"Impervious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... necessity, or in the enthusiasm of a purely aesthetic admiration of the rendering. In this age of knowledge our sympathetic imagination, to which alone we can look for the ultimate triumph of concord and justice, remains strangely impervious to information, however correctly and even picturesquely conveyed. As to the vaunted eloquence of a serried array of figures, it has all the futility of precision without force. It is the exploded superstition of enthusiastic statisticians. An over-worked ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... between the Horns of an Oxe, and those of some sorts of Staggs as to their shape? and even in the hairs of several creatures, we find a vast difference, as the hair of a man's head seems, as I said before, long, Cylindrical and sometime a little Prismatical, solid or impervious, and very small; the hair of an Indian Deer (a part of the middle of which is described in the third Figure of the fifth Scheme, marked with F) is bigger in compass through all the middle of it, then the Bristle of an Hogg, but the end of it is smaller then the hair of any ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... He was ordinarily impervious to the influence of weather, the more depressing aspects of nature; but now he was conscious of a dejection communicated, in part at least, he felt, by the bleak prospect without. Another, and infinitely more arresting, reason for this feeling had just stirred his thoughts—for the ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... which might check the wholesome convalescence of your thoughts. If you take my advice, you will throw the packet into the fire unread. At least, if you do examine it, postpone the duty till you feel yourself absolutely impervious to any mental trickery, and—bear in mind that you are a worthy member of a particularly ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... paused amidst his full career; Then first the hero's manly breast knew fear. As when some simple swain his cot forsakes, And wide through fens an unknown journey takes: If chance a swelling brook his passage stay, And foam impervious 'cross the wanderer's way, Confused he stops, a length of country pass'd, Eyes the rough waves, and tired, returns at last. Amazed no less the great Tydides stands: He stay'd, and turning thus ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... But once touch on the name of Dunster and Mr. Wilkins sank into a kind of suspicious depression of spirits; talking little, and with evident caution; and from time to time shooting furtive glances at his interlocutor's face. Ellinor was resolutely impervious to any attempts of his to bring his conversation with her back to the subject which more and more engrossed Ralph Corbet's mind. She had done her duty, as she understood it; and had received assurances which she was only too glad to ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... a more terrible devil to combat, or harder to trick into civility, or more impervious to the injunctions of the Ten Commandments? I suppose it will be said that he is; that the black fellow bolted the whole code at a gobble, and wagged his tail, as if the feat must surely please his new ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... clothes—including women's gowns and men's shirts, vests, vest-linings, and coat-linings—should also be loose and porous. Here is one of the most important but almost wholly neglected clothing reforms. Most linings and many fabrics used in outer clothes are so tightly woven as to be impervious to air. Yet porous fabrics are always available, including porous alpacas for lining. To test a fabric it is only necessary to place it over the mouth and observe whether it is possible or easy to blow the breath ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... perfection of triumph, she had no need to fear these voices—these little evidences of sociability. They could not hurt her, for was she not impervious to pain? ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... pique and disappointment, when she realised that Denis Quirk was impervious to her attractions, Sylvia Jackson suddenly awoke to a new interest in life. At the moment she was hesitating between an interesting decline and a fearful vendetta. But this did not deter her from attending ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... however, was but one half of his story. Soule gave like a prince,—secretly, with a woman-like, anxious helpfulness, a passionate eagerness, as if the pain or want of a human being were insufferable to him. In this he was alone: the woman had no share in it. She was as cold, impervious to the suffering of others as nothing but a snake or a selfish woman can be: whatever muddy human feeling did ooze from her brain was for this man only. And yet, when we think of it, she was, as they guessed, a quadroon: maybe, under the low, waxy-skinned forehead ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... pipe consoles him for his little trade and the horrible weather. Before him, in the narrow alleys of the bazaar, Persians walk with their umbrellas unfurled, and Russians have put the convenient bashluk (a sort of woollen hood) over their heads and ears. The Arab, in his long camel-skin coat, looks impervious to the weather, and women with veiled faces and long black cloaks pick their way through the mire. Throngs of donkeys, melancholy and overladen, their small feet sinking in the slush, may be with the foot-passengers. Some pariah ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... cloud is not so victorious as when it towers above some little landscape of rather paltry interest—a conventional river heavy with water, gardens with their little evergreens, walks, and shrubberies; and thick trees impervious to the light, touched, as the novelists always have it, with "autumn tints." High over these rises, in the enormous scale of the scenery of clouds, what no man expected—an heroic sky. Few of the things that were ever ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... be without passion, but he must have trained himself to be impervious to passion, which is much more. We must conceive of him as a conscience that has risen from the ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... is sometimes said to dry up land, and ruin crops. So of turf in a dry season. In a wet season they greatly increase the growth of crops. Now they contain just as much food for plants in one season as another. Hence a soil too easily impervious to the atmosphere, will be a poor soil, that is, will produce poorly, simply because it has no power to retain the ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... concerning Walter Scott of Harden, who flourished towards the middle of the sixteenth century. This ancient laird was a renowned freebooter, and used to ride with a numerous band of followers. The spoil, which they carried off from England, or from their neighbours, was concealed in a deep and impervious glen, on the brink of which the old tower of Harden was situated. From thence the cattle were brought out, one by one, as they were wanted, to supply the rude and plentiful table of the laird. When the last bullock was killed and devoured, it was ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... for it. In the East a new industry has sprung up, viz., the making of "Panama" hats of bamboo strips or threads. In texture and pliability these hats are said to even surpass the genuine "Panamas," are absolutely impervious to rain, and can be produced at a much ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... quite impervious to the atmosphere of emotion and strain—or so it seemed. On and on he sat, Enid Crofton languidly making conversation with them both in turn, until at last Rosamund came in, and both men rose ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... mission of the Dabneys to see that no wind of provocation unduly stirred these depths. Worse even than these possibilities of violence, however, so far as every-day life was concerned, was the strain of obstinacy which belonged to the Thorpe temper. A sort of passive mulishness it was, impervious to argument, immovable under the most sympathetic pressure, which particularly tried the Dabney patience. It seemed to Julia now, as she interposed her soothing influence between these jarring forces, that she had spent whole years of her life in ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... obstacle to invasion, the mouth of the river is defended by a fort, which from its situation may be pronounced impregnable. It is built upon an artificial causeway, and is surrounded on all sides by swamps totally impervious, which extend on both sides of the river to a place called the Detour des Anglais, within twenty miles of the city. Here two other forts are erected, one on each bank. Like that at the river's mouth, these are surrounded by a marsh, ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... and the gates closed behind us. I had then time to marvel at the massiveness of the structure—the immense blocks of stone, so typical of the colossal empire under which it was constructed. Passing through a long series of narrow passages, gloomy and sad, impervious to all sound, save that of low sighs and groans from dungeons below and around us, we arrived at an open space in the centre, above which the winged angel is poised in the act of sheathing his sword. The moon shone around it, and ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... to thy vesper "service"— Dulcet exhilaration! glorious tea!— I deem my happiest. Howsoe'er I swerve, as To mind or morals, elsewhere, over thee I am a perfect creature, quite impervious To care, or tribulation, or ennui— In fact, I do agnize to thee an utter Devotion even to the bread ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... half-curious gaze, and mouth open. His hat is an old one of his father's, a mile too big, coming down over his ears to his shoulders, well greased from ancient use—a thing not without its advantage, since it makes it impervious to rain. He wears what was a white jacket, but is now the colour of the prevailing soil of the place; a belt; and a pair of stumping boots, the very picture in miniature of his father's, heeled and tipped with iron. His naked ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... other. His mind and conscience may be satisfied that the mere act of holding slaves is not a crime. This is the point, however, to which the abolitionist directs his attention. He examines their arguments, and becomes convinced of their inconclusiveness, and is not only thus rendered impervious to their attacks, but is exasperated by what he considers their unmerited abuse. In the mean time his attention is withdrawn from far more important points;—the manner in which he treats his slaves, and the laws enacted for the security of his possession. These are ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... modified the Breton characteristics. Yet they seem to me quite pronounced, and scarcely affected even by the vigorous and mercantile activity of this large city. A large and busy city, and yet I feel that I am among a people who are, ineradically, provincial peasants, men and women of a temper impervious to civilisation. Here too are those symbols of peasantry, the white caps of endless shape and fashion which seem to exert such an attraction on the sentimental English mind. Yet they are not by any means beautiful. And what terrible faces they enfold—battered, shapeless, featureless faces ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... thick, flaunted a band of black leather, on which was conspicuously displayed a solid silver buckle. His neck was protected by a crimson kerchief of the finest, heaviest silk. His shirt, in pattern the same as those commonly worn in the cow country, was of buckskin, soft as a baby's cheek and impervious to water, and the Angora goatskin chaps, with the long silken hair worn outside, were as white as snow. Around his waist ran loosely a broad, black leather belt supporting a heavy black holster, ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... taken this course long ago with his wife, she would have become perhaps a wiser, better woman. But he loved peace and quiet; and he probably thought also that no serious words from him could make impression upon her preoccupied, impervious mind. ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... for the woman herself to learn first how entirely impervious to common sense she is when she is in the midst of an emotional nerve storm, so that she will say, "Don't try to talk to me now; I am not reasonable, wait until I get quiet." Then, if she will go off by herself and drop her emotions, and also the strain behind her emotions, ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... "The impervious horrors of a leeward shore" they were doomed to experience during a moonless and starless night. They reduced their sails to a few yards of canvass, and lowered their yards on deck. The waves, that rolled the vessel with irresistible force, threatened to swallow them up; ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... also sustained by history, which tells us that as often as impervious circumstances, such as war, sieges, the derangement of seasons, etc., diminish the means of subsistence, such times have ever been accompanied by contagious disease and a great increase ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... no new thing for Slim in one of his ugly moods, and ordinarily it did not matter, for he kept his pockets well filled with strips of jerked elk and venison, while in the rags of his heavy flannel shirt he seemed as impervious to cold ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... The poor lady was impervious to a joke; she screamed once, and then dropped in a sitting posture on a divan. Nearly all the rest of the party laughed heartily. At this point the head of Felix dropped down a foot through the skylight over the centre of the room. He had made his way to the upper ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... elephantine strength. It was ever thus at the oar. Either you died under the strain, or your thews and sinews grew to be equal to their relentless task. Sir Oliver in those six months was become a man of steel and iron, impervious to fatigue, superhuman almost in ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... the women had brought in, from the forest, a quantity of bamboos and, with these, the men set to work and speedily formed a platform. Upon this a hut was erected, the roof and sides being covered with palm leaves laid closely together, forming a roof impervious to rain. Two large bundles of fern, for beds, were then taken up; and the chief, ascending, solemnly invited the boys to come up and ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... of the chief was peculiar; but either in consequence of it, or in spite of it, the sick man got well. A small hut, called a sweating cabin, was built, very tight. This was made more impervious to the air by covering it with buffalo skins. A large number of stones heated red hot were placed inside, which raised the temperature almost to that of an oven. The sick man crept in, followed by four medical practitioners. ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... book of poems for Timothy Derby, who solemnly loaned her one of his in exchange. This odd pair remained impervious to all criticisms, and certainly many of those voiced were frank to the ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... each car, containing a certain supply of gas, communicates with a regulator, b, the importance of which we scarcely need point out. This apparatus consists: (1) of a cast-iron cup, A, closed at the top by a membrane, B, which is impervious to gas; (2) of a rod, C, connected at one end with the membrane, and at the other with a lever, D; (3) of a regulating valve resting on the lever, and of a spring, E, which renders the internal mechanism independent of the motions of the car. The lever, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... people to whom real life means nothing. I have pointed out again and again that the influence of the theatre in England is growing so great that whilst private conduct, religion, law, science, politics, and morals are becoming more and more theatrical, the theatre itself remains impervious to common sense, religion, science, politics, and morals. That is why I fight the theatre, not with pamphlets and sermons and treatises, but with plays; and so effective do I find the dramatic method that I have no doubt ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... among thickets and endless woods. By the time my watch informed me that I must have nearly walked my appointed distance, the view was bounded on all sides and the sky was shut out overhead by an impervious screen of leaves and branches. I still followed my only guide, the steep path; and in ten minutes, emerging suddenly on a plot of tolerably clear and level ground, I saw the convent ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... sailormen. These were the "monitors" which were just floating platforms for big guns. They were built originally for the rivers of South America, but it was discovered that their shallow draft made them impervious to torpedo attack; and as they were able to get close in shore, their big guns made havoc of the Turkish defenses. They do not travel at high speed and appear to waddle a good deal, but they have been most invaluable right along, and were ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... frame, entereth into others which are new and freshly prepared for it. Weapons pierce not the Real Man, nor doth the fire burn him; the water affecteth him not, nor the wind drieth him nor bloweth him away. For he is impregnable and impervious to these things of the world of change—he is eternal, ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... of paint is a compound of white lead or other metallic substance; this is mixed with linseed oil or its equivalent in order that it may be spread over wood and metal in a thin, even coating. After the mixture has been applied, it hardens and forms a tough skin fairly impervious to weathering. For the sake of ornamentation, various colored pigments are added to the paint and ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... an aromatic tree, of which there are two varieties, male and female. The wood of the male tree is pinkish, while that of the female tree is inclined to white. They both grow to a great size and are used for work requiring large timber. The wood has good durable qualities and is very impervious to water, for which reason it was largely used as supports for the houses. Water in which pieces of the wood were placed, or the water that stood in vessels made of this wood, had a medicinal value in dropsy and other diseases. In the provinces of Albay ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... was of vast extent, and stretched across Sussex from Kent to Southampton Water; dense, impervious save where a few roads, following mainly the routes traced by the Romans, penetrated its recesses; the haunts of wild beasts and wilder men. It was not until many generations had passed away that this tract of land, whereon ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... them on the water: the wood floats for an indefinite time; the pasteboard, after a time, soaks, and finally sinks, as was to be expected. But suppose we soak the pasteboard in marine glue before the experiment, then we find the pasteboard equally as impervious to the water as wood, and as buoyant, if of the same weight; but, to be of the same weight, it must be thinner than the wood, yet even then it stands the before-mentioned tests as well as when thicker; and it will be found to stand all tests much ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... At his own request he was transferred, first, to Tosa, and then, to Awa. The three ex-Emperors died in exile. Go-Toba seems to have suffered specially from his reverse of fortunes. He lived in a thatched hut barely impervious to rain, and his lot is said to have been pitiful, even from the point of view ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... considered appeared a monster of abominable and insolent conceit. Humanity was gone from them; they were toddling idols of stone and varnish, worshipping themselves and greedy for though oblivious of worship from their fellow graven images. Frozen, cruel, implacable, impervious, cut to an identical pattern, they hurried on their ways like statues brought by some miracles to motion, while soul and feeling lay unaroused ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... wing, one for each of three compartments, and announced that the pressure showed only an insignificant decrease. At the rate of escapage indicated, they would have plenty to last them for the whole trip. This was reassuring knowledge, for no envelope can be made so impervious that light gases will not escape at all. The body compartment also ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... their natural scenery—whether the youthful May is covering their rugged brows with the bright tender verdure of the tasseled larch, and the yet brighter green of maple, mountain ash and willow—or the full flush of summer has clothed their forests with impervious and shadowy foliage, while carpeting their sides with the unnumbered blossoms of calmia, rhododendron and azalea!—whether the gorgeous hues of autumn gleam like the banners of ten thousand victor armies along their rugged slopes, or the frozen winds of ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... in my tympanum I heard the cannon's roar, "'Twill be a wonder if I come Impervious ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... shock David Bright had probably never been entirely sane on the subject. The resurrection of Madame Danterre had seemed to him preternatural and fateful. The woman had become to him something more or something less than human, something impervious to attack that could not be dealt with in any ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... impervious to damp, or to the attacks of insects. The economy of ammunition will be great, as the cartridge can be drawn every evening after the day's work, instead of being fired off as with the muzzle-loader, in order that the rifle may ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... anon causing the sobs to quaver and become broken off. Next he lost his hat, the poor old fellow, yet would not stop to pick it up, even though the rain was beating upon his head, and a wind was rising and the sleet kept stinging and lashing his face. It seemed as though he were impervious to the cruel elements as he ran from one side of the hearse to the other—the skirts of his old greatcoat flapping about him like a pair of wings. From every pocket of the garment protruded books, while in his hand he carried a specially large volume, which he hugged closely ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... plan: the line of 64 miles was cut by directions laid out at the two ends, and the cuttings met within 341 feet. The country through which this line was to pass is described as surpassing in its difficulties the conception of any European. It consists of impervious forests, steep ravines, and dismal swamps. A survey for the line was impossible, and a tentative process would have broken the spirit of the best men. I therefore arranged a plan of operations founded on a determination of the absolute latitudes ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... "she shall marry Louis of France, or I will have her whipped to death on the Smithfield pillory." And in his wicked heart—so impervious to a single lasting good impulse—he ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... he jerked loose, and once more the chase was on. I reloaded my six-shooter and fired on the run, shouting excitedly. He ran on with tireless, automatic motion, apparently as unperturbed as he was impervious to bullets. ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... neglected, said that Titian "contented himself with pure necessity, which is the simple imitation of nature."[24] One could not say quite so much of Donatello, in whom, curiously enough, the love of nature was limited to its human aspect. He seems to have been impervious to outdoor nature, to the world of plants and birds and beasts. Ghiberti, his contemporary, was a profound student of natural life in all its forms, and the famous bronze doors of the Baptistery are peopled with the most fanciful products of his observation. "I strove ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... filled with roses and peculiarly fine dahlias, pomegranate-trees and violets, which, though single, have a delicious fragrance. This stretches out into an immense vegetable-garden and orchard, terminating in a shrubbery, through which walks are cut, impervious to the sun at noon-day. There is also a large reservoir of water, and the garden, which covers a great space of ground, is kept in good order. There are beautiful walks in the neighbourhood, leading to Indian villages, old churches, and farms; and all the lanes ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... parched and sandy plains, almost free of vegetation. In others, where the rains were less able to drain quickly away, were districts of extraordinary fertility. Here grew the cocoa, vanilla, indigo and aromatic shrubs innumerable, forming thick and tangled jungles, impervious to the foot of man. Flowers of gorgeous colors bordered these groves, and lofty trees of foliage, altogether strange to Roger, reared ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... heard; it knows itself to be in a moral order; it is assured that, however closely the body may be imprisoned, no bolts and no bars can shut in a spirit; that before it is a fair and favored land, far off but ever open; and, best of all, that within its own being, impervious to all influences from without, is a guide which may be implicitly trusted and which will never betray. Why not follow its suggestions at once and press on toward that fair land of truth and beauty which so earnestly invites? Ah! why not? Here we are face ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... Evidently the sturdy Darius was not ill. Nothing serious could be the matter. He had been harrowed and fatigued by the funeral; no more. In another day, doubtless, he would be again the harsh employer astoundingly concentrated in affairs and impervious to the emotional appeal of aught else. Nevertheless he made a strange sight, parading his excessive sadness ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... totalizing, rather than any transcendent relation of elements, constitutes at least the practical unity of the soul, and this unimpeded association of its elements is true or inner freedom of will. Nothing is wanting or lost when the powers of the soul are mobilized for a great task, and its substance is impervious to passion. With this organization, men of really little power accomplish wonders. Without it great minds are confused and lost. They have only velleity or caprice. The will makes a series of vigorous, perhaps almost convulsive, but short, inconsistent ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... found greater happiness in a game of football than did Paul Jones. He revelled in a hard-fought match and seemed impervious to knocks and bruises. One of his merits as a captain was that he never lost heart; he would fight doggedly to the last, even against adverse conditions. He knew, too, how to adapt his tactics skilfully to varying conditions of play. It was an intoxicating moment after a victory, ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... dragged out of their obscurity and brought struggling to the light; they must be rendered plain and palpable, (as far as it is in the wit of man to do so) or they are no longer eloquence. That which by its natural impenetrability, and in spite of every effort, remains dark and difficult, which is impervious to every ray, on which the imagination can shed no lustre, which can be clothed with no beauty, is not a subject for the orator or poet. At the same time it cannot be expected that abstract truths or profound observations should ever be placed in the same strong and dazzling points ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... since she could not marry Mr. Mullen. Marriage, having few illusions for her, possessed, perhaps for that reason, the greater practical value. She was unhappy with her stepmother in a negative way, but so impervious had she become to casual annoyances, that she hardly weighed the disadvantages of her home against the probable relinquishment of Mrs. Mullen's washing day after her marriage to Abel. Her soul was crushed like a trapped creature in ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... voyage was very miserable to every one, though the weather was far from unfavourable, as the captain declared. Grisell indeed was so entirely taken up with ministering to her knight that she seemed impervious to sickness or discomfort. It was a great relief to enter on the smooth waters of the great canal from Ostend, and Lambert stood on the deck recognising old landmarks, and pointing them out with the joy of homecoming to Clemence, who perhaps felt less delight, since the joys of her life ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... me—need I say with what success?—was dodging about our court last night as late as twenty minutes after eight o'clock. I see him myself, with his eye at the counting-house keyhole, which being patent is impervious. Another one,' said Mr Perch, 'with military frogs, is in the parlour of the King's Arms all the blessed day. I happened, last week, to let a little obserwation fall there, and next morning, which was Sunday, I see it worked up in print, in a ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... companion to compel the boatmen to justice the night before—had stayed at Capri, and had risen early to see the grotto, returned from it, and we besieged him with a hundred questions concerning it. But he preserved the wise silence of the boy who goes in to see the six-legged calf, and comes out impervious to the curiosity of all the boys who are doubtful whether the monster is worth their money. Our Dane would merely say that it was now possible to visit the Blue Grotto; that he had seen it; that he was glad he had seen it. As ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... it should be slightly warmed before application. Coal-tar has remarkable preservative properties, and may be used with equal advantage on living and dead wood. A single application, without penetrating deeper than ordinary paint, forms an impervious coating to the wood-cells, which would, without such covering, under external influences, soon become channels of decay. This simple application then produces a sort of instantaneous cauterization, and preserves from decay wounds caused ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... village had heard that some sort of terrible beings were approaching through the jungle. Word had come from the people of the forest that the strange monsters were impervious to darts, and that they had huge dragons with them which were terrifying even to look at. They were clad in metal and made queer ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... oz. distilled water each, and mix when ready to use. But by putting mixture in dark bottle, and that in a tight box impervious to light, it can be kept ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... aspects of verse with an admirable variety of exquisite shades, lacking which most poetry seems old-fashioned to the fastidious palate of modern men. Unamuno is too genuine a representative of the spiritual and masculine variety of Spanish genius, ever impervious to French, and generally, to intellectual, influences, to be affected by the esthetic excellence of this art. Yet, for all his disregard of the modern resources which it adds to the poetic craft, Unamuno loses none of his modernity. He is indeed more than modern. ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... nipping nights of winter, brought I my small fingers and toes, numbed and aching with snow-balling and skating, to be tenderly rubbed before the fire, or fondly folded in the motherly apron. Thither brought I an extensive and various assortment of splinters and fresh cuts; thither my impervious nose, to be lubricated with goose-grease, or my swollen angry tonsils ("waxen kernels," Aunt Judy called them), to be mollified ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... tightly down; others we fixed below as supports. The interstices were filled up with clay and moss; and coating the whole over with a mixture of tar and limewater, we obtained a firm balcony, and a capital roof impervious to the severest fall of rain. I ran a light rail round the balcony to give it a more ornamental appearance, and below divided the building into several compartments. Stables, poultry yard, hay and provision lofts, dairy, kitchen, larder, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... her small sister was quite impervious to sarcasm. "I think I'll have this," she pointed to a white ground, closely sprinkled ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... steady quivering nerves, and steel to superhuman endurance. For Beryl, the pendulum of suspense had ceased to swing, because the spring of hope had snapped; and the complete surrender, the mute acceptance of the worst possible to come, had left her numb, impervious to dread. As one by one the discovered facts spelled unmistakably the name of her brother, allowing no margin to doubt his guilt, the necessity of atonement absorbed every other consideration; and the desire to avert his punishment extinguished ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Quite impervious to the preoccupation of the group, the German made his way up to them and picked out ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... begun to form, she lays her eggs in those with a fine indifference. These bolls will not drop, but the grubs ruin the cotton they contain. There have been numerous investigations and experiments made to develop a variety of cotton impervious to the weevil's attacks, as well as to find another insect willing to meet him in combat and overcome him. Guatamalan cotton is said to be immune and efforts are being made to transplant it to the United States. A small ant-like creature ...
— The Fabric of Civilization - A Short Survey of the Cotton Industry in the United States • Anonymous
... her last spark of mind; And that in pallid ash declined Beneath the blow by knowledge dealt, Wherein throughout her frame she felt That he, the light wind's libertine, Without a scoff, without a grin, And mannered like the courtly few, Who merely danced when light winds blew, Impervious to beak and claws, Tradition's ruinous Whitebeard was; Of whom, as actors in old scenes, Had grannam weavers warned their weans, With word, that less than feather-weight, He smote the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... by the ragged, dirty-faced little Hottentot, who, looking very miserable and ashamed of himself, took off his hat and squatted down on the drive, in the full glare of the African sun, to the effects of which he appeared to be totally impervious. ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... along the water. The dwellings, like those of the Aryks, consisted of a single story, with the door in the middle of the front, a window-like opening on each side of the same, roofed over with poles, covered with earth, leaves and grass, that were impervious to wind and storm. ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... wielders of weapons, excited with rage, quickly pierced (Satyaki), that bull amongst the Sinis, with ten arrows. And Karna pierced him with ten arrows, and thy son with seven, and Vrishasena pierced him with ten, and Suvala's son with seven. In that impervious wall of Kauravas around the grandson of Sini, these also stationed themselves, encompassing him. Beholding Drona slaughtering the Pandava army in that battle, the Somakas quickly pierced him from every ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... great a cause of the spread of tuberculosis is the change in clothing. The original native was clad in skins, which are the warmest clothing in the world. Moose hide or caribou hide garments, tanned and smoked, are impervious to the wind, and a parkee of muskrat or squirrel, or, as was not uncommon in the old days, of marten, or one of caribou tanned with the hair on, with boots of this last material, give all the warmth that exposure to the coldest weather requires. Nowadays ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... the room and he felt a swift sorrow at its ugliness. He had wanted pretty things, pictures and a bright carpet and ribbons, for Flavilla. Then he was conscious of a tearing rage, but now he was unmindful of it, impervious to its assault in the ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... like myself expect? It is true he has avoided actionable expressions, while Professor Steinthal has not, at least, according to German and English law. But suppose that hereafter, when certain small animals have crossed what he calls "the impervious distance," and acquired the power of language, they were to say, "We have only stung you, and you have killed us," would they ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... and his wife, now well hung in Windsor Castle, were about him, and early attracted his observant eye. Yet the same things were about his elder brother Arthur, an exceedingly clever fellow, who remained quite curiously impervious to the impressiveness of pretty things all ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... in the world, of what you propose to do. In a week, in your frame of mind, you'd have a hundred fights; there would be time for nothing else but knocking out the men who insulted you. You'll collapse over Sunday if you are not absolutely and totally impervious to everything and everybody. The only way you can throw the world over is to ignore it; while you appear to have the idea that it should put a rose in ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... so musingly and seriously that I was surprised, for I had thought him impervious to such a folly as ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... tradition strained to the utmost to make itself audible to the new world, and cracking into italics and breaking into capitals with the strain. The rest of that enormous bale of paper is eloquent of a public void of moral ambitions, lost to any sense of comprehensive things, deaf to ideas, impervious to generalisations, a public which has carried the conception of freedom to its logical extreme of entire individual detachment. These tell-tale columns deal all with personality and the drama of personal life. They witness to no interest but the interest in intense individual experiences. The ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... said Amelia. "So absolutely impervious to everything we've brought them up to reverence. It's all of a piece. Depend upon it, no young girl could go over there and do the things she did and not feel the effects of it: for life, absolutely for life. ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... two of gauze saturated with methyl-salicylate is wrapped around the painful joints and covered with paraffin paper, or other impervious dressing, held in place by a bandage. This is renewed once or twice daily until the pain in all the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... was perfect. In fact, during all this period of rough travels, although now and again we had met with accidents which laid us up for awhile, neither of us had known a day of sickness. Hardship seemed to have turned our constitutions to iron and made them impervious to every human ailment. Or was this because we alone amongst living men had once inhaled the breath of the Essence ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... which enabled us to place the transit instrument in the meridian and to ascertain the variation of the compass to be 27 degrees 50 minutes west. The sky becoming cloudy in the afternoon prevented our obtaining the corresponding observations to those gained in the morning; and the next day an impervious fog obscured the sky until noon. On the evening of this day we had the gratification of welcoming our absent companion Mr. Back. His return to our society was hailed with sincere pleasure by everyone and removed a weight of anxiety from my mind. It appears ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... little people with a sense of apology that educational forces have not been able to break into their first ignorance of life before it becomes toughened into insensibility, and one knows that, whatever may be done for them later, because of this early neglect, they will probably always remain impervious to the gentler aspects of life, as if vice seared their tender minds with red-hot irons. Our public-school education is so nearly universal, that if the entire body of the teachers seriously undertook to instruct all American youth ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... imperturbability and, in the quietest tones and the blandest way, say severe and cutting things. Economy was his strong point and he observed it in his public and private life with meritorious consistency. Impervious to cold, as to most other human weaknesses, in winter or summer he never wore an overcoat. His smooth face and tall slight figure seemed as indifferent to the angry elements as bronze or stone. By man or Nature I never saw him ruffled or in the ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... trough is teak, which is divided by glass or slate partitions. Marine glue or other form of cement is used to make the joints tight. For porous cup divisions plates of porous porcelain or pottery are placed across, alternating with the impervious slate partitions. ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... all times from west to east, with a velocity of from twenty to forty and even sixty miles per hour, according to its height from the earth, and having discovered a composition which renders silk or muslin impervious to hydrogen gas, so that a balloon may be kept afloat for many weeks, I feel confident with these advantages that a trip across the Atlantic will not be attended with as much real danger as by the common mode of transition. The balloon is to be 100 feet in diameter, giving it a net ascending ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... hot lard or drippings. Small fish can be fried whole; larger ones boned, and cut in small pieces. If they are egged and crumbed, the egg will form a covering, hardening at once, and absolutely impervious to fat. ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... in the curriculum—the advisability of making acquaintance at first hand with a noble literature, the mental discipline to be obtained; "Greek has such a noble grammar!" said one of these enthusiasts. Hugh grew a little nettled at the tone of the discussion. The defenders of Greek seemed to be so impervious to facts which told against them. They erected their theories, like umbrellas, over their heads, and experience pattered harmlessly on the top. Hugh advanced his own case as an instance of the failure, of the melancholy results of a classical curriculum. It was deplorable, ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Sun they called him father, as they had been instructed to do, but the Sun disowned them and subjected them to many ordeals, and even thrust at them with a spear, but the mother had given each of the youths a magic feather mantle impervious to any weapon. Klehanoai (the night bearer—the moon) also scoffed at them and filled the mind of the Sun with doubts concerning the paternity of the twins, so he determined to subject them to ...
— Navaho Houses, pages 469-518 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... and a desperate man. Three weeks ago I forged one of Ridsdale's cheques and lessened my friend's balance to the tune of five thousand pounds. He and his wife were old friends of mine, but I wanted the money desperately, and was impervious to sentiment or anything else. On that first day when you met me, although I seemed cheery enough, I was fit to kill myself. I had hoped to be able to restore the stolen money long before Ridsdale was likely to miss it. But this hope had failed. I saw no ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... thus equipped they proceeded to the lake shore, Hector and Louis carrying the crippled Catharine by turns. When there, they selected a sheltered spot beneath a grove of over-hanging cedars and birches, festooned with wild vines, which, closely woven, formed a natural bower, quite impervious to the rays of the sun. A clear spring flowing from the upper part of the bank among the hanging network of loose fibres and twisted roots, fell tinkling over a mossy log at her feet, and quietly spread itself among the round shingly pebbles that formed the beach of the lake. ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... doctrines opposed, but never met each other. It was as much an instinct of the ultramontane theory to elude the tests of science as to resist the control of States. Its opponents, baffled and perplexed by the serene vitality of a view which was impervious to proof, saw want of principle where there was really a consistent principle, and blamed the ultramontane divines for that which was of the essence of ultramontane divinity. How it came that no appeal to revelation or tradition, to reason or conscience, appeared to have any bearing whatever ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... blown down in the clearings where the wind could reach them. They do not seem to have any tap-root at all, merely a very insufficient network of fibres, seldom of any size, which spreads a short way along the surface of the ground As long as a Bush is undisturbed by civilization, it appears to be impervious to wind or weather; but as soon as it is opened and cleared a little, it begins to diminish rapidly. There are traces all over the hills of vast forests having once existed; chiefly of totara, a sort of red pine, and those about us are scattered with huge logs of this ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... here in California it is a matter of some moment. For in all woods and by every wayside there prospers an abominable shrub or weed, called poison-oak, whose very neighbourhood is venomous to some, and whose actual touch is avoided by the most impervious. ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... an excellent method. The following, perhaps, will sufficiently serve the purposes of the general observer:—A plain frame (portable) is to be constructed to fit into the window: to the four sides of this frame triangular pieces of cloth (impervious to light) are to be attached, their shape being such that when their adjacent edges are sewn together and the flaps stretched out, they form a rectangular pyramid of which the frame is the base. Through the vertex of this pyramid ...
— Half-hours with the Telescope - Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a - Means of Amusement and Instruction. • Richard A. Proctor
... still assailed, we must call to our aid constancy, which is a kind of double-lined buckler of patience, impervious to ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... unmolested. Why not let sleeping dogs lie? For the rest, the school absorbed most of her thoughts, and paid back interest in cheerfulness. The children were beginning to show signs of loyalty, and a teacher who has won loyalty has won everything. Myra alone stood aloof, sullen, impervious to kindness. ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... cocoanut trees, broken off by the wind were driven about in all directions, and as they met us, awakened almost as much apprehension as would a reef of rocks. We passed many islands uninhabited, and with their impervious forests still remaining in primitive wildness, clothed in the beauty of a perpetual verdure unknown in northern regions, and soon came in sight of the white houses of the island of Java, which ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... generally. She wasn't of the least consequence in any way, being not only old but very poor; yet people dreaded her, and would slip away round doors and corners to avoid her tongue. She succeeded, in spite of all drawbacks, in making herself felt; and it was only one or two impervious beings, such is Dicky Browne for example (who knew the Monktons well, and was indeed distantly connected with them through his mother), who could endure her manners with any ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... there was nobody near at hand to continue my higher education properly, and I was likely, had we lived long together at Shaw, to become like the regular middle-class Englishmen of those days, who from sheer want of preliminary training were impervious to the best influences of literature and art. I might have written a clear business ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... against God that they were not afraid to die rather than to do it. And that is the temper that you and I should have. Let that one fear, like Moses' rod, swallow up all the other serpents and make our hearts impervious to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... rewarded with mysterious good luck, each according to his totem. The Catfish man had caught six large catfish, and the Copper-tailed Bear man had killed a black bear. The resin of the pine had covered the inscription, rendering it impervious to the weather. ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... leek and the camphor and Flossie tied them up for him in a bit of linen and bade him be quite easy in his mind, as with these disinfectants he was impervious to ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... the Son of God Himself. A living, immortal man shining in a glorified human body surrounded by bodiless souls forever! What a contradiction that would be, what a scandal, indeed. It would be the declaration that the Son of God had power to rise from the dead, make His own body immortal, impervious to death, but in respect to those for whom He died and who died trusting in His promise He either did not have the power or did not care ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... He was impervious to reason, I made him promise never to say a word to me about his disgusting fatness again whatever happened—never, and then I handed him ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... extensive gardens of Marly ascended almost imperceptibly to the Pavilion of the Sun., which was occupied only by the King and his family. The pavilions of the twelve zodiacal signs bounded the two sides of the lawn. They were connected by bowers impervious to the rays of the sun. The pavilions nearest to that of the sun were reserved for the Princes of the blood and the ministers; the rest were occupied by persons holding superior offices at Court, or invited to stay at Marly. Each pavilion was named ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... "variations" as Deirdre that the critics fall foul, but of the "variations" he puts on Irish roads and in Irish cottages when he presents the life of to-day. Why he replied to this criticism when to most criticism he was, if not indifferent, at least impervious, it is not easy to say. It is more than likely, however, that it was rather to explain his ideas than to justify his characters that he did answer. This criticism of the reality of his peasants began with his "Shadow of the Glen" and is still to be heard in many ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... choked with a bar of sand, and crossed with peril.[145] This they called "Hell's gates,"—not less appropriate to the place, than to the character and torment of the inhabitants: beyond, they saw impenetrable forests, skirted with an impervious thicket; and beyond still, enormous mountains covered with snow, which rose to the clouds like walls of adamant: every object wore the air ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... the construction of such a house, the form, or skeleton, is erected first, and these boards are then affixed so as to overlap one another; each plank as it is put on being made to cover, with its thick side, the thin edge of the one preceding it: thus being alike impervious to wind and weather. The roof is shingled, or, in other words, covered with pieces of wood split into much the same shape as narrow slates, and put on in a similar manner. The cottage has a verandah on its front, enclosed by a small railing, tastefully ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... pasture. The Navajos, however, never go to any great distance for this, but keep generally within a radius of fifty or sixty miles from home. This tribe weaves a rug that is useful, unique, durable, and when at its best, impervious to rain. Among the tribes, and in some Western homes, they are used as blankets, but it has become a fashion in many of the best houses in the Eastern States to use them entirely as rugs, couch coverings, ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt
... to resist sharp rocks. STERN—The stern when the hound is at work is carried gaily, like that of a rough Welsh Harrier. It is thick and well covered, to serve as a rudder. COAT—The coat is wiry, hard, long and close at the roots, impervious to water. COLOUR—Grey, or buff, or yellowish, or black, or rufus red, mixed with black or grey. HEIGHT—22 to ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... and emotions, that she had not had time to miss him much; on the contrary, indeed, she had had passing sensations of gladness that he was not near at certain crises to pierce with his clear eyes and ready intuition, quite through the veil of composure which she could keep impervious enough to others. But now that the composure began to be more than a mere veil, and that her whole powers were no longer on the full stretch to maintain it; now, too, when everything outwardly went on the same as it had done three months ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... behind him the quick strokes of a strong swimmer, and then he knew and felt that all was lost. Upon that last chance he had staked every thing, and that last chance had failed utterly. This man who had insulted him, bullied him, and overpowered him—this man who had been impervious to his shots on the road and on the river-bank—this man who had gained on him steadily in that desperate race for life which he had run—this demon of a man was now gaining on him in the water also! If his pursuer had stood ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Fletcher No. 24, I skirted the outside of the jungle on the high bank, on the narrow arm of the river. We were not long in finding traces of the lions. A broad track in the sandy bed of the dried stream showed where the buffalo had been dragged across to the thick and impervious green bushes, exactly beneath us on the margin of the river. A hind quarter of the buffalo, much gnawed, lay within seven or eight paces of us, among the bushes that had been trampled down, and the dung of ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... age of twelve. However that may be, psychologists and anatomists agree in informing us that the brain of a human being is exceedingly plastic in childhood, and that it gradually grows more and more impervious to impressions and changes as the individual matures. Sad, indeed, is the case, therefore, of the individual who waits to learn what his vocational fitness is until he is fully mature and is, perhaps, ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... but carefully cleaned and dried, as we do bladders. It is then split longitudinally, and the pieces sewed together, each seam being set with tufts or rather fringes of purple feathers; so that the vest is light, impervious to rain, and highly ornamental from its rich purple stripes. There is another entirely of rich Mazarine blue feathers; a sceptre most ingeniously wrought of scarlet feathers; and a cap of bark, with a long projecting ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... the delicate traceries of the water gardens through which the mild-eyed stickle-backs sailed serenely, having implicit confidence in the protection of their sharp spinacles, presenting to all enemies an impervious array of bayonets; the shark-like pickerel endeavoring to swallow every living thing; the lazy barvel, everlastingly sucking his sustenance from the animalculae around him; the turtles, snapping at everything ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... Seeping through the mantle of waste, ground water soaks into the pores and crevices of the underlying rock. All rocks of the upper crust of the earth are more or less porous, and all drink in water. IMPERVIOUS ROCKS, such as granite, clay, and shale, have pores so minute that the water which they take in is held fast within them by capillary attraction, and none drains through. PERVIOUS ROCKS, on the other hand, such as many sandstones, have pore spaces so ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... character. He had the reputation in the neighbourhood of being a cynic, a misanthrope, and a madman. He kept very little company, and was even seldom seen but by night. He had a garden sufficiently spacious, which was carefully rendered impervious to every human eye. And to this and his house he entirely confined himself in the day-time. The persons he saw were not the gentlemen of the neighbourhood. He had no toleration for characters that did not interest him. When he first came down to his present residence, ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... astonished at his weighing down the boat in which they were carried, is belied by the sweet German notion "that the dead mother's coming back in the night to suckle the baby she has left on earth may be known by the hollow pressed down in the bed where she lay." Almost universally ghosts, however impervious to thrust of sword or shot of pistol, can eat and drink like Squire Westerns. And lastly, we have the grotesque conception of souls sufficiently material to be killed over again, as in the case of the negro widows who, wishing to marry a second time, will go and duck themselves ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps. When, formerly, I have analyzed my partiality for some farm which I had contemplated purchasing, I have frequently found that I was attracted solely by a few square rods of impermeable and unfathomable bog,—a natural sink ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... (1,394.38 feet), and the ridge seemed to run evenly to either side. The space for a camp was somewhat cramped, and the small yellow bees that are so persistent in clinging to one's face and hands were very numerous; they will sting if irritated. Even the lieutenant, ordinarily impervious to that kind of annoyance, sought the ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... intention he ordered his men to cut down stakes and to collect a large quantity of prickly pear-bushes which grew in the neighbourhood. A square fence was then formed with stakes, the interstices being filled up by masses of bushes, making it perfectly impervious, so that even elephants would hesitate before attempting to break through it. Within the circle rude huts were built for the accommodation of the garrison, one of which, of rather better construction, was ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... by this entertainment into approval of the firemen's idleness and inquired sarcastically why they had left their cots behind or if they thought they were still on WPA? The men remained impervious until the chief jumped out of his red roadster and surveyed the scene napoleonically. "Thought somebody was pulling a rib," he explained to no one in particular. "All right, boys, there's folks in ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... the sky, About whose feet such heaps of rubbish lie; Such indigested ruin; bleak and bare, How desart now it stands, expos'd in air! 'T was once a robber's den, inclos'd around With living stone, and deep beneath the ground. The monster Cacus, more than half a beast, This hold, impervious to the sun, possess'd. The pavement ever foul with human gore; Heads, and their mangled members, hung the door. Vulcan this plague begot; and, like his sire, Black clouds he belch'd, and flakes of livid fire. Time, long expected, ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... and unaffected manners—you rarely see combined. They take a great deal of out-door exercise, and came aboard the Merrimac, in a heavy rain, with Irish shoes thicker soled than you or I ever wore, and cloaks and dresses almost impervious to wet. They steer their father's yacht, walk the Lord knows how many miles, and don't care a cent about rain, besides doing a host of other things that would shock our ladies to death; and yet in the parlor are the most elegant looking women, in their satin shoes and diamonds, I ever saw.... ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... used as a temporary filling, or as a matter of economy. It may be rendered impervious to air and dampness, but it corrodes in most mouths, unless it comes in contact with food in chewing, and then it rapidly wears away; it does not become hard by packing or under pressure, and that it forms a kind of a ...
— Tin Foil and Its Combinations for Filling Teeth • Henry L. Ambler
... seriously perturbed the balance of taste in Europe. I do not know that Lord Cromer had pursued these impressions very far, or that he had formed any conscious theory with regard to them. But he was very "eighteenth century" in his suspicion of enthusiasm, and I always found him amusingly impervious to ideas of a visionary or mystical order. It was impossible that so intelligent and omnivorous a reader as he should not be drawn to the pathetic figure of Pascal, but he was puzzled by him. He described him as "manifestly a man ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... who have one idea at a time,—men who accomplish great results, men of action, reformers, saints, martyrs, are inevitably destitute of humor; and if the idea that inspires them be great and noble, they are impervious to it. But through the perversity of human affairs it not infrequently happens that men are possessed by a single idea, and that a small and rickety one—some seven months' child of thought—that maintains a querulous struggle for life, sometimes to the disquieting of a whole neighborhood. ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... old character, impervious, I fear, to moral problems, who goes in for walking matches in ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... triumphantly vindicated. Had the United States been allowed to develop in tranquillity and prosperity for a generation, it is not unlikely that the Federalist party might have struck its roots so deeply as to be impervious to attacks. But it needed time, for in contrast to the Jeffersonian party, whose origin is manifestly in the old-time colonial political habits of democracy, local independence, and love of lax finance, the Federalist party was a ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... and the pufformance was offered for his entertainment with admirable conscientiousness. True to the Lady Clara caste and training, Roderick's pale, fat face expressed nothing except an impervious superiority and, as he sat, cold and unimpressed upon the front bench, like a large, white lump, it must be said that he made a discouraging audience "to play to." He was not, however, unresponsive—far ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... the man seemed impervious to the simplest suggestion. With masterly decision he tapped his pince-nez and fell back upon his third line of defence. "You saw her steal them? What you mean is that you saw her take them from the different counters and put them ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... walked rapidly to a well-known bar where estimable citizens, even when impervious to the seductions of cocktail and highball, often met in private soundproof rooms to discuss momentous deals, or invoke the aid of detectives whose appearance in home or office might cause the wary ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... mighty oaks, into which he unhesitatingly plunged, and soon gained the deepest part of it. Here, owing to the thickness of the hollies and the projecting arms of other large overhanging timber, added to the uncertain light above, the gloom was almost impervious, and he could scarcely see a yard before him. Still, he pressed on unhesitatingly, and with a sort of pleasurable sensation at the difficulties he was encountering. Suddenly, however, he was startled by a ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the public-house. It seemed as though the presence, and spirit, and words of the Officer, who still went on with the message of mercy, had some strange effect upon them, which made these poor wretches impervious to the taunting, bitter sarcasms of this ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... charity, were about all that the middle-class public had to say about factory life. The cynical indifference of legislatures and the hypocrisy of the dominant parties were all that politics had to offer. The Lawrence strike touched the most impervious: story after story came to our ears of hardened reporters who suddenly refused to misrepresent the strikers, of politicians aroused to action, of social workers become revolutionary. Daily conversation was shocked into some contact ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann |
