"Impending" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the middle of the track was an indubitable fact. By all the rules of argumentation it had no business to be there, trespassing on the right of way. But there it was! We trembled to think of the impending collision. ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... up, happier because of the challenge in the song to worthwhile effort, and ready now to begin the preparations of the impending ...
— The Quest of Happy Hearts • Kathleen Hay
... company as he had done before, and so those long discussions and mental duels in which we pitted our philosophies against each other came to an end. I was, I suspected, an unpleasant reminder to him of things he would rather forget, and my presence was an omen of impending doom. That he did not order my execution forthwith was due, I believe to a sort of fascination in me, as the personification of this (to him) strange and mysterious race of super-men who had so magically developed overnight from ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... whence the note came, the traveler looks toward the right side. If he sees there strong, sturdy trees, he knows that all is well, but if they are cut or weaklings, he should use great care to avoid impending danger. When questioned as to why one should look only to the right, an old man quickly replied: "The right side belongs to you; the left side is bad and ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... with the apprehensions of these, and the like impending dangers, that they can neither sleep quietly in their beds, nor have any relish for the common pleasures and amusements of life. When they meet an acquaintance in the morning, the first question is about the sun's health, how he ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... truth) with vantage on his side, begun The fight, who brought a monster to the fray, Found only in those parts, and wont to won Ashore or under water, and to prey, For food, on human bodies; feeding on Poor mariners and travelling men, who fare, Of the impending danger, unaware. ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... the great English universities, bringing all the learning of the age into our wild forest land. His eloquence and religious fervour had already given the earnest of high eminence in his profession. He was a person of very striking aspect, with a white, lofty, and impending brow; large, brown, melancholy eyes, and a mouth which, unless when he forcibly compressed it, was apt to be tremulous, expressing both nervous sensibility and a vast power of self restraint. Notwithstanding ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... which may be expressed in the two words pain and flooding, should make their appearance, the doctor ought at once to be sent for, the wife awaiting his arrival in a recumbent position. He may even then be able to avert the impending danger. At any rate, his services are as necessary, and often even more so, as in a ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... on wing, And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood, Conscious and fearful of too deep a plunge. The sparrows peep, and quit the sheltering eaves, To seize the fair occasion; well they eye The scattered grain, and thievishly resolved To escape the impending famine, often scared As oft return, a pert voracious kind. Clean riddance quickly made, one only care Remains to each, the search of sunny nook, Or shed impervious to the blast. Resigned To sad necessity, the cock foregoes His wonted strut; and, wading at ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... the finer spiritual intuitions could not have shaken off the belief in an impending struggle. The feel of it was in the air. Nature's forces were too mighty to be so slightly overcome; the splendid energy developed in these camps too vast to be wasted on facile success. Over against each other were two great powers, alike in their calm confidence, animated with the loftiest and ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... when it was the fashion to give each act a sub-title; and one of its acts is headed "The Sword of Damocles." That is, indeed, the inevitable symbol of dramatic tension: we see a sword of Damocles (even though it be only a farcical blade of painted lathe) impending over someone's head: and when once we are confident that it will fall at the fated moment, we do not mind having our attention momentarily diverted to other matters. A rather flagrant example of suspended ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... impending ruin, at which the boldest of his followers grow pale, he himself is calm, and first in this awful crisis feels the serenity and conscious strength of his soul return. Wallenstein, in fact, though preeminent in power, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... wiping his Shoes. By this time the young Templar, who found his Honour concerned in the Dispute, and that the Eyes of the whole Coffee-house were upon him, had thrown aside a Paper he had in his Hand, and was coming towards us, while we at the Table made what haste we could to get away from the impending Quarrel, but were all of us surprised to see him as he approached nearer put on an Air of Deference and Respect. To whom the old Man said, Hark you, Sirrah, I'll pay off your extravagant Bills once more; but will take effectual Care ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... losses were far greater than was the case, and that the whole country was about to be ruined, had sunk broken-hearted into the grave. He had trusted in riches, and they had failed him. An apathetic indifference to everything around him had seized his eldest son, who had the same belief in the ruin impending over the colony. ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston
... to acquire fame in connection with balloon flight, conceived and described a curious vehicle, of which he even announced trials as impending. His trials were postponed time after time, and it appears that he became convinced in the end of the futility of his device, being assisted to such a conclusion by Lalande, the astronomer, who repeated Borelli's statement that it was impossible ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... as a child. The sense of guilt—of fright—of impending judgment left her as she walked with him, and gave place to a glow of comfort that here should be a man on whom to lean. She did not fight the new sensation, for she was growing strangely weary of the other one. By the time that they had reached her father, and ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... kept by the police for Annouchka's passage. There, wrapped in a great red mantle, his hat on his arm, was a man Rouletabille immediately recognized. It was Prince Galitch. They were hurrying to escape the impending pressure of the crowd. But Annouchka as she passed near Natacha stopped just a second—a movement that did not escape Rouletabille—and, turning toward her said just the one word, "Caracho." Then she passed on. Rouletabille ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... around, with the skill of an old habitue, for information concerning the eligibility of the two men who were seeking his daughter's hand. In the midsummer dullness and holiday stagnation the impending operation in the Catskills was the only one that promised anything whatever. He became more fully satisfied that Arnault's firm was prospering. They had been persistent "bears" on a market that had long been declining, and had reaped a golden harvest from the miseries of others. On the other ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... 1853, a little event occurred which was one of the numerous causes that turned me aside from the steady practice of art. One of our friends called about the impending establishment of the militia, and offered to use his influence with Colonel Towneley to get a commission for me in the 5th Royal Lancashire, the regiment that was to have its headquarters at Burnley. My guardian much wished me to accept, and I did so to please her, as I had not been able to ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... again said my companion. We followed his example by unsaddling our animals and taking off the bridles, with which we whipped them. The poor things, though tired, galloped to the south, as if they were aware of the impending danger. ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... high school boys in particular, and toward high schools generally. He would be chary of the privileges he granted to these "big fellers" whom he knew so well how to "handle." But in the light of the camp-fire he saw visions of huge war profits in these impending combats. While Edgemere and Bridgeboro fought he would become a war millionaire. The little island, retired from its wild career at last and with a secure and fixed abode would still play an ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... constantly warning his men of impending danger, but they took no heed until they felt the bullets spattering them ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... were sure of it; their eyes dug in the deep shadow of the palms for some one hiding; if intensity of looking might have prevailed, they would have pierced the walls of houses; and there came to them, in these pregnant seconds, a sense of being watched and played with, and of a blow impending, that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... old, in the age of legend, omens warned heroes of impending doom. But to-day the gods have grown weary, and we rush unsuspecting on our fate. No owl hooted, no thunder rolled from the blue sky as John went up the path to meet the white dress that gleamed ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... Emperor, standing in the large balcony of the Palace,—two cannon placed between the columns of San Marco and San Teodoro,—every inch of the vast Piazza, without the circle of soldiery, occupied by eager spectators. Over this vast assemblage, amid the impending thoughts which the incidents of the hour and the memory of the Past inspired, reigned a profound silence; no laugh or jest, such as bespeaks a holiday, no heartless curiosity, such as accompanies a mere public show, no vulgar excitement was evident; on many faces ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... distasteful and defective. From 1832 to 1867 the Middle Class had governed England, manipulating the Aristocracy through the medium of the House of Commons; and the Aristocracy, though still occupying the place of visible dignity, had its eye nervously fixed on the movement, actual and impending, of the Middle Class. This system of government by the predominance of the Middle Class, was not only distasteful to culture, but was actually a source of danger to the State when it came to be applied to Foreign Affairs. "That makes the difference between Lord Grenville and Lord Granville." ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... not, either. After another quarter of an hour, the dustman not merely impending, but actually arriving, recourse was had to the Constantinopolitan chamber-maid: who cheerily undertook that the child should sleep in a comfortable and wholesome room, which ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... was very civil to him, but it was evident that he could not stand Jules Simon any longer and the various measures that he felt were impending. We had many visitors after breakfast, all much excited, wondering what the next step would be—if the Chambers would be dissolved, the marshal trying to impose a cabinet of the Right or perhaps form another moderate liberal cabinet without Jules Simon, but retaining some ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... 1580. They had long labored among the suffering faithful along the southwestern coast of Ireland. When the convent of Bantry was seized by the English troops, these holy men received their wished-for crown of martyrdom. Being conducted to a high rock impending over the sea, they were tied back to back, and precipitated ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... bred in seaport towns. His earliest memories went back to great deep- water ships, their jib-booms poking into the second-story windows of the city front, their decks hoarsely melodious with the yo- heave-yo of straining seamen. The smell of tar, the sight of enormous anchors impending above the narrow street, the lofty masts piercing the sky in a tangle of ropes and blocks, the exotic cargoes mountains high—all moved him like a poem. He knew no pleasure like that of sailing his cousin's ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... Hall, and the strange, impending catastrophe which hung over its inmates, appealed forcibly to my imagination. All that evening, and late into the night, I sat moodily by the fire, pondering over what I had heard, and revolving in my mind the various ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... observing their timidity, called a boat and himself struck a second harpoon. Another boat immediately followed, and unfortunately advanced too far. The tail was again reared into the air in a terrific attitude. The impending blow was evident. The harpooner, who was directly underneath, leaped overboard, and the next moment the threatened stroke was impressed on the center of the boat, which it buried in the water. Happily no one was injured. The harpooner who leaped overboard escaped death by the act, the tail having ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... the people of Glamerton had no capacity for excitement left. The consequence was that the congregations, especially the evening congregations, began at once to diminish. Having once ceased to feel anxiety about some vague impending vengeance, comparatively few chose to be rated any longer about their sins; while some seeing how in the spate the righteous were taken and the wicked left, felt themselves aggrieved, and staid at home on the Sunday nights. Nor was the deterioration confined to the congregations. Not ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... glad to see you again, Captain Barry," she responded, her cheeks very pink and her eyes sparkling, notwithstanding the impending crisis in her life. "This morning, at least, I can ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... those years she spoke with fervour to two intimate female friends in the last week of her existence, which closed at the latter end of the summer 1770. 'Do not weep for my impending fate,' said the dying angel with a smile of unaffected cheerfulness. 'In the short term of my life a great deal of happiness has been comprised. The maladies of my frame were peculiar; those of my head and stomach which no medicine could eradicate, were spasmodic ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... Craglea above Killaloe, near the old palace of Kincora. In A.D. 1014 was fought the battle of Clontarf, from which the aged king, Brian Boru, knew that he would never come away alive, for the previous night Aibhill had appeared to him to tell him of his impending fate. The Banshee's method of foretelling death in olden times differed from that adopted by her at the present day: now she wails and wrings her hands, as a general rule, but in the old Irish tales she is ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... naked rock we see steep hill-sides covered with forest, and away above these again bare grass-slopes topped by cloud. But as the clouds slowly lift and break we become suddenly aware of something impending far above and beyond all this, something more dazzling in its white brightness than the sun-lit clouds, a form sharply cut in outline and firm, yet rounded by a shadow of an exquisite purple tint which no cloud can assume. The ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... strength returned to her, she could not rest or sleep for thinking of her parent's danger, until she had secretly sold some of her jewels, and with the money so obtained had hastened to an astrologer, and paid him a great price to advise her by what means her father might be saved from the peril impending over him. So the astrologer made observations of the heavens, and marked the aspect of the Silver Stream (which we call the Milky Way), and examined the signs of the Zodiac,—the Hwang-tao, or Yellow Road,—and ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... arms: 'Tis roused, and with a new-strung nerve, the spear already shakes, No neighing of the warrior steeds, No drum, or louder trumpet, needs To inspire the coward, warm the cold— His voice, his sole appearance makes them bold. Gaul and Batavia dread the impending blow; Too well the vigour of that arm they know; They lick the dust, and crouch beneath their fatal foe. Long may they fear this awful prince, And not provoke his lingering sword; Peace is their only sure defence, Their best security his word: ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... and Disco Lillihammer were stopped in their journey, as related in a former chapter, by the sudden illness of the bold seaman, an event was impending over them which effectually overturned their plans. This was the sudden descent of a band of armed natives who had been recently driven from their homes by a slaving party. The slavers had taken them by surprise during ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... to defend[842] and near there he now waited; but Steele on East Boggy, full sixty miles from Red River and from comparative safety, begged him to come forward to Middle Boggy, a battle was surely impending.[843] No battle occurred, notwithstanding; for Blunt had given up the pursuit. He had come to know that not all of Steele's command was ahead of him,[844] that McIntosh with the Creeks had gone west within the Creek country, the Creeks having refused ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... to one another. For all about, though at first they could see nothing, there was the sense of impending danger. They felt that unseen eyes were watching, not for them, perhaps, but for anyone who might venture to intrude and pass the first line. Both of the scouts felt that they were tilting against a mighty force; that the organization that would perfect, in time of peace, such a system of ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... Civitate Dei, to remove them. That work was a philosophy of society; it was the history of the church and of the world, viewed in presence of the dissolution, social and political, which seemed impending. ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... in these sad plans for the future they journeyed in sight of the Scarecrow's new mansion, and even though filled with care and worry over the impending fate of Oz, Dorothy couldn't help a feeling of wonder at ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... to maintain the percentage of profit by recourse to inferior qualities only made bad worse, and, even as the Sergeot were steering the Salon Malakoff forth upon the waters of prosperity, there were nightly conferences in the household next door, at which impending ruin presided, and exasperation sounded the keynote of every sentence. The resplendent facade of Hippolyte's establishment, the tide of custom which poured into and out of his door, the loudly expressed admiration ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... official's nose to disappear momentarily in the dish, while he exploded in voluble German. The result was an instant rupture of diplomatic relations. Adler was put in the lock-up, but set fiee again immediately. He spent the rest of the voyage in his bunk shouting dire threats of disaster impending from the "Norddeutsche Consul," once he reached New York. But we were all too glad to get ashore to think of ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... a step further and turn from "acute" combinations to such combinations as are, as it were, impending. Here, too, I urgently recommend beginners (advanced players do it as a matter of course) to proceed by way of simple arithmetical calculations, but, instead of enumerating the attacking and defending pieces, to count the number of possibilities ...
— Chess Strategy • Edward Lasker
... the royal guard, and bursting in, With fatal menace close besieged the King. Alarm'd at this, the swarthy Queen, in haste, From all her havoc and destructive waste 590 Broke off, and her contempt of death to show, Leap'd in between the Monarch and the foe, To save the King and state from this impending blow. But Phoebus met a worse misfortune here: For Hermes now led forward, void of fear, 595 His furious Horse into the open plain, That onward chafed, and pranced, and pawed amain. Nor ceased from his attempts until he stood On the long-wished-for spot, from whence he could Slay King ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... that Henry Schulte, whose mind was filled with vague but distressing apprehensions for his life, could have found refuge, safe and unassailable, within the broad domain of his own native land, and that he might have considered himself free from impending danger if he could have placed even a short distance between himself and those whom he believed to be his mortal enemies. This, however, he found it impossible to do and rest contented; so, resisting all the arguments that were urged by his faithful but overtaxed ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... farm life. I wrote you from Alaska on the fifth of this month, announcing my intention of sailing on the tenth; that letter came by a Victoria steamer and will soon reach you. At that time I was weighed down by a premonition of some impending disaster. So seriously was I impressed, that I at once made arrangements with Dewitt C. Dunbar, in case of my death, to continue to operate the mine in partnership with you on the terms now in force, and this he was perfectly willing ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... proof that he was trying to revenge himself for personal inconvenience suffered at the hands of the minions of the law. Others contend that he knew all the time the real reason for their presence—the possibility that Sinn Fein emissaries would greet Mr. GINNELL'S impending departure with a display of fireworks from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... the fire and guard the camp. Little Mabel Ashbridge slept on in blissful ignorance of the awful fate impending over her childish head. Only the good man himself suffered a torture beyond the power of ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... in a grand tragi-comic style, over the Lilliputian difficulties and petty disappointments it has to encounter, gives way to all the fretfulness of grief and all the turbulence of resentment, makes a fuss about nothing because there is nothing to make a fuss about—when an impending calamity, an irretrievable loss, would instantly bring it to its recollection, and tame it in its preposterous career. A man may be in a great passion and give himself strange airs at so simple a thing as a game at ball, for ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... words, too, the depth and fervour of His patriotism. When He saw the tears of the women, the spectacle raised in His mind an image of the doom impending over the city whose daughters they were. Jerusalem, as has been already said, had always been extremely unresponsive to Him; she had played to Him an unmotherly part. None the less, however, did He feel for her the love of a loyal son. He had shown this a few days before, when, ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... Surely he was in some hideous nightmare, but he would wake directly. What an awful stillness seemed round them!—as though a storm were impending: the water-lilies on the Pool looked like dead things, and even the dragon-fly hung motionless in mid-air; only the dogs panted and snored round them. Elizabeth pressed her hands together as though ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... impending. A mighty wizard had visited the place, with an eye quick to see the possibilities of the situation, with a brain to plan and a hand to execute. His name was Francois Blanc, the head of the great gambling establishment at Homburg. Vast as were his ambition and achievements, ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... beware! I must this moment hence, Not frighted by your voice, but by the cocks! Arthur, beware, beware, beware, beware! Strive to avert thy yet impending fate; For, if thou'rt kill'd to-day, To-morrow all thy care will ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... little cricket chirped somewhere in this scene of impending failure; nearby a katydid was grinding out her old familiar song as if it were the latest popular air. In the barn across the yard the discordant sound of the horses kicking the echoing boards sounded ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... idle singer of an empty day, but he speaks because speech springs out of him. To his mind, the foundations of human welfare are in jeopardy, and it is full time to decide what means may avert the danger. But the American does not think any cataclysm is impending, or if any there be, nobody can help it. The subjects that best repay attention are the minor ones of civilization, culture, behavior; how to avoid certain vulgarities and follies, how to inculcate certain principles: and to illustrate these points heroic types are not needed. ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... part could alter Mr. Browning's devotion to her, and that marriage with him, so far from being an increase of risk to her health, offered the only means by which she might hope for an improvement in it, she gave him the conditional promise that if she came safely through the then impending winter, she would ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... days of George II, but its principal feature was intact till the beginning of the nineteenth century. This was one of the finest baronial halls in England, seventy feet by forty, with a roof resembling that of the great hall at Westminster. The roof, however, at that time showing signs of impending collapse, it was taken down by my grandfather in the year 1810, and only the bare walls and the pointed windows remain. The inhabited portion, however, is still of considerable extent, one of its frontages—two ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... assassin, the infamous Hazael, held the throne. Left to his own resources by the dissolution of the old league, this monarch had exerted himself to the utmost in order to repel the attack which he knew was impending. He had collected a very large army, including above eleven hundred chariots, and, determined to leave nothing to chance, had carefully taken up a very strong position in the mountain range which separated his territory from the neighboring kingdom of Hamath, or valley of Coele-Syria. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... old, uncanny light in Hawkins' eye; and if trouble were impending, it was my fond, foolish hope to be out of its way—until such time, at least, as the police or the coroner should call me up on the telephone to identify all ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... went down. The Campanile rocked and shivered like a reed. And all along the Grand Canal the palaces swayed helpless, tottering to their fall, while boats piled high with men and women strove to stem the tide, and save themselves from those impending ruins. It was a mad dream, born of the sea's roar and Tintoretto's painting. But this afternoon no such visions are suggested. The sea sleeps, and in the moist autumn air we break tall branches of the seeded ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... foot; and Demetrius offered to let him retire, on condition of his withdrawing his garrisons from Sicyon and Corinth. And not they alone, but all the other potentates and princes of the time, were in anxiety for the uncertain impending issue of the conflict; as it seemed evident, that the conqueror's prize would be, not Cyprus or ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... possible. He saw the impending disaster clearly, in its full meaning; and Sigismond Planus's wrinkled, solemn face rose before him with its sharply cut features, whose absence of expression softened their harshness, and his light German-Swiss eyes, which had haunted ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... this time Hercules arrived at the palace of Admetus, and found all the inmates in great distress for the impending loss of the devoted wife and beloved mistress. Hercules, to whom no labor was too arduous, resolved to attempt her rescue. He went and lay in wait at the door of the chamber of the dying queen, and when Death ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... the best part of half a century, was not only still unfinished; but had threatened approaching ruin. Yes—like the Gothic abbey at Fonthill, it would, by all accounts, have fallen to the ground, without the aid of vandalism, had not prompt and efficacious measures been adopted, to avert the impending mischief. ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... of impending war with the French and Indians brought together at Albany a convention of delegates from seven colonies north of the Potomac. A plan of union drafted by Benjamin Franklin was recommended by this convention, but it was not regarded ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... the old attache fell upon Claiborne in the smoking-room and stopped to discuss a report that a change was impending in the American State Department. Changes at Washington did not trouble Singleton, who was sure of his tenure. He said as much; and after ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... an old fellow, and when he realized the impending truncheon, the menace of Hogarth's eyes, and the silence of the warder, he permitted himself to be dragged toward Hogarth's stretcher; and his feet were quickly knotted ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... tone, "Worthy man!he cared not how soon Monkbarns had devolved on an heir-female, I've a notion;and while he was occupied in this Christian office of consolation against impending evil, I reckon that the chicken-pie and my ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... infinitely deeper than any I had felt before, though I knew it was but the signal of returning life to the sufferer, and that I ought to rouse myself and welcome it with suitable ministrations, instead of sitting there like a statue of fear in the presence of an impending fate. But do what I would, say to myself what I would, I could not stir. A nightmare of terror was upon me, and not till I saw the stony lips move and the face take a look of life in the effort made to speak, did I burst the spell that held me and ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... city. Amidst hope and fear, the fears of the wise, and the hopes of the credulous, the winter rolled away; the proper business of each man, and each hour, was postponed; and the Greeks shut their eyes against the impending danger, till the arrival of the spring and the sultan decide the assurance of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... impending solemnity ran through the crowd. The mysterious rumour which is the Voice of the Bazaar rose about us like the wind in a palm-oasis; the Black Guard fired a salute from an adjoining hillock; the clouds of red dust flung up by wheeling horsemen thickened ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... had hurried out she went back to her work, but her fingers could only fumble at the keys. By effort of will persons of strong character can compose themselves after disaster has been confirmed; but impending disaster that is hinted at—guessed at—is a menace which paralyzes. She was endeavoring to write down what Richard Dodd had revealed of the plans of Walker Farr. She understood that the mighty power of the state machine was now doubling its fist over the head ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... gems had been exchanged, during the famine, for the vilest sustenance; the hoards of secret wealth were still concealed by the obstinacy of avarice; and some remains of consecrated spoils afforded the only resource that could avert the impending ruin of the city. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... earnest and sententious, his manner so much that of a prophet, that Robert, in spite of himself, believed in the great impending danger that would come in the dark, and the hair on the back of his neck lifted a little. Yet the day was still great and shining, the forest tinted gold with the flowing sunlight, and the pure fresh air blowing into the cave. There the two youths, the white and ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... little daughter, aged six years; that the little girl was to become his daughter and to be brought up by him, he paying $23 to the parents. He accused the father of trying to extort money from him, and appealed for "protection" from "impending calamities." Later, further facts came out, showing that the father of the child had borrowed $5 three years before from Leung A-Tsit, which, with interest at ten cents per month for every dollar, now amounted to $23. The September before, his creditor came and demanded payment, and ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... he himself could give any account. Who has not a catalogue of these men in his list? who can tell whence comes the occasional clean shirt, who supplies the continual means of drunkenness, who wards off the daily-impending starvation? Their life is a wonder from day to day: their breakfast a wonder; their dinner a miracle; their bed an interposition of Providence. If you and I, my dear sir, want a shilling tomorrow, who will give it us? Will OUR butchers give us mutton-chops? will OUR laundresses clothe ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... impending dinner-hour of little Gerald Fairfax Gregory, began to watch the swirling groups for Warren. They could slip away now, surely; several persons had already gone. Her heart was in her nursery, where Jim was toddling back ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... subjects a multitudinous war-cry, increasing in vehemence till at last methought it rivalled the roar of an army of a hundred thousand Isosceles, and the artillery of a thousand Pentagons. Spell-bound and motionless, I could neither speak nor move to avert the impending destruction; and still the noise grew louder, and the King came closer, when I awoke to find the breakfast-bell recalling me to ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... to promise as his ransom "that which he knows not of at home," which turns out to be a couple of children—a boy and a girl—who have been born during his absence. In vain does he attempt to save the twins from their impending fate, by concealing them in a secret abode constructed for that purpose underground. In the course of time the King-Bear arrives to claim them, finds out their hiding-place, digs them up, and carries them off on his back to a distant ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... of gloom had fluttered, and his being was vibrant with premonition of impending misfortune. He felt a disruptive influence at work in the flesh of him, and in all his muscles there was a seeming that they were about to begin to twitch. He sat back suddenly, and as suddenly leaned forward with his elbows on the table. A tremor ran dimly through ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... he was asked. Wherefore the company judged him to be very wealthy. At last the cat came to a very fine castle, and found there but few servants, to whom she said: "What are you doing, good men; do you not perceive the destruction which is impending?" "What?" asked the servants. "Before an hour passes, a host of soldiers will come here and cut you to pieces. Do you not hear the horses neighing? Do you not see the dust in the air? If you do not wish to perish, ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... of Mave's humanity and attention towards her, to which it was well known, she owed her life. The generous girl, therefore, filled with remorse at having, for one moment, contemplated any act of injury towards Mave, now determined to save her from the impending danger, or lose her life in the attempt. How she won her way in such an enfeebled state of health, and on such a night, cannot now be known; it is sufficient here to say, that she arrived only a few minutes before the attack was made upon Sullivan's house, and just in time to have Mave and her ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... known when Clay had thrashed him. He learned that when a lawbreaker is going strong, friends at court who are under obligations to him are a bulwark of strength, but when one's power is shaken politicians prefer to take no risks. No news spreads more rapidly than that of the impending fall of a chieftain. The word was passing among the wise that Jerry Durand was to be ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... of dangers and vexations. With characteristic prudence, he had timed the period of his departure with the beginning of the end in the fortunes of the old patroon principality. The storm-cloud, gathering during the life of Mauville's predecessor, was now ready to burst, the impending catastrophe hastened by the heir's want of discretion and his failure to adjust difficulties amicably. That small shadow, followed by a smaller shadow, passing through the field, were none other than Oly-koeks and Oloffe, who grew more and more imperceptible ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... turned to the left and set off together in that direction, watched with something more than mild suspicion by the Sikh, and, if Suliman's sensations were anything like mine, feeling about as cheerless, homeless and aware of impending evil as the dogs that slunk away into the night. I took advantage of the first deep shadow I could find to walk in, less minded to explore than to ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... all, we trust that the Commissioner will be able to say to the world, to the President, and to Congress, that this effort was the unpremeditated, irresistible impulse of a small body of men, acting under the sense and sight of oppression and impending horrid calamities, against the advice of some of their own number; and that no gentleman of education, no counsellor of this court sworn to obey the law, has instigated these poor men to its overthrow. Massachusetts is not in a state ...
— Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various
... language, these two items embedded in so-called money articles reported the rumour that a charge of fraud had arisen in connection with the Rubber Consols corner, and that sensational disclosures were believed to be impending. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... measures were merely precautionary. It might be days yet before the affair really began. Still it was important news; and there were pale faces among the ladies at this sudden reminder that the assembly at Brussels was not a mere holiday gathering, but that war, grim, earnest, and terrible, was impending. ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... the sense; her apprehension was dulled by the passion of the last hour, and she found it difficult to call up the ideas suggested by the words. At last she began to have a distinct conception of the impending interview with Sir Christopher. The idea of displeasing the Baronet, of whom every one at the Manor stood in awe, frightened her so much that she thought it would be impossible to resist his wish. ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... gloomy forebodings and strong apprehensions of impending evil, mingled with extravagant visions of personal grandeur and power. He never doubted for a moment that he was formed for some 'great or miserable end.' He talked about it frequently and sometimes calmly. Mr. Herndon remembers many ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... London has decided in future to warn the City of impending air raids. Ringing the dinner-bell at the Mansion House, it is thought, is the best way of making City men ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 27, 1917 • Various
... interest in that, since you risk nothing more than what you owe him," she answered, with a disdain that brought the impending tears to his eyes. But if he lacked the manliness to restrain them, he possessed at least the shame to turn his back and hide them from her. "But tell me, sir," she added, her curiosity awakened, "if I am to judge, what was the nature of ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... inside the door, staring at Casey with a glassy look in his eyes. Something in Joe's face warned Casey of impending events; but with that terrible old woman still fresh in his mind, Casey was in the mood to welcome distraction of any sort. He shifted his hand in the sling so that his concealed weapons lay more comfortably therein, secure from ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... the death of Lohiau, his best friend, Paoa, came before Pele determined to invite death by pouring out the vials of his wrath on the head of the goddess. The sisters of Pele sought to avert the impending tragedy and persuaded him to soften his language and to forego mere abuse. Paoa, a consummate actor, by his dancing, which has been perpetuated in the hula Pele, and by his skillfully-worded prayer-songs, one of which is given above, not only ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... men stepped forward, and as they advanced, the girl, for the first time realising her impending fate, screamed aloud and turned to fly. But the strong hands caught her fast, and brought her, struggling and ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... stability amid the prevailing disorder. Undisturbed by war, the only abodes of peaceful labor, learning, and piety, they had become rich and powerful, both in men and land. Probably the more or less general apprehension of the supposed impending end of the world in the year 1000 contributed to this result by driving unquiet consciences to seek refuge in the monasteries, or ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... fine morning, in the month of May, 1852, the enemy, whether with intent to surprise, or merely fired with the nervous irritation of one who can no longer stand the strain of awaiting an impending blow, determined to hasten the issue by taking the offensive. So collecting his rough and ragged legions, stout of heart and stout of arm, carrying weapons not meanly to be compared with our own, the outlaw chief, Ajun Khan, marched out to ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... prolonged by the mountain waves. As I saw the ship staggering and plunging among these roaring caverns, it seemed miraculous that she regained her balance, or preserved her buoyancy. Her yards would dip into the water; her bow was almost buried beneath the waves. Sometimes an impending surge appeared ready to overwhelm her, and nothing but a dexterous movement of the helm preserved her from ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... apprehension Hardy rode ceaselessly along the rim of Bronco Mesa, without finding so much as a track. Throughout that long month of watching and waiting the memory of his conversation with Jim Swope had haunted him, and with a sinister boding of impending evil he had ridden far afield, even to the lower crossing at Pablo Moreno's, where a few Mexicans and Basques were fording the shallow river. Not one of those veiled threats and intimations had he confided to Creede, for the ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... and the next year he left England, not to return. The state of his health, for he had appeared to be in a consumption for some time, and the fear lest his son, by his second wife, should be taken from him, combined to induce him to take refuge in Italy from both impending evils. At Lucca he began his Prometheus, and wrote Julian and Maddalo. He moved from place to place in Italy, as he had done in his own country. Their two children dying, they were for a time left childless; but the loss of these grieved Shelley less than that of his ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... this remark every day furnishes new confirmation: there is no time of life, in which men for the most part seem less to expect the stroke of death, than when every other eye sees it impending; or are more busy in providing for another year, than when it is plain to all but themselves, that at another year they cannot arrive. Though every funeral that passes before their eyes evinces the deceitfulness of such expectations, since every man who is born to the grave thought himself ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... alert for danger signals, Haight's hurried and excited manner was the first indication of approaching trouble. It was evident that the company had received some inkling of impending danger, but of the extent of their information, or the nature of their communications with Haight, he had no means of ascertaining. Stating that he wished to see Morton Rutherford immediately upon his return, and that he would be ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... of earnest men crossed Charlestown Neck, and halted for a clear definition of the impending duty. Major Brooks, of Colonel Dodge's regiment, joined here, as well as a company of artillery. Captain Nutting, with a detachment of Connecticut men, was promptly sent, by the quickest route, to patrol Charlestown, at the summit of Bunker Hill. Captain Maxwell's company, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... say here, without entering into the explanation of the fact, which will be found simple enough as seen by the light of modern physiological science, that the "nervous disturbance" which the presence of a woman in the flower of her age produced in my system was a sense of impending death, sudden, overwhelming, unconquerable, appalling. It was a reversed action of the nervous centres,—the opposite of that which flushes the young lover's cheek and hurries his bounding pulses as ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... you Mr. Jordan, a reporter in whom I have the greatest confidence. Whatever you may tell him you may rest assured that he will never repeat. I am sending him to you in hopes he may suggest some plan by which to ward off the impending strike. There may be a little self-interest on my side. A strike just now will raise the devil in politics. You may ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... men impatiently awaiting the first move in the anticipated war of words between two famous lawyers, who were known to be not only political antagonists, but also personal enemies. The cause of the impending battle was worthy of the contestants. On the result of that day's testimony and debate hung the fortunes of the conspirator and his federaries. This Burr realized, though few of his devoted adherents ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... shooting craps on the sidewalk in front of their office. Now gambling was taboo, hence the spectacle of two expensively dressed, eminently prosperous men squatting upon their heels with a stack of double eagles before them caused a sensation, and people halted to witness their impending arrest. Soon ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... called up for the following week, as he had said. The departure hung over them like a doom. Those were perhaps the worst days of all: the days of the impending departure. Neither of them ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... anger, simply saying that he thought the woman crazy. Since little Jabouille's death she had become devout again, though this did not prevent her from scandalising the neighbourhood. Her business was going to wreck, and bankruptcy seemed impending. One night, the gas company having cut off the gas in default of payment, she had come to borrow some of their olive oil, which, after all, would not burn in the lamps. In short, it was quite a disaster; that mysterious shop, with its fleeting shadows ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... he found her sitting pensively on a little wooden stool by the fire. Generally he gossipped while the two girls worked busily away—sometimes he read to them. To-night as he sat down he felt something impending. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lest that innocence should not be sufficient to guard you from the outrage of a people approaching to savages, I beg, for your own security, not mine, that you will make this house your sanctuary; my power can save you from impending harms; and all that I call mine, you shall command.' At this she blushing bowed, but durst not make reply to contradict him: she knew, at least, that there she was safe and well, from fear of the tyranny of the rest, or any other ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... there were rumours of an impending descent of the Headquarters staff of the South-Eastern army upon Claverings. Then Mr. Britling found Lady Homartyn back from France, and very indignant because after all the Headquarters were to ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells |
