"Imperceptible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... part—not policy. He was on the point of saying something himself, to make the chance which he had determined to give her still better, when the servant announced another visitor. The duchess, on hearing the name—it was that of an Italian prince—gave a little imperceptible pout, and said to Newman, rapidly: "I beg you to remain; I desire this visit to be short." Newman said to himself, at this, that Madame d'Outreville intended, after all, that they should ...
— The American • Henry James
... to our expectations of the advance of Christ's kingdom. It will transform society by slow, often unnoticed, degrees, by radical change of individuals' habits. The elevation of humanity will be slow, like the imperceptible rise of the Norwegian coast. Sudden changes are short-lived changes. 'Lightly come, lightly go.' What ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... respectable Archbishop complained, that "this lady did not prove that she had been authorized by her husband, an essential provision, without which no woman can act in law." And Conde himself, whose heart, physically twice as large as other men's, was spiritually imperceptible, repaid this stainless nobleness by years of persecution, and bequeathed her, as a life-long prisoner, to his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... was a step which his curious sense of honesty prevented him taking. He leapt out of the cab before it stopped, thrust the fare into the driver's hands and looked round for the girl. He saw her at last and walked quickly towards her. As he approached her, she turned about and with an almost imperceptible beckoning gesture walked away. He followed her along the Bayswater Road and gradually ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... retaining as guides whatever Saharians he could find acquainted with that part of the desert he intended to traverse. The Arabs are gifted with remarkable dexterity in steering without compass, recognising a footstep imperceptible to the common eye, scenting the water at a distance, and finding their way by marks which would escape the most observant European. A Saharian once affirmed to Colonel Daumas: 'I am not considered remarkably sharp-sighted, but I can ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... at this happy spot, we have had a ham, (sometimes a shoulder) of Bacon, to grace the head of the Table; a piece of roast Beef adorns the foot; a dish of beans, or greens, (almost imperceptible,) decorates the center. When the cook has a mind to cut a figure, (which, I presume will be the case to-morrow) we have two Beef-steak pyes, or dishes of crabs, in addition, one on each side of the center ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... I found that one of the windows of the cottage had formerly occupied a part of it, but the panes had been filled up with wood. In one of these was a small and almost imperceptible chink through which the eye could just penetrate. Through this crevice a small room was visible, whitewashed and clean but very bare of furniture. In one corner, near a small fire, sat an old man, leaning his head ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... conduct an interview with all the gravity and deliberation for which these affairs are celebrated. The slow approach, with frequent pauses to sit down and meditate, or "view the landscape o'er," the earnest and musical—if melancholy—exchange of salutations, the almost imperceptible drawing nearer, with the slightly waving tail the only sign of excitement, and at last the instantaneous dash, the slap or scratch (so rapid one can never tell which), the fiery expletive and retort, and the instant retreat, to sit down again. There ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... conscious only of the faint hum of a generator at the other end of the room, and the quivering hand of the meter. I turned the dial back an imperceptible degree, and the hand steadied down exactly upon the numerals "2700." Then I touched ...
— The Infra-Medians • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... Marmion looked up again suddenly with an almost imperceptible start, and, for the first time, took an interest in Miss ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... room seemed to him, as he entered, a little strained. Billie looked pale and agitated. Mr. Peters looked rather agitated too. Sam caught Billie's eye. It had an unspoken appeal in it. He gave an imperceptible nod, a reassuring nod, the nod of a man who understood all and was prepared to ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... had brooded the world, in preparation for flight. The shadows began to retreat from where they had shrouded the nearest trees. The air grew softer; from it a noiseless breeze just touched the great arms of the pines as though to waken them and gave to them an almost imperceptible motion. The stars and planets began to faint in the heavens. As the waves of light increased in the east, the snow on the high mountains to the west took on the hue of the opal, and when the last shadow fled away and the sun flashed gloriously above the eastern horizon, ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... the admiration of those who never knew their loss, but the perfection of the original was gone. Again and again I have heard him [Leech] sigh as he looked over the new number of Punch; and as I, seeing but excellence, would ask an explanation, he would point to some almost imperceptible obliquity which vexed his gentle soul." It is a curious fact that, in common with most draughtsmen, Leech never became reconciled to the fact that black printer's-ink cannot exactly render the tender grey tones of a hard lead pencil; but to the fact that he had not much to complain of Mr. ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... went on; and an imperceptible pause followed the words. "We rid down to Garyville to be wed, an' we went from the jestice's office to the office of this here Dickert. He had a cuss with him that was no better'n him; an' when it come to the time in the signin' that our names was put ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... and he again as he had done at dinner permitted himself to look into her eyes, and going on after an imperceptible pause he said softly, "simple, and pure, and sweet ...I always think of you, Lady Ethelrida, as the embodiment of sane things, balanced things—perfection." And his last word was ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... on whose ground we now stood at the foot of the hills, are Wa-Khutu, and their possessions consequently are U-Khutu, which is by far the best producing land hitherto alluded to since leaving the sea-coast line. Our ascent by the river, though quite imperceptible to the eye, has been 500 feet. From this level the range before us rises in some places to 5000 to 6000 feet, not as one grand mountain, but in two detached lines, lying at an angle of 45 degrees from N.E. to S.W., and separated one from the other by elevated valleys, tables, and ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Sir Charles never rose from his bed again; but he sunk so gradually that it was almost imperceptible, and it was not until the summer of that year that he slept with his fathers, dying without pain, and in perfect ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the slopes beneath, he heard the clinking hoofs of the posse; the quiet was so perfect, the air so clear, that he even caught the chorus of straining saddle leather and then voices of men. All this time the effects of the whisky had been wearing away by imperceptible degrees and at that sound all his old self rushed back on Vic Gregg. Why, they were his friends, his partners, these voices in the night, and that clear laughter floated up from Harry Fisher who had been his bunkie at the Circle V Bar ranch three years ago. He felt ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... actually doing. Time, the greatest of all innovators, manages his innovations so dexterously, spreads them over such vast periods, and therefore brings them about so gradually, that often, while effecting the mightiest changes, we have no suspicion that he is effecting any at all. Thus how imperceptible are the steps by which a foreign word is admitted into the full rights of an English one; the process of its incoming often eluding our notice altogether. There are numerous Greek words, for example ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... she leaned over them, with her head thrust forward, terrifying in her immobility, with her eyes fixed intently upon the black dust scattered in patches over the plate. She sought what she had seen fortune-tellers find in the granulations and the almost imperceptible traces left by the coffee as it trickled away. She fatigued her eyes by gazing at the innumerable little spots, and deciphered shapes and letters and signs therein. She put aside some grains with her finger in order to see them more clearly and more sharply ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... wanly. She laid an impulsive hand on Patricia's arm and opened her pretty lips, but before the words came she evidently obeyed another differing impulse, for she underwent a subtle change, an imperceptible hardening that was so delicately veiled by her still gracious manner that Patricia had only a baffling sense of being gently shut out ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... evil, is, the temptation which always attends the use of stimulants. Their effect on the system is so agreeable, and the evils resulting are so imperceptible and distant, that there is a constant tendency to increase such excitement, both in frequency and power. And the more the system is thus reduced in strength, the more craving is the desire for that which imparts ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... the seacoast of Puteoli and the Caieta, they compare their own expeditions to the marches of Caesar and Alexander. Yet should a fly presume to settle on the silken folds of their gilded umbrellas, should a sunbeam penetrate through some unguarded and imperceptible chink, they deplore their intolerable hardships, and lament in affected language that they were not born in the land of the Cimmerians, the regions of eternal darkness. In these journeys into the country the whole body ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... with an imperceptible start. The colour again flooded his face; his gratitude, his joy were so great that, for a moment, they rendered him speechless, and his voice was broken when ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... the stars of the sphere successively appear in view, enumerated 6,000 stars. This number may be regarded as including all the stars in the heavens that are visible to the naked eye. With the aid of an opera glass thousands of stars can be seen that are imperceptible to ordinary vision. Argelander, with a small telescope of 2-1/2 inches aperture, was able to count 234,000 stars in the Northern Hemisphere. Large telescopes reveal multitudes of stars utterly beyond the power of enumeration, nor ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... peculiar case," whispered the young doctor in charge, as we paused at the door. "I want you to notice his face and his cough. His pulse seems very weak, almost imperceptible at times. The stethoscope reveals subcrepitant sounds all over his lungs. It's like bronchitis or pneumonia—but it ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... visible in it, playing at cards with a creature of a black and horrid countenance, wherein were plainly delineated the arts of his mind, cozenage and falsehood. They were marking their game with counters, on which we could see inscriptions, imperceptible to any but us. My lord had scored with pieces of ivory, on which were writ, Good Fame, Glory, Riches, Honour, and Posterity. The spectre over against him had on his counters the inscriptions of, Dishonour, ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... in 1697, the silent forests about the little village of Exeter felt an almost imperceptible stir of life, for through it there stealthily crept an Indian chief, followed by one and then another of his frightful band. Each dressed in tawny skins like the creatures of the wood and with adornment of feathers from the very birds, they seemed ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... the book-learning crept in of its own accord, by imperceptible degrees. Children naturally want to be like their parents, and to do what they do: the boys following their father, and the girls their mother; and as I was always writing or reading, mine naturally ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... it take?" inquired Cornelius, stooping to flick an imperceptible spot of dust from ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... for another chocolate cream, gave an imperceptible start. She, too, was staying at the Normandie. She presumed that her admirer was a recent arrival, for she had seen nothing of him ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... he says, "was no conversation of leaps and bounds, in which idleness traverses a whole gallery of ideas that have no connection with one another, and weariness draws you away from one object to skim a dozen others. They were talks in which all was bound together, often by imperceptible threads, but all the more naturally, as not a word of what was to be said had been led up to or prepared beforehand." Grimm cannot find words to describe her verve, her stream of brilliant sallies, her dashing traits, her eagle's coup ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... however, for a final visit, and the day after to see them away, without any apparent breach in the confidence and friendship with which they regarded each other. There might be, perhaps, a faint almost imperceptible difference in Chatty, a little dignity like that which her mother had discovered in her, something that was not altogether the simple girl, younger than her years, whom Mrs. Warrender had brought to ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... settled down over the party. Little by little the magic of the night began to gain a hold on them. There were sudden creaks of the furniture, imperceptible rustlings in the curtains. Suddenly Tuppence ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... with their arms and standards no disgrace would be inflicted upon the national arms, and as a tribute, however much reduced, would still be paid, they could still regard the Rebu as under their domination. The reduction of the tribute, indeed, would be an almost imperceptible item in the revenue ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... secret, unknown, covert, impenetrable, obscure, undiscovered, unseen, dark, imperceptible, occult, unimagined, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... by a half-worn and almost imperceptible path leading through the long rough grass, and, turning round a half- demolished shrine, which exhibited the remains of Apis, the bovine deity, he came immediately in front of the philosopher, Agelastes, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... speaking in public or to receiving delegations. The sentences were stately, the voice rather loud and declamatory. His closing words were: "Yes, gentlemen, the way to see London is from the top of a 'bus—from the top of a 'bus, gentlemen." Then there was an almost imperceptible wave of the hand, and we knew that the interview was ended. In a moment we were outside and the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... forlorn hope, advanced perhaps one hundred yards before the main body....The snow was deeper than in the fields, because of the nature of the ground; and the path made (by the advance guard) was almost imperceptible because of the falling snow. Covering the locks of our guns with the lappets of our coats, holding down our heads (for it was impossible to bear up our faces against the imperious storm of wind and snow), ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... dealer makes up in boastful clamor for the absence of quantity and assortment in his wares; and it often happens that an almost imperceptible boy, with a card of shirt-buttons and a paper of hair-pins, is much worse than the Anvil Chorus with real anvils. Fishermen, with baskets of fish upon their heads; peddlers, with trays of housewife wares; louts ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... broken, the grasp of despair is loosened a little about his heart. Yet hardly does he notice whether the sun shines or no, or care whether he lives or dies. Slowly his senses steady themselves from the effects of a shock that nearly destroyed him, and merciful time, with imperceptible touch, softens day by day the outlines of that picture, at the memory of which he will never cease ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... we found the sun struggling for the mastery with the clouds on the tops of the adjacent hills. The army was now in full motion; the regular infantry defiled in something like order down the narrow path, which had been imperceptible to us on the preceding evening. The Bashi Bazouks, on the other hand, might be seen streaming down the hill-side, jumping, rolling, and tumbling in strange confusion. Having inspected the fort we joined in with these, and rode down a descent, which would ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... considerate for her husband, and extremely kind to all her visitors, though with a tinge of difference in her behaviour according to their position. She received Nekhludoff as if he were one of them, and her fine, almost imperceptible flattery made him once again aware of his virtues and gave him a feeling of satisfaction. She made him feel that she knew of that honest though rather singular step of his which had brought him to Siberia, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... riders and had become what their teacher called "pals" with their horses, they were daily given larger liberty. In company with him, and sometimes without him, they rode long distances over the roads, the narrow trails, and the almost imperceptible paths which led over the mountains ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... afternoon. His bodily strength had been rapidly declining during the last few days, and it was only at intervals that he retained any degree of apparent consciousness. The last transition took place quietly and with almost imperceptible gradation. ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... up, met Lena's eyes. Their expression of candour seemed to hide some struggling intention. Her head, he fancied, had made an imperceptible affirmative movement. Why? What reason could she have? Was it the prompting of some obscure instinct? Or was it simply a delusion of his own senses? But in this strange complication invading the quietude of his life, in his state ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... By some imperceptible means, Madame Dravikine saw to it that her nephew came in contact with those people who could be useful to him; and she was satisfied, if slightly surprised, to see the ease with which he talked. Ivan himself wondered ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... looking overhead as we swiftly ploughed our smooth way at a great height through the now imperceptible atmosphere of the planet, I saw the two moons of Mars meeting in the sky exactly ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... he started about four o'clock. The evening was most melancholy. For, though no rain any longer fell, there was a continual pattering of drops from the trees and a ghostly creaking of branches in a light and almost imperceptible wind. The day, too, was falling, the grey overhang of cloud was changing to black, except for one wide space in the west, where a pale spectral light shone without radiance; and the last of that was fading when he pulled up at a parting ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... offered his aid to the nurses. If he was clumsy in his attempt to jiggle a chair into position, an explanation may be instantly provided. Miss Fairweather, after a brief stare of indecision, favoured him with an almost imperceptible smile. He happened to be in the act of pushing a high- chair under the wriggling person of Imogene. That smile caused the momentary paralysis of his whole being, with the result that the nurse came near to depositing Imogene on the floor. Every one—except Imogene—squealed. Mr. Flanders ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... annoyance passed over the face of the elder lady as she arranged the snowy ruffles of her cap, while the deepened color and sparkling eyes of the younger, with the almost imperceptible sarcasm of her smile, seemed to indicate mingled pleasure, defiance and contempt. The visitor who entered was resplendent in the gay scarlet and glittering lace of the British uniform, and his redundancy of ruffles, powder ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... seems to mean undifferentiated connective tissue; "exhalants" are imperceptible tubes arising from the capillaries and secreting fat, serum, marrow, etc.; the "absorbents and glands" are the lymphatics and ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... bees, or to summon the chickens to be fed—I never know. It is only my mental picture of a "lively din." As to the second line, all attempts to see the thing described only bring before me clouds and shadows, confusedly rushing about in an impossible way; a chaos utterly unlike the serenity and imperceptible growth of morning, and ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... imperceptible motion, Mrs. Gammit slid her right hand, armed with the pepper-pot, over the edge of the window-sill. The porcupines, enraptured with the flavour of the herring-tub, never looked up. Mrs. Gammit was just about to turn the pepper-pot over, when she ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... deeper grey than the sky. It is a remarkably handsome mountain, sufficiently lofty to be imposing, rising out of an elevated country, the slope of which, upward to the base of the mountain, though imperceptible, is really considerable; and it is surrounded by lesser hills of just sufficient elevation to set it off. The atmosphere, too, of these regions is peculiarly favourable for views: it is very dry at this season; but still the hills are clearly defined, without the harsh ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... smoke from the fires would in time become annoying. But Indians used for fuel only dry wood and bark, the smoke from which would be a negligible factor. The varying pressure of the atmosphere outside creates a current of air in or out which is usually imperceptible but which penetrates to the ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... consider the pace a very fast one, but being a cheerful fellow by nature, he simply expressed his dissatisfaction by an imperceptible shrug. ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... older since she and I had parted; she had seen trouble; her child had been born, and although she was not exactly estranged from Clem, for neither he nor she would have admitted any coolness, she had learned that she was nothing specially to him. I have often noticed what an imperceptible touch, what a slight shifting in the balance of opposing forces, will alter the character. I have observed a woman, for example, essentially the same at twenty and thirty—who is there who is not ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... neither smoke, nor soot, nor dust. Instead of entering a room through a register, as I had always seen heated air supplied, it came through numerous small apertures in the walls of a room quite close to the floor, thus rendering its supply imperceptible, and making a ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... belonged not to the past so much as to the present, that her power was unexhausted and would go forward to the shaping of the coming years. Which knowledge drew confirmation from what immediately followed. For, as by almost imperceptible degrees the brightness faded in the west, the figures, so mysteriously peopling the room, faded out also, until only the woman in homely garments was left. By her side stood the charcoal drawing ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... plain even to the non-mathematical mind, when he said that "ten decimal places are sufficient to give the circumference of the earth to the fraction of an inch, and thirty decimal places would give the circumference of the whole visible universe to a quantity imperceptible with the ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... years, and he found that they averaged from twelve to fourteen hundred francs per year. He then compared the situation of mill-hands paid in proportion to the prices obtained by their employers with that of laborers who receive fixed wages, and found that the difference is almost imperceptible. This result might easily have been foreseen. Economic phenomena obey laws as abstract and immutable as those of numbers: it is only privilege, fraud, and absolutism which disturb ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... the table roused him. It was Miss Keating laying down a match-box. He saw her hand poised yet in the delicacy of its imperceptible approach. ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... fairer-minded of Hodder's opponents, though appalled, were forced to admit in their hearts that the methods by which Mr. Parr had made his fortune and gained his ascendency would not bear scrutiny . . . . Some of them were disturbed, indeed, by the discovery that there had come about in them, by imperceptible degrees, in the last few years a new and critical attitude towards the ways of modern finance: moat of them had an uncomfortable feeling that Hodder was somehow right,—a feeling which they sought to stifle when they reflected upon the consequences of facing it. For this would mean a disagreeable ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... reflecting telescope, the least breath upon the mirror of which will cause all the starry sublimities that it should shadow forth to fade and become dim. The slightest moisture in the atmosphere, though it be quite imperceptible where we stand, will be dense enough to shut out the fair, shining, snowy summits that girdle the horizon and to leave nothing visible but the lowliness and commonplaceness of the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... abstraction, the ordered calm which characterized Seagreave's cabin, made fragrant by burning pine logs and fresh with the cold winds from the mountain tops, had altered by imperceptible and subtle gradations until the atmosphere was now strangely electrical, throbbing with vital life, glowing with warmth and color. In outer semblance nothing was changed, no more than was the appearance of the world outside, and yet beneath ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... substantives and adjectives would be so violent an alteration, that I believe neither the power of Power nor the power of Genius would be able, to effect it. In most cases I am convinced that very strong innovations are more likely to make impression than small and almost imperceptible differences, as in religion, medicine, politics, etc.; but I do not think that language can be treated in the same manner, especially in a refined age. When a nation first emerges from barbarism, two or three masterly writers may operate wonders; and the fewer the number of writers, as the ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... with regard to the other branches of the executive government, which relate rather to original measures than to administering the law, it may be observed that the power exercised in conducting them is distinguished by almost imperceptible shades from the legislative, and that all such as admit of open discussion and of the delay attendant on public deliberations are properly the province of the representative assembly. If this observation ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... by very small and short successive steps, offers several advantages: (1) it is imperceptible to the eye; (2) it does not affect the main current; (3) any sudden instantaneous variation of the main current does not allow a too near approach of the carbon points. Let, now, an accident occur; for instance, a carbon is broken. At once the automatic cut-off ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... the connection of things visible and things invisible, finite and infinite, objects of sense and objects of faith, is utterly imperceptible to human thought, we might reply by quoting the words of that Sacred Book whose supreme authority our author is seeking, by this argument, to establish. "The invisible things of God, even his eternal power and god-head, from the creation, are clearly seen, being understood by ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... ever fish with the fly from a birch-bark canoe on absolutely still water? You do not seem to move. But far below you, gliding, silent, ghostlike, the bottom slips beneath. Like a weather-vane in an imperceptible current of air, your bow turns to right or left in apparent obedience to the mere will of your companion. And the flies drop softly like down. Then the silence becomes sacred. You whisper— although there is no reason for your whispering; you move ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... draining, but was then marshy as well as bushy:—flat to the eye, yet must be imperceptibly convexed a little, for the line of watershed is hereabouts: walk from Hohenfriedberg to Striegau, the water on your left hand flows, though mainly in ditches or imperceptible oozings, to the north and west,—there to fall into an eastern fork of the Roaring Neisse [one of our three new Neisses, which is a very quiet stream here; runs close by the Mountain base, fed by many torrents, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... bark revealed to us two scorpions with enormous bellies, and heads so small as to be almost imperceptible; all they did was to stiffen out their tails, which are composed of six divisions, the last terminating in an extremely ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... of the jungle composed rather than disturbed the ape-man but an unusual sound, however imperceptible to the awakened ear of civilized man, seldom failed to impinge upon the consciousness of Tarzan, however deep his slumber, and so it was that when the moon was high a sudden rush of feet across the grassy carpet in the vicinity of his tree brought him to alert ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... notes trembled, paused, and fell to the minor. Felicity, feet bare, toes touched with scarlet, wafted into the room. Her dancing was incredibly light; she looked like some exotic poppy swaying to an imperceptible breeze. The dance was languorously sad, palely gay, a thing half asleep, veiled. It seemed always about to break into fierce life, yet did not. The scent of mandragora hung over it—it was as if the dancer, drugged, ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... English born and English educated; but so also was she South African, for quite half her life had been passed in Johannesburg, and it was there that her actual home existed. And so, by slow imperceptible degrees, out of nowhere and without explanation, crept into her mind the sudden realisation of Africa's claim upon her. She remembered that it was there her father had amassed his wealth. There had been won for her all the smooth, ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... rather reluctantly, I thought, and the subject dropped. Another time I should have tried to extort a more gracious permission, for my heart was set on the ball; but for some time I had noticed a slight change in Raby's manner to me, an imperceptible reserve that made me a little less at my ease with him; it was not that he failed in kindness, for he had never been so good to me, but there was certainly a slight barrier between us. He ceased ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... planes, ripple like shadows, and the wind playfully designs huge arabesques on their surfaces. The sea lies far away, so far, in fact, that its roar cannot be heard, though we could distinguish a sort of vague, aerial, imperceptible murmur, like the voice of the solitude, which perhaps was only the effect produced by the ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... a word taken from Roman law, in which it was one of the examples of accessio, that is, acquisition of property without any act being done by the acquirer. It signifies the gradual accretion of land or formation of an island by imperceptible degrees. If the accretion or formation be by a torrent or flood, the property in the severed portion or new island continues with the original owner until the trees, if any, swept away with it take root in the ground. Alluvion never attached at all in the case of agri limitati, that ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... earth, rather than on the state of the evaporations, the relative humidity, and the dew point. And I have noticed that the best scenting days have been those when the thermometer has given readings from 38 up to 46 Fahrenheit in the shade. A high and steady glass, an almost imperceptible east or north-east wind, with the ground soaked with moisture and no frost during the previous night, is the only combination of conditions under which scent on the grass is a moral certainty. On the other hand, a low and unsteady glass, a warm, gusty south or west ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... cartilage forming the septum of the nose; fissure and division of the feet and hands; enlargement of the lips, and a disposition to glandular swelling; dyspnoea and difficulty of breathing; the voice hoarse and barking; the aspect of the face frightful, and of a dark colour; the pulse small, almost imperceptible." Sometimes the limbs drop off, piecemeal or in ...
— The Leper in England: with some account of English lazar-houses • Robert Charles Hope
... nature," continued Mrs. Wilson with an almost imperceptible smile. "I have no doubt his sympathies were warmly enlisted in behalf of this family and possessing much, he gave liberally. I have no doubt he would have undergone personal privation to have relieved their distress, and endured both pain and labor, with such ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... trimmed with brown ribbon, and, on the inside, a bunch of deep pink flowers, which gave a slight coloring to her otherwise pale and sallow but intellectual face. Her whole dress bespoke refinement and taste. She was tall and slender, with an almost imperceptible stoop in the shoulders, indicative of a studious habit; but you forgot this seeming defect in her easy and graceful movements. Her brown hair was combed plainly over a rather low and narrow forehead; her face was long and thin, and her small, clear gray eyes were shaded ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... eyes, has unconsciously guided and influenced their architectural tastes. All the roofs of the houses are straight—straight as the mountain; a gable is almost unknown, and even the few steeples are dwarfed to an imperceptible departure from the prevailing straight line. The very trees which shade the Parade-ground and border the road in places have their tops blown absolutely straight and flat, as though giant shears had trimmed them; but I must ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... Voltaire. He neither laughs out like the French wit, nor, like the Irish wit, throws a double portion of severity into his countenance while laughing inwardly; but preserves a look peculiarly his own, a look of demure serenity, disturbed only by an arch sparkle of the eye, an almost imperceptible elevation of the brow, an almost imperceptible curl of the lip. His tone is never that either of a Jack Pudding or of a Cynic. It is that of a gentleman, in whom the quickest sense of the ridiculous is constantly tempered by ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... jointly conceived definite and lasting impressions of the man who was to become, during the next few weeks, an object of the deepest concern to both of them. The intruder was slightly built, of little more than medium height, of dark complexion, with an almost imperceptible moustache of military pattern, black hair dishevelled with the wind, and eyes of almost peculiar brightness. He carried himself with an assurance which was somewhat remarkable considering the condition ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... imperceptible stages from organic habits and instincts which signify the possession by living creatures of a power to meet the environment on its own terms. Every organism possesses such a working knowledge of nature, and among men the first science consists in those habitual adjustments common to men and ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... The union was not only an unutterable grief to him: it amazed him, notwithstanding that he had passed the preceding week in a suspicion that such might be the issue of Troy's meeting her away from home. Her quiet return with Liddy had to some extent dispersed the dread. Just as that imperceptible motion which appears like stillness is infinitely divided in its properties from stillness itself, so had his hope undistinguishable from despair differed ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... time. I thought to myself—on so seeing him—(added the sculptor) that it is thus that I will chisel your bust in marble." Dannecker then requested me to draw my hand gently over the forehead—and to observe by what careful, and almost imperceptible gradations, this boldness of front had been accomplished; I listened to every word that he said about the extraordinary character then, as it were, before me, with an earnestness and pleasure which I can hardly describe; and walked round and round the bust with a gratification ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... to 31/2 fathoms; and the ship being found to drift to leeward with the tide, a stream anchor was dropped. There seemed to be two tides here in the day, setting nearly east and west, but the rise and fall were so imperceptible by the lead, that it could not be known which ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... these; scarcely to be dignified by that name, more in the nature of aggravated discomforts they were. But they irked, and, like any accumulation of small things, piled up a disheartening total. By imperceptible degrees the glamour of the trail, the lure of gypsying, began to lessen. She found herself longing for the Pine River cabin, for surcease from this never-ending journey. But she would not have owned this to Roaring Bill; not ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... and sparse yellow sage led to the first almost imperceptible rise of the valley floor on that side. The distant cedars beckoned to Slone. He was not patient, because he was on the trail of Wildfire; but, nevertheless, the ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... bracelets, jewels; with a long black wig, powdered, and curled in front; with ribbons wherever he could put them; steeped in perfumes, and in fine a model of cleanliness. He was accused of putting on an imperceptible touch of rouge. He had a long nose, good eyes and mouth, a full but very long face. All his portraits resembled him. I was piqued to see that his features recalled those of Louis XIII., to whom; except in matters of courage, he was ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... of society is now imperceptible and permanent, now periodical and violent; it depends upon the course which property takes. In a country where the property is pretty evenly distributed, and where little business is done,—the rights and claims of each being balanced by those of others,—the power of invasion is destroyed. ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... nature; the residuum of a field of force which is possibly more or less analogous to the electromagnetic field. This residuum either is or is not dischargeable to an object of planetary mass; and I'm virtually certain that it is. The discharge may be anything from an imperceptible flow up to one of such violence as to volatilize the craft carrying it. From the facts: One, that in the absence of that field the subspace radio will function normally; and Two, that no subspace-radio messages have ever been ...
— Subspace Survivors • E. E. Smith
... of this passage, which consists in the appropriation made by Nemesis of the line originally directed to Cynthia, had been wholly imperceptible to succeeding ages, had chance, which has destroyed so many greater volumes, deprived us likewise ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... from one ship to the other was almost imperceptible. The structure of both corridors was the same, but Mel knew when the junction was crossed. He sensed the entry into a strange world that was far different from the common one ...
— The Memory of Mars • Raymond F. Jones
... play of conflicting desires about the girl's face and body. He could see the uncertainty and indecision in the girl's nearly imperceptible movement. But ...
— The Happy Man • Gerald Wilburn Page
... jokes were passed around by the incorrigible Charles Douglas, but to all Guy Trevelyan was invulnerable. He betrayed no sign of the inward tempest raging within, save by the almost imperceptible expression which had attracted the scrutinizing eye of the ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... these greater works, swarms the innumerable legion of satirical fabliaux and laughable tales. They, too, cross the sea, slight, imperceptible, wandering, thus continuing those migrations so difficult to trace, the laws of which learned men of all nations have vainly sought to discover. They follow all roads; nothing stops them. Pass the mountains and you will find them; cross the sea ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... and ewer;" and, turning to my brother, said, "O my guest come forward and wash thy hands." My brother rose to do so but he saw neither ewer nor basin; yet his host kept washing his hands with invisible soap in imperceptible water and cried, "Bring the table!" But my brother again saw nothing. Then said the host, "Honour me by eating of this meat and be not ashamed." And he kept moving his hand to and fro as if he ate and saying to my brother, "I wonder to see thee eating thus sparely: ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... blossom, and bearing their fertilizing pollen, after it has broken and deflowered their branches, to far-distant trees that hitherto have bloomed in barrenness, the storm of Charles's army carried far and wide through Europe thought-dust, imperceptible, but potent to enrich the nations. The French alone, says Michelet, understood Italy. How terrible would have been a conquest by Turks with their barbarism, of Spaniards with their Inquisition, of Germans with their brutality! But France, impressible, sympathetic, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... fully displays our fallen nature, than that of reprobation. All mankind agree in opinion, that there ever has been an elect, or good class of society; and a reprobate, or worthless and bad class; varying in turpitude or in goodness to a great extent and in almost imperceptible degrees. All must unite in ascribing to God that divine foreknowledge that renders ten thousand years but as one day, or hour, or moment in his sight. All ascribe to his omnipotence the power to ordain or decree what shall come to pass—and where is the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... taught to crush their finer feelings. A simple form of religion was inculcated, while the boys' natural love for humour was encouraged and developed. In a word, the children were allowed to grow up naturally, and the influence brought to bear upon them by this wise mother was as quiet and as imperceptible as Nature intended it to be. Dean Stanley, Ruskin, Jowett, Tyndall, and Browning were among those who were wont to come and ply Mrs. Baden-Powell with questions as to how she managed to keep in such excellent control half-a-dozen boys filled to the brim with animal spirits. ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... with verdure, and the seat of the sorrows and joys of myriads of human beings, who erected cities, and built pyramids, and monuments, which Time has long since swept away, and wrapt in his eternal mantle of oblivion. That a constant, but almost imperceptible change is hourly taking place in the earth's surface, appears to be established; and independent of the extraordinary bouleversements, which have at intervals convulsed our globe, this gradual revolution has ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... body gathered together, prepared to bound away into the deep forest in the twinkling of an eye, he stands a splendid specimen of the cervine tribe. We will not kill him; we look and admire! A doe suddenly gives that imperceptible signal to which I have formerly alluded, and the next moment the whole herd has dashed through the bamboo alleys, vanishing from sight—a dappled hide now and again gleaming in the sunlight as its owner scampers away to ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... Its function was double, by raising or by lowering the arm,—"modo per arteri elevationem, modo per ejusdem submissionem" says the worthy Vairits; "for," he continues, "when the artery is thrown out and is open, the spirits are emitted with wonderful celerity, and in some imperceptible manner are carried to the thing to fascinate it. And because the artery has its origin in the heart, the spirits issuing thence retain its infected and vitiated nature, and according to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... crush a little at the "dandy roll," and although the marks are not removed by the calender stack which was employed in those tests it was found that one "nip" on the supercalenders renders them practically imperceptible and it is believed that the proper size and weight of calender stack would entirely remove these marks. All of the papers produced up to this point are somewhat lacking in the bulk desired in a book paper; therefore, in the two following ...
— Hemp Hurds as Paper-Making Material - United States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 404 • Lyster H. Dewey and Jason L. Merrill
... behind could be traced through the attenuated fabric. The next thing about the craft that attracted attention was the fact that some of the running and standing rigging had parted and was hanging loose, swaying gently to the almost imperceptible heave of the ship on the glass-smooth sea. And finally, when they had arrived within a mile of her, they saw that her paint was so bleached and blistered by the sun that it was difficult to say what its original colour had been, while much of ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... expected all the delight that ever the prospect of a watering-place held out to its most impatient visitants. My health was by this time a good deal confirmed by the country air, and the influence of that imperceptible and unfatiguing exercise to which the good sense of my grandfather had subjected me; for when the day was fine, I was usually carried out and laid down beside the old shepherd, among the crags or rocks round ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... secure it from the rising of the tides. Over this the long, salt grass is artfully arched, to conceal it from the view above; but this very circumstance enables the experienced egg-hunter to distinguish the spot at the distance of thirty or forty yards, though, imperceptible to a common eye. The eggs are of a pale clay color, sprinkled with small spots of dark red, and measure somewhat more than an inch and a half in length by an inch in breadth, being rather obtuse at the small end. These eggs are delicious eating, far surpassing ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... both on the face and soffits with the chevron or zig-zag moulding. There are many intermediate gradations between the extreme plain and massive work of early date, and the enrichments, mouldings, and elongated proportions to be found late in the style; and in detail we may perceive an almost imperceptible merging into that ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... hills with all their fields could be seen sleeping under great shadows, or basking in the light. A deluge of rays fell upon them, defining every angle of Watley Rocks and floating over the grasslands of Standon, all shape becoming lost in a huge embrasure filled with the almost imperceptible outlines of the ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... Courage is one of the noblest virtues of this nether sphere; and though scarcely more requisite in the field of battle, to guard the fighting hero from disgrace, than in the private commerce of the world, to ward off that littleness of soul which leads, by steps imperceptible, to all the base train of the inferior passions, and by which the too timid mind is betrayed into a servility derogatory to the dignity of human nature! yet is it a virtue of no necessity in a situation such as mine; a situation ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... leaves, Five crores exact; and shouldst thou pluck yon boughs Together with their shoots, on those twain boughs Swing twice a thousand nuts and ninety-five!" Vahuka checked the chariot wonderingly, And answered: "Imperceptible to me Is what thou boastest, slayer of thy foes! But I to proof will put it, hewing down The tree, and, having counted, I shall know. Before thine eyes the branches twain I'll lop: How prove thee, Maharaja, otherwise, ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... But if our view be arrested there, let our imagination pass beyond; it will sooner exhaust the power of conception than nature that of supplying material for conception. The whole visible world is only an imperceptible atom in the ample bosom of nature. No idea approaches it. We may enlarge our conceptions beyond all imaginable space; we only produce atoms in comparison with the reality of things. It is an infinite sphere, the centre of which is everywhere, the circumference ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... railroad, for a space kept to the brow of the hill where stretched a well defined road, which by almost imperceptible degrees led deeper and always higher into the woods. Presently, leaving this road and turning into a bridle path where an unpracticed eye would have discovered no sign of travel, she rode on until reaching a small clearing among the pines, ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... occupations on the third: they attended to the young, worked within the open royal cells, and also watched on those that were shut. They made a waved work on them, not by applying wax cordons, but by removing wax from the surface. Towards the top this waved work is almost imperceptible; it becomes deeper above, and the workers excavate it still more from thence to the base of the pyramid. The cell, when once shut, also becomes thinner; and is so much so, immediately preceding the queen's metamorphosis ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... or it may be capturing tiny insects housed away there. Much more like a large sphynx moth hovering and humming over the flowers in the dusky twilight, than like a bird, appears this delicate, fairy-like beauty. How the bright green of the body gleams and glistens in the sunlight. Each imperceptible stroke of those tiny wings conforms to the mechanical laws of flight in all their subtle complications with an ease and gracefulness that seems spiritual. Who can fail to note that fine adjustment of the organs ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [December, 1897], Vol 2. No 6. • Various
... have been affected by them. The two works named are, however, of the highest importance; in them, if we are not mistaken, are to be found the first signs of the disappearance, as it were, of the sonata of three movements, and, perhaps, of the sonata itself, into the "imperceptible." After Op. 90 Beethoven wrote sonatas in four movements, but that does not affect the argument, neither does the fact, that after Beethoven are to be found several remarkable sonatas with the same number. The process ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... forgiveness of the wrong inflicted by her words. But when those words were irrevocably spoken, his look assumed sternness, the sense of power, and immitigable resolve; and this with so natural and imperceptible a change, that it seemed as if the iron man had stood there from the first, and the meek man not at all. The effect was as when the light, vapory clouds, with their soft coloring, suddenly vanish from the stony brow of a precipitous mountain, and leave there the frown which you at once feel to be ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... necessitates an expenditure of energy represented by at least 1,058 horse power, but the action is spread over an enormous area of leaf surface, rendered necessary by the small proportion of carbonic acid contained in the air, by measure only 1/2000 part, and hence the action is silent and imperceptible. It is now conceded on all hands that what is termed heat is the energy of molecular motion, and that this motion is convertible into various kinds and obeys the general laws relating to motion. Two substances brought within the range of chemical affinity unite with more or less ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... maximum, and perhaps fallen to a point slightly lower, at which hight it may be expected to remain, other conditions also remaining constant. The gland steam must now be gradually turned off until the amount of steam vapor issuing from the glands is almost imperceptible. This should not lower the vacuum in the slightest degree. By gradual degrees the gland steam can be still farther cut down, until no steam vapor at all can be discerned issuing from the gland boxes. This reduction should be continued until a point is reached at which ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins
... enlightenment, even if they cannot get liberty; they must at least be technical. An old apprentice learnt a trade, even if his master came like any Turk and banged him most severely. The old housewife knew which side her bread was buttered, even if it were so thin as to be almost imperceptible. The old sailor knew the ropes; even if he knew the rope's end. Consequently, when any of these revolted, they were concerned with things they knew, pains, practical impossibilities, or ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... quite imperceptible. During the whole time of our stay, Reaumur's thermometer stood between 15 and ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... need that the General Government should maintain all its authority and as soon as practicable resume the exercise of all its functions. On this principle I have acted, and have gradually and quietly, and by almost imperceptible steps, sought to restore the rightful energy of the General Government and of the States. To that end provisional governors have been appointed for the States, conventions called, governors elected, legislatures assembled, and Senators and Representatives ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson
... circulation, respiration, digestion, speech, or thought. It is pretended, that the soul is then separated from the body; but to say, that this soul, with which we are unacquainted, is the principle of life, is to say nothing, unless that an unknown power is the hidden principle of imperceptible movements. Nothing is more natural and simple, than to believe, that the dead man no longer lives: nothing is more extravagant, than to believe, that the dead man is still alive. We laugh at the simplicity of some nations, whose custom is to bury provision with the dead, under ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... near perfection as this mortal coil will allow. We hold that mind and matter, in that mysterious union which connects the spiritual with the physical being, commence in the medium state, undergoing, not, as some men have pretended, transmigrations of the soul only, but such gradual and imperceptible changes of both soul and body, as have peopled the world with so many wonderful beings—wonderful, mentally and physically; and all of which (meaning all of the improvable class) are no more than animals of the same great genus, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Thus, by alternately opening and shutting the two sets of lateral wings, M. Petin proposes to make his ship sail forward on a series of inclined planes, upwards and downwards. He takes care to assure us, however, that the requisite degree of inclination will be so slight as to be imperceptible to his passengers; and instances, in corroboration of this opinion, the beds of rivers, where a very slight degree of inclination suffices to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... by the fact that unwittingly a part of his work had been just above one of the great beams that supported the ceiling, and he was forced to enlarge the hole by one-fourth. But at last all was done. Through a hole so thin as to be quite imperceptible from below he saw the room underneath. There was only a thin film of wood to be broken through on the night of his escape. For various reasons, he had fixed on the night of August 27. But hear ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... far in a short time by the calendar, every metamorphosis was slow and painful and imperceptible. She wept her eyes dry; then moped until her gloom grew intolerable. The first diversion she sought was really an effort of her grief to renew itself by a little repose. Her first amusement was for her grief's sake. But before long her diversions ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... ours. I recall his sudden bewilderment, but I never have understood exactly how it happened. I remember Brutus' eyes on my father's hand, as it moved so gently over his coat. It must have been some gesture, smooth and imperceptible. For suddenly, my father's languor left him, suddenly his lips curled back in a smile devoid of humor, and he leapt at the lantern. He leapt, and at the same instant, as perfectly timed as though the whole matter had been ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... less explicit, of names rather than notes. He was astonished that morning at his own fortune and facility; he succeeded in covering a page of ruled paper wholly to his satisfaction, and the sentences, when he read them out, appeared to suggest a weird elusive chanting, exquisite but almost imperceptible, like the echo of the plainsong reverberated from the ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... reforming, possibly, might take up many years." Without question it might; and it ought. It is one of the excellences of a method in which time is amongst the assistants, that its operation is slow, and in some cases almost imperceptible. If circumspection and caution are a part of wisdom, when we work only upon inanimate matter, surely they become a part of duty too, when the subject of our demolition and construction is not brick and timber, but sentient beings, by the sudden alteration of whose state, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... like that of Mahomet can only be extended by violence and terror; for the natural stubbornness of men does not readily give way to novel impressions; but the mild spirit of the gospel is alone to be infused through the means of gentleness, persuasion, and imperceptible perseverance. These are the proper instruments of conversion, and peculiarly belong to the fair sex, whose eloquence, on such occasions, gives charms to devotion and ornaments to truth. The earliest stages of Christianity ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... sat intently watching the canoe. It seemed an age to him before he saw a hand emerge from the bushes and take hold of the head-rope. The motion given to the canoe was so slight as to be almost imperceptible; it seemed as if it was only drifting gently before the slight breeze which was creeping over the surface of the lake. Half its length had disappeared from the open space, when an Indian appeared by the edge ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... riding, Hal made out specks ahead that he took to be automobiles. He increased the speed of the car slightly to make sure of this fact. The car driven by Hal was gaining, but so slightly as to be almost imperceptible. ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... An almost imperceptible nerve was dancing against Mrs. Samstag's right temple. Alma could sense, rather than see, the ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... again, sitting on the edge of her stall, with his colors and brushes tossed out on the board, he talked to her, and, with the soft imperceptible skill of long practice in those arts, he drew out the details of her ...
— Bebee • Ouida |
