"Inimitable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of anger. Then she shrugged her shoulders with inimitable contempt and fixed her gaze on the opposite wall, assuming an air of boredom she was far ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... observations, in a collection of papers entitled Stage-land, had caused him to laugh several times, and to smile frequently, for the subject has not been so well touched since GILBERT ABBOTT A BECKETT wrote his inimitable Quizziology of the Drama, which for genuine drollery has never been surpassed. Anticipating, then, some side-splitters from Three Men in a Boat, the Baron sent for the work. He opened it with a chuckle, which, instead of developing itself into a guffaw ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various
... he said afterwards to Wharncliffe as they walked away from the door together, 'she was inimitable to-night; she has more roles than Desforets!' Sir John and his hostess were very ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... not larger than a single lump of sugar. As day followed day, and he traversed mile upon mile, more sugar lumps were visible; and, below their whiteness, the grayish distances grew into mountain shapes. Then he realized that at last he beheld the inimitable glory of the Rockies that swept in snow-tipped grandeur from ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... great—every one of which tends to make the nation which has it superior to the nation which has it not; that many of these advantages can be imparted to subjugated races, or imitated by competing races; and that, though some of these advantages may be perishable or inimitable, yet, on the whole, the energy of civilisation grows by the coalescence of strengths and by the competition ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... Roman statues and bas-reliefs representing festivals and sacrifices, and busts of Lorenzo the Magnificent, CosmoI., FrancisI., and of others of the Medici. Second vestibule, more Roman statuary, and an inimitable Greek figure of a wild boar; the whole expressing admirably the growling ire kindling in an irritated animal. Two exquisite wolf-dogs, bold, spirited, and true to nature. The horse, said to have belonged to the Niobes group, does ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... horses, and, as the scene was entirely new to several of their number, to view the manner of collecting the fluid. A fine, powerful voice aroused them from their momentary silence, as it rang under the branches of the trees, singing the following words of that inimitable doggerel, whose verses, if extended, would reach from the Caters of the Connecticut to the shores of Ontario. The tune was, of course, a familiar air which, although it is said to have been first applied ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... felicity of spacing, that absoluteness of balance, that variety and vivacity combined with monumental repose. The more his nature and training have made him a designer the more certainly he feels, before that single medallion of Poetry, that he is in the presence of the inimitable master of design. ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... hair lay a little bunch of black lace that called itself a bonnet, with black strings tied demurely under the chin. The abundance of character and dignity in the beauty which yet to-night was so young and glowing—the rich arresting note of the voice—the inimitable carriage of the head—Wharton realised them all at the moment with peculiar vividness, because he felt them in some sort as additions to his own personal wealth. To-night she was in his power, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Influence of Natural Objects, we have an inimitable Wordsworthian effect. Into the midst of his wild sport the voice of Nature steals, and subdues his mind to receive the impulses of peace and beauty from without. We involuntarily think of the boy he has celebrated, his playmate upon Windermere, ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... laughed at him, as he only could do; and when at last the unfortunate man came out with some observation about "false facts," O'Connell threw the whole court into a roar of laughter by directing attention to the bull, and by his inimitable imitation of his English accent. The jury could not agree, and the men were acquitted. Another trial came on next day, and it was then discovered that one of the approvers differed in most important matters from his statements ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... a history, than that one only should furnish the subject of it. The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality contained in the Gospel, the marks of whose truth are so striking and inimitable that the inventor would be a more ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... snarled Denver to his companion in that inimitable, guarded whisper. "How we ever coming back this way—in ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... shirt. This article, Kit really needed; and, in equal pace with his necessity, ran his anxiety that something should offer by which to obtain one. The reader may smile at this; and, so does Kit at this day, as he recounts the fact in his own inimitable style. But Kit says that to obtain a woollen shirt then, was, to him, no laughing matter. At a moment when he almost despaired of gaining employment, he received an offer to go as a teamster with an expedition bound to El Paso. This opportunity was a chance for success not ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... struck with it, that being at that time profuse of legendary lore, he inserted it in the shape of a note to Waverley, the first of his romantic offences. Had he then known, as he now does, the value of such a story, it is likely that, as directed in the inimitable receipt for making an epic poem, preserved in the Guardian, he would have kept it for some ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... genuine vitality and importance which has been exerted upon creative music—a singular but incontestable fact. As it is exerted by him it has an exquisite authenticity. Again and again one is aware that the "sheer, inimitable Celtic note," which we have long known how to recognise in another art, is being sounded in the music of this composer who has in his heart and brain so much of "the wisdom of old romance." With him one realises that "natural magic" ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... Ages, men like Saint Hugh and Peter the Venerable, and, most of all, Saint Francis, possessed by dreams of attaining to perfection, by leading lives of inimitable purity, self- devotion, and asceticism, inspired the community about them with the conviction that they could work miracles. They thereby, as a reward, drew to the Church they served what amounted to being, considering the age they lived in, boundless wealth. But the ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... his own, and so inimitable that a few months ago, an American, scanning, with his practiced eye, the galleries of the Louvre, recognized a fragment of the work of Phidias, long separated from the Parthenon frieze which Lord Elgin sent to London. The sculptor's touch ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... one who remembers the correspondence between Lovelace and Belford, and what passes in that infernal brothel, to which Clarissa was conducted, will at once perceive what I have in view. Equally admirable and just is this aphorism of our noble and inimitable poet. ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous
... have dreamed of borrowing the beloved pet name, Pixie's nose might not be to her approval; it might even scoop—to be perfectly candid, it did scoop—but it had never yet been put out of joint. The one and only, the inimitable Pixie, she still lived enthroned in the hearts of her brothers and sisters, as something specially and ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... attainted the Duke of Marlborough, at the same time personally loved Mr. Churchill, even though his private character was blemished by sordid avarice, the most unamiable of all vices. He had wound up and turned his whole machine to please and engage. He had an inimitable sweetness and gentleness in his countenance, a tenderness in his manner of speaking, a graceful dignity in every motion, and an universal and minute attention to the least things that could possibly please the least person. This was ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... was going to say above all is that I don't care that poor Lorraine—since that's my wife's inimitable name, which I feel every time I write it I must apologize even to myself for!—should quite discover the moments at which, first and last, I've worked HER off. Yet I've made no secret of my cultivating it as a resource that helps me to hold out; this ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... unanimated nature, and in many of his finest poems most beautifully he has enforced it. His thoughts are original and his style new and unborrowed: all that he has written is distinguished by a happy carelessness, a bounding elasticity of spirit, and a singular felicity of expression, simple yet inimitable; he is familiar yet dignified, careless, yet correct, and concise, yet clear and full. All this and much more is embodied in the language of humble life—a dialect reckoned barbarous by scholars, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... part of most Scotsmen against the Doctor's taste in this particular. A Finnon haddock dried over the smoke of the sea-weed, and sprinkled with salt water during the process, acquires a relish of a very peculiar and delicate flavour, inimitable on any other coast than that of Aberdeenshire. Some of our Edinburgh philosophers tried to produce their equal in vain. I was one of a party at a dinner, where the philosophical haddocks were placed in competition with the genuine Finnon-fish. These were served round without distinction ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... difficulty of the position. Talleyrand, in similar circumstances, had already replied, 'You are very inquisitive, my dear fellow!' To imitate the inimitable great man was out of the question.—La Palferine, generous as Buckingham, could not bear to be caught empty-handed. One day when he had nothing to give a little Savoyard chimney-sweeper, he dipped a hand into a barrel of grapes ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... very hard, says, 'You will have it, father; well, then, egad! it is Pascal.' 'Pascal,' says the father, all blushes and astonishment; 'Pascal is as beautiful as the false can be.' 'False,' replied Despreaux: 'false! Let me tell you that he is as true as he is inimitable; he has just been translated into three languages.' The father rejoined, 'He is none the more true for that.' Despreaux grew warm, and shouted like a madman: 'Well, father, will you say that one of yours did not have it printed in one of his ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... addressed by the young to the young; only the great masters of the art are capable of divining, or think it worth while to enter into, the feelings of retrospective age. The two great poets whom we have so lately lost, Tennyson and Browning, have done this, each in his own inimitable way; the one in the Ulysses, from which I have borrowed; the other in that wonderful fragment "Childe Roland to the dark ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... Belle Julie was still churning the brown flood in the majestic reaches of the lower river. Down on the fore-deck the roustabouts were singing. It was some old-time plantation melody, and Charlotte could not catch the words; but the blending harmony, rich in the altogether inimitable timbre of the African song-voice, rose above the throbbing of the engines and ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... Nod," with words and music; a splendid story by Washington Gladden, "A Christmas Dinner with the Man in the Moon," the illustrations of which rival Dore's; "King Arthur and his Knights," by Sidney Lanier; one of Frank R. Stockton's inimitable FAIRY STORIES; the "Treasure Box of Literature," etc., etc.;—in ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... fine-looking, lithe and active, and, as they clothe but little, their forms are seen to great advantage. The women are, I think, beautiful—not so much in face as in form and carriage. I am never weary of watching and admiring their inimitable grace of movement. Their faces are oval, their foreheads low, their eyes dark and liquid, their noses shapely, but disfigured by the universal adoption of jewelled nose-rings; their lips full, but not thick ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... of old stories of past or present experiences, of humor, of suggestion, even of prophecy, as by its very wealth makes it impossible to give any taste of it.' The description is by one of his daughters; and she adds a touch which is inimitable in its fidelity and tenderness. 'He was not,' she says, 'a reassuring man for nervous people to live with, as those nights were exceptional on which he did not set something on fire, the commonest incident being for some one to ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... it ourselves?" said Desire, with inimitable unwittingness. She was so utterly and wholly in the vision, that she left her present self standing there on the rock with Christopher Kirkbright, and never even thought of a reason why to blush ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... back to the night in Barbizon when Carthew told his story, and asked him what was done about Bellairs. It seemed he had put the matter to his friend at once, and that Carthew had taken to it with an inimitable lightness. "He's poor and I'm rich," he had said. "I can afford to smile at him. I go somewhere else, that's all—somewhere that's far away and dear to get to. Persia would be found to answer, I fancy. No end ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sonorously devolving the vacuous Alexandrines with which he once welcomed his ephemeral French emperor from Algiers. The little man is dim with distance, eclipsed and swallowed up by the shadows and grotesque fragments of the ruin in the midst of which he stands. But his voice—thanks to the inimitable constructive art of the ancient architect, which, even in the desolation of at least thirteen centuries, has not lost its cunning-emerges from the pigmy throat, and fills the whole vast hollow with its clear, if tiny, sound. Thank heaven, there is no danger of Roman resurrection here! The ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... who stamped across the hall, and crawled up-stairs hand over hand, and stamped across the upper entry, and pounded on Gypsy's door, and burst it open, and slammed in with one of Winnie's inimitable shouts. ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... twisted into such miserable intricacy, that even when the language is retained word for word, it ceases to convey its genuine meaning. The crowd which these tragedies attracted, especially from their affording an unusual room to the inimitable Talma for the display of his art, must be looked upon as no slight symptom of the people's dissatisfaction with their old works, and the want of others more ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... to overcome the more palpable difficulties of his profession. The execution of the best artists is always a splendid tour-de-force, and much that in painting is supposed to be dependent on material is indeed only a lovely and quite inimitable legerdemain. Now, when powers of fancy, stimulated by this triumphant precision of manual dexterity, descend uninterruptedly from generation to generation, you have at last, what is not so much a trained artist as a ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... prominent part of his teaching, and that he was now beginning a somewhat new method of instruction is evident from the fact that the disciples now asked him to explain his meaning, v. 9, and from the fact that he here gave the reason for the use of all his parables. This reason is twofold: these inimitable illustrations would enable those who were attentive and rightly disposed toward him to remember more easily the teachings of the Master; while to inattentive or hostile minds the meaning would be veiled. V. 10. This twofold purpose met the demands of the crisis ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... literary merit. [110] The sciences of physic and astronomy were successfully cultivated by the Greeks; the observations of Ptolemy and the writings of Galen are studied by those who have improved their discoveries and corrected their errors; but if we except the inimitable Lucian, this age of indolence passed away without having produced a single writer of original genius, or who excelled in the arts of elegant composition. The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools; and their systems, transmitted with blind deference ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... will surely be "the English Bible" for many long days yet. Unless you have before you some special difference between the two Versions, on which you can stop to speak explicitly, quote the familiar (and inimitable) diction ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... inimitable. The more I compare the different handwritings which fall in my way, the more am I confirmed in the idea that they are so many expressions, so many emanations, of the character of the writer. Every country, every nation, every city ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... great deal younger, Duncan thought, than when they had been classmates, what time Duncan shared his rooms with Kellogg: very much younger and suffering exquisitely from over-sophistication. His drawl barely escaped being inimitable; his air did not escape it. "Smitten with my old trouble," Duncan appraised him: "too much money... Heaven knows I hope he ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... your early experiments, you will be much struck by two things: the first, the inimitable brilliancy of light in sky and in sunlighted things; and the second, that among the tints which you can imitate, those which you thought the darkest will continually turn out to be in reality the lightest. Darkness of objects ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... after-dinner and occasional speaker Dickens was rarely equaled; and as an actor upon the amateur stage, in plays of his own composition, he was inimitable. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... 'Dombey and Son' was the outlet for that curious psychology of Dickens which could get the best out of a pathetic incident by approaching it from a grotesque angle. It came, as Chesterton points out in his own inimitable way, 'into the inner chamber by coming down the chimney.' Which demonstrates the ever nearness of pathos to humour, of ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... were to be connected together by links; the reader was to take an interest in the movement and progress of the journey to and fro; and the poem was to have a middle as well as a beginning and an end:—the beginning being the inimitable "Prologue" as it now stands; the middle the history of the pilgrims' doings at Canterbury; and the close their return and farewell celebration at the Tabard inn. Though Chaucer carried out only about a fourth part of this plan, yet we can see, as clearly as if ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... time, rather strange to say, he read St. Augustine's Confessions, and with the delight that might have been expected. He finds in that famous composition 'a good deal of prolix and fanciful, though acute speculation, but the practical parts of the book have a wonderful force, and inimitable sweetness and simplicity.' In other departments of religion, he read Archbishop Leighton's life and Hannah More's, Arnold's Sermons and Milner's Church History and Whewells Bridgewater Treatise. ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... fellow rapped at my door. He had wandered into the wrong pew, for his words were obviously intended to hurry up a brother officer with whom he was to take the morning ride to the firing line. Sticking his curly, sunburnt head around the corner he drawled in inimitable British intonation:- ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... journal came to be in the Chamber of Horrors. It was a poser for Kim. His old yellow face wrinkled into a thousand dark creases, in the lantern's dim light, and his shrewd, beady eyes wandered uncertainly between the book and my face. But at last he remembered, and in his forcible and inimitable ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... of the czar was an old man named Sotof, a drunkard of inimitable powers of imbibition, and long a butt for the jests of the court. He had taught the czar to write, a service which he deemed worthy of being rewarded by the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... to M. de Bussy, the style is less familiar, the heart less open, the soul less stirred; she writes to her daughter as she would speak to her—it is not a letter, it is an animated and charming conversation, touching upon everything, embellishing everything with an inimitable grace." ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... a curve toward the east, traveled at high speed through the rest of the night, Tayoga now leading and showing all his inimitable skill as a forest trailer. In truth, the Onondaga was in his element. His spirits, like Robert's, rose as dangers grew thicker around them, and he had been affected less than either of his comrades by the terrible ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... up a window (up on the American Continent, not down as with us) and sat in the full draught of the night-air. A pleasant young Irishman named Martin, a near relative of the Miss Martin who collaborated with Miss Somerville in the inimitable Experiences of an Irish R.M. noticed this. "By Gad! that fellow will get fever if he sits in the draught from the swamps. I'll go and warn him." I told Martin that the South American spoke no English. "That's all right," cried Martin. ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... introductions. We are presented in the very first chapter to the hero, the young schoolmaster, about to be tarred and feathered by a brutal mob. And a real hero he proves himself in his gentleness, conscientiousness, and manly moral and physical courage. Carl, the German boy, is an inimitable picture of young German life and character. Toby, the house negro, is, in his mingled stupidity, cunning, and faithfulness, drawn to the life. Nor are the negroes of the cave less excellent. Events ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... to mingle among the "higher classes" without being struck by their indifference to every phase of British art,—except portraiture. "Have you been to the Exhibition? Are there many nice miniatures? are the portraits good? Lady D.'s lace is perfect; Mrs. A.'s velvet is inimitable." Such observations strike the ear with painful discord, when the mind is filled with memories of those who are brave or independent enough to "look forward" with creative genius. There are many noble exceptions among our aristocracy; but with far too great a number ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... six odes we must rank (a) the fragment of the 'May Ode,' immortal on account of the famous passage of inimitable beauty descriptive of ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... excellent work for the French people besides furnishing a popular school and an inimitable pleasure resort: it assures the preservation of approved varieties of fruits, grains, animals. Whoever questions the absolute purity of his stock, from a garden herb up to an Arabian steed, can place this beyond question by substituting those furnished by the Society of Acclimatation. Eggs of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... This is inimitable, like all the best of Hood's puns. To the ear it is perfect, but so soon as you attempt to realize it to yourself, the mind is involved in an inextricable confusion of comical non sequiturs. And yet observe the gravity with which the ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... again actuated by the Principles of Libertinism, is finely set before us by Belford's Writings. And as there is a great Beauty throughout the whole of Clarissa, in the specific Difference of Stile preserved by every Writer, so is there an inimitable Beauty in Belford differing from himself, when he changes the State of his Mind; his Stile accompanies that Change, and he appears another Man. He was always more of the true Gentleman in his Stile than Lovelace, because his Will was ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... and deftly touched with a gentle humor. It is a dainty book—daintily illustrated."—New York Tribune. "A wholesome, bright, refreshing story, an ideal book to give a young girl."—Chicago Record-Herald. "An idyllic story, replete with pathos and inimitable humor. As story-telling it is perfection, and as portrait-painting it is true ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... makes a mistake, never makes anything," said Mr. PHELPS, the American Minister, in the course of a farewell after-dinner speech. Happening to be re-reading Mr. SURTEES' inimitable Soapy Sponge, we find that Mr. Bragg, when applying for the situation of Huntsman to Mr. Puffington, remarked, "He, Sir, who never makes an effort, Sir, never risks a failure," which is just the premiss to Mr. PHELPS'S ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891 • Various
... there was nothing for it but to crawl upon them, roaring as a lion. Bursting in upon them in their strong-hold under the table, I was met by the staid but amused gaze of a reverend gentleman. Frequently afterwards did I see and hear "Lewis Carroll" entertaining the youngsters in his inimitable way. ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... like to identify the house which the creator of Paul Dombey had in mind when he painted the inimitable portrait of Mrs. Pipchin, "ogress and child queller," whose castle "was in a steep bye street.... where the small front gardens had the property of producing nothing but marigolds, whatever was sown in them; and where snails were constantly ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... Mrs. Child-Sargent and Professor Kittredge (1905), the learned professor writes, "Kinmont Willie is under vehement suspicion of being the work of Sir Walter Scott." Mr. Kittredge's entire passage on the matter is worth quoting. He first says—"The traditional ballad appears to be inimitable by any person of literary cultivation," "the efforts of poets and poetasters" end ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... her humorous and inimitable way on The Authority of Women to Preach the Gospel of Christ in Public Places. Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery (Penn.) under the title What's in a Name? told of the efforts that were being made by the conservative ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... With this inimitable sketch, we take leave of the Khan for the present, shortly to return to his ideas of men and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... pleasure that we see Dr. Johnston's translation of the Psalms revived in so elegant a manner, and adorned with such a just and learned display of its inimitable beauties. As we flatter ourselves that the character we gave it, in our first volume of the Universal History, did, in some measure, contribute to it, we hope, that in justice to that great poet, you will permit us to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... and straightway returned to Egypt and the cotton season:—we had the supreme satisfaction, however, to hear that he had gone through the long quarantine at Tor. Yet after our return he reproached me, with inimitable coolness and effrontery, for not having ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... a glimpse into the more refined life of the court. In the famous memoirs of Saint-Simon, the weaknesses of the king, as well as the numberless intrigues of the courtiers, are freely exposed with inimitable skill and wit. ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... for their Heads, Necks, Arms and Legs, whose Tinctures are unconceivable. I had a Set of these presented to me, and I gave 'em to the King's Theatre; it was the Dress of the Indian Queen, infinitely admir'd by Persons of Quality; and was inimitable. Besides these, a thousand little Knacks, and Rarities in Nature; and some of Art, as their Baskets, Weapons, Aprons, &c. We dealt with 'em with Beads of all Colours, Knives, Axes, Pins and Needles, which they ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... appearance. No tailor had ever suggested to him a coat so daring and yet so perfect as that which adorned the person of the Marquis de Sogrange. The deep violet of his tie was a shade unknown in Bond Street—inimitable—a true education in color. They had the bearing, too, these Frenchmen! He watched Monsieur de Founcelles bending over Violet, and he was suddenly conscious of a wholly new sensation. He did not recognize—could not even classify it. He only ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... different vein are "The Discipline of Christine" and "The Unequal Yoke," by Mrs. Barre Goldie and Mrs. H.H. Penrose respectively. In the former the ways and moods of childhood are depicted in original and inimitable fashion, which makes it safe to predict that the author will go far beyond her first effort as a novelist. In "The Unequal Yoke" Mrs. Penrose has taken for her theme the love story of a clergyman whose benefice is an Irish coast town, and in whose flock prominence is attained by narrow zeal rather ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... called a good fellow. It was not often that he told a story, but when he did, it was a good one, and it was clean. He had an inimitable way of telling anything, and his stories were all the more effective because they came at rare intervals. He did not cheapen them ...
— Frank Merriwell's Nobility - The Tragedy of the Ocean Tramp • Burt L. Standish (AKA Gilbert Patten)
... the 'Gates of Calais.' 'You are an artist, I presume; I noticed you from the end of the gallery, when you first stepped back to look at my best picture. I painted all the objects in this room from nature and still life.' 'Your Green-grocer's Shop,' said I, 'is inimitable; the drops of water on that savoy appear as if they had just fallen from the element. Van Huysun could not have pencilled them with greater delicacy.' 'What do you think,' said he, 'of my Butcher's Shop?' 'Your pluck is bleeding fresh, and your sweetbread ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... restraint, and I call you by the name under which you always appear to me in my longing dreams, why should you not be gracious, and forgive me? Be kind to me, Sally, be just a little kind, and throw together a pan of those biscuits in your own inimitable style!" ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... sensible, from the altered voice, constrained manner, and abrupt gestures of the Duke, that the game he had to play was delicate, and perhaps he more than once repented having ever taken it in hand. But repentance was too late, and all that remained for him was that inimitable dexterity of management, which the King understood equally at least with any man that ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... a guitar by one of the party, as we sat an hour later on the moonlit terrace, were enough to start off the versatile artist, who was in her gayest humor. She sang us stray bits of opera, alternating her music with scenes burlesqued from recent plays. No one escaped her inimitable mimicry, not even the “divine Sarah,” Calvé giving us an unpayable impersonation of the elderly tragédienne as Lorenzaccio, the boy hero of Alfred de Musset’s drama. Burlesquing led to her dancing ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... of Persian literature and history admirably equips him to enter into the life and spirit of the time of the romance, and the hosts of admirers of the inimitable quatrains of Omar Khayyam, made famous by Fitzgerald, will be deeply interested in a tale based on authentic facts in the career of the famous Persian poet. The three chief characters are Omar Khayyam, Nizam-ul-Mulk, the generous and high-minded ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... were Lavaud the sculptor and Francine, with the figure of a goddess; Moreau, who played the cello at the opera; little Louise Dumont, who posed at Julian's, and old Jacquemart, the very soul of good fellowship, who would set them roaring with his inimitable humor. ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... totally distinct from that they bear in Europe. This inflexibility in retaining the words of their own poor language has frequently made me think, that Doctor Johnson had the Chinese in his mind when, in that inimitable piece of fine writing which prefaces his dictionary, he made this remark: "The language most likely to continue long without alteration, would be that of a nation raised a little, and but a little, above barbarity, secluded from strangers, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... as the work is called, and compared it with the translations, which he declares to be very imperfect, as, from the specimens he gives, they undoubtedly are. Macaulay, who never saw the Latin text, owns to have taken a few touches from the passages quoted in the memoirs for his inimitable picture of affairs in the Highlands during the days immediately preceding Killiecrankie; but the passage recording the early gallantry of the conqueror at ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... reduced company we had two a week, and I feel sure that this was an improvement. No officer nor seaman, however, could have had too many of Ponting's lectures, which gave us glimpses into many lands illustrated by his own inimitable slides. Thus we lived every now and then for a short hour in Burmah, India or Japan, in scenes of trees and flowers and feminine charm which were the very antithesis of our present situation, and we were all the better for it. Ponting also illustrated the subjects of other lectures ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... which it can not be said they are entirely destitute. For to make themselves secure and commodious lodges, to interweave their nests with such art, to rear their young with such care, to teach them to shift for themselves when grown up, to hoard provisions for the winter, to produce such inimitable works as wax and honey, are instances perhaps of a glimmering of reason; but because destitute of speech, all the extraordinary things they do can not distinguish them from the brute part of creation. Let us consider dumb persons: how does the heavenly soul, which takes form in their bodies, ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... bobolink says in New Jersey, but in certain districts in this State his enunciation is quite distinct. Sometimes he begins with the word gegue, gegue. Then again, more fully, be true to me, Clarsy, be true to me, Clarsy, Clarsy, thence full tilt into his inimitable song, interspersed in which the words kick your slipper, kick your slipper, and temperance, temperance (the last with a peculiar nasal resonance), are plainly heard. At its best, it is a remarkable performance, a unique performance, as it contains not the slightest hint or suggestion, ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... us to admire with enthusiasm a multitude of inimitable contrivances in Nature, this same reason tells us, though we may easily err on both sides, that some contrivances are less perfect. Can we consider the sting of the wasp or of the bee as perfect, which, ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... figures as "Rudy Panko, the bee-farmer," in the two volumes of Little Russian stories which established his fame, narrated to him at least one-half of those stories. His father, also, who represented the modern spirit, was an inimitable narrator of comic stories, and the talents of father and grandfather rendered their house the popular center of ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... munificent patron of art, who died in 1565, have passed through the hands of many eager connoisseurs, always at advancing prices. The Grolier binding was notable for the elegant finish of its interlaced ornaments in gold-leaf, a delicacy of touch, and an inimitable flowing grace, which modern binders have struggled after in vain. At the Beckford Library sale in London, in 1884, there was a great array of fine French bindings of early date. A book from Grolier's library, the "Toison ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... the dilettanti in Europe, there was not so great a singer as herself. The most famous of the public performers scarcely could equal her. In the bravura she astonished! in the cantabile she charmed; her maestoso was inimitable! and her adagios! Oh! they were ravishing! killing. She indeed openly accused him of flattering her; but Signor Gridarini appealed both to his honour and his friends; the best judges in Europe, who as she well knew ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... implies stern necessity and a fine wish. I am reminded of a bridge in Berlin which the Germans have built with inimitable art and truth. There are four groups, each at a corner. On one an elderly man stands erect and writing. It is History, stern and real. At his side stands a boy, lithe and graceful. There are ideals just as much as Law in the affairs of men. On the other side of ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... the costume of the country were assembled before the gate of the chateau. The Emperor immediately went to the window; and, at sight of him, seventeen persons (seven men and ten women) began with inimitable grace a dance called 'la pamperruque', in which the women kept time on tambourines, and the men with castanets, to an orchestra composed of flutes and guitars. I went out of the castle to view this scene more closely. The women wore short skirts of blue silk, and pink stockings ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... . . . Yesterday we dined at Macready's and met quite a new, and to us, a most agreeable circle. There was Carlyle, who talked all dinner-time in his broad Scotch, in the most inimitable way. He is full of wit, and happened to get upon James I., upon which topic he was superb. Then there was Babbage, the great mathematician, Fonblanc, the editor of the EXAMINER, etc., etc. The day before we dined at Mr. Frederick ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... there reigned in her little court a decorum which the greatest princesses cannot achieve. She was not a prostitute, but a woman of unique personality with a little streak of genius in it. That she was inimitable we need not perhaps greatly regret. In her old age, in 1699, her old friend and former lover, Saint-Evremond, wrote to her, with only a little exaggeration, that there were few princesses and few saints who would not leave ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... order to keep the popular attention awake. Suppose a great actor moves from London to Windsor, the Brentford Champion must state that "Yesterday Mr. Blazes and suite passed rapidly through our city; the celebrated comedian is engaged, we hear, at Windsor, to give some of his inimitable readings of our great national bard to the MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AUDIENCE in the realm." This piece of intelligence the Hammersmith Observer will question the next week, as thus:—"A contemporary, the ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... bearing no small resemblance to the pet spaniel of my friend Master Dinely, he who stole the bone from the magpies, and who figures as the first Dash of this volume. Let not the unwary reader opine, that in assigning the same name to three several individuals, I am acting as an humble imitator of the inimitable writer who has given immortality to the Peppers and the Mustards, on the one hand; or showing a poverty of invention or a want of acquaintance with the bead-roll of canine appellations on the other. I merely, with my usual scrupulous fidelity, take the names as I ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... went the feet." That more Americano of Brookfield the younger is delicious with its fine insular flavor, but the holding up of Longfellow—the soul of gentleness, the prince of courtesy—as a bugaboo of bad manners is simply inimitable. It will take England years and years to detect the full unconscious humor ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... just taken it tenderly out of some old wardrobe where it lay folded in lavender, and a large dark bonnet, adorned with handsome black silk loops and bows. The extreme suggestiveness, and yet the taste and temperateness of this costume, seemed to me inimitable. The bonnet alone, with its handsome, decent, virtuous bows, was ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... this very letter, in reference to the very parts of Christ's work, on which faith is wont to rest for salvation,—the death on the Cross to which we say that we trust, and which we are so accustomed to exalt as a unique and inimitable work that cannot be reproduced and needs no repetition, world without end—Peter has no hesitation in saying that Christ was our 'Pattern,' and that, even when He went to the Cross, He died 'leaving us ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... part originally played, and excellently played, by Lady MONCKTON. Although probably accustomed to roles of a lighter kind, she was fairly equal to the occasion. As for her husband, as Demetrius, he was simply admirable and inimitable. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various
... mind returned to the memory of St. Aubert and to Valancourt, and tears stole to her eyes. The rays of the moon, strengthening as the shadows deepened, soon after threw a silvery gleam upon her countenance, which was partly shaded by a thin black veil, and touched it with inimitable softness. Hers was the CONTOUR of a Madona, with the sensibility of a Magdalen; and the pensive uplifted eye, with the tear that glittered on her cheek, confirmed the expression of ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... and regularity; the pillars are as distinct as if they had been reared by the hand of art; but it has not the extent or sublimity of the Scuir of Eigg. The one may be compared with the greatest exertions of human power; the other is characteristic of the wildest and most inimitable works of nature." "The height of this extraordinary object is considerable," says M'Culloch, dashing off his sketch with a still bolder hand; "yet its powerful effect arises rather from its peculiar form, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... unable to stand before a closed door without the wish to open it. The impulse, partly for good, partly for evil, is incontestable. Lois fairly longed to know what Tom and his sister knew in the fields of learning. And there were other fields. There was a certain light, graceful, inimitable habit of the world and of society; familiarity with all the pretty and refined ways and uses of the more refined portions of society; knowledge and practice of proprieties, as the above-mentioned classes of the world recognize them; which all seemed to Lois greatly desirable and becoming. ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... shouting, excited figures. They crowded towards the table at which the danseuse still stood. And just for a second—one fleeting second—her eyes showed a curious fear. She stood almost as one at a loss. Then in a flash her irresolution was gone. Her beautiful face smiled its own inimitable smile. The music of her laughter rang silvery through the tumult. She made a dainty gesture of acceptance, of acknowledgment, of friendly appreciation; then ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... Contemplative Man, who wrote an answer to Coelebs, coming into a room, folding up his greatcoat, taking out a little pocket volume, laying it down to think, rubbing the calf of his leg with grave self-complacency, and starting out of his reverie when spoken to with an inimitable vapid exclamation of 'Eh!' Mudford is like a man made of fleecy hosiery: Roger was lank and lean 'as is the ribbed sea-sand.' Yet he seemed the very man he represented, as fat, pert, and dull as it was possible to be. I have not seen ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... out. I would visit Mun Eddings, who lived in two very dirty rooms, and ask why little Lugene, whose flaming face seemed ever ablaze with the dark-red hair uncombed, was absent all last week, or why I missed so often the inimitable rags of Mack and Ed. Then the father, who worked Colonel Wheeler's farm on shares, would tell me how the crops needed the boys; and the thin, slovenly mother, whose face was pretty when washed, assured me that Lugene must mind the baby. "But we'll start them again next ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... and listened, and were soon under his sway, watching his every gesture and thawing under his spell, as they watched the fine head thrown back with its inimitable poise, the back straight and stiff, the eyes aglow with the light of the seer, and the hands gracefully rising and falling to emphasize ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... deeply indented with the small-pox, and in every hole there was visibly ensconced a little imp of audaciousness. His eyes were such intrepid and quenchless lights of impudence, that they could look even Irish sang froid out of countenance. And then that inimitable wooden leg! It was a perfect grace. As he managed it, it was irresistible. He did not progress with a miserable, vulgar, dot-and-go-one kind of gait; he neither hopped, nor halted, nor limped; and though ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... crackajack*[obs3], giltedged; superfine, superexcellent[obs3]; of the first water; first-rate, first-class; high- wrought, exquisite, very best, crack, prime, tiptop, capital, cardinal; standard &c. (perfect) 650; inimitable. admirable, estimable; praiseworthy &c. (approve) 931; pleasing &c. 829; couleur de rose[Fr], precious, of great price; costly &c. (dear) 814; worth its weight in gold, worth a Jew's eye; priceless, invaluable, inestimable, precious as the apple of the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... reading. "Extremely," he replied. "The American Impressions of Tyrone Power, the English actor, through eighteen thirty-three and four. His account of a European packet with its handbells and Saratoga water and breakfast of spitch-cock is inimitable. I'd like to have sat at Cato's then, with a julep or hail-storm, ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... leaving a sudden sullen gray, the little square room, littered with an upheaval of excelsior, sheet-shrouded furniture, and the paperhanger's paraphernalia and inimitable smells, darkening and seeming ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... living influence on the manners and the age! There was Betterton, in wig and gown,—as Cato, moralizing on the soul's eternity, and halting between Plato and the dagger. There was Woodward as "The Fine Gentleman," with the inimitable rake-hell in which the heroes of Wycherly and Congreve and Farquhar live again. There was jovial Quin as Falstaff, with round buckler and "fair round belly." There was Colley Cibber in brocade, taking snuff as with "his Lord," the thumb and forefinger ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not pretend to have come up in my English, to that Life and Beauty of Erasmus in Latin, which as it is often inimitable in the English Language, so it is also a Task fit to be undertaken by none but an English Erasmus himself, i.e. one that had the same Felicity of Expression that he had; but I hope it will appear that I have kept my Author still in my Eye, tho' I have followed him passibus ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... appearance of a tall, well-made dancer, wearing a mask and an enormous black wig, the hair of which went half-way down his back, and dressed in a robe open in front and reaching to his heels. Patu said, almost reverently, "It is the inimitable Dupres." I had heard of him before, and became attentive. I saw that fine figure coming forward with measured steps, and when the dancer had arrived in front of the stage, he raised slowly his rounded arms, stretched ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... some compensation for our sisters' absence in their sprightly letters, which arrive while we are at the tea-table. Marguerite writes every day, and her letters are inimitable in their humor and esprit, for she writes exactly as she talks. She is visiting some friends whose acquaintance we made in Paris, and who have a beautiful country-seat upon Long Island. Her letters are filled with accounts of drives, fishing-parties, and excursions in yachts and row-boats, ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... heart, as I caught her glance. Nora was a woman to laugh and chat with; Nora was kind and gracious, and gentle too; Nora was amiable as well as witty; charming in manner, piquant in expression, inimitable at an anecdote, with never-failing resources, a first-rate lady-conversationist, if I may use so formidable a word—in fact, a thoroughly fascinating woman; but Marion!—Marion was one, not to laugh with, but to die for; Marion had a face that haunted you; a glance that made your heart leap, and ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... composed of dramatic sketches, odes, political satires, and miscellaneous pieces not generally contained in former collections of his works. Among these is the long and beautiful 'Lamia' in dramatic form; the 'Epping Hunt;' the poems of sentiment; the inimitable Odes and Addresses to Great People, and some scores of minor poems, mostly humorous, including, however, all of those on which his reputation as a true poet of the highest rank is based. Among these is the 'Lay of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... 30 having escaped. According to the Frenchmen's account of the battle, they lost two admirals, Bauchet, who was killed in action, and De Kernel, who was taken prisoner. King Edward behaved during the whole action with the most inimitable courage and conduct; regarding neither danger nor fatigue, he was always present where the battle ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... the "grass" but not the "splendour"—the "flower" but not the "glory." In depicting character, it is very different. His likenesses of men and women, so far as manners, external features, and the contrasts produced by the accidents of circumstances and the mutation of affairs, are inimitable. His power of complimenting is superior even to that of Louis XIV. He picks out the one best quality in a man, sets it in gold, and presents it as if he were conferring instead of ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... successive charges in a magazine gun, and always pertinently adapted to some passing event. It was refreshing to us correspondents, compelled as we were to listen to so much that was prosy and tedious, to hear this bright specimen of Western genius tell his inimitable stories, especially his reminiscences of the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... Irving's Sketch-Book, which contains the two classics, Legend of the Sleepy Hollow, and Rip Van Winkle, which are sometimes quoted as inimitable samples of local epics in prose. Cooper's Leather-stocking series of novels, including the Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneers, and The Prairie, are also often designated as "prose epics of the Indian as he was in Cooper's imagination," while some of ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... pretension to be compared with herself. From this picture, as from all the rest, Ottilie remained excluded. To sit on the golden throne and represent the Zeus-like monarch, Luciana had picked out the finest and handsomest man of the party, so that this picture was really of inimitable perfection. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the colonel was in his happiest vein, and by the time the coffee was served, had succeeded not only in entertaining the table in his own inimitable way, but he had drawn out from each one of his guests, not excepting the reticent Fitz, some anecdote or incident of his life, bringing into stronger relief the finer qualities ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... what do we ask of them? Is it to write in a particular style, in a given lucid style, a given figurative style, or a given dignified style? Nay, it is only very mediocre writers who could obey such precepts. Every supreme writer has his own style, inalienable and inimitable, which is as much a part of him as his own soul, the look in his eyes, or his tones of voice. Bethink yourselves of Carlyle, how his abrupt, crabbed, but withal sinewy and picturesque, prose compares with the pure crystalline ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker |
