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Impressive   /ɪmprˈɛsɪv/   Listen
Impressive

adjective
1.
Making a strong or vivid impression.
2.
Producing a strong effect.  Synonym: telling.  "A telling gesture"



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"Impressive" Quotes from Famous Books



... funeral than that of Henry V. He died at Vincennes, and with great pomp his body was brought by Paris to London. At every stage between Dover and London, and again at St. Paul's, and at the Abbey, funeral services were performed. The closing scenes were very impressive, as the funeral car, amidst a blaze of torches borne by hundreds of surpliced priests, and followed by his three favourite chargers, came up the nave to the altar steps. Room for the tomb was made by clearing away the holy relics behind the Confessor's shrine. Here was placed the magnificent ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... the dignity of their feelings by the pathetic and impressive manner in which they expressed them, which was by stamping and scraping majestically with their feet, when in the presence of the detested ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... populous neighborhood; the solemn silence which surrounds them at all times, shaded by a grove of lofty cedars surpassed only in size and height by the giants of the Yosemite, all tend to make them singularly impressive. The approach to the site is by a wide flight of many stone steps, black and moss-grown with the rains and dews of centuries, forming a grand example of ancient masonry, the large, uniform granite blocks so laid and bonded that, after resting there for ages, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... would have been pleased to find himself quoted in two impressive legal tomes of some 1800 pages. The great and laborious John Pitt Taylor could not have been wholly a legal dry-as-dust: for the man who could have gravely entered Bardell v. Pickwick in his notes and have quoted a passage must have had a share ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald

... only seemed to accentuate their absence at this important time of her life! She almost failed as she walked up with faltering step, but a glance at Cardo's sympathetic, beaming face restored her courage, and as she took her place by his side she regained her composure. Before the simple, impressive service was over she was quite herself again, and when Cardo took her hand in his in a warm clasp, she returned the pressure with a loving smile of confidence and trust, and received the congratulations of Gwynne Ellis and his ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... While he was never called or ordained to the ministry of the Church, he was in the habit of addressing the local religious assemblies or collegia from time to time, and, being a man of profound piety, his sympathetic and natural style of delivery made him an impressive speaker. He died in 1560, and his body was laid ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various

... with complete amiability. He is a pantheist, a mystic, and a visionary, with what would seem a literal and living faith in many gods, though strongly prepossessed in favor of the ancient divinities of the Gael, now long since in exile. Impressive and striking by a certain spiritual integrity, so to say, "AE" unites gifts and faculties seldom combined. He is a poet of rare subtlety, a painter in whose genius so good a judge as George Moore believed, and a most practical man ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... interest which is the stronger from the fact that the subject has already been interested in a different color. That is to say, the transition from color to color (only red and green were employed) seems to be more impressive than the transition from black to color. And, under the conditions of the experiment, the advantage of this more impressive transition lay always with the color which ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... an impressive silence, then the spiritual teacher, his voice vibrant with tenderness and faith, spoke these ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett

... her uncle Clement's arm, as most nearly representing a father to her, and the marriage blessing was given by the majestic-looking Bishop, with the two chief local clergy, Mr. William Harewood and Mr. Charles Audley, taking part of the service. It was a beautiful and impressive scene, and there was a great peace on all. It was good to see the intense bliss on Ivinghoe's face as he led his bride down the aisle, and along the cloister; and as they came into the drawing-room, after she had received ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... so that its deep flews swayed in the breeze, Desdemona broke into vocal mourning, in a long, deep, baying howl; a less eerie sound, perhaps, than the siren-like howl of an Irish wolfhound in distress, yet withal, in its different, deeper, more resonant way, a cry quite equally impressive. ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... were only possible when in rest camp, were peculiarly impressive. To assemble the men during daylight was out of the question; the services were therefore held under cover of darkness. Although attendance was voluntary there was almost invariably a good turn-out. None of us is likely ever to ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... conductor's toes. Over and above which, the post-horse, finding three hundred people whirling about him, will probably rear, and also lash out with his hind legs, in a manner incompatible with dignity or self-respect on his conductor's part. With such little drawbacks on my usually impressive aspect, I appeared at this Cornish Inn, to the unutterable wonder of the Cornish Miners. It was full, and twenty times full, and nobody could be received but the post- horse,—though to get rid of that noble animal was something. While my fellow-travellers and I were discussing ...
— The Holly-Tree • Charles Dickens

... of Farndale and Kirkdale comes as a surprise to those who visit Kirby Moorside for the first time, for the approach by road in all directions, except from the north, does not lead one to suspect the presence of such impressive landscapes, and from some points Farndale has quite a mountainous aspect. The moors no longer reach the confines of Kirby Moorside, as its name would suggest, for cultivation has pushed back the ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home

... took place on the fifth of June, 1918, the day on which was inaugurated the draft for the soldiers of the World War I. All over this land that evening speeches were delivered on the subject, but I think none could have been more effective or impressive than the one staged in Montrose Park at sunset. Then Newton D. Baker, as Secretary of War, in charge of the whole operation, "elected to speak to his neighbors." A wonderful speech it was, and I shall never ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker

... into the store-room. Three fat barrels occupy it in impressive rotundity. "Is this your little ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... I told him it would be frightfully crude, and it is. And yet, Wiggie, it's impressive, in its way... nobody can miss ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair

... of his attire. The fluttered and confused disposition of all the motley scraps that formed his dress, bespoke, in a scarcely less degree than his eager and unsettled manner, the disorder of his mind, and by a grotesque contrast set off and heightened the more impressive wildness ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... manner as a "nervous" one, but says that his lectures were very stimulating, leading one to infer that even if the delivery was not arresting or impressive, yet all this was made up for by the force and brilliance ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... Daily Picture world was aware that of late she had lived at the Grand Babylon Hotel in permanence. That world would not have recognised her from her published portraits, which were more historical than actual. Although conspicuously anti-Victorian she had a Victorian beauty of the impressive kind; she had it still. Her hair was of a dark lustrous brown and showed no grey. In figure she was tall, and rather more than plump and rather less than fat. Her perfect and perfectly worn clothes proved that she knew just how to deal with herself. She would look forty in a theatre, ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... wide chest, oval countenance, black eyes, and his dark brown hair set off the paleness of his brow. His imposing but modest appearance inspired at the first glance favour and respect. His voice clear, impressive, and full-toned; his majestic carriage, his somewhat mystical style, commanded the reflection, as well as the admiration, of his auditors. Equally adapted to the popular tribune or the pulpit, electoral assemblies or cathedral were alike too circumscribed in limits for the crowds ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... a few similarities to Margaret Fuller. His habit seems to have been to take a single incident in the life of a person, and to make that the chief one in a character. In this way his romances gained a realistic phase of a very impressive kind; but the character of a person as a whole he never copied. It is a strange comment on his powerful writing that so much should have been made of his superficial realism, while the persistent and profound romanticism of his work is too often overlooked. Yet this ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke

... moments—which were not many, for he always had an astonishing number of other things on hand. He was a full-grown male, bejewelled with blue spots. A fierce fighter was Alfonso (such was his name), and conspicuous for a most impressive manner of stamping his front foot when impatient. Concerning his other virtues I know little, for I learnt no details of his private life save what I saw with my eyes, and they were not always worthy ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas

... showed its head. Sawyer supported their herculean efforts with bursts of stentorian laughter. As Mark explained, not without a touch of pride, inferior jokes never fared so royally before. But his hour of humiliation was at hand. On delivering a bit of serious matter with impressive unction, to which the audience listened with rapt interest, he glanced involuntarily, as if for her approval, at his friend in the box. He remembered the compact, but it was too late—he smiled in spite ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson

... Somehow, those superfine Christian names and that aristocratic surname had prepared him for a rather magnificent person, young, probably, because the dead man might be of his own age within a year, but decidedly impressive. He had gone so far as to imagine her an actress, of the sinuous, well-rounded type, who would address him in a deep contralto, and, if and when she fainted, would sink gracefully on to a couch ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... they rode to the fortress and wandered through its gloomy, impressive galleries, seeing little of the armament because visitors are barred from the real fortifications. The fortress did not seem especially impregnable and was, taken altogether, a distinct disappointment ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... indifferent spectator of the setting Sun as it descends beneath the waves at the far horizon, could hardly be unmoved by the pageant of Nature at such an impressive moment. ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion

... was a little hush as the paper passed from hand to hand. Not a man there but felt a certain solemnity in the occasion. To preserve the Union and the flag, to fight all sedition, to love their country and support it; the very simplicity of the words was impressive. And the mere putting of it into visible form crystallized their hitherto vague anxieties, pointed to a real enemy and a real danger. Yet, as Willy Cameron pointed out, they might ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... she said, "I like a politician who is in earnest. They are more amusing, and more impressive in every way. Who was the young man you spoke to in that little place where we had tea?" she asked ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... senseless. Mr. Sharpe and Sir Robert Percy pushed their way together out of court, disclaimed by all who had till now appeared as their friends. No farther evidence was offered, so that here the trial closed. The judge gave a short, impressive charge to the jury, who, without withdrawing, instantly gave their verdict in favour of the plaintiff, Lewis Percy—a verdict that was received with loud acclamations, which not even respect ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... "the most impressive monument of ancient art," built by Pericles in 438 B.C. It was adorned by statues and monuments by Praxiteles, Phidias and Myron. It had fifty statues, one hundred Doric columns, ninety-two metopes, and five hundred and twenty-four feet of bas-relief ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne

... details of the spot in which we had settled, and they made up a landscape, which, if it can be more than rivalled in other parts of the Principality, has yet a characteristic and impressive beauty. The following extract may serve, for lack of a better rendering, to describe how the scene looked to the eyes of someone who watched it on a June afternoon from the grassy slopes ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine

... strangely moved. There was something impressive in the restrained passion of Elisabeth's speech, a certain primitive grandeur in her envisagement of the relationship of ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... Richard and his wife, a few days later, at the Casino at Cannes. The change in the two young people was most impressive. Fedora had lost the dignified aloofness of Monte Carlo. She seemed as though she had found her girlhood. She was brilliantly, supremely happy. Richard, on the other hand, was more serious. He took Hunterleys on one side as they ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... upon theirs. It is the only way a man without a carriage has to command attention from such. Irwan was not one of this sort. He was a country servant, for one difference. But Hugh made his address as impressive as possible. ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... and Adele had been sitting under the shade of an odorous balm poplar, on the skirt of the crowd, at first watching its movements, and then drawn away from these observations, by the impressive discourse ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage

... another line of argument, and say that it is necessary to punish some particular crimes with death, in order to maintain the security of society, or hold up an impressive warning to others, here also we find that our opponent has full as much to offer in defence of our fathers as can be offered in our own defence. He describes to us the tremendous and infernal power which was universally believed by them ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... in an impressive fashion which was intended to say, "Better class! Hark to that now! That's the place for us!" As for me, I was torn between amusement at the rank snobbery of it all, and a tender pity for the pathos that lay behind! Poor ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... by Mr. D. Fitzgerald in the Revue Celtique, iv. 181, but without the significant and impressive horns. He refers to Cornhill for February 1877, and to Campbell's "Sauntraigh" No. xxii. Pop. Tales, ii. 52 4, in which a "woman of peace" (a fairy) borrows a woman's kettle and returns it with flesh in it, but at last the woman refuses, and is persecuted by the ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... it up, the pleasant, smiling, trim little city of Foix, and its chateau rising romantically above it, form a delightful prospect. Well preserved, well protected and forever free from further desecration, the chateau de Fois is as nobly impressive and glorious a monument of the Middle Ages as may be found in France, as well as chief record of the gallant days of the Comtes de Foix. Foix' Palais de Justice, built back to back with the rock foundation of the chateau, is itself a singular piece of architecture ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... would break out again into those wild imprecations of frenzied anger which the brothers had heard him utter before; but by a violent effort he checked the vehement flow of words that rose to his lips, and replied with a calmness far more really impressive: ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... to him in such awe, not only because he was her father, but because he was so much a man among men, a giant, with a great, lumbering mind, slow to conceive, but moving in a large, impressive way when once conception came. To her he had been more than father; he had been a patriarch, a leader, a viking, capable of the fury of a Scythian lord, but with the tenderness of a peasant father to his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... full chorus in description of the aims of the new religion. The poem ends with the choral, "How lovely shines the Morning Star!" Then follows the sublime scene from Matthew xvi. 14-18, where Peter declares his master to be "the Christ, the Son of the living God,"—one of the most impressive scenes, we have always thought, in the gospel history, and here not inadequately treated. The feeling of mysterious and awful grandeur awakened by Peter's bold exclamation, "Thou art the Christ," is powerfully rendered by the entrance of the trombones upon the inverted subdominant ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... throw his arm over the shoulder of the skeleton beside him and take its hand, as if its silent companionship were an inspiration. To me his lectures before his small class at Jermyn Street or South Kensington were almost more impressive than the discourses at the Royal Institution, where for an hour and a half he poured forth a stream of dignified, earnest, sincere words in perfect literary form, and without the assistance of ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... sun and air, mountain and lake. Here, as in England, trees especially appealed to him, and in the famous garden of the Isola Madre on Lago Maggiore he amazed the gardener by his acquaintance with all the collection, from the various kinds of cypress and cedar down to the least impressive shrub. But what gave him most pleasure was the actual journeying, awakening not only associations with the places seen, but memories of other places in far-off corners ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... hand waved towards him; his turn had come, and he sprang into the ring with the acrobat's conventional bow and gesture. After trying his ropes carefully, he swarmed up to the trapeze; the music of the band slowed down, and became impressive. In almost breathless silence, Derrick and the audience watched the man as he went through his performance. It was an extremely clever and daring one, and he brought it to a close by turning a double somersault as he left one trapeze and caught the other, a feat which ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice

... collected courage of a brave man more impressive than any menace; and courage is a thing which acts upon all natures, however vile. Strongly moved by the calm audacity of the magistrate the ruffian, who had seized the knife with menacing vivacity, now set it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... taking of testimony did not begin until the 9th of February. A contemporary description of the Senate chamber shows that the apostles of Republican simplicity, with the pomp of the Warren Hastings trial still fresh in mind, were not at all averse to making the scene as impressive as possible by the use of several different colors of cloth: "On the right and left of the President of the Senate, and in a right line with his chair, there are two rows of benches with desks in front, and the whole ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... charts, but we were satisfied that it was placed at least five miles too far south. The Maatzuyker Isles, a group a few miles to the south-east of this cape, are also incorrectly laid down. The view of this headland was of a very impressive and remarkable character, and to add to the usual effect of its lonely and solitary grandeur, a heavy sea still vexed and swelling from the turbulence of the recent gale, was breaking in monotonous regularity against its white and aged ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes

... countries in 1971 resulted in East Pakistan becoming the separate nation of Bangladesh. Fundamental concerns in India include the ongoing dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir, massive overpopulation, environmental degradation, extensive poverty, and ethnic and religious strife, all this despite impressive gains in economic ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... the night with a few paragraphs; the morning, with its divine service in the parlor, went quickly and impressively; for it IS an impressive sight to see gathered beneath those towering cliffs a hundred or more of pleasure and health seekers of different creeds worshipping heartily and simply together, as accordantly as though they knew no differences and all men were possessed ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs

... and displaying the blade laid it against the victim's throat. That is to say, the man became at first dimly, then definitely, aware of an impressive coincidence—a relation—a parallel between the face on the card and the name on the headboard. The one was disfigured, the other described a disfiguration. The thought took hold of him and shook him. It transformed the face that his imagination had created behind the coffin lid; the contrast became ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce

... So impressive and so compelling were these words that instinctively the patrol leaders rose to their feet and stood at salute. In an instant every scout had joined them, and the Scout Master ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler

... with the trees, was laid bare. We do not believe that the dove brought the olive leaf intentionally, but by the command of God, who wanted to show Noah, little by little, that he had not altogether forgotten but remembered him. This olive leaf was an impressive sign to Noah and his fellow-prisoners in the ark, bringing them courage and hope ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther

... it may well be understood, produced the deepest interest. In him they recognized a man superior to the clamor of vulgar gratification; his indifference to gain, to luxury, and every form of display, his constant preference of the spiritual over the sensual, was always an impressive example to them. The indigent student took fresh courage as he saw in him to what a narrow compass exterior wants might be reduced; the man of fashion and the fop stood abashed before the simplicity of his dress and daily life. And wherever the spirit of classic literature had been imbibed, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... ordered to march on, and looking over the crest of the hill a strange and impressive sight met the eye. Only about 300 men had attacked the train, and I had thought that this was the enterprise of a separate detachment, but as the view extended I saw that this was only a small part of a large, ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... enough for him that he should have them accept an ordinary book admittedly written by himself. There was nothing overpoweringly impressive in that. What he wanted was a stone tablet on which his code should be engraved, as was the famous code of Hammurabi, which he probably knew well, and this engraving must putatively be done by God himself, to give it the ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... were a major, sir," said Hector, catching only the last, and, to a soldier's ear, the most impressive word in the sentence,"but, without money or interest, there is little ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... spoke admirably. His presence, too, did not lend itself to oratory; short and thickset, and careless in his dress, he formed a contrast to the romantic figure of D'Azeglio. Yet his prosaic face, when animated, gave an impressive sense of that attribute which seemed to emanate ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... spirit, attacked this encroaching line of fire like men whose homes and lives and ideals had been threatened with destruction. Kurt's mind worked as swiftly as his tireless hands. This indeed was being in a front line of battle. The scene was weird, dark, fitful, at times impressive and again unreal. These neighbors of his, many of them aliens, some of them Germans, when put to this vital test, were proving themselves. They had shown little liking for the Dorns, but here was love of wheat, and so, ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... variation, the impression was still painfully impressive. Dumoulin, wishing to cut short this gloomy subject, exclaimed: "Devil take the dead, and long live the living! And, talking of chaps who both live and live well, I ask you to drink a health most dear to our joyous ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... and in the impressive reception room, interested faces turned toward her. The girl who had acted sponsor for her nodded. She tasted the first fruits of success, and they were sweet. The only imperfection was the fact she could not tell Jarvis. She could not brag of her triumphs nor repeat the ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke

... an upsurge of productivity and impressive evidence that American industry will once again become competitive in markets at home and abroad, ensuring more jobs and better incomes for the Nation's work force. But our confidence must also be tempered by ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... morality can look after itself, but he doubts whether "Christian charity" will survive "Christian theology." This furnishes Mr. Watkinson with a sufficient theme for an impressive sermon. But his notion of "Christian charity" and Mr. Justice Stephen's are very different. The hard-headed judge means the sentimentalism and "pathetic exaggerations" of the Sermon on the Mount, which he has since distinctly said would destroy society if they were fully ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... place in the southern ports, instead of receiving their first impressions of Cyprus by an introduction to this lovely coast. I was never afloat on the northern side, but the view must be strikingly impressive, as the trees, ever green almost to the water's edge, shadow the rocky coves, and clothe the surface to the base of the mountains, whilst, at a short distance from the land these must appear as though rising abruptly from the sea. The castles upon the extreme summits form unmistakable ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... discourses—denunciations fulminated without disguise against the Pope and priests of Rome, against the Medici, against the Florentines themselves, in whom the traces of rebellion were beginning to appear. Mingled with these vehement invectives, couched in Savonarola's most impassioned style and heightened by his most impressive imagery, are political harangues and polemical arguments against the Pope. The position assumed by the friar in his war with Rome was not a strong one, and the reasoning by which he supported it was marked by curious ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... was still the champion of a national cause. Blinded by their sympathies of race to the danger involved to all nationalities alike by the restoration of absolutism, the Czech majority, in spite of a singularly impressive warning given by a leader of the German Liberals, refused a hearing to the Hungarian representatives. The Magyars, repelled by the Assembly, sought and found allies in the democracy of Vienna itself. The popular clubs rang with acclamations for the cause of Hungarian ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... the darkness; and the same instant, like phantoms, they were gone. Sometimes three at a time would thus aspire and vanish; sometimes a gust took them, and the spray would fall about us, heavy as a wave. And yet the spectacle was rather maddening in its levity than impressive by its force. Thought was beaten down by the confounding uproar; a gleeful vacancy possessed the brains of men, a state akin to madness; and I found myself at times following the dance of the Merry Men as it were a tune upon ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that I might despatch her for the leech; not that I thought anything could be done, but for my own comfort and greater satisfaction afterwards, and that my mother might not die without some fitting attendance. The house remained quiet, however, with that impressive quietness which sobers the heart at such times, and I could not do this. And about six o'clock my mother ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... heads against the cornice of the wide, closed fireplace and, in spite of the flies which buzzed around them, had fallen asleep, awoke. The vender of indulgences in the black cowl interrupted the impressive speech which he was delivering to the people who surrounded his coffer. This group also—soldiers, travelling artisans, peasants, and tradesfolk with their wives, who, like most of those present, were waiting for the vessel which was to sail ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... statements: First, they are not mere figures of rhetoric. They are explicit declarations. If language means anything these words announce a literal fact. In some of Christ's own statements the literalism is if possible still more impressive. For instance, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond

... an impressive antiphon, starting with the knights, ascends higher and higher, and, calling in gradually the voices of invisible singers in the middle height, becomes metamorphosed into an angelic canticle as it takes its flight to the summit. ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... each other—fashioning them alike, and keeping them so. What this rule is does not matter so much. A good rule is better than a bad one, but any rule is better than none; while, for reasons which a jurist will appreciate, none can be very good. But to gain that rule, what may be called the impressive elements of a polity are incomparably more important than its useful elements. How to get the obedience of men is the hard problem; what you do with that obedience is ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot

... in the group of islets, and the massive buildings, that is hardly rivalled by the fascinations of any other harbour, that of San Francisco and the Golden Gates alone excepted. If you grant that the mere material of man's making is all very new, its power and dignity is no less impressive. Nor in any other city of the world that I know does the grandeur of the natural environment force itself so close to the very gates, as in this bay which Hudson claimed, and a Dutch colony took possession of so ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... they would not enter thoroughly into the spirit of the thing—women, even American women, are sometimes strangely deficient in the sense of humour. But they had both been struck by their host's impressive obsequiousness—a very orgasm of servility, which Pelletan had hitherto reserved for ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson

... seen his brother badly burned, surely does not need to have the fact still more clearly impressed upon his mind by experience. Yet in the majority of cases, it takes experience to satisfy him. By a kind of necessity which I cannot at this point stop to explain, I have had to learn some very impressive lessons of my life by the stern teacher, experience. Some people express a desire to live life over again, under the impression that they could make a better success of it on a second trip; such people are scarcely ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger

... ambiguous in form, so that they could be made to agree with the events that actually occurred. In most cases the authorities would know how to explain the issue in such a way as to maintain the credit of the oracle. The best-known and the most impressive of the utterers of oracles is the priestess of Apollo at Delphi, the Pythia. She occupied a commanding position in the Hellenic world (and beyond it), such as was enjoyed by few persons of the time.[1689] She was invested with special ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... made it hang down on one side, and, as she had been working in our garden, she wore huge gloves and carried a trowel in one hand. As she entered, my grandfather rose hastily from his chair and presented us with impressive courtesy. "Royal," he said, "this is your cousin, Beatrice Endicott." If he had not been present, I think we would have shaken hands without restraint. But he made our meeting something of a ceremony. I brought my heels together ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... utterance, but are not in themselves evidence either of sagacity or of courage. Roman fortitude was but a suit of armor to be worn on state occasions. If we come across a warrior with his crested helmet and his sword and his spear, we see, no doubt, an impressive object. If we could find him in his night-shirt, the same man would be there, but those who do not look deeply into things would be apt to despise him because his grand trappings were absent. Chance has given us Cicero in his night-shirt. The linen is of such fine ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... his cassock free from my fingers. My embrace had been fervid, and his cassock was rumpled, and his scant hair was stringing wildly from under his skullcap. But shrunken and tumbled as he was, he was impressive. With some men, if you disarrange their outer habit, you lower their inner dignity as well. It was not so ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... lamentable. Swift, writing upon the subject, remarked that he could see no harm in rogues and fools shooting each other. Addison and Steele took higher ground; and the latter, in the Guardian, summed up nearly all that could be said upon the subject in the following impressive words:—"A Christian and a gentleman are made inconsistent appellations of the same person. You are not to expect eternal life if you do not forgive injuries, and your mortal life is rendered uncomfortable if you are not ready to commit a murder ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... Violante maketh part of this strange mystery," she proceeded after a moment of impressive silence. "She and the great signal fire—of which no one knew aught!—so innocent were all the gentlemen of the court—and the Bernardini most of all! But they are parts of one romance; and the Violante came to influence ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... of his peculiar expression, as if he halted Morgan on ground that was dangerous to advance over as far as another word. It was impressive, almost threatening, given in his deep voice, with grave eye and face suddenly stern, but Morgan knew that it ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... into the narrow cleft which was the entrance to the ledge. As a representative of his species he was not impressive, and now with those shudders he could not master, shaking his thin body, he looked even smaller and more vulnerable. Shann drew his knees up close under his chin. The hood of his woodsman's jacket ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... squeezed themselves within the communion rail; and the choir seats were occupied by men in khaki, for the most part deplorably travel-stained and tattered. Soldiers sat on the pulpit stairs; and into the very pulpit khaki intruded, for I was there and of course in uniform. It was a most impressive sight, this coming together into the House of God of comrades in arms fresh from many a hard ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry

... even the leprous corpse does not, through various stages of decay, pass into absolute nothingness: on the contrary, its constituents take new forms, and subserve a re-growth of life, as in the flowers which bedeck the grave. From this single and impressive instance the poet passes to the general and unfailing law—No material object of which we have cognizance really dies: all such objects are in a perpetual cycle of change. This conception has been finely developed in a brace of early poems of Lord Tennyson, All Things will Die, ...
— Adonais • Shelley

... Sannaiyat,' said a wounded Seaforths' officer to me in the evening. The field-guns were well up from the start, and the 'hows' soon advanced. When the action began, the latter were half-a-mile behind us at the wall. It was an impressive sight, the smoke rushing out with each discharge, and then swaying back with the gun's recoil. But the guns were rarely stationary long, and we soon had the unwonted experience of finding ourselves well behind our own artillery. Finally, ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson

... there's nothing much to it," the colonel said. "He showed us a lot of impressive-looking stuff in his laboratory, but it didn't mean a thing. He had this suitcase, as I told you. There were a couple of thick copper electrodes coming out of the side of it, and he claimed that they could be tapped for tremendous amounts of power. Well, we listened, and we watched his demonstrations ...
— With No Strings Attached • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA David Gordon)

... turned to Staupitz. "What was the sum offered for our services?" He knew very well, for Staupitz had told him as they huddled together before, while the hand of Peyrolles was upon the latch, but he thought that it made the situation more impressive if ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... prolonged, though low, breath of admiring wonder testified to the impressive power, upon the children at least, of Theresa's new habiliments. The purple brocade was upon her; its full draperies swept the ground in gorgeous colouring; a necklace of cameos was bound with great ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell

... neighbour was the most honourable man in business that he knew, and far from being an atheist or even a deist, he had family prayers, and on the occasion of a death in the family, the funeral service was most impressive. He was one of the salt of the earth, and the atmosphere was clearer around him ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence

... his corner with a rush, getting home on the Battler's shirt-front and following it up with a right to the chin. Percy swung wildly and upset a bottle of champagne on a neighbouring table. A good rally followed, both men doing impressive in-fighting. The Cyclone landed three without a ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... misdeeds of others, it gives us pleasure to state that the present work is unexceptionable in this respect, while the cases possess extraordinary interest, and are replete with instruction. They afford much insight of human motives, and teach impressive lessons of the retributive justice of Providence, and the misery and evil of ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... here to write a history of those busy days, filled as they were with absorbing interest, with much that was pathetic and not a little that was amusing. I have seen that morning picture many times since, but never less beautiful, never less impressive. Nowadays, it is lost to most travellers because the crossing from Key West is made in the daytime, the boat reaching Havana in the late-afternoon. Sometimes there is a partial compensation in the sunset picture, but I have never seen that when it really rivalled the picture ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson

... to wander over the congregation as he spoke with a rich, clear voice, and with growing eloquence. The children had fixed their wondering eyes on his impressive figure, as he stood before them, crozier in hand and mitre on head. Mark found that he was growing more attentive, and liking the Bishop even better as the sermon went on. More than that, he found himself interested in the doctrine of Confirmation, a ceremony ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach

... of a current celebrity for practically anything he said to be impressive to young Sam Soligen. That youngster blinked. He said, "Well, gee, don't you believe in any gods at all? If you believe in any god at all, you gotta have a religious category, ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... March of that year. The showers of spring were falling, the mountain streams were flowing, the fields were putting on their soft verdure, the flowers were appearing in their beauty—all nature seemed to be breaking forth into holy laughter through her tears. How impressive this emblem of the memorable meeting, where earnest men prayed and wept and sobbed and sat in sadness and silence, in the presence of God confessing their sins! Then, with uplifted hands, they "made promise ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters

... following lines from a correspondent—besides the deep, quaint strain of the sentiment, and the curious introduction of some ludicrous touches amidst the serious and impressive, as was doubtless intended by the author—appears to us one of the most felicitous specimens of unique rhyming which has for some time met our eye. The resources of English rhythm for varieties of melody, measure, ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe

... "You can tell me your views later, but now be so good as to look at the map and listen." Langeron lifted his eyes with an expression of perplexity, turned round to Miloradovich as if seeking an explanation, but meeting the latter's impressive but meaningless gaze drooped his eyes sadly and again took to twirling ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... if any man had dared to object, he would have done so at the peril of an immediate "plunging bath" in Stone River, for the boys were determined to see the ceremony completed. The chaplain then proceeded, in solemn and impressive tones, to perform the ceremony, at the conclusion of which they dropped upon their knees, and a solemn invocation being uttered, they arose, and having pronounced them husband and wife, he introduced them to the audience. ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett

... who must cling to his mother's apron-string; such tutelage would really be unworthy of a full-grown German." I was so pleased that he gave a piece of his mind to Frau L., for she is always glaring at one and is so frantically inquisitive. And tutelage is such an impressive word, S. used it once when he was speaking of his sister and why she had never married. Frau L. was furious. She turned to Aunt Dora and said: "Young men naturally take one another's part, until they are fathers themselves and then ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl

... befits these sepulchral dwellings, and the dull sound of the deadened gongs struck by the guardians makes the vaults reverberate in a singular and impressive way. Behind the memorial temple rises an artificial mound about fifty feet high, access to the top of which is given by a rising arched passage built of white marble. On the top of the mound is an imposing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... be a young man of good address, and you can render your country a great service, but it will be at the peril of your life," said the major with impressive formality. ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic

... and the drying," said the King. "They only carry the basins and put on the boots. I have looked up the whole ceremony; it's very impressive. You have only to read it and you will become converted: ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... to Lincoln's, business men in the East had contended for a sound system of national currency. The experience of the states with paper money, painfully impressive in the years before the framing of the Constitution, had been convincing to those who understood the economy of business. The Constitution, as we have seen, bore the signs of this experience. States were forbidden to emit bills of credit: paper money, in short. This provision stood clear ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... brazen crucifix in the hands of the dying one, he would kneel by the latter's side and anoint him upon the eyes, ears, nostrils; lips, hands, feet and breast, with sacred oil; from a little brass vessel, repeating the while, in an impressive voice, the solemn ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... till he comes," said the old lady, with a sort of tender confidence that was impressive and almost solemn. Mrs. Barclay's thoughts made a few quick gyrations; and then the door opened, and Lois, who had left the room, came in again, followed by one of her sisters bearing a ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner

... the third day the storm ceased and they looked out upon a white, shining world of snow, lofty and impressive, peaks and ridges outlined sharply against a steel-blue sky. John had found a pair of powerful glasses in the lodge and with them he was now able to make out Zillenstein quite clearly. Clothed in snow, a castle all in white, it was nevertheless more ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... variously endowed and accomplished as Mr. Herbert; of a mind easily warmed and singularly enthusiastic, the natural bent of his talent inclines him to romance. He has accordingly given us several stories abounding in stately scenes, and most impressive portraiture. Well skilled in the use of the mother tongue, as in the broad fields of classical literature, he has written essays of marked eloquence, and criticisms of excellent discrimination and a keen and thorough insight. His contributions to our periodicals have been even more happy ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various

... able writer to whom these respectful and impressive appeals are made, will so far resist their influence as to make no reply, and attempt no vindication from the charge of a destructive error, so distinctly brought against the church of which he is a member, remains to be seen; yet, after reading the powerful pages to which ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various

... corners of this colonnade, four tall white minarets towered toward the sky—minarets from which now a pretty lively rifle-fire was developing. A number of small buildings were scattered about the square; but all were dominated by the black impressive cube of the Ka'aba itself, the Bayt Ullah, or ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... Crucifixion, cut in stone. It was on a fine, calm evening, just after sunset, that I first visited the tombstone of Albert Duerer; and I shall always remember the sensations, with which that visit was attended, as among the most pleasing and impressive of my life. The silence of the spot—its retirement from the city—the falling shadows of night, and the increasing solemnity of every monument of the dead—together with the mysterious, and even awful, effect produced by the colossal crucifix—but yet, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various

... to show the Stadholder's hatred of the Advocate may be left to the reader who has just risen from the account of the mock trial and the swift execution of the great and venerable statesman. The formal entry on the record upon the day of his "judicial murder" is singularly solemn and impressive:— ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the moment you behold it. On the other hand, by making the best of your resources, it is possible to build a large, plain, square house, a perfect cube if you please, that shall not only be homelike in appearance, but truly impressive and elegant. How? I've been trying to illustrate and explain. By being honest; by despising and rejecting all fashions that have nothing but custom to recommend them; by using colored and moulded brick if you can use them well; by not laying the outside work ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner

... intentions had not been well kept, and their opponents let loose at the same moment a rival swarm of parrots, which screeched 'I don't think' and other hostile cries, thereby robbing the demonstration of the unanimity which alone could have made it politically impressive. In the process of recapture the birds learned a quantity of additional language which unfitted them for further service in the Suffragette cause; some of the green ones were secured by ardent Home Rule ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki

... cross was considered equally solemn and sacred by Jew or Nazarene, and the breaking of it a soul-staining perjury on themselves, and an insult and profanation directly offered to the Almighty. To render the oath more impressive and solemn, it was customary to slaughter a dedicated calf in the temple, when, the priests having divided the carcase into a certain number of parts, and with intervening spaces, arranged the severed limbs on the ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... should not double the size of this cottage—put in a bath-room, and get Mrs. Macdonald to do for us; but this will entirely depend upon your manners, you see. I was preparing to go out, when I saw a child's invalid carriage barring the entrance to the gate, and a child's clear voice was giving very impressive orders about the contents of a certain basket which was to be carried up to ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford

... impressive in his commands upon these points, and the chief pledged his faith upon them, delighted beyond measure by the promise of an ample supply of powder, blankets, and provisions for his tribe, while the Intendant added an abundance of all such delicacies as could be forwarded, for the use ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... some of them marvelously colored. It was issued after an investigation that took five years. You couldn't think of anything done more efficiently, artistically, authoritatively. The mathematical parts are especially impressive: distribution of the dust of Krakatoa; velocity of translation and rates of subsidence; altitudes ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... vents throwing out great volumes of molten lava, the terrible agitation, and the brilliancy of the jets, which, shooting high in the air, fell with an echoless, lead-like sound, breaking the otherwise impressive stillness; formed a picture that language (at least any that I know) is quite inadequate to describe. We felt this; for no one spoke except when betrayed into an involuntary burst of amazement. On our hands and knees we crawled to the brink, and lying at full length, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... autumn leaves as they fell from the chestnuts around the Perkins Institution and the elms that darkened the sombre, deserted castle of Harris's Folly. With this sense of strangeness though, comes a sense still more striking and impressive of the turbulent, active, and brilliant period through which John Gilbert has lived. Byron had been dead but four years [1828] and Scott and Wordsworth were still writing when he began to act. Goethe was still living. The works of Thackeray and Dickens were yet to be created. ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... followed this climax was most impressive. General Lincoln received the sword of Cornwallis, and at once handed it back to General O'Hara. The several regiments came forward to deliver their colors. Twenty-eight British captains, each bearing a flag folded in a case, ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow

... of the railroad and Nimes, was sweeping a fine curve round two sides of the public square. Arriving in front of the Hotel de l'Univers it executed a full stop and stood curbed yet palpitant, purring heavily: an impressive brute of a car, all shining silver plate and lustrous green paint and gold, the newest model of the costliest and best automobile ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... suggestion to be looked for in the Pickwick trial, thus rendering comparison inapposite. Nevertheless one was bound to contrast them. Thackeray's features were impassive, and his voice knew no inflection. But his elocution in other respects was perfect, admirably distinct and impressive from its complete obliteration ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... master of perspective in the Academy, and it was expected that he would lecture to the students, but he was not cut out for a lecturer. He was not elegant in his manners, nor impressive in his speech. On one occasion, when he had risen to deliver a speech, he looked helplessly about him and finally blurted out: "Gentlemen! I've been and left my lecture in the ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon

... know, those trousers you sent out? Well, they fitted one pair on an idol, and then they stuffed most of the rest with leaves and set them up as kind of new-fangled idols and began to worship them. They say that the services were very impressive. Some of the women split a few pairs in half, and after sewing up the legs used them to carry yams in; and I saw one chief with a corduroy leg on his head as a ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... and asked to see a copy of "Weldon Shirmer," and turned to page fourteen. "'Fate,'" ran the first full sentence, "'has decreed that you wed a solver of mysteries.'" Mr. Gubb shivered. This was the mysterious passage Miss Scroggs had meant to bring to his eyes in an impressive manner. He was sure of one thing: whatever Fate had decreed in the case of the heroine of "Weldon Shirmer," Philo Gubb had no intention of allowing Fate to decree that one particular Correspondence School solver of mysteries should ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler

... interests. I have often seen Music Hall crowded by an enthusiastic mass while the bookseller filled the chair, and the great reviewer appeared as a public orator. Macaulay's person was very striking and impressive. He was tall, and of noble build and full development. Although one of the most diligent of readers and hard working of students of any age, his ruddy countenance did not indicate close application, and his appearance was ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... inform him of the meaning which that symbol has to you. Hence the philosopher soon superadded to the symbols explanations addressed to the ear, susceptible of more precision, but less effective and impressive than the painted or sculptured forms which he endeavored to explain. Out of these explanations grew by degrees a variety of narrations, whose true object and meaning were gradually forgotten, or lost in contradictions and incongruities. And when these were abandoned, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... other American soldier, left us a full, clear narrative of his own growth, and of the inner thoughts and doubts pertaining to himself which attended his life experience. There was a great deal of the average man in Grant. He was beset by human failings. He could not look impressive. He had no sense of destiny. In his great hours, it was sweat, rather than inspiration, dogged perseverance, rather than the aura of power, which made the ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... fifty[3330] are found to approve of the Commune, nearly all of the elected in places where, as at Rheims and Paris, terror has the elector by the throat, "under the clubs, axes, daggers, and bludgeons of the butchers."[3331] But where the physical impressions of murder have not been so tangible and impressive, some sense of decency has prevented too glaring elections. The inclination to vote for well-known names could not wholly be arrested; seventy-seven former members of the Constituent Assembly, and one hundred and eighty-six of the previous Legislative Assembly enter the Convention, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... of improbabilities, to which we would gladly attend, for it passes even the liberal bounds of poetic license, but we have already spent all the time we can upon the New Poem, and we must decline (in Mr. Beckett's own impressive language) any further ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... dare-devil performance. The only person, of course, that could remonstrate with telling effect was our captain, himself a man of dare-devil tradition; and really, for me, who knew under whom I was serving, those were impressive scenes. Captain S- had a great name for sailor-like qualities—the sort of name that compelled my youthful admiration. To this day I preserve his memory, for, indeed, it was he in a sense who completed my training. It was often a stormy process, but let that pass. I ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... towering majestically. He bowed and waved his hand with the air of one who accepts distinction as a matter of course; then he took his big silver watch and looked at it. He was the only man in Vincennes who owned a watch, and so the incident was impressive. Father Gibault looked pleased, and already a murmur of applause went through the audience. M. Roussillon stroked the bulging crystal of the time-piece with a circular motion of his thumb and bowed again, clearing his ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... the platitudes of commencement addresses. He knows life. He has been behind the curtains. He has looked upon the other side of the scenery,—the side that is just framework and bare canvas. He has seen the ugly machinery that shifts the stage setting—the stage setting which appears so impressive when viewed from the front. He has seen the rouge on the cheeks that seem to blush with the bloom of youth and beauty and innocence, and has caught the cold glint in the eyes that, from the distance, seem to languish with tenderness and love. Why, he asks, should we create an illusion that ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley

... understanding and person they admire, how dear, how impressive on the female heart is every trait of tenderness! Till now, Rebecca had experienced none; not even of the parental kind: and merely from the overflowings of a kind nature (not in return for affection) had she ever loved her father and her sisters. Sometimes, repulsed by their severity, ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald

... impressive one; the beautiful house and grounds looked desolate and drear; many of the trees were stripped and broken down, and many scorched and burned, while the gardens and flower beds, the delight of the Bannerworth family, were rudely trodden under foot by the rabble, and all those little beauties so ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... forward with great pleasure to the chance of painting a nonagenarian, and though the old man's absence from table was something of a disappointment (it was an opportunity the less to observe him before going to work), it seemed a sign that he was rather a sacred and perhaps therefore an impressive relic. Lyon looked at his son with the greater interest—wondered whether the glazed bloom of his cheek had been transmitted from Sir David. That would be jolly to paint, in the old man—the withered ruddiness of a winter apple, especially if the eye were still alive and the white hair carried ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... confirmation of the truth of our holy religion, the account of the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, penned by an eye-witness S. John, the disciple of love, is recited[84]. It is read in a low voice by the Card. Celebrant and sung with the same impressive chant as on Palm-Sunday by three cantors wearing the alb, a black maniple and stole: they used formerly to recite it bare-footed. At those words "And bowing down his head he gave up the ghost" all kneel to adore their Redeemer. It is related of a servant of ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs

... her and indifferently pretended to be busy. I confess that I was deriving a purely masculine enjoyment out of this, and intended to push my counter bluff so vigorously that she would be driven to admit her own. Therefore, after I thought the silence had become sufficiently impressive, I yielded to an impulse that many men find irresistible—I made ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... speech or two more, to which I did not listen, the proceedings in the Town Hall ended. I drew a breath of relief. No breakdown by Sir Anthony, no scandalous interruption by Gedge, had marred the impressive ceremony. The band in the gallery played "God Save the King." The crowd in the body of the hall, who had stood for the anthem, sat down again, evidently waiting for Boyce and the notables to pass out. The assemblage ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... putting up the various sera, vaccines and other material required by the army in the field. We were shown over the Institute by M. Roux, the Director. The reverence with which each foreign delegate removed his hat as he approached the rooms where Pasteur had lived and worked was most impressive to the resident of a country where there was little reverence for anything in the way of ability of any sort except that for making money. Pasteur is buried in a mausoleum in the Institute and numerous tributes from societies ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... put out her hand, and, drawing Polly to her knee, looked into her face with such kind eyes that Polly forgot the impressive cap, and smiled at her confidently; for she saw that her simple music had pleased her listener, and she felt glad ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... at the investment the day before, when a general officer arrived from Paris and the entire garrison of Sainte Lesse had been paraded—an impressive total of three dozen men—six gendarmes and a brigadier; one remount sub-lieutenant and twenty troopers; a veterinary, two white American muleteers, and five American ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers

... central truth of religion,—the reality of the communion of the human spirit with the divine—the poets have borne such impressive testimony, not less positively have they asserted many other of the great things of the spirit. Sometimes they have helped us to believe, by identifying themselves with us in our struggles with the doubts that loosen our hold on the great realities. No man of the ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... answered, with a touch of scorn. And Ned shot a look of inquiry at John's handsome face. But the older brother was too intent on the drama before him to notice. The editor's eyes were riveted on the new President, studying every detail of his impressive personality. He had never seen him before and was trying to form a just and accurate judgment of his character. Beyond a doubt he was big physically—this impression was overwhelming—everything large—the head with its high crown of skull ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon

... dedicatory record by dedicating three monuments, out of a possible four, in considerably less than an hour, we were cantered away to the Hotel de Ville to be refreshed and complimented with a "Vin d'honneur." That ceremony came off in the council chamber—a large, stately room—and was impressive. M. le Maire was a tall man, with a cherubic face made broader by wing-like little whiskers. He wore a white cravat, a long frock-coat, appositely black trousers, and a far-reaching white waistcoat over which wandered tranquilly his official tri-coloured scarf. The speech ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier

... and its glittering pinnacles, the eternal snows and glaciers, the appalling clefts and abysses, the mighty cataract, the rushing waters, the frequent perils of avalanches and of tumbling rocks, the total absence of every soft feature of nature, were always reading an impressive lesson, and illustrating the littleness of man, and the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various

... the Doctor in an impressive bass, "may wonder why I have called you all together on this, the first day of the week; most of those who reside under my roof are acquainted with, and I trust execrate, the miserable cause of my ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... who broke the rule last Friday, at afternoon recess, will come to the desk," said Mr. Acton in his most impressive manner. ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... understanding, for allegory was a part of her racial inheritance. She was touched, also, by the soft timbre of his voice—a quality which showed him to be deeply moved—and she leaned farther forward, peering out at him. There was something weird, and something fascinating, about these impressive words issuing from an unseen and unexpected source. The night was so still and ghostlike—the atmosphere about the cottage so charged with tragedy—the metonymy this invisible speaker ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... The setting of the picture is that ineffable light, clear yet mellow, which without dawn and without twilight rises from flowing river to starless heavens, and envelopes the earth as with a garment,—the light that never was on sea or land. We could not have chosen a more impressive hour in which to pass the ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... when silence had fallen. "Although the statements of Professor Sarakoff and Dr. Harden appear fantastical, I believe that they may be nearer the truth than we suppose." His manner, slow, impressive and calm, aroused general attention. Frowning slightly, he drew himself up and clasped the lapels of his coat. "This afternoon," he continued, "I was at the bedside of a sick child who was at the point of death. This child ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne

... I did, and the grand salute he gave! He couldn't have made it more impressive had it been the Commander-in-Chief of your army, or the Dictator himself who ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... had been in a generous mood when she had endowed Mrs. Pennypoker, for she had given her a massive frame and constitution of bronze, which made her thoroughly intolerant of those unfortunates who were not similarly blessed. But, impressive as Mrs. Pennypoker was in most respects, there was yet one undignified peculiarity which marred the otherwise perfect majesty of her appearance. Like Samson, her vulnerable point lay in her hair; or, more properly speaking, in her lack of it. The ravages of time had removed a part of her dark ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray

... for a moment on concluding this—in his opinion—impressive address, and then ordered that Arnold should be removed to the forecastle, and the ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... own. The bulk of their finest fairy-tales were brought by Buddhist monks, in the course of the first millennium A.D., from India by way of Central Asia. The Buddhists made use of them to render their sermons more interesting and impressive. As time went on, these stories spread all over China, modified in harmony with the spirit of the people and adapted to the Chinese environment. Only the fables failed to strike root in China: the matter-of-fact Chinese was not interested in animals that talked and behaved ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard



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