"Immovable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wistfully and anxiously at Sah-luma, on whom the potent wines were beginning to take effect, and who had just thrown himself down on the dais at Lysia's feet, close to the tigress that still lay couched there in immovable quiet. It was a picture worthy of the grandest painter's brush, ... that glistening throne black as jet, with the fair form of Lysia shining within it, like a white sea-nymph at rest in a grotto of ocean-stalactites, . . the fantastically attired ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... of the three ponderous strangers along the encumbered deck. Their stupidity or their resolution was so great, that they never went aside for any impediment. One ceased his movements altogether just before the mid-watch. At sunrise I found him butted like a battering-ram against the immovable foot of the foremast, and still striving, tooth and nail, to force the impossible passage. That these tortoises are the victims of a penal, or malignant, or perhaps a downright diabolical enchanter, seems in nothing more likely ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... patch of red, at your feet; but you got frightened—I could see it at once in your eyes that you got frightened; that was why I stood still. I didn't move a step when I asked you might I, did I? I stood just as immovable as I stand now when I point out the place to you where I would have knelt before you, over there on the crimson rose in the carpet. I don't even point with my finger. I don't point at all; I let it be, not to frighten you. ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... adherence and implicit submission to, the Word of God which made Luther the undaunted and invincible hero of the Reformation. Standing four-square on the Bible and deriving from this source of divine power alone all his theological thoughts and convictions, Luther was a rock, firm and immovable. With him every theological question was decided and settled conclusively by quoting a clear passage from the Holy Scriptures, while Melanchthon, devoid of Luther's single-minded and whole-hearted devotion to the Word of God, endeavored to satisfy his reason as well. Consequently ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... Then I saw that his shoulders were convulsively shaking and I knew that the mask of iron had fallen at last. The night was chilly so I entered his tent in search of his overcoat and laid it around his shoulders. He never noticed it. The next morning when I saw him his face was as immovable as it had been the night before, but he seemed to have aged by ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... not less than thirty-five, besides an immense crowd of other auditors." Every one save the privy councilors had to stand from beginning to end of the proceedings. Franklin occupied a position beside the fireplace, where he stood throughout immovable as a statue, his features carefully composed so that not one trace of emotion was apparent upon them, showing a degree of self-control which was extraordinary even in one who was at once a man of the world and a philosopher, with sixty-eight ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... as severely. The twenty-eight-gun ship "Actaeon" grounded during the course of the engagement; and when, after ten hours' fruitless cannonading, the British abandoned the task of reducing the fort, and determined to withdraw, she was found to be immovable. Accordingly Admiral Parker signalled to her officer to abandon the ship, and set her on fire. This was accordingly done; and the ship was left with her colors flying, and her guns loaded. This movement was observed by the Americans, who, in spite of the danger ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... was absolute. He could discern nothing, but, after a short search, he caught hold of the handle and turned it slowly. The door remained immovable. By another exploration he discovered a large key suspended from a nail near the centre of the door. This he inserted in the lock, and turned—with all the caution he could command. It was not enough, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... night, with my head upon the pillow by her that my whispers might be plainer to her, I kissed her, thanked her, prayed for her, asked her for her blessing and forgiveness, entreated her to give me the least sign that she knew or heard me. No, no, no. Her face was immovable. To the very last, and even afterwards, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... heights, must accumulate from year to year. But the weight pressing on the lower portions of this snow-field must soon be considerable, and at length become so great, that the snow changes to the form of ice. But as ice it is no longer fixed and immovable. We need not stop to explain just how this ice-field moves, but the fact is that, though moving very slowly, it acts like a liquid body. It will steal away over any incline however small, down which water would flow. Like a river it fills the valleys leading down from the mountains. But, ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... the landholder; while, as the case at present stands, the revenues of the church are in some sort the reversionary property of every family that may have a member educated for the church, or a daughter that may marry a clergyman. Instead of being foreclosed and immovable, it is, in fact, the only species of landed property that is essentially moving and circulative. That there exist no inconveniences who will pretend to assert?—But I have yet to expect the proof, that the inconveniences are greater in this than in any other species; or that either the farmers ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... that they should take up the rock and put it before his throne. But when the strongest men in the army came to handle the rock, or sought to draw it with cords, they could do nothing; it remained immovable. Rustem, however, without any one to help him, lifted it from the earth, and carrying it into the camp, threw it down before the King's tent, and said, "Give up these cowardly tricks and the art of magic, else I will break ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... is hushed and still as death.—'Tis dreadful! How reverend is the face of this tall pile, Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads, To bear aloft its arched and ponderous roof, By its own weight made steadfast and immovable, Looking tranquillity! It strikes an awe And terror on my aching sight; the tombs And monumental caves of death look cold, And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart. Give use thy hand, and let me hear thy voice; Nay, quickly speak to me, ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... were speedily called to the dangerous position of the ship, which unexpectedly took the ground in a bay where the water proved to be unusually shallow, and before they could warp her off the ice closed round her in compact, immovable masses. At first Captain Guy was not seriously alarmed by this untoward event, although he felt a little chagrin in consequence of the detention, for the summer was rapidly advancing, and it behoved him ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... "the one." Whatever, therefore, manifests itself in the field of sense is merely illusory—the mental representation of a phenomenal world, which to experience seems diversified, but which reason can not possibly admit to be other than "immovable" and "one." There is but one Being in the universe, eternal, immovable, absolute; and of this unconditioned being all phenomenal existences, whether material or mental, are but the attributes and modes. Hence the two great ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... ceremonies now interfered, and advancing from his position beside the chief, ran up to where the women were struggling with the demon, and, thrusting his medicine pipe before the black monster, held him immovable under its charm. This action enabled the females to get safely out of his reach, and when free from danger, although their hearts still beat with the excitement, they soon became calm, and, seeing that he was ignominiously subjugated by the charm of ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... with immovable bases are formed on the blocks of rock which are scattered about the plain. The sand is driven against them by the wind, and as soon as it reaches the top point it descends on the other side until that is likewise covered; thus gradually arises a ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... or immovable and inelastic dressing is subject to the same objections as plaster-of-Paris dressings in thigh-fractures,—that of being dangerous and not expedient, unless the patient ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... not yielded? Old Tappelmine gives up his whiskey for the sake of money and employment, which inducements are strongly backed by his neutral-colored wife; but how if he had been brutally selfish and immovable? In both these cases, and in all the others, failure was at least quite as likely as success. People in real life cannot be managed as they can upon paper. Still the book contains a truth, and is likely ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... by the mare. With a hideous crash the flying roof was hurled against a nearby pinnacle of rock. The wooden wings split upon the immovable obstruction, and ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... gigantic frame, his buff coat of bull's hide, and his air of courage, firmness, and sagacity, mixed with indomitable pride. The loss of an eye in battle, though not perceptible at first sight, as the ball of the injured organ remained similar to the other, gave yet a stern, immovable glare ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... heard you grant a positive quality in all the time I have known you. And, to be frank, I think that you have something against me. But what it is I cannot find out." He paused eloquently before the white-haired figure that seemed as immovable ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... torrents, as if the windows of heaven were opened to wash away the world's defilements. The stout walls of the Manor House were immovable as rocks, but the wind and the rain and the noise of the storm struck an awe into the two girls. They crept closer together in their bed; they dared not separate for the night. The storm seemed too much the reflex of the agitation of their own minds, and they lay clasped ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... and the new earth arrive. There was no visible life between her and the great silent mouldering hills. On her right hand lay a blue segment of the ever restless sea, but so far that its commotion seemed a yet deeper rest than that of the immovable hills. ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... the physical and moral strength of the empire! Half the people requiring food, needing restraint, incapable of trust, and yet adding nothing to the muster-roll of the legions, or the persons by whom the fixed and immovable annual taxes were to be made good! In what state would the British empire now be, if we were subjected to the action of similar causes of ruin? A vast and unwieldy dominion, exposed on every side to the incursions of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... ground, back to back, in order to support each other, with our heads bent, to prevent as far as possible the snow getting under our masks. It was a weird sight, as once in a while I could see dimly through the flying snow our bent, immovable bodies, with heads down. Not a man said a word; it seemed as if we were frozen ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... stamped upon the tail of the reptile, who remained immovable; then he made a cord of a vine that was growing near, with a running knot at the end, and slipping this round the boa's neck, and drawing it with all his might, he strangled ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... the foliage, another approaching to the Ionian style, another introducing Mrs. Flack's initials—every one different." For he had read his Ruskin. He built his villas according to his desire; and not until he had inserted an immovable aunt into one of ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... notwithstanding the extremely small quantity of brain-substance, there exists a certain degree of intellectual development with advancing years. With the fourth year, in the case of M., independent movements began; up to that time she lay, as her five-year-old brother still lies, immovable in body and limbs, with the exception of ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... a true British matron, and preserved a quiet, immovable countenance; only a grim smile passed over it now and then. At last she remarked coolly, as if commenting on the weather, "I don't believe she will trouble you, my son." Never a word about the lace ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... screw the necks of three champagne bottles deeper into ice-pails. Between the points of his stand-up collar, which—though it hurt him to move—he would on no account have had altered, the pale flesh of his under chin remained immovable. His eyes roved from bottle to bottle. He was debating, and he argued like this: Jolyon drinks a glass, perhaps two, he's so careful of himself. James, he can't take his wine nowadays. Nicholas—Fanny and he would swill water he ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... scarce out of his mouth when we heard a loud rap on the door, which I opened to discover a Swiss fellow in a private livery, come to say that his master begged the young gentleman would sup with him. The man stood immovable while he delivered this message, and put an impudent emphasis ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... was the firmest texture possible to secure. Great lenses are so sensitive that one cannot go near them without throwing them discernibly out of shape. It were easy to show that there is no solid earth nor immovable mountains. I came away saying to my friend, "I am glad God lets you into so much of his finest thinking." He is a mechanic, not a theologian. This foremost man in the world in his fine department was lately but a "greasy mechanic," an ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... of their usual compass; the lips were so compressed that they had almost entirely disappeared, and all that marked his mouth was a black line; the nostrils were distended, and thin and transparent, while the forehead was shrivelled into the most minute and immovable wrinkles, as if done with a crimping instrument while over his eyes, or rather his eye, for he kept one closed as if it had been hermetically sealed, he had lashed with half a dozen turns of spun—yarn a wooden socket, like the but—end of an opera glass, fitted with some sort ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... experience had come as unexpectedly as one of those mysterious waves that sweep the sunny shore of Peru. Whither it would carry her she did not know, but every moment separated her more hopelessly from him who appeared like an immovable rock in his ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... trodden on by one of the detectives, and he had raised himself on his elbow, and was looking round, uttering curses volubly. He nodded slightly on seeing us enter, but did not change his position. There he lay, quite heroic in his immovable sloth; of all the many fighters he alone remained staunch at his post; and that because he was positively too lazy to move ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... the joy with which the provinces would welcome the message of their good king; but the opening of the royal answer in the council of state at Brussels disappointed all these pleasing hopes. "Although in regard to the religious edicts," this was its tenor, "his resolve was firm and immovable, and he would rather lose a thousand lives than consent to alter a single letter of it, still, moved by the representations of Count Egmont, he was, on the other hand, equally determined not to leave any gentle means untried ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... protective colour. And it is the same with the tree-creepers. I have heard Englishmen say there are no tree-creepers in Italy. The olive groves are well stocked with them (there are numbers even in the Borghese Gardens in Rome), but you must remain immovable as a rock in order to see them; for they are yet shyer, more silent, more fond of interposing the tree-trunk between yourself and them, than those at home. Mouse-like in hue, in movement and voice—a strange ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... with all the truth of life, and in investing the manifestation of an idea with energetic corporeity. They did not allow their figures to flit about without consistency in empty space, but they fixed the statue of humanity on the eternal and immovable basis of moral liberty; and that it might stand there unshaken, formed it of stone or brass, or some more massive substance than the bodies of living men, making an impression by its very weight, and from its very elevation and magnificence only the more completely ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... of the second verse, her fingers slipped from the keys and fell to her sides while she bowed her head and sat for a moment immovable. And then her shoulders moved slightly and a tiny smothered sound came from her throat. Suddenly her head bent and she fell forward on her arms upon the ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... did was to put a heavy, immovable granite monument over the deceased so that he would not be restless, and then she built what is known in our town as the Worthington Palace. It makes the Markley mansion which cost $25,000 look like a barn. The Worthingtons in the lifetime ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... Dutchman," while running through Twyford station at a speed of nearly sixty miles an hour. The definition of this lightning-like picture is truly wonderful, the details of the mechanism on the flying locomotive standing out as sharply as the immovable telegraph posts and palings beside the line. The photographers are now engaged, we believe, in constructing a swift shutter for their camera which will reduce the period of exposure of the photographic plate to 1-500th of a second. The same artists have also executed some charming pictures ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... house had not been aroused, wondered that those passing in the streets had not heard this quarrel of steel with steel, and sought to know the reason. Then for the first time through long, long minutes her eyes wandered. The power which held her immovable and speechless was lessening, but the tension was not gone yet. Her eyes wandered, and her ears heard something besides the ringing steel. The curtains over the window shook a little, stirred by a breath of wind from the alley without. ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... under arms had to be arranged, the salvation of the year's harvests, and the feeding, housing, and employment of the drifting millions of homeless people. In Canada, in South America, and Asiatic Russia there were vast accumulations of provision that was immovable only because of the breakdown of the monetary and credit systems. These had to be brought into the famine districts very speedily if entire depopulation was to be avoided, and their transportation and the revival of communications generally ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... moment, was less struck with the scenery, charming as that certainly was, than with the statue-like and immovable form on the little promontory. A single tree shaded the spot where the stranger stood, but it cast its shadows toward the west, at that early hour, leaving the erect and chiseled form in clear sun-light. Stimulated by curiosity, ...
— The Lake Gun • James Fenimore Cooper
... Carlyle's last imitator, be credited, that 'a universal rising of Royalists combined with Anabaptists' broke out in March 1655. On the contrary, it must be accepted as a preliminary condition in this investigation that England was, at that time, in a state of immovable tranquillity, and that any insurrectionary movement during the year 1655 sprang from a far-reaching design, which Cromwell practised alike on ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... after once or twice putting forth his hands, was compelled to ask him, "Why dost thou not strike? Strike! man!" In two blows he was beheaded; but from the first his body never shrunk from the spot by any discomposure of his posture, which, like his mind, was immovable. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... devotion to her was beautiful. "No language," says his daughter, "can give any adequate idea of it. Exhausted by wakefulness at night, she slept often in the daytime, resting her head on his arm. I have seen him remain immovable, for hours together, standing in the same position for fear of awakening her by the least movement. Absent from her during a few hours of sleep, he inquired, on his return, of her attendant, if she had asked ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... Guillotine had been much occupied plying her gruesome trade; she now stood there in the gloom, passive and immovable, seeming to wait placidly for the end of this holiday, ready to begin her work again on the morrow. She towered above these merrymakers, hoisted up on the platform whereon many an innocent foot had trodden, the ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... stood immovable on the hearth-rug, bracing herself to meet the hour of reckoning that had come so swiftly and in such a totally unannounced manner upon her. She watched Mrs. Murray greet her old friend with mingled surprise ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... step was the abolition of the mass, an act by which it was forbidden that any should either hear or say that office "or be present thereat, under the pain of confiscation of all their goods movable and immovable, and punishing of their bodies at the discretion of the Magistrates." Another edict followed abolishing the jurisdiction of the Pope under pain of "proscription, banishment, and never to brook honour, office, or dignity within ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... President's decision may yet yield to the wishes of many of his oldest friends. Those, however, who know him best have no such hopes. Judge Yates has said that he never refused an offer of any sort in his life."[201] And so it proved in this instance. Tompkins was immovable. Like a race horse trained to running, he only needed to be let into the ring and given a free rein. When the bell sounded he was off on his fifth race ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... cattle in the vicinity had already set themselves afloat, and were swimming in regular columns toward their homes. But these noble mares, with wonderful perseverance, remained immovable under their cherished burden for the space of six hours, till, the tide ebbing, the water subsided, and the colts were ...
— Minnie's Pet Horse • Madeline Leslie
... immovable. He acknowledged Edgar's pleasantry about interest with a smile, but would by no means accept of a single penny from ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... he had a poor time of it; it was not long indeed before he could manage to keep his legs against Job, for that hero was slow of offence, and gained his victories chiefly by allowing others to throw themselves against his immovable legs and loins. But Harry Winburn was undeniably his master; from the first clutch of hands when they stood up, down to the last trip which sent him on to his back on the turf, he felt that Harry knew more and could do more than he. Luckily Harry's bright unconsciousness ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... full of pain and troublous previsions of a restless, discontented night, Pinton grew angry and pulled at the knob of the door, thinking, perhaps, that it might abate a jot of its dignified resistance. It remained immovable, grimly antagonistic, until his fingers grew hot and cold as they touched a bit ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... Diana knelt still immovable. In her face was that agonized shock and recoil with which the young and pure, the tenderly cherished and guarded, receive the first withdrawal of the veil which hides from them the more brutal facts of life. But, as she ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... debts to him, this present exemption, that is like liberty dragging a chain, or, say, an escaped felon wearing his manacles, should count. I am sensible of my obligation. The price I pay for it is an immovable patch-attractive to male idiots, I have heard, and a mark of scorn to females. Between the two the remainder of my days will be lively. "Out, out, damned spot!" But it will not. And not on the hand—on the forehead! We'll talk of it no longer. I have sent a note, with an enclosure, to my ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... left rise high mountains, terraced and verdant, excepting at their summits, on one of which he perceives a goat, with long horns, stationed there immovable like a sentinel, and whose delicate profile is clearly defined on the azure of the sky. On the side towards the sea, the mountains, bending their gray and naked heads, resemble stone giants, watching the movements of the wave ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... moved across the narrow strip of dark-blue sky above. The silence awoke to the low hum of insects. Venters watched the immovable white face, and as he watched, hour by hour waiting for death, the infamy of her passed from his mind. He thought only of the sadness, the truth of the moment. Whoever she was—whatever she had done—she was young and ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... greatness was never acknowledged by the learned until the nation had ascertained and settled it as a foregone and questionless conclusion. Even now, to the most sagacious mind of this time, the real ground and evidence of its own assurance of Shakespeare's supremacy, is the universal, deep, immovable conviction of it in the public feeling. There have been many acute essays upon his minor characteristics; but intellectual criticism has never grappled with Shakespearian art, in its entireness and grandeur, and probably it never will. We know not now wherein his greatness consists. ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... nor convinced. With desperate beseechings, with every argument of passion, no matter how it debased him, he strove frantically to subdue her to his purpose. But Miriam was immovable. At length she could not even urge him with reasonings; his prostrate frenzy revolted her, and she drew away in repugnance. Reuben's supplication turned on ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... sodden,—wild, shagged with scrubby growths of timber and brooded over by sullen clouds, and visibly inhabited only by shepherds, leaning upon their staves at an angle of forty-five degrees, and looking, in their immovable dejection, with their legs wrapped in long-haired goat-skins, like satyrs that had been converted, and were trying to do right; turning dim faces to us, they warned us with every mute appeal against the land, as a waste of mud from one end of Italy to the other. On the other hand, there was the ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... brink—but, ah! below the surface. The form is that of Peters—the only man who could be in such a situation yet live on. One of those invincible arms is thrown upon the surface above the chasm, and those long fingers fasten upon the immovable lava. And now the madman sees the danger that menaces his design—but too late, for Peters the unconquerable stands erect between him and the chasm. Then Ahpilus quickly sets on the ground his living burden; ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... more, but stood there in the doorway with McNab's rum under his arm. He did not stir, nor did he seem to notice the "good-bye" that came down the winding trail through the pines, but remained there stolid and immovable, gazing vacantly at the writing-paper on the rough table. Suddenly he straightened himself up to his full height, and taking the bottle from under his arm, held it out at arm's length and apostrophized it in terms which Mr. McNab ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... lunge forward, and dived under the coming swell, hurling her crew into the eddies. Nothing but the point of her poop remained, and there stood the stern and steadfast Don, cap—pie in his glistening black armor, immovable as a man of iron, while over him the flag, which claimed the empire of both worlds, flaunted its gold aloft and upward in the glare ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... company with Mr. Richard Hart Davis, whom I now eyed for the first time. All persons were pompously commanded to stand back from the door; but I had a sturdy set of friends now to support me, and they stood as firm as a rock, and almost as immovable. For some time the Jacks in office attempted in vain to approach the door, till at length I requested that those who were near it would fall back, and make way for the Sheriffs; which request was instantly complied with. The moment the door ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... movement, for in it are possibilities that can be only successively actualized. But the element of stability can be found only in the divine, in God, in whom there is no unactualized possibility, who, therefore, is immovable, immutable, and eternal. The doctrine that derives authority from God through the people, recognizes in the state both of these elements, and provides ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... rim of moist earth under their feet, and above their heads the infinite blue! The stillness of the summer was in every blade of grass, in every leaf, and the pond reflected the sky and willows in hard, immovable reflections. An occasional ripple of the water-fowl in the reeds impressed upon them the mystery of Nature's indifference to ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... new school, partly carried away by its characteristic admiration of the heroism of their attack and the fiery eloquence of their champion, Ruskin, and perhaps not quite assured of its final effect, forgets to unmask its terrible artillery. But to upset the almost immovable English conservatism, to teach the nation new ways of thought and feeling, in a generation! Cromwell could not do it; and this wave of reform that now surges up against those prejudices, more immovable than the white ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... must come to the heart before the heart can be prepared for His coming. John the Baptist came crying in the wilderness, but his fiery message did little to cast up a highway for the footsteps of the King. John's immovable humility pierced to the very heart of the prophecy when he answered the question 'Who art thou?' with 'I am a voice. The voice was unnamed; why, what does it matter ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... some time immovable. At last, breaking silence with a faltering voice: "O generous lady! pardon a stranger, an unfortunate man, for presuming to ask thee by what surprising adventure I here find the name of Zadig traced out ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... window; for the contemptuous beggar was oppressive to look at, with his immovable arm on the table. I suppose my unceremonious manner provoked him to a comparatively ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... impatiently away. The manner of the woman was so inexpressibly calm and sweet, the dignity of her beautiful presence was so immovable, that the lady felt it in vain to waste words upon her. Juanita was a ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... words of God, and immediately went to the place where the skins were, with intent to throw them into the sea, or burn them with fire; only, just as he was about to seize them, God spake a word, and Satan was bound there immovable, in his own hideous form. And when Adam and Eve came to the place, they saw him crouching beside the skins; and they were afraid at the horrible look of him. Then the Word came to them, saying, "This is he who promised to make you as gods. What have you gained, think you, by hearkening ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James
... smaller diameter and its sooty trunk. The bark is crisp, jet black, and has the appearance of being charred. Beneath the bark the wood is perfectly white until the heart is reached, which is the fine black ebony of commerce. Here also, equally immovable, the calamander is growing, neglected and unknown. This is the most esteemed of all Ceylon woods, and it is so rare that it realizes a fancy price. It is something similar to the finest walnut, the color being a rich hazel brown, mottled and striped with irregular black ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... flush in her cheeks. She was pacing up and down in her little room, pressing her hands against her chest; her lips were parched and her breathing came in nervous broken gasps. Her eyes glittered as in fever and looked about with a harsh immovable stare. And that consumptive and excited face with the last flickering light of the candle-end playing upon it made a sickening impression. She seemed to Raskolnikov about thirty years old and was certainly a strange wife for Marmeladov.... She had not heard them and did not notice them coming ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... before me; while something in his manner suggested a subtle, cold-blooded, venomous nature. Those swift glances of his, which perpetually came and went with such bewildering rapidity, reminded me, not of the immovable, stony gaze of the serpent's lidless eyes, but of the flickering little forked tongue, that flickers, flickers, vanishes and flickers again, and is never for one moment at rest. Who was this man, and what ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... into space, conquering, at first, the manifold resistances opposed to it by its watery medium. Gradually, however, its energies became exhausted, till at last, completely overwhelmed, it stopped, an immovable projection stagnated to death-like rigidity. Thus for hours, perhaps, it remained stationary, one of many such rays of some of the many kinds of protoplasmic stars. By degrees, then, or perhaps quite suddenly, HELP ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... Past, then, to dictate laws to immovable China; let us abandon it to the Chinese Legitimists of Europe. But for us, we will have another captain to rule over us—that captain who ever marches at the head of his troop and beckons them forward, not lingering in the rear, and impeding their ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... wishes; Catherine, in her strong Castilian austerity, measured her steps by the letter of the law; the more her husband withdrew from her, the more she insisted upon her relation to him as his wife; and continued with fixed purpose and immovable countenance[124] to share his table and his bed long after she was aware of his ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... did not take up all the points in dispute which the King proposed for discussion. It excused some things which had occurred to the prejudice of the royal dignity, but in the principal matter it was immovable. It asserted, and adhered to its assertion, that it was the constant undoubted right of Parliament, exercised as well under the most glorious of former reigns as under the last, to hold all persons accountable, however high their rank, who should abuse the power transferred to them ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... in a reclining posture, his back firmly supported by a solid beam. Another lay across his breast, but he had been able to shrink a little away from it so that it no longer oppressed him, though it was immovable. A brace joining it at an angle had wedged him against a pile of boards on his left, fastening the arm on that side. His legs, slightly parted and straight along the ground, were covered upward to the knees with a mass of debris which towered above his narrow ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... waistcoat a leather vest, and on his head a grey cap. Put him in the Strand in town clothes, and he might have been taken for a clerk, a civil servant, a club secretary, a retired military officer, a poet, an undertaker—for anything except the last of a long line of immovable squires who could not possibly conceive what it was not to be the owner of land. His face was preoccupied and overcast, but as soon as he realised that Miss Ingate was on the stairs it instantly brightened into a warm ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... Mr. Moy. Mr. Moy looked invitingly at Sir Patrick. More formal courtesies! a polite contest this time as to which of the two learned gentlemen should permit the other to speak first! Mr. Moy's modesty proving to be quite immovable, Sir Patrick ended ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... Reconcileableness; Irreconcilable, Irreconcilably, Irreconcilableness."—Johnson's Dict. "We have thought it most adviseable to pay him some little attention."— Merchants Criticisms. "Proveable, that may be proved; Reprovable. blameable, worthy of reprehension."—Walker's Dict. "Moveable and Immovable, Moveably and Immovably, Moveables and Removal, Moveableness and Improvableness, Unremoveable and Unimprovable, Unremoveably and Removable, Proveable and Approvable, Irreproveable and Reprovable, Unreproveable and Improvable, Unimproveableness and Improvably."—Johnson's ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... you looked at his immovable countenance and his correct iron-gray whiskers, you understood at once that this was a man who knew what he was doing, and never neglected a ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... not leave my place. The man at the bow was close by me. Immovable at the helm, his eyes burning beneath his contracted brows, the captain waited. He meant, perhaps, to finish the ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... silent. Pale and immovable, he continued to watch Porphyrius's face with a labored effort of attention. "The lesson is a good one!" he reflected. "But it is not, as yesterday, a case of the cat playing with the mouse. Of course, he does not talk to me in this way for the ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... of the terrific in it, something even oppressive. We are as a fact at the end of the world. The eye does not seem to be deceived here, as it often is in great magnitudes; it belittles nothing; it realizes to the full this strange impression of simple, hopeless bulk, immovable and pitiless as ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... and Sam Brattle was remanded. An attorney thus was employed on his behalf by Mr. Fenwick. The parson on the Monday evening had been down at the mill, and had pressed strongly on the old miller the necessity of getting some legal assistance for his son. At first Mr. Brattle was stern, immovable, and almost dumb. He sat on the bench outside his door, with his eyes fixed on the dismantled mill, and shook his head wearily, as though sick and sore with the words that were being addressed to him. Mrs. ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... in the last pin with painful deliberation, and was crawling around her necessarily immovable model to see that she had made no mistakes, when the door opened with a flourish and ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... give, they would certainly meet with no mercy. Mercy was a thing totally out of our way; for if they knew anything, they must be aware that our khan, our lord and master, the Nasakchi Bashi, was a man of such invincible courage, of a resolution so great, and of bowels so immovable, that if once they got within his grasp, it was all over with them. Yes, we told them all that, and they almost sunk ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... word, for it has an evil sound?" But there was not a flush on William's pale, immovable face, and it was marvellous to see so young a Prince carry himself so quietly under the polite scorn of Claverhouse's manner and the ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... tells no tale Of all the good it does. Thou halt not left Thyself without a witness, in the shades, Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak By whose immovable stem I stand and seem Almost annihilated—not a prince, In all that proud old world beyond the deep, E'er wore his crown as loftily as he Wears the green coronal of leaves with which Thy hand has graced him. Nestled ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... I noticed an elderly lady of noble figure, who, having paid the amount of her docket, seemed on the point of going away. She saw me, scanned me from head to foot, and did not budge. For more than a full quarter-of-an-hour she sat there, immovable, putting on her gloves, and calmly staring at those who were waiting like myself. Now, two young men who were just finishing their dinner, having seen me in their turn, quickly summoned the waiter ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... The highest act of the mind of man, is to possess itself with tranquillity in imminent danger, and to have its thoughts so free, as to act at that time without perplexity. The ancient poets have compared this sedate courage to a rock that remains immovable amidst the rage of winds and waves; but that is too stupid and inanimate a similitude, and could do no credit to the hero. At other times they are all of them wonderfully obliged to a Lybian lion, which ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... word. The fury of the governor and the executioners was redoubled against him; and, not knowing how to torment him further, they applied to his most tender members bars of red-hot iron. His members burned; but he, upright and immovable, persisted in his profession of faith, as if living waters from the bosom of Christ flowed over him and refreshed him. Some days after, these infidels began again to torture him, believing that if ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... of the inner room open, he remained immovable, with no intention of entering, and called in a harsh, aged voice: "Senor Ramon! Senor Ramon!" and then twice: "Sera-phina—Seraphina!" ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... had presence of mind both for herself and him. He stood speechless, pale and immovable, like a statue. Utter dismay filled his heart and let not a single word escape ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... says he: "first battalion starts, second stands immovable till the first have done fifty steps; at the fifty-first, second battalion also steps along; third waiting for ITS fifty-first step. First battalion [rightmost battalion or leftmost, as the case may be; rightmost ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... momentary giggle. When feeding-tube was placed in his nose, preparatory to feeding, he jumped up and said, "I'll drink it," and drank the entire contents of the pitcher. While some parts of his body remained absolutely fixed, restrained and immovable, his face was constantly undergoing various grimacing motions, accompanied now and then by the snapping of his jaws and a growl. During the following several nights he was very noisy, excitable, singing and shouting throughout the night. Mental ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... support but the props and pressure equally sustaining me all around. The two latter I frequently dislodged by shifting my hold on the bars and driving my knuckles into their ribs; but my friend above stuck fast, held immovable by two bars. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... pulling his mouth open (there is nothing that opens the mouth quicker than a sharp upward jerk of the nose) with a rude jollity that sets the spectators in a roar. Down he goes into the cavern, and digs away for a quarter of a minute, the man the while as immovable as a stone image, when he holds up the bloody tooth. The patient still persists in sitting with his mouth stretched open to its widest limit, waiting for the operation to begin, and will only close the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... sure Would ever live secure, In spite of storm and blast Immovable and fast; Whoso would fain deride The ocean's threatening tide;— His dwelling should not seek On sands or mountain-peak. Upon the mountain's height The storm-winds wreak their spite: The shifting sands disdain Their ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... not directly recognised in the resolution of the Commons, nor the war announced, though they were well aware the alliance was formed for the war. However, compelled by the returning sense of the people, they went so far as to fix the three great immovable pillars of the safety and greatness of England, as they were then, as they are now, and as they must ever be to the end of time. They asserted in general terms the necessity of supporting Holland, of keeping united with ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... interested in one's friends' marriages, hoping they'll turn out well and all that; but this was different. The average man isn't like Bobbie, and the average girl isn't like Mary. It was that old business of the immovable mass and the irresistible force. There was Bobbie, ambling gently through life, a dear old chap in a hundred ways, but undoubtedly a chump of the ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... on the faces of the beheaded wretches, it did not seem as if any of them had at all enjoyed what had taken place; on the contrary, rather than otherwise, there was plainly depicted on their now immovable features an expression of most decided dissatisfaction. Without doubt, they had undergone a terrible agony. In some cases the eyes were closed, in others they were wide open, staring straight in front. The pupils ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... accessory resonator cavities, and the most important of these is the nose; its cavity is entirely enclosed in bone and cartilage, consequently it is immovable; this cavity may or may not be closed to the sonorous waves by the elevation of the soft palate. When the mouth is closed, as in the production of the consonant m, e.g. in singing me, a nasal quality is ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... carven and niched in the front of some old cathedral, Four angels stood each in his turret, immovable warders, The first with reverend locks snow-white, and a silver volume Of beard that twinkled with frost, and hung to the icicled borders That fringed his girdle beneath: ancient his look was, and solemn, Like a wrinkled and bearded saint blessing ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... meeting, was like a stern statue's. The other's face flushed, and his heart raged and sickened at sight of the man, that, once his comrade and benefactor, was now possessor of the woman he loved. But the figures of both stood alike haughty, erect, and immovable, face ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... fiend calmly frowning upon my agony. I hated it, and yet had an unpleasant sense that my hatred could do it no harm. If I could have lightened and thundered, its rocks would have come down with a crash; but it stood immovable, scornful, and eternal. There is a poetry in the great mountains, but the poetry may be stern as well as benevolent. If, to the weary Londoner, they speak of fresh air and healthful exercise and exciting ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... he should be there. I thought of contriving a tackle called a whip, and making one end fast to him and taking the other end to the little capstan on the main deck; but on inspecting the capstan I found that the frost had rendered it immovable, added to which there was nothing whatever to be done with the iron-hard gear, and therefore I had to ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... glance at the world, before we even make our bodies in it, we distinguish qualities. Color succeeds to color, sound to sound, resistance to resistance, etc. Each of these qualities, taken separately, is a state that seems to persist as such, immovable until another replaces it. Yet each of these qualities resolves itself, on analysis, into an enormous number of elementary movements. Whether we see in it vibrations or whether we represent it ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... realism, grim, unlovely, unyielding. To be true—and it was the first article of his creed to be unflinchingly true—he could not ignore it. All the noble poetry of the ranch—the valley—seemed in his mind to be marred and disfigured by the presence of certain immovable facts. Just what he wanted, Presley hardly knew. On one hand, it was his ambition to portray life as he saw it—directly, frankly, and through no medium of personality or temperament. But, on the other hand, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... in fact, that the colonel already held his pistols in his hands. We both maintained almost profound silence. Our horses felt the danger like ourselves, and remained as immovable as if their feet were nailed to the ground. My excitement had entirely subsided. 'What are we going to do?' I demanded ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... this principle, we may recall here the trick performed by certain jugglers, and that consists in making a coin roll over the top of a Japanese paper parasol. The parasol is revolved very rapidly, and, to the eyes of the spectator, the coin seems to remain immovable. It is, in reality, the parasol that revolves ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various
... play and sympathy of what we call the civilised mind; the contrast was seizing. I speak with feeling. To-day again, being the first day humanly possible for me, I went down to Apia with Fanny, and between two and three hours did I argue with that old woman—not immovable, would she had been! but with a mechanical mind like a piece of a musical snuff-box, that returned always to the same starting-point; not altogether base, for she was long-suffering with me and professed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
