"Impassive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... saloon bums dropped their cards and came trooping up together. A few of the more self-respecting men slipped quietly out into the card rooms; but the studious stranger, disdaining such puny subterfuges, remained in his place, as impassive and detached as ever. ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... whispered. "We are all lost! He was fortunate in dying." Terror and fright vanished from her face and her eyes, leaving the one impassive and the other cold. She returned to the body and the look she cast on it was without pity or regret. Alive, she had detested him; dead, she could gaze on him with indifference. He had died, leaving her the legacy of the headsman's ax. And his play-woman? would she weep or ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... Madame Roland had beforehand seemed carried on by hers to the heart of action. She hastened on the day after her arrival to the sittings of the Assembly. She saw the powerful Mirabeau, the dazzling Cazales, the daring Maury, the crafty Lameth, the impassive Barnave. She remarked with annoyance and intense hate, in the attitude and language of the right side, that superiority conferred by the habit of command and confidence in the respect of the million; on the left side, she saw inferiority of manners, and the ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... of their individual glories of vestment and ceremonial to the surcharged atmosphere palpitant with exaltation and prayer and mystic bell-tinklings; overspreading the thirty-seven sacred spots, and oozing into the holy of holies itself, towards that impassive marble stone, goal of the world's desire in the blaze of the ever burning lamps; and overflowing into the screaming courtyard, amid the flagstone stalls of chaplets and crosses and carven-shells, and the rapacious rabble ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... his first Things he found the Bonders all assembled in arms; resolute to the death seemingly, against his proposal and him. Tryggveson said little; waited impassive, "What your reasons are, good men?" One zealous Bonder started up in passionate parliamentary eloquence; but after a sentence or two, broke down; one, and then another, and still another, and remained all three staring in open-mouthed silence there! The peasant-proprietors ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... we could not get one single romantic association to cluster about him, we very soon got to like the old gentleman. It is true that at our first meeting, after saying "How d'ye do" to me and receiving in impassive placidity the kiss which my wife gave him, he relapsed into dead silence, and continued to smoke a clay pipe with a long stem and a short bowl. This instrument he filled and re-filled every few minutes, and it seemed to be his ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... rear seat, was erect in that impassive attitude that comes sometimes to the furious man when he is obliged to leave the battle to others. Frequently, however, the tempest in his breast came to his face and ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... tried comrades was greatly felt in Ney's division. It had at first numbered over 40,000, and the losses in battle and from sickness had already reduced it by more than a fourth. Even the veterans lost their usual impassive attitude of contentment with the existing state ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... war. His most intimate friends and daily associates, his most prominent and trusted generals, patriotic but hot-headed complainants, turbulent malcontents,—all alike found him courteous and considerate, yet hedged about with an impassive dignity that no one ever dared to violate. A superb horseman, a powerful and active swordsman, an unfailing marksman with rifle or pistol, he never made a display of these qualities; but there are many anecdotes of such prowess in sudden emergencies as caused him to be idolized by his companions ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... enemies. Articulate sounds vibrated on the ears of the disciples; but the image which was impressed on their optic nerve eluded the more stubborn evidence of the touch; and they enjoyed the spiritual, not the corporeal, presence of the Son of God. The rage of the Jews was idly wasted against an impassive phantom; and the mystic scenes of the passion and death, the resurrection and ascension, of Christ were represented on the theatre of Jerusalem for the benefit of mankind. If it were urged, that such ideal mimicry, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... brightening look. Her brother had not exaggerated—the little girl was really beautiful. When they went down to the dining-room, there was another surprise for Helen Hale, for June's timidity was gone and to the wonder of the woman, she was clothed with an impassive reserve that in herself would have been little less than haughtiness and was astounding in a child. She saw, too, that the change in the girl's bearing was unconscious and that the presence of strangers had caused it. It was plain that June's timidity sprang from her love of ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... sought one another, and, as we waited thus, we could see above us the noble form of Don Alonzo, cool and impassive as a man on parade, saluting his King's ensign ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... and kissed it, putting all the pity and bitter indignation of his heart into the action. Margaret, seeing his emotion, whimpered too; otherwise she was impassive. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... our guns had roared, yet (though she was now so close that I made out her very rope and spar) she made no sign. In a little our guns fell silent also, wherefore, looking about, I beheld Don Miguel standing beside the tiller yet with his impassive gaze ever bent upon the foe; and, as I watched, I read his deadly purpose, and a great fear for the English ship came upon me, and I fell a-praying beneath my breath, for we carried a weapon more terrible than any culverin ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... had presented Mrs. Bounderby, Sissy had suddenly turned her head, and looked, in wonder, in pity, in sorrow, in doubt, in a multitude of emotions, towards Louisa. Louisa had known it, and seen it, without looking at her. From that moment she was impassive, proud and cold - held Sissy at a distance ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... the unconscious charm. Is it not for this cause that many dependent natures find classic perfection cold, superb scenery unsympathetic, and the spectacle of careless happiness embittering? Others, of imaginative temperament, prefer that their idols should remain impassive, and, granted the inspiration arising from a fair appearance, ask no more, but find their delight in bestowing, from the riches of their own gratitude, adorable attributes and endless worship. Orange, as many other ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... impassive and as far as possible in profile; these were the lessons that old Dubois had mastered years ago. To seem to know all, to betray no surprise, to refuse to hurry—itself a confession of miscalculation; by attention to these simple ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... as impassive as ever under the jeers of his antagonist, but his clenched hands betrayed ...
— The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax • Arthur Conan Doyle
... The servant's usually impassive face showed astonishment, not unmixed with dismay, and he looked doubtfully toward his master, ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... not to go," I said. "I shall not dance with you once," and I took my former place by Mrs. Sandford. Preston fumed; declared that I was just like a piece of marble; and went away. I did not feel quite so impassive as ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... his forehead was tattooed, and ridges of horrible scars disfigured both plump cheeks. His eyes were small, feral; he gave Martin a fleeting, incurious glance, and turned his attention to his work. He stood impassive, clutching the wheel-spokes. ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... Mitter burned and burned. Could she but read what lay behind that impassive face! And he took it all with a smile! What would he do? what would he do now? kept recurring in her mind. She knew the man, or at least she thought she did; and she was aware that there existed in his soul dark caverns which she had never ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... eyes scanned her face eagerly. He would have given worlds to know what was in her mind and heart. But she gave him no chance. She remained impassive. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... There was an evident struggle in her to bring me to her, to evoke the old ardor which had reached for her. But we returned to Reverdy's at last, and there had been no touch of hands, no tenderness. She stood momentarily at the gate. I gave her my hand, and with an impassive goodnight, she turned to the door ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... mien before his council. He had heard all his wise chiefs and his fiery warriors. Supreme was his power. Freedom or death for the captives awaited the wave of his hand. His impassive face gave not the slightest inkling of what to expect. Therefore the prisoners were forced to stand there with throbbing hearts while the chieftain waited the customary dignified interval ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... Doris' messages to Elinor and the rest, hurried off, leaving the drawing-room windows once more blank and impassive. She ran into the studio as Griffin was rising to go, with her umbrella, reclaimed from the stand, still dripping slow occasional drops unheeded on ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... house, sir,' said Martin with impassive courtesy. He spoke with a slow and measured utterance. 'My instructions are to assist you in every possible way. Should you wish me to recall the ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... The impassive footman made no comments, and in fact, he said nothing at all, but stood like a statue with the carriage ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... remained pensive. All parody which borders on folly, all irony which borders on wisdom, were condensed and amalgamated in that face. The burden of care, of disillusion, anxiety, and grief were expressed in its impassive countenance, and resulted in a lugubrious sum of mirth. One corner of the mouth was raised, in mockery of the human race; the other side, in blasphemy of the gods. Men confronted that model of the ideal sarcasm and exemplification ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... dialogue. I know what she means. But I do not "hate" an impassive, unchangeable temper, whether in a tree or in a man. I have so little of such a spirit myself that I am glad to see some tokens of it—not too frequent, indeed, nor too self-assertive—in the world about me. And so I say, let me never ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... and after a time he grew tired. Releasing his impassive victim he arose preparatory to introducing the next item of his programme ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... impassive. "What would madame have?" he replied. "The man walked in like a lord, keeping his face hid in a cloak. ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... another. The grandeur of gold and heavy glass make you feel as if you were swimming under water in some great untroubled lake. And as you tread softly and silently over the thick carpets it is something like swimming. There is an intense stillness about each roulette table. Even the winners are impassive. And the groups are gloomier still at the stables where they are playing "Trente ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... wait the wondrous cause to find, How body acts upon impassive mind; How fumes of wine the thinking part can fire, Past hopes revive, and present joys inspire; Why our complexions oft our soul declare, And how the passions in the features are; How touch and harmony arise between Corporeal figure, and a form unseen; How quick their faculties ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... a few minutes later from the village. He begged the favour of a few words with me. He was a man of impassive features and singular quietness of demeanour. Yet it was obvious that something had happened to ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Roland yourself," said my governess, in her cold, impassive manner. "It has nothing whatever to do with me. Sir Roland wishes me to attend to these things, and I have done so—the result ...
— My Mother's Rival - Everyday Life Library No. 4 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... looked as if she were passing some one she did not care to bow to. But the most remarkable result of Mrs. Roby's words was the effect they produced on the Lunch Club's distinguished guest. Osric Dane's impassive features suddenly melted to an expression of the warmest human sympathy, and edging her chair toward Mrs. Roby's she asked: "Did he really? And—did you find ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... and look at my things!" cried Marianne to the Chintz Imp, but he remained rigidly against his shiny spotted background and refused to move, though Marianne thought she saw a twinkle in his eye, which showed he was not quite so impassive as he ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... Miller who took the statement that morning. Lucy's cramped old hand wrote too slowly for David's impatience. Harrison Miller took it, on hotel stationery, covering the carefully numbered pages with his neat, copper-plate writing. He wrote with an impassive face, but with intense interest, for by that time he ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... almost a sob, and might have called him back again—but he was gone, and the moment had passed by. With it passed the slight quivering and softening which had been visible in her face, and she sunk again into the impassive calm which made Christian Grey so totally different, from ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... and went his way. If there was a thoughtfulness in the generosity of this action, the mode in which it was performed—the measured coldness of the words—the look of impassive examination that accompanied them, and the abstention from anything that savoured of apology for a liberty—were all deeply felt ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... my eyes the grinning tenants of the great wall-case rose in reproach; the little, impassive faces in those shallow boxes seemed to look at me and ask why they had been killed. I had let the man go; and he would certainly never come to my shop again. True, I should know him again; but what better chance should I ever have of identifying him? And then again ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... on his hands, which grasped his legs just above the knee. He peered to look at the wound. She drew away from the thrust of his face with its great moustache, averting her own face as much as possible. As he looked at her, who was cold and impassive as stone, with mouth shut tight, he sickened with feebleness and hopelessness of spirit. He was turning drearily away, when he saw a drop of blood fall from the averted wound into the baby's fragile, glistening hair. Fascinated, he ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... farewell, left her. He was a simple man, as illiterate as a drummer, and, like everybody else in Rodez, completely under the sway of the blood-curdling reports. When the performance was at an end, he approached Clarissa, who, with an impassive air, was making her way to the exit, and asked whether she had been trying to jest with him, and she, her lips dry, and something like a prying hatred in her eyes, answered, laughing again: "No, no, Captain." After that her face ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... forehead of his. He looked into his eyes, but saw nothing there save a cold, steady light that he had often seen before when the doctor was discussing subjects that interested him deeply. As for his face, it was utterly impassive—the face of a dispassionate scientist quietly discussing the possible solution of a problem that had been laid before him. Whether his friend was really driving at some unheard-of and unearthly solution of the problem which he himself had raised, or ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... Katrina, and the end of her nose held certain high lights. But aside from this evidence of sorrow she made no protest against the peremptory masculine shaping of her future. Stricken to the heart, Jessica and I stormed, begged, implored, wept. Katrina opposed to our eloquence the impassive front of ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... opposite to him, looking at him,—the very Amelia to whom he had written, declining the honour of marrying her. Of what her mood towards him might be, he could form no judgment from her looks. Her face was simply stern and impassive, and she seemed inclined to eat her dinner in silence. A slight smile of derision had passed across her face as she heard Mrs Lupex whisper, and it might have been discerned that her nose, at the same time, became somewhat elevated; but ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... The syces, impassive as Orientals always are, had come up with the recaptured horses; and as Kitty sprang into her saddle I caught hold of the bridle, entreating her to hear me out and forgive. My answer was the cut of her riding-whip across my face from mouth to eye, and a word or two of farewell ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... slanting, and below A dusty and flickering light from one feeble candle And prone figures sleeping uneasily, Murmuring, And men who cannot sleep, With faces impassive as masks, Bright, feverish eyes, and drawn lips, Sad, pitiless, terrible faces, ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... light cast by the fire on the faces of the men and the dark shadows of the woods formed a contrast that was fascinating to the boys. They could not keep their eyes off Pierre with his silent but speedy movements, and his impassive face, nor from Joe, who formed such a contrast with his animation and gestures, his good-natured talk and his smile. Mr. Waterman and Mr. Anderson sat to the side talking in low tones, and the boys felt that these were two men worthy of their confidence. They looked ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... reproving intent; the more reproving on the one or two occasions when she had been tempted into yielding to the caress for the remotest fraction of a second. But for every snub in the fence events that had been pulled off between them in the past years, David was fully revenged by the impassive landing of Phoebe on the dry and frozen grass at his side. Revenged—and there was something over that was cutting into her adamant heart like ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... been preserved, even though it be shorn of some of its original beauty. Splendidly armed in steel from head to foot, and holding firmly grasped in his hand the spear, emblem of command in this instance rather than of combat, Caesar advances with a mien impassive yet of irresistible domination. He bestrides with ease his splendid dark-brown charger, caparisoned in crimson, and heavily weighted like himself with the full panoply of battle, a perfect harmony being here subtly suggested between man and beast. The rich landscape, ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... back. He caught glimpses of the dozens of communicator studs and plates on the huge metal desk. He saw the bit of scenery showing through the window. He noted the pictures of great Corps heroes that adorned the walls. In fact, he had to look at anything except those boring, impassive eyes fixed so steadily on his own face. If only he could gain such perfect control of his nerves. If only he knew what ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... futility of arguing with her, the officer was about to give orders to remove her forcibly from the doomed man's arms when Laurent, who until then had maintained an impassive silence, ventured to interfere. ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... couched in picturesque and figurative terms so as not too greatly to hurt his feelings, had made constant appeal for the past fifteen years. Hitherto he had hidden all signs of humorous titillation behind his impassive mask. To-night, a spark of sentiment had been the match to explode the mine of his mirth. It was a serious position. Here had I been wasting on him half a lifetime's choicest objurgations. What was I to do in the ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... sitting motionless and white; he thought he had never seen a live thing so still, so impassive. As she watched his lips, and heard his voice speak her name, blazing floods of ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... hours of repressed energy as patiently as necessity compelled. Pilar, alone, lay impassive in her bed, rarely opening her eyes. The others groaned and sighed and rolled and bounced about; but they dared not speak, for stern Sister Augusta was in close attendance. When the last lagging minute had gone and they were bidden to rise, they sprang from the beds, ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... them again upon us did not alter their expression. They were—though I can scarcely hope that this description will be understood—at once perfectly vigilant and absolutely impassive. But even more amazing was the voice that contradicted both these impressions, being most sweetly and delicately modulated, with a musical ring that charmed the ear as the notes of a well-sung song. The others, hearing us addressed, turned ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... thing occurred and impressed Renine. Dalbreque's face, usually so common, was lit up by a smile that made it almost attractive. But this was only a flashing vision: the man immediately resumed his hard and impassive expression. ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... a crocodile after all!" cried Harry, jumping back, as a hideous thing four feet long, and having the same number of legs, and a tail, seemed making towards him. The reis, laughing in a manner most contrary to our notions of the staid impassive Arab, began hammering the creature with a stick, until it ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... of despair, so hopeless in its intensity, swept over Mr. Oakhurst's usually impassive face, that the surgeon started. "You are hit," he said, glancing at ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... without passions, and without a will as to the conduct of those who are dependent on them. Even a slight excess of anger, impatience, and the spirit of command, would be less demoralising to the impressionable character than the constant sight of a man artificially impassive. Rousseau is perpetually calling upon men to try to lay aside their masks; yet the model instructor whom he has created for us is to be the most artfully and elaborately masked of all men; unless he happens to be naturally without blood and ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... subtle signs, which might have been lost upon anyone but myself, that Holmes was on a hot scent. As impassive as ever to the casual observer, there were none the less a subdued eagerness and suggestion of tension in his brightened eyes and brisker manner which assured me that the game was afoot. After his habit he said nothing, and after mine I asked ...
— The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge • Arthur Conan Doyle
... man stood up to receive this second sentence with the same face of impassive misery with which he had listened to the first. To the solemn mockery, "If he had anything to urge why sentence of death should not be passed upon him," he shook his head wearily, and answered, "Nothing." It was evident that his mind was failing fast under the overwhelming ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... which the walls, windows and doors all have a stiff, unsalient aspect of the most hard-finished indifference to every emotion of humanity, and a perfectly rigid insensibility to the pleasures or pains of the tenants within their impassive shelter. In the whole configuration of the heartless, uncharacterized place there was not one gracious inequality to lean against; not a ledge to rest elbow upon; not a panel, not even a stove-pipe hole, to become dearly familiar to ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various
... as Ethel was rising to go to the telephone, there was a ring at the door. She opened it, and a tall man, rather stooped, with iron grey hair and moustache, a lean but rather heavy face and deep-set impassive eyes, came ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... red handkerchief; her gown was of blue faded to green, her feet were bare. If a gipsy, she was to be trusted to take care of herself; if but a sunburnt vagrant she could be let to shift; and yet he watched her curiously, while she sat as impassive as a young Sphinx, and wondered to ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... should play the tyrant. Now I see a way to liberty, equality, fraternity!" And beneath the baneful gleam of that look of enlightenment, my lord cursed under his breath roundly. The only imperturbable person of the party was Francois, the marquis' valet, whose impassive countenance was that of a stoic, apathetic to the foibles of his betters; a philosopher of the wardrobe, to whom a wig awry or a loosened buckle seemed of more moment than the derangement of the marriage tie or the disorder of ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... out of Gregory's," supplemented MacNab, who, with impassive face, was lolling in a long chair, a ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... instant my world was of small dimensions, consisting of only so much earth as that impassive red man and the open-hearted, honest patriot ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... tinge, often nearly the tint of mahogany; thick, straight, black hair; black, horizontal eyes; low forehead, somewhat compensated by its breadth; beardless; of the middle height, but thick-set; broad, muscular chest; small hands and feet; incurious; unambitious; impassive; undemonstrative; with a dull imagination and little superstition; with no definite idea of a Supreme Being, few tribes having a name for God, though one for the "Demon;" with no belief in a future state; and, excepting civility, with virtues ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... plucked no pansies more, Mistrusting Proserpina's cruel fate, Herself up-gathered in Sicilian fields; At chapel—for one needs to chapel go A-Sunday—glanced not either right or left, But with black eyelash wedded to white cheek Knelt there impassive, like the marble girl That at the foot-end of his father's tomb, Inside the chancel where the Wyndhams lay, Through the long years ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the first few minutes, was not visible, but one of the other maitres d'hotel procured for me a table in a somewhat retired corner of the room. My luncheon was already served before Louis appeared before me. For the second time his impassive countenance ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Americans, from books and chance observation of the handful of Kwangtung men who are earning their living among us by washing our clothes. Silent, inscrutable, they flit through the American scene, alien to the last. What lies behind the riddle of their impassive faces? Perhaps I could find an answer. Then, too, it was clear, even to the most unintelligent, that a change was coming over the East, though few realized how speedily. I longed to see the old China before I made ready to welcome the ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... held in the main council chambers of Hospital Seattle, and Dal could feel the tension the moment he stepped into the room. He looked at the long semicircular table, and studied the impassive faces of the four-star Physicians ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... impenetrable to argument, perhaps would try wit:—but, "On the impassive ice the lightnings play." His eloquence or his kindness will avail less; when in yielding to you after a long harangue, he expects to please you, you will answer undoubtedly with the utmost propriety, "That you should be very sorry he yielded his ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... officials remained perfectly impassive, but the two stenographers seemed somewhat taken by surprise, and one of them whispered, 'Did ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... certainly it was my presence; and, feeling this, I made them all a profound obeisance, and, neither shirking their glances nor inviting them, I took my place in the spot I had chosen for myself, and waited, with a face as impassive as a mask, but with a heart burning with fury and love, not for the coming of the bride, but of her who in this hour ought to have been standing at my side ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... fringes on the topmost branches of the forest. Close under the protecting river-bank sped our light canoes, cutting their way through the gray waters. The dark-skinned crews bent to the paddle silently, with corded muscles tightening in their lean brown arms, and still, impassive faces fixed upon the seething current ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... fascinating yet dangerous employment. She used to sit there in her impassive grace, as they talked, weighing every word, testing every sentiment, watching the expressions that flitted over Jack Darcy's countenance, until it went everywhere with her, the blue-gray eyes piercing the very depths of her soul. ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... in her, aroused by his impassive performance of his duty, gave her new courage. Since they were at war, she would play the game using women's weapons. After all, he was a man, ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... reflection, exaggerated in narration, and intensified by the repetition of a number of writers, come to constitute a body of public belief, not strictly rational in its birth or subsequent growth, but as impassive in its resistance to argument as it was innocent of ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... eyes from the coals and gazed at the impassive face of the hunter. Once the question trembled on his lips, but he was sure the Great Bear would evade the answer, and the lad thought too much of the man who had long stood to him in the place of father ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a wonderful illumination and agitation over the girl's usually impassive features, giving all that they needed to ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... dull red stole up from her neck over her cheeks and high forehead to the roots of her hay-colored hair. All at once she turned her back upon her visitor and the tears of the years streamed down her impassive face. ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... impossible to train these creatures," she said under her breath. Aloud, she gave her order in quiet, impassive tones: ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... Beyrout on the morning of the 22d. Our caravan consisted of three horses, three mules, and a donkey, in charge of two men—Dervish, an erect, black-bearded, and most impassive Mussulman, and Mustapha, who is the very picture of patience and good-nature. He was born with a smile on his face, and has never been able to change the expression. They are both masters of their art, and can load a mule with ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... action of justice, not revengeful, not seeking for death, but merely stating the case as it might be stated by some planet or remote fixed star. Then there was a short pause, while the prosecutor for the Crown laid down his notes. And the same slow, clear, impassive voice went on. ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... They were in single file, and the first canoe was the largest. But the aspect of the little fleet was wholly different from that of an ordinary group of Iroquois war canoes. It was dark, somber, and funereal, and in every canoe, between the feet of the paddlers, lay a figure, stiff and impassive, the body of a chief slain in battle. It had all the appearance of a funeral procession, but the eyes of the three, as they roved over it, fastened on a figure in the first canoe, and, used as they were to the strange and curious, every one of them ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... complaints of your poor people." Charles VII. had shown scarcely more confidence to his son than to his people. Louis yielded neither to words, nor to sorrows of which proofs were reaching him nearly every day. He remained impassive at the Duke of Burgundy's, where he seemed to be waiting with scandalous indifference for the news of his father's death. Charles sank into a state of profound melancholy and general distrust. He had his doctor, Adam ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of the house, in a pulpy, watery state, while the butler handled his swing doors with a stony, impassive countenance, intended for the deception of the very elect, though it did not deceive me. I knew well enough that next time he was off duty, and strolled around our way, we should meet in our kitchen as man to man, and I would punch him and ask him riddles, ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... chronometer to the tenth part of a second by that of Murchison the engineer, who was charged with the duty of firing the gun by means of an electric spark. Thus the travelers enclosed within the projectile were enabled to follow with their eyes the impassive needle which marked the precise ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... standing on the edge of that wriggling throng with the yellow flare just lighting the impassive countenances of its chief personages, and hearing a low monotone, broken only by the clink of metal as gold pieces fall into the plate, it is difficult to believe that this is a wedding, just like those pictured and tableau effects that one ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... that if our existence were composed of separate states, with an impassive Ego to unite them, for us there would be no duration, for an Ego which does not change, does not endure. La duree, however, is the foundation of our being and is, as we feel, the very substance of the world in which we ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... life are evident enough. Not so evident but equally noteworthy is the intensity. In the still forest one of the giant trees looks utterly impassive and immobile. It stands there calm and unmoved. Not a leaf stirs. Yet the whole and every minutest part of it is instinct with intensest life. It is made up of countless microscopic cells in unceasing activity. Highly sensitive and mobile cells form the root-tips and ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... mind of this man was secret and evil I could now no longer doubt. Felix Page had been a powerful man, physically and mentally; yet Alexander Burke, sly and impassive, soft-spoken and soft-footed, ever alert and observant and burrowing, like a mole, in darkness, had undermined him, and—the conviction grew—had ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... tell-tale crease in his high forehead. Wherever he had been, whatever he had done, his serenity was still unshaken. It still lay over him, placid and impenetrable. And when he spoke, his voice was cool and impassive and ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... jungles of the world, to the wild life that shared man's suspension, and I think of a thousand feral acts interrupted and truncated—as it were frozen, like the frozen words Pantagruel met at sea. Not only men it was that were quieted, all living creatures that breathe the air became insensible, impassive things. Motionless brutes and birds lay amidst the drooping trees and herbage in the universal twilight, the tiger sprawled beside his fresh-struck victim, who bled to death in a dreamless sleep. The very flies came sailing down the air with wings outspread; the spider hung crumpled in his ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... appearance of profound unconsciousness; but a gentle breathing and the circulation are distinguishable. The body is flexible, relaxed, perfectly impassive to ordinary stimuli. The pupils of the eyes are not contracted, but yet are fixed. This state is witnessed occasionally in hysteria, after violent fits of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... visibly flinched. He recovered himself almost immediately, but the shadow of fear had rested for a moment, at any rate, upon his impassive features. ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... upon his stick, a tall, impassive figure; his voice was low, yet it thrilled in her ears, and there was that in his steadfast eyes before which her own wavered and fell; yet, even so, from the shadow of her hood, she ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... the private ones." He leaned back, put his finger-tips together, and assumed his most impassive and judicial expression. ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... happens to be when the effect is produced, whether sitting, standing, kneeling, or the like; and this face has an expression of fear. The arms or legs may be raised, but if left to themselves will not drop, as in lethargy. The eyes are wide open, but the look is fixed and impassive. The fixed position lasts only a few minutes, however, when the subject returns to a position of relaxation, or drops back ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... (the beauteous work of frost) Rise white in air, and glitter o'er the coast; Pale suns, unfelt, at distance roll away, And on the impassive ice the lightnings play; Eternal snows the growing mass supply, Till the bright mountains prop the incumbent sky: As Atlas fix'd, each hoary pile appears, The gather'd winter of a ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... had summoned all her energy and courage, and had mastered her despair. She felt that her salvation depended upon her calmness, and she had succeeded in appearing calm, haughty, and disdainful—as impassive as if she had been a statue. "Was it you, sir, who sent me this ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... is as impassive as the bronze goddess herself. He leans over the rail, his hand supporting his cheek, and gazes into the ooze. The stolidity of his expression is appalling. With his mouth open as usual, his lips relaxed, his tongue sticking out through the set teeth,—he looks as if his head were ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... ears. When I looked again, Jerry was sitting up as before; his garment, somewhat crumpled, was restored to its original position; but his pallid countenance was set hard. Knowing as I did, only too well, what a volcano of passion and shame must be seething under that impassive exterior, for the moment ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... there!"—and upon this Mr. Herbert pointed with his finger to Mr. Disraeli sitting on the Treasury Bench. The sting of invective is truth, and Mr. Herbert certainly spoke daggers if he used none; yet the Chancellor of the Exchequer sat impassive as ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook |
