against the 2,000 odd square feet of the Hall of the Double Axes. The Central Court, 150 feet long by 70 broad, is a fine paved quadrangle, but has not the impressiveness of the Central Court at Knossos, with its area of about 20,000 ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... interest of Thomas Chalmers. The years 1843-1844 he spent at Berlin studying German philosophy and theology. He was licensed as preacher on the 3rd of February 1845, and on the 6th of August ordained as minister of Golden Square Church, Berwick-on-Tweed. There his preaching was distinguished by its impressiveness and by a broad and unaffected humanity. He had many "calls" to other churches, but chose to remain at Berwick. In 1857 he was one of the representatives at the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance in Berlin, and in 1858 Edinburgh University conferred on him an honorary D.D. In the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... uptown portion of it—and as far down-town as Ninth Street—has a provincial aspect. If Fifth Avenue is metropolitan and exclusive, Broadway is not. Broadway lacks distinction, it lacks any sort of impressiveness, save in its first two miles, which do—especially the southern mile—strike you with a vague and uneasy awe. And it was here that I experienced my keenest disappointment in ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... offered seat, and von Sternburg placed himself beside her. He fitted his clothes to the cracking-point, and he had the lack of impressiveness that goes with rotundity. Yet it was clear that he felt himself to have the whip-hand of the situation, and ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... from Lake Michigan, behind the sparsely wooded sand hills of its shore. From the river, which had here grown to a great depth and width, its main street ran directly at right angles. Four brick blocks of three stories lent impressiveness to the vista. The stores in general, however, were low frame structures. All faced broad plank sidewalks raised above the street to the level of a waggon body. From this main street ran off, to ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... of their weighty responsibilities. It is impossible to exaggerate the deep and abiding interest of such a correspondence; and the seriousness, the devotion, the public spirit that are displayed, without affectation or calculated impressiveness, make the whole series ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... of feeling, though it is also applied to written forms which are intended to express emotion. Thus in describing a towering mountain we can write "Heavens, what a piece of Nature's handiwork! how majestic! how sublime! how awe-inspiring in its colossal impressiveness!" This figure rather belongs to poetry and animated oratory than to the cold prose of every-day conversation ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... will be found that even the strength and impressiveness of Byron's poetry is sometimes injured by a capricious and desultory quality due to this very pliancy of mind. It may be questioned whether a concentration of his powers would not have afforded a grander result. It may be that, if Lord Byron had not been so actively versatile, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... time so gloriously yielded harvest. Theretofore his chief claim to public attention had rested upon the sound of the name he wore. He had been born a Shine and christened a Rufus. But to him the name of Rufus Shine had seemed lacking in impressiveness and euphony for use by one about entering the ministry. Thanks to the ingenuity of a white friend who was addicted to puns and plays upon words, the defect had been cured. As the Rev. A. Risen Shine he ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... forgotten, should preside over the meeting; but, as he was prevented by a family bereavement from being present, his place was taken by the Earl of Erne, Grand Master of the Orange Order. The scene, when he rose to open the proceedings, was indescribable in its impressiveness. Some members of the Eighty Club happened to be in Ireland at the time, for the purpose of "seeing for themselves" in the familiar fashion of such political tourists; but they did not think it worth while to witness what Ulster was doing at Craigavon. If they had, they could have made ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... impressiveness these women utter both these words! which we must not weary of returning to; for they perhaps sum up the entire American soul. They are bandied about in conversation like two formulae, in which are revealed the persistence of this creature, who, born of a stern race, and feeling herself fine, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... an over-civilized man experiences in admitting that he is something more than an educated stone prevented me from confusing you by demonstrations of a kind I had never accustomed you to. Besides, I wish this assurance of my love—my last word—to reach you when no further commonplaces to blur the impressiveness of its ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... recurring sufferings, tortures, convulsions, fits, and trances of her daughter Ann, and her servant-woman Mercy Lewis, under, as she fully believed, a diabolical hand.—These things must have given to her countenance and tones of voice a wonderful impressiveness to all who looked upon or listened to them. Her eminent social position, her general reputation,—for Lawson, who knew her well, calls her "a very sober and pious woman," so far as he could judge,—the stamp of profound earnestness marked on all her ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... Weeks declared. "But if he knew the wonderful opportunities this country presents—" The speaker leaned forward, while his chair creaked dangerously, and said, with impressiveness, "My dear sir, do you realize that a cocoa palm after it is seven years old drops a nut worth five cents every day in the year and requires no care whatever except ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... loose or think aloud as he did to me. Macaulay was infinitely more eloquent, and his memory was a thing by itself. Carlyle was striking and picturesque, and, after a fashion, forcible to the last degree. John Austin discoursed with the greatest dignity and impressiveness. But my father's richness of mind and union of wisdom, good sense, keenness and ingenuity, put him, in my opinion, quite on the same sort of level as these distinguished men; and gave me a feeling about him which attuned itself with and ran into the conviction that he was ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... a sudden came down upon that front was terrifying. More awful in its gripping impressiveness than the most terrific cannonading. You seemed, in that tense moment, to have lost your footing on some storm-swept hill, and fallen headlong into a deep valley. There was no cheering. The boys simply ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... great building, its sombre impressiveness fell upon his troubled spirit mercifully as its shadow fell across the blinding sunlight. He paused in the wide space that fronts the heavy doors, and caught his breath as the fugitive of old might have caught ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... darkness of impurity, a darkness of sorrow; and in that threefold gloom, thickening to a darkness of death, are they enwrapt who follow not the Light. That is the grim, tragical side of this saying, too sad, too awful for our lips to speak much of, and best left in the solemn impressiveness of that one word. But the hopeful, blessed side of it is, that the feeblest beginnings of trust in Jesus Christ, and the first tottering steps that try to tread in His, bring us into the light. It does not need that we have reached our goal, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... say a word." There was an impressiveness in her manner that startled the nervous, timid girl; but there were also in it a strength and a self-reliance that reassured her. She dropped her work and regarded her mistress with wonder. "Look in the second drawer of the bureau. You will find a pistol there. Bring ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... who attributed a great deal of weight to prosperity and adversity, and to the good or evil qualities of the body. It is as you say, he replied: but these points are argued with much more accuracy and impressiveness by my friend Antiochus than they used to be by Staseas. Although I do not ask what I have proved to your satisfaction, but what I have proved to the satisfaction of this friend of mine, the young Cicero, a pupil whom I wish to ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... this manuscript. The whole essay, indeed, remains with me intact, but it is too long—and it would be immaterial—to reproduce it all in this narrative. I cannot hope either to reproduce the weird impressiveness of the lecturer's personality, his hold over his audience, or my own emotions in listening to this man—whom I had proved, not only from his own confession, but by the strongest collateral evidence, to be a callous and relentless murderer—to hear ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... well, Pottinger," he said, and he leisurely patted the horses while the gorgeous footmen watched with solemn impressiveness. ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... he represented, in a sense, the Majesty of the Law. He was tackling Walton more by way of an object-lesson to the Kayite mutineers than for his own personal satisfaction. The object-lesson would lose in impressiveness if he were compelled to go about for a week or so with a pair of black eyes, or other adornments of a similar kind. Again—and this was even more important—if he was badly marked the affair must come to the knowledge of the headmaster. ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... freely in Ambassadorial and foreign circles. It would be well for you to dine, at least once a week, with the British Ambassador. And now one final word"—here Gestern spoke with singular impressiveness—"as to the President of ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... skin, to say nothing of other unmistakable signs that death had really taken place. Sailors are not, as a rule, given to much sentimentalism; they are so constantly being brought face to face with death that in a comparatively short time it loses much of that impressiveness with which it affects the landsman; but this man had been a true friend and comrade as well as a faithful servant to me, and I am not ashamed to acknowledge that the tears sprang to my eyes as I knelt by the side of the body ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... into our temple and pour his gold into our treasury, but do not defile your souls with the thought that the offerings of such a heart and such a hand are pleasing to the Divinity. Above all," and the voice of the old man had a heart-felt impressiveness, "Above all, do not flatter the erring man—and this is what you do, with the idea that he is walking in the right way; for your, for our first duty, O my friends, is always this—to guide the souls of those who trust in us to goodness ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... high-minded of that period, with the possible but not the clear and certain exception of Johnson himself, not one in all that circle, illustrious as it was, so impressed the kindred spirits of that time and age as Oliver Goldsmith did. His impressiveness swayed its force and influence over all. This was due first to the winning grace, but partly to the greatness of the man. "Dr. Goldsmith," said Johnson, "is one of the first men we now have as an author, and he is a very worthy man, too." At another time he said: ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... our view is the result. To our minds, in these soft, melodious imaginations of his, there is embodied the Wisdom which is proper to this time; the beautiful, the religious Wisdom, which may still, with something of its old impressiveness, speak to the whole soul; still, in these hard, unbelieving utilitarian days, reveal to us glimpses of the Unseen but not unreal World, that so the Actual and the Ideal may again meet together, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... deeply moved, and he did a very unusual thing: calling for a basin of water, he washed his hands before them all and said, "I am innocent from the blood of this just Person; see ye to it." This was an impressive act; yet its impressiveness was too theatrical. He washed his hands when he ought to have exerted them. And blood does not come off so easily. He could not abnegate his responsibility and cast it upon others. Public men frequently think they can do so: they say that they bow to the force of public opinion, but wash their ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... conferred upon the executive under the insufficient plea that these powers were intended to last but for a short time. It has also deprived them of moral weight. An Act which is a law in 1881, but will cease to be a law in 1882, has neither the impressiveness nor the certainty which gives dignity to the ordinary law of the land. Coercion Acts, again, should be general—that is, should apply, not to one part, but to the whole, of the United Kingdom. Powers needed by ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... wife arose with a certain mild impressiveness, as if some mantle of her husband's authority had fallen upon her. She shook out her ample skirts as if they were redolent of rhubarb and mint. "Well, I guess we had better be going," said she, and her inflections were ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... me. I really tremble to see a person so formed by nature borne down by such a weight," says my fellow-traveller, with great impressiveness. "It isn't to be ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... alteration that could not be wrought without considerable pains. I had to have a five-months' beard shaved off, and then get into my best New York shirt, not to forget a high collar. I also considered that the occasion necessitated the impressiveness of a frock-coat, which I produced at the end of a long search among my baggage and proceeded to don after extracting a tarantula and some stray scolopendra from the sleeves and pockets. The sensation of wearing a stiff collar was novel, and not altogether welcome, since ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... industrious population," "unable from pecuniary circumstances," "the more expensive forms of sport." That all very well, but not quite all. Easy enough to catch the trick of speech; who but JEMMY LOWTHER can add the indefinable personal gifts which invest even the commonplace with impressiveness? ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... the line with his usual force and impressiveness, Mead, after prolonged fumbling in his coat-tail ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... as if to give greater impressiveness to the conclusion of his harangue. His voice as he continued held a note of ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... oddity of a monument set up in a village to preserve a name that would outlast the hills and the rocks without any such help, would advertise Elmira to the ends of the earth—and draw custom. It would be the only monument on the planet to Adam, and in the matter of interest and impressiveness could never have a rival until somebody should set up a ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... grander did it seem now that we stood on the marble pavement below, and gazed upward into the vast concave which the genius of Sir Christopher Wren had designed. The scene to my mind was most impressive, and the impressiveness was heightened by a continuous dull roar, which never ceased for a moment. This ceaseless noise was produced by the numerous carriages passing and repassing without. The concavity of the dome, I suppose, condensed the sound into a subdued ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... literature. But obviously he and Miss Corelli will not have the same Public in their mind. If for "the Great Brain of the Public" we substitute "the Great Brain of that Part of the Public which subscribes to Mudie's," we may lose something of impressiveness, but we shall at least know what ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... therefore, which he had started for the purchase of an old and disused set of bagpipes, and which was to be made up of those fines, did not grow apace. Of course, being a chieftain, he must needs have a piper. The revels in the halls of Eilean-na-Rona lacked half their impressiveness through the want of the pipes. No doubt, Rob had a sort of suspicion that, if ever they should grow rich enough to buy the old set of bagpipes, he would have to play them himself; but even the most ignorant person can perceive ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... we must mind what they say. At least, we must remember that sleeping dreams are, of all things, most easily forgotten; while a full-bodied hallucination, when we, at least, believe ourselves awake, seems to us on a perfectly different plane of impressiveness, and (experto crede) is really very difficult to forget. Herr Parish cannot be allowed, therefore, to use the regular eighteenth-century argument— 'All dreams!' For the two sorts of dreams, in sleep and in apparent wakefulness, seem, to the subject, to differ in kind. And they really ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... to speak of the past to him. I hoped to break through the icy reserve which he always maintains towards me now. He looked at me, I will not soon forget his eyes, and said with fearful impressiveness: 'My son is dead. You know that, Regine. We will let the dead rest in peace.' I have never mentioned Hartmut's name ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... he had very little action; and yet there was an impressiveness in his manner that fixed the attention of his hearers. In the more animated parts of his discourse, his utterance became more rapid, and the sound of his voice shrill and tremulous, showing that he felt deeply the force of the sentiments he uttered. In his ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... that the author is constantly endeavoring to produce the legitimate effect of mental and moral qualities by a careful enumeration of external attributes. Harper, under which name Washington is introduced, appears in only two or three scenes; but, during these, we hear so much of the solemnity and impressiveness of his manner, the gravity of his brow, the steadiness of his gaze, that we get the notion of a rather oppressive personage, and sympathize with the satisfaction of the Whartons, when he retires to his own room, and relieves them of his tremendous presence. Mr. Gray, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various |
