"Impassivity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of it, a member of three very old-fashioned, most uncomfortable and absurdly exclusive clubs—if this is not success, what is? And all got smoothly, without a crease of the forehead, by means of an eyeglass, a cold manner and an impassivity which nothing foreign or domestic had ever disturbed. He had ability too, and great industry, but it was characteristic of him to reckon these as nothing in the scales against the eyeglass and the manner. They were his ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... answered deliberately that I travelled, and from Rome; that my name was Hewlett, at his service; that I was going to Perugia; that I would be rid of him. I saw him grow loutish before my adroit impassivity; his fencing was not with such tools. He sulked, and must know next what I wanted at Perugia. I told him I had business with Pietro Vannucci, called Il Perugino by those who admired him from a distance; and he seemed relieved, withal a something ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... the eyes of the two women were on her, searching her, and that Sophy's eyes were not altogether kind. She continued in her impassivity, smiling a provoking and ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... limn Stewart Morrison in any clearer light than to state that old Andrew, at seventy-two, was obeying Stewart's orders as to the ten-o'clock rule and was just as consistently a Cerberus as he had been in the case of Angus and David. He was a bit more set in his impassivity—at least to all appearances—because chronic arthritis had ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... the Ambassadors. He subsequently disappeared, and it was rumoured, among ill-natured people, that, far from being a mandarin, the fellow was a mere impostor. But nobody ever really discovered the nature of the comments that had been lurking behind the matchless impassivity of that ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... over with white moles, or rather, warts, one of which, on her eyelid, caused it to droop over her eye and to blink sometimes, suddenly. She had a short, indefinite nose and long, large lips firmly folded. With its updrawn hair and impassivity her face recalled that of a Chinese image; but more than of anything else she gave Gregory the impression, vaguely and incongruously tragic, of an old shipwrecked piece of oaken timber, washed up, finally, out of reach of the waves, on some high, lonely beach; battered, though ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... was noticeable. That wonderful impassivity of feature which never even in his lighter moments passed altogether away, seemed to deepen every line in his hard, clear-cut face. His mouth was close drawn, his eyes were suddenly colder and expressionless. There was about him at such times as—these an almost ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of his drunken mistress and wife, the degradation of his son, and has agreed only to contemplate the Olympian majesty of Weimar. Whether the repose and sanity of Goethe were unmixed virtues, or whether they were partly the result of indifference, of impassivity or selfishness, is another question. Certain it is that there is no other trait in Goethe's personality which has done more to raise him in the esteem of posterity. He has proved to the world that internal discord and distraction and morbid exaltation are not the ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... impassivity. His guest's whole demeanor, his uneasy words and nervous glances were an unspoken appeal to be helped out in what he had come to say. And Wingrave knew very well what it was. Nevertheless, he remained silent—politely questioning. Barrington sat down ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the theory of impassivity in literature, so much in vogue when Maupassant became known. But despite that theory he is, if one understands him, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... stock!" he snarled, shaken from the customary impassivity of the mountaineer, "It ain't us! We got the same number of cattle, all we mountain men, that our fathers had afore us! There ain't never been no trouble before. Sometimes we crowded a little, but we all know our people and we could fix things up, and so long as they let us be, we got along ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... and a slow, infinitely sad smile curled her lips. It was the beginning of the third day since Starr Wiley had issued his ultimatum. He must carry his threat into execution or admit it to have been sheer bluff. Curiously, she looked upon the impending crisis with the impassivity of a bystander. What did ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... face with curiosity. Its natural impassivity was so greatly increased by the presence of the coloured spectacles that my study was as profitless as if I had scrutinized the face of a carven Buddha. The mulatto had withdrawn, and in an atmosphere of gloom and tobacco smoke Smith and I sat staring, ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... exceedingly uncompromising elderly gentleman who remained so silent in the cafes of Rome and of Munich. The zeal of the young for this unseen and unsympathetic personage was extraordinary, and took forms of amazing extravagance. Ibsen's impassivity merely heightened the enthusiasm of his countless admirers, who were found, it should be stated, almost entirely among persons who were born after his exile from Norway. His writings supplied a challenge to ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... though Wickersham had trouble with his tongue. And while she waited, puzzled and frowning, the man gave up an attempt at his usual nicety of phrase and blurted out all that which had been many days hidden behind his impassivity. ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans |
