"Imagined" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a portion of country from sixty to seventy miles in length, by sixty miles in breadth. According to the signification of the name, M. Michaux had imagined that he should have to cross a naked space, scattered here and there with a few plants; but he was agreeably surprised to find a beautiful meadow, where the grass was from two to three feet high. He here discovered a great ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... and sickness, hope and fear; In griefs imagined, never known, Its current flowed, my heart to cheer; And light ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... you disliked about it was this. It made you see men and women, not as you imagined them, but as God made them. You saw, that is, the naked human soul, stripped of the clumsy draperies that Puritanism wraps round it. You saw below the surface—below the top-dressing of education, below the solid layer of traditional morality—deep down to the primitive passions, ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... their wearied minds, by travelling and change of scene, as we children of modern civilization possess. No ships had then been fitted up for passengers, nor public carriages established, nor roads opened extensively, nor hotels so much as imagined hypothetically; because the relation of xenia, or the obligation to reciprocal hospitality, and latterly the Roman relation of patron and client, had stifled the first motions of enterprise of the ancients; in fact, no man travelled but the soldier, and the man of political authority. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... fancied all that has occurred was previously planned; instead of regarding it, as it truly is, as merely the result of political events that no man could have foreseen, that no man had originally imagined, or that ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... perceive, now, that the drawbridge was up, the portcullis down, and all the bars and shutters of the castle in place. Moreover, in the outer darkness in which he moved, he imagined there roamed lions and wolves and ravening beasts—and he with no guide but Judge Blodgett, who stands there in the lobby, so ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... 24th, ascending by a rugged broken track to the highest point of the pass, where we came upon a fort surrounded by a small belt of cultivation divided into fields by hedgerows abounding with wild roses. I could hardly have imagined the road practicable for camels, but the cautious though unwieldy animals eventually succeeded in surmounting all difficulties, and arrived late at our encampment near a village called Topechee, the whole distance being ten miles and a half. From the crest of the pass to Topechee was a gradual ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... who did not believe them could not be Christians. When therefore they found that I looked upon their theories as erroneous and unscriptural, they pronounced me at once an erratic and dangerous man. I imagined, at first, that I could bring these people to see things in a different light. I had such faith in the power of plain Scripture passages, and in the force of common sense, and was so ignorant of the power of prejudice, and of peculiarities of mental constitution, that I conversed and ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... know any real unit? I never saw, nor so much as imagined any by the report of my senses. Let me take, for instance, the most subtle atom; it must have a figure, length, breadth, and depth, a top and a bottom, a left and a right side; and again the top is not the bottom, nor one side the other. Therefore this atom is not truly ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... the sovereigns of France and Sardinia walking down that ball-room together, little imagined what would be the ultimate consequences of their alliance—the establishment of the Italian kingdom, then of the German Empire, with the siege of Paris, the Commune, and the total destruction of the building that dazzled us ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... this simple-minded old man was more precious to Mr. Tryan than any mere onlooker could have imagined. To persons possessing a great deal of that facile psychology which prejudges individuals by means of formulae, and casts them, without further trouble, into duly lettered pigeon-holes, the Evangelical curate might seem ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... at him swiftly. He had added the last item almost as an afterthought. She imagined that he had embellished the old tale from his own recent experience, and, further, that Mr. Alan Howard was making fun of them and was no adept ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... government by which they formed themselves into a body politic, the day after their arrival upon the coast, and previous to their first landing. That is, perhaps, the only instance in human history of that positive, original social compact, which speculative philosophers have imagined as the only legitimate source of government. Here was a unanimous and personal assent, by all the individuals of the community, to the association by which they became a nation. It was the result of circumstances ...
— Orations • John Quincy Adams
... emerged from the restrictive policy adopted by all the belligerent governments, his dispatches came to be shared among a partnership which included the London Times—as odd an arrangement for a man like Tomlinson as could well be imagined. It would be foolish to attempt an estimate of his correspondence from France. It was beautiful copy, but it was not war reporting. To those of us who knew him it remained a marvel how he could do it at all. But there was no marvel in the fact, attested by a notable variety ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... did her best to persuade her old friend that there were few openings for a man of his son's age, and that if the Micklethwayte business were all that Mark imagined, it was not beneath the attention even of a well-born gentleman in these modern days, and would involve less delay than any other plan, except emigration, which was equally dreaded by each parent. Delay there must be, not only in order to ascertain the facts respecting the ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... replaced by that of two ft. gauge, with 14 lb. and 19 lb. rails. There were quite as great difficulties as in the Turcoman campaign, and the country to be crossed was entirely unknown. The observations made before the war spoke of a flat and sandy country. In reality a more uneven country could not be imagined; alternating slopes of about 1 in 10 continually succeeded each other; and before reaching Kairouan 71/2 miles of swamp had to be crossed. Nevertheless the horses harnessed to the railway carriages did on an average twelve to seventeen times the work of those ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... Mr. Elliot entered. The young lads drew back in dismay; Mr. Elliot ran to embrace his son. "You see me here, my dear boy, sooner than you expected; but fortunately the business that called me hence, was concluded much earlier than I could have imagined." Some few minutes had elapsed, before George could gain courage to answer his father, at length he said, "you are convinced, my dear sir, that your company has always given me pleasure, but to day it causes me pain, for I have just been guilty of ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... they are too apt to be neglected till the complaint has considerably increased. But in this state no time should be lost in resorting to skilful advice, as the danger attending these small tumours is much greater than is usually imagined. ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... for their service. She by no means pretends to have composed a regular system of morals, or a finished plan of conduct: she has only endeavoured to make a few remarks on such circumstances as seemed to her susceptible of some improvement, and on such subjects as she imagined were particularly interesting to young ladies, on their first introduction into the world. She hopes they will not be offended if she has occasionally pointed out certain qualities, and suggested certain tempers, and dispositions, as peculiarly feminine, ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... crops mainly, and the cheapest way to grow them. The experiments under consideration show that richness of land may be purchased much too dearly, and that richness of crop by no means bears the necessary relation to richness of soil which has sometimes been imagined. We may boast of the 'lasting qualities' of our dung, but the answer of science by these experiments is, that so great is the last that the life of one man may not be long enough to exhaust it. In the extravagant use of dung, therefore, ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... placed a hand of steel, encased in a silken glove, upon her heart, and tyrannically suppressed its yearnings. She was a victim, with the outward show of conquest over her feelings. In the consciousness of Philibert's imagined indifference and utter forgetfulness, she could meet him now, she thought, with equanimity—nay, rather wished to do so, to make sure that she had not been guilty of weakness in regard to him. She looked up, but was glad to see her aunt still engaged in conversation with the Bishop on a topic ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... He imagined she must have guessed his thoughts; he fancied (for those who are in love are so constituted, they are as credulous and blind as poets or prophets), he fancied she knew how ardent was his desire to see her, and ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... one, adieu. Some wiseacre has guessed the secret which I had fondly imagined was known to God and to myself only. And yet, Therese, I have never even told myself how passionately I love you! My eyes must have betrayed me to others; for since that happy day at Sclionbrunn when I kissed the rose which had ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... somewhat more, it seemed to me Terrible as the lightning he descended And snatched me upward even to the (sphere of) fire Therein it seemed that he and I were burning, And the imagined fire did scorch me so That of necessity my sleep was ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... first in these quiet streets, playing with the village boys and looking for nests in the church-steeple and in the woods. I imagined him in his little room, leaning his elbows on the table, and watching the rain beating on the window-panes and the clouds passing above the curtain, while his dreams flew away. I thought of the bitter loneliness of youth, with its intoxications, its nausea, and its bursts of love that sicken the ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... armies were opposing France the hopes of the emigrants revived. They falsely imagined that the powers coalesced against Napoleon were labouring in their cause; and many of them entered the Russian and Austrian armies. Of this number was General Dumouriez. I received information that he had landed ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... telling a lye, and that by God himself, in the midst of a company of people. But if Gods threatning of Liers with Hell-fire, and with the loss of the Kingdom of Heaven, will not prevail with them to leave off to lie and make lies, it cannot be imagined that a relation of temporal Judgements that have swept liers out of the World heretofore, should do it. Now, as I said, this Lying was one of the first sins that Mr. Badman was addicted to, and he could make ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... spot might be imagined. To the left, as you faced towards Jersey, was a long sand-bank. Between the rocks and the sand- bank shot up a tall, lonely shaft of granite with an evil history. It had been chosen as the last refuge of safety for the women and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... [Greek: zaemioo], when used, as in this passage, in the aorist tense, has the signification of bringing loss or ruin upon one's self. Both these thoughts are lost in Mr. Sawyer's translation; and a more tame, insufficient, and tautological rendering than his could scarcely be imagined. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... at length, upon a plain, the view across which was as dreary as can be imagined; in many places without a tree, save a few old stumps left by the natives when they fired the timber, some of which were still smoking in different parts of it. Observing some lofty trees at the extremity ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... heedlessly mistakes the absurdity in question for a self-evident truth which does not even ask for closer examination. The misery that follows war and disease now becomes—and is treated as if it must be so, as if it cannot be imagined otherwise—a condition in which it is easier to obtain a supply of food, since—thus will the veil of orthodoxy have it—misery is produced only by over-population. Since men suffer want because they are too numerous, it ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... he fell into the posture of a person who listens; he seemed to think that he heard an order, and thereupon hastened with a wax-candle in his hand, to a spot where a light usually stood. As soon as he imagined that he had lit the candle, he walked with it in the proper manner, through the salle, down the steps, turning and waiting from time to time, as if he had been lighting some one down. Arrived at the door, he placed himself ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... imagined, Gregory's party had traced the Thomson River to its head. I did not suppose this river was it. I determined, as we had used the most of our stores, to leave the river if possible and start for the settled ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... be unconscious. It is one of the qualifications for his magistracy. Other qualifications are equally easy. He must have done nothing, expressed nothing, imagined nothing. He must be obscure, insignificant and mediocre—in thought, act, speech and sympathy. He must know nothing of art, of life—and of himself. For if he did he would not dare to be what he is. Like that much questioned and mysterious bird, the phoenix, he sits amongst ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... the world's relapse, when things were not so bad, [Footnote: Similarly he places the ideal society which he describes in the Critias 9000 years before Solon. The state which he plans in the Laws is indeed imagined as a practicable project in his own day, but then it is only a second-best. The ideal state of which Aristotle sketched an outline (Politics, iv. v.) is not set either in time or in place.] and exhibits its gradual deterioration, through the successive stages ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... choller, leste she should collar me also." The first coach appeared in the streets of London in Elizabeth's time and the sight of it "put both horse and man into amazement; some said it was a great crab-shell brought out of China; and some imagined it to be one of the Pagan temples, in which the Cannibals adored the divell." The extravagance and luxury of the feasts which were given on great occasions by the nobility were not attended by a corresponding advance in ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... he was exceedingly pleased with the proposal, since Jugurtha himself, within the last three years, had been adopted as joint-heir to the throne." This repartee sunk deeper into the mind of Jugurtha than any one imagined. From that very time, accordingly, being agitated with resentment and jealousy, he began to meditate and concert schemes, and to think of nothing but projects for secretly cutting off Hiempsal. But his plans proving slow in operation, and his angry feelings remaining ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... fancies among books by Lady Gregory, by AE., by Dr. Douglas Hyde, by John Synge, and by myself. His work which seems today so much on the outside, as it were, of life and daily interest, may yet seem to those students I have imagined rooted in both. Did not the Maeterlinck of 'Pelleas and Melisande' seem to be outside life? and now he has so influenced other writers, he has been so much written about, he has been associated with so much celebrated music, he has been talked ...
— Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsay • Lord Dunsany
... that we looked like two shadows. Panna Lolla had come after Janchu and taken him into Count S——'s room. We imagined the excited curiosity of the rest of ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... It may be imagined how large in proportion to its inhabitants will be a town which spreads itself in this way. There are great houses left untenanted, and great gaps left unfilled. But if the place be successful, if it promise success, it will be seen at once that ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... course, Pierre understood not a word. He could only smile and stroke the little fair head. When he spoke to her in his own language the child gazed at him in wide-eyed wonder, and at last laughed gleefully and began to pat his face, talking a lot of baby gibberish, such as she imagined Pierre was addressing ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... and judged from the tenor of his speech that he would be an easy victim. As he knew, Dick very seldom was concerned in any street fight,—not from cowardice, as he imagined, but because he had too much good sense to do so. Being quarrelsome, like all bullies, and supposing that he was more than a match for our hero, being about two inches taller, he could no longer resist an inclination to assault him, and tried to plant ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... guess what ailed Joseph, and kept him restless all night. He imagined the tale the bourgeoisie of Issoudun would tell of him. They would say he had fleeced his uncle; that he was everything but what he had tried to be,—a loyal fellow and an honest artist! Ah! he would ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... catch every syllable that was uttered in the cavern below, and could deal out his proscription and his vengeance accordingly upon all who might dare to dispute his authority or to complain of his cruelty. Or they may have imagined, perhaps, that he would be impatient to visit at once the sacred fountain of Arethusa; and the seat of those Sicilian Muses whom Virgil so soon after invoked in commencing that most inspired of all uninspired compositions, which Pope has so nobly paraphrased ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... family crimes, had hid herself in so humble a quarter. Sometimes I pictured the occupant of the chamber as the suffering daughter of some miserly parent, with trace of noble blood—filial, yet dependent in her degradation. Sometimes I imagined her the daughter of shame—the beloved of a doating, and too late repentant mother—shunning the face of a world that had seduced her with its smiles, and that now made smiles ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... to run with quicksilver, instead of blood. Every cheek was glowing. Every eye flashed with superb joy and defiance. You would have supposed, indeed, that the troops were under the effect of champagne or laughing gas. "I never even imagined such courage," said a Federal officer afterward; "your men seemed to be drunk with victory ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... utterly amazed to cry out or run. He stood inside the most titanic edifice he could have imagined, a single gigantic structure vaster than all New York City. Far overhead swept a black roof fading into the horizon, beneath his feet was the same metal substance. In the midst of this giant work soared ...
— Raiders of the Universes • Donald Wandrei
... lonely, deserted old place. Had it not been for the old sign that said "Bewarr," it must have been a great playground for children—for their picnics, and their hide-and-seeks, and their games at Indians. But the ferocious animals imagined by the old Revolutionary were as efficacious against trespassers as a cordon of police. And I remember to this day, I can feel still, the very-thrill of that wild surmise with which I followed Mary and my sister over the stone wall and into those forbidden ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... trifle sad. The boy was less completely given back to her than she had fondly supposed. This day was after all to introduce a new order. And the woman always pays. She was to pay for that advance, so was the devoted handmaiden, Clara. Still the boy must have his way—were it even towards a merely imagined good. ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... have had no supper when he came home last night," Charlotte said—"no supper, for he evidently was not going to the inn, and the fire was out. How dreadful it would have been for him!" She imagined perfectly her father's sensations of delighted surprise and relief when he espied her, to welcome him, when he felt the warmth of the fire, when he smelled the supper. The pure delight of a woman over the comfort which she gives a child or a man whom she loves was ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... impatiently. And with a swift smile which was so faint, so elusive that it was gone before he could be sure that he had not imagined it, "I thought that you were going—that we were going ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... blowing hard at E.N.E. Had they seen the island, as I must necessarily suppose they did not, they must, as I thought, have endeavoured to have saved themselves on shore by the help of their boat; but their firing off guns for help, especially when they saw, as I imagined, my fire, filled me with many thoughts: first, I imagined that upon seeing my light, they might have put themselves into their boat, and endeavoured to make the shore; but that the sea going very high, they might have been cast away: other times I imagined that they might have ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... I had fondly imagined that after reaching Natchez my difficulties would have been over; but I very soon discovered that this was a delusive hope. I found that Natchez was full of the most gloomy rumours. Another Yankee raid ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... three horsemen followed a course one mile south of ours, close against the foot of the hills. Lying low upon their ponies' heads, they probably imagined that they were passing us unperceived. Seeing that our bearings were for our old camp at Lama Chokten, they left our line and rode ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... at dinner, and she rose from the table rather unsatisfied after her half-plate of watery soup, her delicate little befrilled chop and dab of French pease, her tiny salad and spoonful of dessert, she never imagined that she was defrauded. Rose had a singularly sweet, ungrasping disposition, and an almost childlike trait of accepting that which was offered her as the one and only thing which she deserved. When there was ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... anything his conscience tells him he is stealing. If desire is strong enough he steals a wife, and eventually suffers for it. For, though he may not have broken a real law, he has broken an imagined one and in his own mind he deserves punishment and in his own mind he gets it. "As a man thinketh so is he," and what he is determines what ...
— Happiness and Marriage • Elizabeth (Jones) Towne
... the most conspicuous, by means of his dress, was Mr Aresby, a captain in the militia; a young man who having frequently heard the words red-coat and gallantry put together, imagined the conjunction not merely customary, but honourable, and therefore, without even pretending to think of the service of his country, he considered a cockade as a badge of politeness, and wore it but to mark his devotion to the ladies, whom he held ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... ye, they, fright the soul. 890 In person taller than the common size, Behold where Barry[71] draws admiring eyes! When labouring passions, in his bosom pent, Convulsive rage, and struggling heave for vent; Spectators, with imagined terrors warm, Anxious expect the bursting of the storm: But, all unfit in such a pile to dwell, His voice comes forth, like Echo from her cell, To swell the tempest needful aid denies, And all adown the stage in feeble murmurs dies. 900 What man, like Barry, with ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... and absorbed, so that she had of late never found an opportunity for the cozy chats that had formerly meant so much to them both. There had been too, recently, a strange lack of consideration for herself that had wounded her more than she had imagined. Today there had been a glaring example of it in his having left her alone upon the boat without a single European companion—something that he would never have thought of doing ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... amongst its habitues. Many of these have been diplomats, and Voisin's knows that ambassadors do not care to have their doings, when free from the cares of office, gossiped about. When I first saw Voisin's, it looked as unlike the house of to-day as can be imagined. I was in Paris immediately after the days of the Commune and followed, with an old General, the line the troops had taken in the fight for the city. In the Rue St-Honore were some of the fiercest combats, for the regulars fought their way from house to house down this street to turn the positions ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... to officers elected by lot: and thus the kingly power was preserved, and became the preserver of all the rest. Had the constitution been arranged by the original legislators, not even the portion of Aristodemus would have been saved; for they had no political experience, and imagined that a youthful spirit invested with power could be restrained by oaths. Now that God has instructed us in the arts of legislation, there is no merit in seeing all this, or in learning wisdom after the ...
— Laws • Plato
... Ilu-bid), king of Hamath—a usurper like Sargon himself—had rebelled, and had persuaded the cities of Arpad Zimira, Damascus, and Samaria to cast in their lot with his, and to form a confederacy, by which it was imagined that effectual resistance might be offered to the Assyrian arms. Not content merely to stand on the defensive in their several towns, the allies took to the field; and a battle was fought at Kar-kar or Garrrar (perhaps one of the many Aroers), ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... in several long poems which Sabina caused to be engraved on the stone of the colossus. The poetess imagined herself as hearing the voice of Memnon singing to his mother Eos while her tears, the fresh morning dew, fell upon the image of her son, fallen before the walls of Troy. These verses she composed in the Aeolian dialect, named herself as their writer ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... real at once over all the sounds her mind had imagined, came a stir in the thicket, then a vigorous movement. There was a snap. The reeds crashed heavily, once, twice, thrice, and then everything was still save a measured swishing. She heard a low tremulous ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... the most improbable of combinations and wanton deeds of violence; he was constantly on the lookout for misfortune, litigation, and shame; he rejoiced at every failure, and was delighted with oppression, whether at home or abroad. He hung with unqualified joy on the imagined ruins of imaginary disaster, and took equal pleasure in the actual debacles of life as it was lived about him. And alongside of this innate and at times unexpressed gruesomeness and bloodthirstiness, ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... would follow if the axis of the earth varied. The oscillation of the earth's axis may arise in two distinct ways; distinguished as "nutation of the axis'' and "variation of latitude.'' Nutation, the only form of oscillation imagined by Bradley, postulates that while the earth's axis is fixed with respect to the earth, i.e. the north and south poles occupy permanent geographical positions, yet the axis is not directed towards a fixed point in the heavens; variation ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... that I was stretched in Guildhall with the two giants sitting on my chest, and drinking rum toddy out of firemen's buckets—fancied the Board of Aldermen were transformed into skittle-pins, and the police force into bottles of Harvey's sauce. Tried to squeak, but couldn't. Then I imagined that I was changed into the devil, and that Alderman Harmer was St. Dunstan, tweaking my nose with a pair of red-hot tongs. This time, I think, I did shout lustily. Awoke with the fright, and found my wife pulling my nose vigorously, and calling me "My Lord!" Pulled off my nightcap, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... than he had imagined, and for one fearful moment, as he stood poised on the topmost rung, he thought that all was over. It seemed impossible that they should ever reach the ground except by tumbling off the ladder. By a superhuman effort, however, he managed to drag her out, and then clasping her waist ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... beginning of their acquaintance, had admired the young minister quite as deeply as Serviss imagined, and had humbled herself before Adele as to a very wonderful lady of the mysterious outer world, whose deportment, dress, and speech had been sources of enlightenment; and when she passed away, the land of the shadow became just that ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... made answer. "Though I must say you gentlemen 'aven't been a bit what I imagined detectives to be. When you first come down, you know, I spotted ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... the whip over Bengal's nose, the cruel lash cutting the tender snout with every blow. But he was not doing it from sheer cruelty, as many of the spectators who raised their voices in loud protest imagined. ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... her quarter's allowance was spent in dress, and Lily soon found that the only chance of keeping her out of debt was to spend her own time and labour in her behalf; and what an exertion of patience and kindness this required can hardly be imagined. Emily did indeed reward her skill with affectionate thanks and kind praises, but she interfered with her sleep and exercise, by her want of consideration, and hardened herself more and more ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the advance guard of the Fenians rushed up and surrounded the tavern, flushed with apparent victory, and wild with excitement. They presented such an appearance as I certainly shall not soon forget. They were the most cut-throat-looking set of ruffians that could well be imagined. Supposing me to be the landlord, they immediately demanded liquor. In vain I urged that I was as much a stranger as themselves. Their leader presented a revolver at me, and ordered me behind the bar; every decanter was empty. They insisted that I had hid everything away. I examined every jar, ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... with unobstructed fury, and the only fuel to be had was a few green bushes. As night fell a decided change of temperature added much to our misery, the mercury, which had risen when the "Norther" began, again falling to zero. It can be easily imagined that under such circumstances the condition of the men was one of extreme discomfort; in truth, they had to tramp up and down the camp all night long to keep from freezing. Anything was a relief to this state of things, so at the first streak of day ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... belief grows that the Volunteers may be able to hold out much longer than had been imagined. The idea at first among the people had been that the insurrection would be ended the morning after it had began. But to-day, the insurrection having lasted three days, people are ready to conceive that it may last for ever. ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... It may easily be imagined that this ramble was an interesting one, and was prolonged until the tide drove them into their tower of refuge. Every rock, every hollow, called up endless reminiscences of the busy building seasons. Ruby went over it all step by step with somewhat of the ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... ever deposed the shepherd from the first place in Elizabeth's favour, it must not be imagined that he was her only lover. The daughter of the hot-blooded Peter and the lusty scullery wench had always as great a passion for men as the second Catherine, who had almost as many favourites in her boudoir as gowns in her wardrobes. She had her ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... outline, it may be imagined that the Topinards, to use the hackneyed formula, were "poor but honest." Topinard himself was verging on forty; Mme. Topinard, once leader of a chorus—mistress, too, it was said, of Gaudissart's predecessor, ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... horse reached the sea, waterless and frightful to behold—although the horse was guarded with very great care—it (suddenly) vanished at the very spot (it stood upon). Then, O respected sir! those same sons of Sagara imagined the same fine horse to have been stolen; and returning to their father, narrated how it had been stolen out of sight. And thereupon he addressed them, saying, 'Go ye and search for the horse in all the cardinal points.' ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... co-education. He made a statesmanlike reply, saying that the matter should receive his best consideration, but he feared the time was not ripe in Hunan. However, it was clear that the matter was within the sphere of practical politics. At the time, being new to China and having imagined China a somewhat backward country, I was surprised. Later on I realized that reforms which we only talk about can be ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... cried out to us from the pavement, "You will get yourselves cut to pieces." I vaguely imagined that some collision was about to ensue, and that, either from the crowd or from the Army, the spark would fly out. I hoped for a sword-cut from the soldiers or a shout of anger from the people. In short I had obeyed rather an instinct than ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... if this inferno of misery were not enough, there were added the refugees! These were not Belgians, as I had imagined, but French. It appears that both English and French armies have to clear the civil population out of the whole fighting area—partly to prevent spying and treachery, (which has been a curse to both armies,) and partly because they would starve. They ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... wrote to the latter describing the reception of his invention, and was invited to his house. The doctor was out when he arrived at Lichfield, but Mrs. Darwin received him, and after some conversation on books and prints asked him to drink tea. He discovered later that Dr. Darwin had imagined him to be a coachmaker, but that Mrs. Darwin had found out the mistake. 'When supper was nearly finished, a loud rapping at the door announced the doctor. There was a bustle in the hall, which made Mrs. Darwin ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... correct comprehension of the manners and customs of the Huns, and had therefore imagined that her position as wife and Queen would be quite otherwise than it proved to be. Only this morning she had learnt that she could not appear at all at the marriage feast, nor share the throne, but would simply ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... when she led him into the library that evening after dinner, to show them how nice he looked, just before the Party came. She held him by one hand, quite as if she had been a fond mother exhibiting an only child whose toilette was solely of her personal making. One could easily have imagined her actually responsible for the cut and fit of ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... on talking for a long while, talking about the widest range of subjects; and their flight across the moonlit country, which grew darker by-and-by, as that tender light waned, seemed swifter than. Clarissa could have imagined possible, had the train been the most desperate thing in the way of an express. She had no vulgar commonplace shyness, mere school-girl as she was, and she had, above all, a most delightful unconsciousness of her own beauty; so she was quickly at home with the stranger, listening to him, and ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... insignificant railway station lying in the middle of as dreary a bit of veldt as can well be imagined. A clump of low kopjes run almost parallel to the railway on the right, and to ascend these hills our men had to advance over an absolutely level plain devoid of any cover save an occasional big stone or an anthill (precarious rampart!) or the still feebler shelter of a bush two feet high. In ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... the division of England into the two great parties of Roundheads and Cavaliers? In those days, every species of vice and iniquity was thought by the Puritans to lurk in the long curly tresses of the Monarchists, while the latter imagined that their opponents were as destitute of wit, of wisdom, and of virtue, as they were of hair. A man's locks were the symbol of his creed, both in politics and religion. The more abundant the hair, the more scant the faith; and the balder the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... up of strength he took quiet mastery of the situation. He kissed her tenderly, but sadly, not such a kiss as either could ever have imagined ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... that epoch, people still imagined that a wedding was a private and social festival, that a patriarchal banquet does not spoil a domestic solemnity, that gayety, even in excess, provided it be honest, and decent, does happiness no harm, and that, in short, it is a good and a venerable thing that the fusion of these ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... behind him sits John Haynes, the son of Squire Haynes, introduced in our last chapter. He is nearly two years older than Frank, and about as opposite to him in personal appearance as can well be imagined. He has a thin face, very black hair is tall of his age, and already beginning to feel himself a young man. His manner is full of pretension. He never forgets that his father is the richest man in town, and can afford to give him advantages superior ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... it?" she asked. "She chatted on—quite cheerfully as I remember it. And I—I stumbled round and fell into a chair, cold and trembly and sick with the awful horror of blindness, for the first time in my life. I thought I had imagined before what it was to be blind—just by shutting my eyes for a second. But as I sat there in the blackness, and listened to that girl chatter, and realized that it had never occurred to her to light a lamp—then for the ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... Pritty was a light weight, else had he that day ended his career in the jungles of Borneo. As it was he went down like a shock of corn before the scythe, grasped Miss Pritty in an embrace such as she had never before even imagined, and proceeded to punch her ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... never beheld a more squalid, uncivilized, ferocious-looking people. A grin of savage curiosity, or a cannibal scowl, seems almost universally to disfigure features which are none of the best or cleanest; and their whole appearance is as direct a contrast as can well be imagined, to the hale, honest Norman, or le franc Picard, as he is proverbially styled. We turned our backs upon them with pleasure, after casting back one lingering look at the noble old Circus; and soon found ourselves in the ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... proceedings. These enthusiasts do not scruple to avow their opinion, that a state can subsist without any religion better than with one, and that they are able to supply the place of any good which may be in it by a project of their own,—namely, by a sort of education they have imagined, founded in a knowledge of the physical wants of men, progressively carried to an enlightened self-interest, which, when well understood, they tell us, will identify with an interest more enlarged and public. The scheme of this education has been long known. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to come back in the same ship with me and my wife! You couldn't do it. The Fields wouldn't receive you." Gordon bethought himself whether this imagined rejection might not arise rather from the character of his travelling companions. "To bring back the mother of three little sainted babes, and then to walk in upon every shilling of property which had belonged to their father! You never could ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... Scotland are to have a large measure of local government next year; but Ireland is to wait till a more convenient season. A more complete reversal of the policy proclaimed last summer by the so-called Unionists cannot be imagined. ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... two eldest sisters, which hung over our dining-room chimney-piece, had also been engraved, and was a great favourite, under the title of "The Abercorn Children." Landseer was a most delightful person, and the best company that can be imagined. My father and mother were quite devoted to him, and both of them always addressed him as "Lanny." My mother going to call on him at his St. John's Wood house, found "Lanny" in the garden, working from a ladder on ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... action, he was ready to move before even his would-be conquerors, in those slow-going days, imagined he had thought of resistance. Money and men were raised, the alliance of England and Holland were secretly obtained, a council of defence was appointed to govern Sweden during the absence of the king, and on the twenty-third of April, 1700, two months before his eighteenth birthday, ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... can be imagined than that from the barren desert to the fertile plains below; oleanders and geraniums greet us with their welcome smiles; grapes, pears, peaches, all in profusion; we are indeed in the Italy of America at last, ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... chin had become as pointed "as the toe of a sabot" (as she was in the habit of saying), her profile was not spoiled by time; and it was easily imagined that in her youth it had been regular and pure, like the saints' adorning ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... for nothing more was seen of the indignant fellow, and the boys made up their minds that he was only a swindler who had imagined that as he had only boys to deal with he would obtain a watch ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... aroused in response to certain so-called ideal states of thought. The trend of mental growth toward constantly greater adequacy in its knowledge leads it to anticipate conditions when its attainments will be made complete. There are certain sorts of reality whose completeness, thus imagined, arouses in us emotional states of the greatest power and value. The thought of God gives rise to the Religious sentiment, that of the good to the Ethical or Moral sentiment, that of the beautiful to the Esthetic sentiment. These sentiments represent the most refined and noble fruitage of ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... such suddenness that one could almost have imagined the sun was permanently extinguished. Round the rim of the bay lights began to kindle, and presently (when the wind came off the land) strains of music floated out ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... by the Headmaster on March 2. The effect of such news coming without any previous warning can be imagined. The difficulty of commemorating the Diamond Jubilee year had seemed overwhelming and this unexpected offer from Mr. Walter Morrison dissipated the troubles in a moment. In the second place a School Chapel had alone been wanting to complete the seclusion and privacy ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... exclaimed. "I did not trust Lassen, but I never imagined anything like this. He is an Austrian. Only a few hours ago I learned that he is one of their most heavily paid spies. Streuss got hold of him. But there, I forgot—you do not understand this. It is enough that he laid a plot to get that document from you. Where is it, Mr. ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... impracticable as possible for the Parliamentarians, Mr Lloyd George introduced a Bill to conscript Ireland at the very time the Convention proposals were before Parliament. A more callous indifference to Irish psychology could scarcely be imagined. A series of Sinn Fein victories at the polls had decided the fate of Partition once and for all. But the war exigencies of the Government were so great, the military situation on the Continent was so hazardous, ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... displaying all its horror. The snakes, whose venomous natures could not altogether sleep, kept twisting themselves over the forehead. It was the fiercest and most horrible face that ever was seen or imagined, and yet with a strange, fearful and savage kind of beauty in it. The eyes were closed and the Gorgon was still in a deep slumber; but there was an unquiet expression disturbing her features, as if the monster was troubled with an ugly dream. ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... have imagined that so unwieldy an animal could have exhibited such speed; no man would have had a chance of escape, and it was fortunate for our old Neptune that he was secure upon the high ledge of rock, for if he had been in the path of the infuriated beast. ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... tired and sleeping on my idle bed and imagined all work had ceased. In the morning I woke up and found my garden ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore
... somewhat of surprise on his face. He was a just man; and he and his wife had but recently discussed the plans (including personal sacrifices) by which Master Tom's advancement was to be secured. Really, that anything particular needed to be done for Nettie had hardly occurred to him. He had imagined her going on at the High School for another year, say, and then settling down as mother's companion. His desire not to be harsh, coupled with his unreadiness, led Mr. Anderson to temporise. "Well, little girl," he said, "you plod on, and we'll have a talk about it." Nettie was in a triumphant mood. ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... Henry Bannerworth on the occasion of this apparent defalcation from the path of rectitude and honour by his friend, as he had fondly imagined Charles Holland to be, would be next ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest |
