"Imperturbable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lieramont. We stopped to talk to two wounded infantry officers on their way to a casualty clearing station. The advance had gone well, they said, except at Saulcourt, which was not yet cleared. They were young and fresh-coloured, imperturbable in manner, clear in their way of expressing themselves. One of them, jacketless, had his left forearm bandaged. Through a tear in his shirt sleeve I noticed the ugly purple scar of an old wound above the elbow. Odd parties of infantry ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... vertical under the awl-stroke which the insect applies to the pedicle, "when, partially deprived of sap, the leaf becomes more flexible, more malleable; it is in a sense partly paralysed, only half alive." Then we follow the rolling process; "the imperturbable deliberation of the worker as it rolls its cigar, which finally hangs perpendicularly at the end of the bent and ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... haste. While his tumultuous friends, captivated by the absolute, adored and invoked splendid revolutionary adventures, Combeferre was inclined to let progress, good progress, take its own course; he may have been cold, but he was pure; methodical, but irreproachable; phlegmatic, but imperturbable. Combeferre would have knelt and clasped his hands to enable the future to arrive in all its candor, and that nothing might disturb the immense and virtuous evolution of the races. The good must be innocent, he repeated incessantly. And in ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... were traditions of other housekeepers. But since the death of Hope's mother Mrs. Simcoe was the only incumbent. She had been Mrs. Wayne's nurse in her last moments, and had rocked the little Hope to sleep the night after her mother's burial. She was always tidy, erect, imperturbable. She pervaded the house; and her eye was upon a table-cloth, a pane of glass, or a carpet, almost as soon as the spot which arrested it. Housekeeper nascitur non fit. She was so silent and shadowy that the whole house sympathized with her, until it became extremely uncomfortable ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... frowned, there was another Englishman who smiled: an elderly man with the imperturbable serenity of a Buddha. He also had written books, I believe. I remember articles by him, with art for subject, in the Portfolio at a time when everybody had taken to writing about art, and I think his name was Davies. But it would be more in character to forget that he ever worked or had ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... men in the crowd at his heels waving their hats over his head, the "Doctor" crosses Bridge Street, and walks into Parliament Street, as far as the Treasury, where a cab is waiting. Into this he gets with much deliberation, and, with a final waving of his hat, and always with the same imperturbable countenance, is driven off, and Parliament Street, subsiding from the turmoil in which the running, laughing, shouting mob have temporarily thrown it, finds time to wonder whether it would not have been more convenient for all concerned ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... remark was addressed to Hawkswing, who sat close beside him; but that imperturbable worthy ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... surprised dismay—and glancing over my shoulder I beheld the aged person still puffing serenely at his pipe but with his slender right hand grasping a small, silver-mounted pistol levelled at our would-be aggressors across his knee. And there was something very terrible, I thought, in his imperturbable serenity. ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... schoolhouse near Lincoln's cabin; but in fine weather preferred the academy—as the Platoists would say—what was left of an oak grove, only one tree being spared, making a pulpit with leafy canopy for the exhorter. This man was a Hard-shell Baptist, commonly imperturbable to outside sights and doings when the spirit moved him. His demeanor was rigid and his action angular and restricted. He wore the general attire, coonskin cap or beaver hat, hickory-dyed shirt, breeches loose and held ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... dare do any such thing, you young scoundrel!" roared Mr. Chester Downes, and he actually sprang across the room at me. He was a tall and bony man and I knew very well that I should fare ill in his hands. I dodged back, found the imperturbable James in my way and as I sidestepped him, too, Mr. Downes came face to face with the impassive butler in ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... Thomas, alas! did not sing at all. Thomas, it was universally conceded by every De Willoughby of the clan, was a dismal failure. Even from his earliest boyhood, when he had been a huge, overgrown fellow, whose only redeeming qualities were his imperturbable good-humor and his ponderous wit, his family had regarded him with a sense of despair. In the first place, he was too big. His brothers were tall, lithe-limbed youths, who were graceful, dark-eyed, dark-haired, and had a general ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... right," said the imperturbable old fairy; "and I will bring you your supper directly, only I wish first just to say that the king ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... were acquainted with the art of hardening metals to a degree not known in our times. But we see no ideal grandeur among any of the remains of Egyptian sculpture. However symmetrical or colossal, there is no expression, no trace of emotion, no intellectual force. Every thing is calm, impassive, imperturbable. It was not until sculpture came into the hands of the Greeks that any remarkable excellence was reached. But the progress of development was slow. The earliest carvings were rude wooden images of the gods, and more than a thousand years elapsed ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... upon the balloon; but there were some discharges of musketry that appeared to have no effect, and finally even these demonstrations ceased. Both armies in solemn silence were gazing aloft, while the imperturbable mariner continued to ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... were all of us sceptical, one of our party so incurably so that after each exhibition of clairvoyance given by Alexis, and each exclamation of Mr. Townsend's, "There now, you see that?" he merely replied, with the most imperturbable phlegm, "Yes, I see it, but I don't believe it." The clairvoyant power of the young man consisted principally in reading passages from books presented to him while under the influence of the mesmeric sleep, into which he had been thrown by ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... in the sun. What are all those soldiers? Those are not the uniforms of France. Alas! No! The uniforms of France, Great Imperial France, are done. They will rot away in chests and hang to dusty tatters in barn lofts. These are other armies. And their name? Hush, be still for shame; Be still and imperturbable like the marble arch. Another bright spark falls through the blue air. Over the Place du Carrousel a wailing of despair. Crowd your horses back upon the people, Uhlans and Hungarian Lancers, They see too much. Unfortunately, Gentlemen of the Invading Armies, what they do not see, ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... was she, to Detraction's desperation, And wedded unto one she had loved well— A man known in the councils of the Nation, Cool, and quite English, imperturbable, Though apt to act with fire upon occasion, Proud of himself and her: the World could tell Nought against either, and both seemed secure— She in her ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Jowett possessed them all. He might have mocked at the confined comprehension of Oxford and exposed the arrogance, vanity and conventionality of the Church; intellectual scorn and even bitterness might have come to him; but, with infinite patience and imperturbable serenity, he preserved his ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... trap was in reality a very simple affair, it was a plan to pick a quarrel with Richard through Frances, if possible; to make the imperturbable Pinckney angry, knowing well how easily an angry man can be induced to make a fool of himself. To keep cool and let Richard ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... you, is not an easy matter, as I believe I have already once remarked. So when I grew weary of the attempt, I bethought myself to try the efficacy of an old device, well known to all collectors, and proceeded to imitate, as well as I could, the cries of some bird in distress. My warbler was imperturbable. He had no nest or young to be anxious about, and kept on singing. But pretty soon I was apprised of something in the air, coming toward me, and looking up, beheld a large owl who appeared to be dropping straight upon my head. He saw me in time to ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... say good-bye to your cousin, I know," Lady Kew continued, with imperturbable placidity. "Ethel, my dear, here is Mr. Clive Newcome, who has come to bid us all good-bye." The little girls came trotting down at this moment, each holding a skirt of their elder sister. She looked rather pale, but her expression ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... my quarter-section," went on the imperturbable Frank, quite undisturbed by the laughter caused by Trotter's sally, "a good hundred and sixty acres with seventy of it cleared. And I've got a shack that I built ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... and the interest entirely eclipsed that of Gillian Merrifield's. In fact, though that young lady somewhat justified the Oxford stories, she was in a state of much inward agitation between real love for Ernley, and pain in leaving home, so she put on an absolutely imperturbable demeanour. Her reserve and dread of comments made her so undemonstrative and repressive to her Captain that there were those who doubted whether she cared for him at all, or only looked on her wedding as a mediaeval maiden might have done, as coming naturally ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... would want proof?" Rios was imperturbable. "It may be given you in due time, but only when it is too late for you to make any stock out of it. Now, for what you know, I offer you your own safety and that of Miss Betty. Have I not marked how you look at her?" He laughed ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... Despoblado, two piles of stones placed a little way apart, and directed so as to point up the mouths of these small valleys. My companions knew nothing about them, and only answered my queries by their imperturbable "quien sabe?" ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... wish I had the art of finding work," said he. He smiled. "I'll get it," he added, breaking their last crust in two. "I have the science already. Why, look you, Mary, the quiet, amiable, imperturbable, dignified, diurnal, inexorable haunting of men of influence will get you whatever ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... man, with full lips and a sweet smile; very plain and rough in his exterior, but with that solid imperturbable ease and good-humor which is infectious, and like great grassy hills in the sunshine, quiets even an irritated egoism, and makes it rather ashamed of itself. "Well, how are you?" he said, showing a hand not quite fit to be grasped. "Sorry I missed you ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... collects in his eye, the cordial squeeze of the hand is still the same. But tread on the toe of one of these amiable and imperturbable mortals, or let a lump of soot fall down the chimney and spoil their dinners, and see how they will bear it. All their patience is confined to the accidents that befal others: all their good-humour is to be resolved ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... "I'm so very glad—but I think my brother would like to see you." I detested her brother, but it wasn't an occasion to act this out; so I suffered myself to be inducted, to my surprise, into a small back room which I immediately recognised as the scene, during the later years, of Mrs. Stormer's imperturbable industry. Her table was there, the battered and blotted accessory to innumerable literary lapses, with its contracted space for the arms (she wrote only from the elbow down) and the confusion of scrappy, scribbled sheets which had already become literary ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James
... of the Mint was accompanied by another gentleman almost as portly as himself, and quite as deliberate in his movements. The costume of this personage was somewhat singular, and might have passed for a masquerading habit, had not the imperturbable gravity of his demeanour forbidden any such supposition. It consisted of a close jerkin of brown frieze, ornamented with a triple row of brass buttons; loose Dutch slops, made very wide in the seat and very tight at ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Clairmont, by whom he had a dau. This lady had already a s. and dau., the latter of whom had an irregular connection with Byron. His dau. by his first marriage—Mary Wollstonecraft G.,—became in 1816 the wife of Shelley. G. was a man of simple manners and imperturbable temper. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... faces to the tune of a jig in a barber-shop. It is a fact that none of them so much as thought of touching him. No less than all of them, together with all other men, shorn of their imaginations—that is to say, the expressionless and imperturbable creature of the Law—would be sufficient ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... too short connexion, and pleasant thoughts of the strange places and things we have seen together; as I take away with me a most affectionate memory of his frank and kindly nature, his ready sympathy, and his imperturbable good humour. From the day on which I shipped him—an entire stranger—until this eve of our separation—as friends, through scenes of occasional discomfort, and circumstances which might sometimes have tried both temper and spirits—shut up as we were for four ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... service, "You must wait a bit, sir, we ain't ready." He then clambered on the Communion table, and peered through the east window, which commanded a view of the door in the wall of the squire's garden. "Come down!" shouted the curate. "I can see best where I be," replied the imperturbable clerk; "I'm watching the garden door. Here she be, and the squire." Whereupon he clambered down again, and without much further delay ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... Its point was much too broad," said Zell, with a meaning look at Mr. Goulden, that brought a faint color into his imperturbable face, and ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... once, during the course of the unparalleled excitement which marked this canvass, Douglas should have been thrown off his guard by the singular self-possession displayed by his antagonist, and by the imperturbable firmness with which he maintained and defended a position once taken. The unassuming confidence which marked Lincoln's conduct was early imparted to his supporters, and each succeeding encounter added largely to the number of his friends, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... to explain in his imperturbable drawl; "Angelica discovered that I was born with a hee-red-it-air-ee predisposition to be a muff. We mostly are on father's side ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... your position quietly, my good governor," said Aramis, with imperturbable self-possession, "and you will see how very simple the whole affair is. You no longer possess any ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Shears sat imperturbable, his cigarette at his lips, apparently wrapped in contemplation of the sky. For nothing in the world, in the face of that man surrounded by dangers, hemmed in by the crowd, hunted down by a posse of police ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... in my dingey, and the imperturbable Egyptians were fairly taken by surprise. They soon rallied to a word or two in their language and an Englishman's smile, and rapidly we became friends, and talked of Damascus and Constantinople, and finally decided that "Englishman bono!" The shape and minute dimensions of my dingey much astonished ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... skein of wool, but otherwise showed no inclination to avoid topics in any manner connected with Christian, despite the fact that these were obviously distasteful to her family. In all that she said, indifference was blended in a singular way with imperturbable cheerfulness. ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... ready at the appointed place? O yes! They glide out of shadow as we stop. Imperturbable Black opens the cab- door; Imperturbable Green takes a mental note of the driver. Both Green and Black then open each his flaming eye, and marshal us the ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... curious characters of her generation, in that, as stated, her self-assurance enabled her to tilt successfully against the strong social prejudices of her day and to sustain an all but impossible position with undoubted success. While Yorkshire and London rang with tales of her effrontery, the imperturbable lady, instead of perceiving snubs, dealt them, and in the height of her triumphant career enjoyed the wrath of the amazed recipients. Meanwhile, although many of the stories related of her were genuine, a few were undoubtedly apocryphal, among which must be ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... not avoid coming to the conclusion, that these were all metaphorical declarations of attachment to herself. And, on the following day, her manner had derived so much empressement from these cogitations, that all the efforts of Monimia on the imperturbable Frank were cast into the shade by the extraordinary evolutions ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... different in tone from the rough caricatures in which Carlyle vented his spleen and caprice, that one marvels how the two men could have talked ten minutes together, or would wonder, had not one been as imperturbable as the other was explosive. Horatio Greenough and Walter Savage Landor are the chief persons he speaks of as having met upon the Continent. Of these he reports various opinions as delivered in conversation. He mentions incidentally ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... for similar requests, 'that I keep my window open to preserve the lives of the people in the car.' 'That's peculiar!' I heard her murmur; but her serenity was no wise discomposed by my refusal, or her sickness. Surely the imperturbable good-nature of our people is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... would; she would not dare. Phinny is not bold, in that way. Could you do anything with him, do you think?' The accent of forlorn anxiety was touching from the usually so imperturbable sister. She watched Wych Hazel's face ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... prisoner at the bar, and a more honester feller never breathed," said a rough voice in the gallery. The officers of the court looked aghast, and the strangers tittered with ill-suppressed laughter. "Who are you?" said the Judge, looking suddenly up, but with imperturbable gravity. The court was convulsed; the titter broke out into a laugh, and it was several minutes before silence and decorum could be restored. When the Ushers recovered their self-possession, they made diligent search for ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... of sight and hearing before I thought of explaining to him, that, dark as it then was, we should never be able to find even the walnut-tree, let alone neighbour Dims's hedge and the break-neck rocks. Patience is by no means one of my virtues; but the man's imperturbable phlegm and deliberation, in the midst of the most pouring rain that ever wetted poor devil to the skin, tickled my fancy so exceedingly, that the sound of his horse's hoofs had hardly died away, when I burst into an almost interminable fit of laughter. "First right, then left—look out for the big ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... would have to be narrowed to even smaller proportions. The presence of so many as the score of selected guests might prove to be hazardous in view of the old gentleman's state of nerves, not to say health. Mr. Thorpe was able to be up and about with the aid of the imperturbable Wade, but he was exceedingly irascible and hard to manage. He was annoyed with Braden. When the strange illness came early in the night, he sent out for his grandson. He wanted him to be there if anything serious was to result from the stroke,—he persisted in calling it a stroke, scornfully ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... making divers complaints of divers persons, and the captain had hitherto appeared imperturbable. Captain Plumbton was an even-tempered man, who was satisfied with a good dinner. Lieutenant Markitall was an odd-tempered man, who would quarrel with ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... He was smoothly imperturbable. "Have you seen everything? Quite a little plant I have here? We shut down early to-day. I will make ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... yawned in the waiting room, which smelled horribly of smoky lamps. The telegraph instrument in the ticket office clicked spasmodically for a minute, and then relapsed into a gloomy silence. The imperturbable station master was tipped back against the wall in a wooden armchair, with his feet on the table, and his mind sunk in an old Christmas number of the Cowboy Magazine. The express agent, in the baggage-room, was going over ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... At school, as in life, doing nothing, but decidedly somebody—respected by small boys, petted by big boys—an authority with all. Never getting honours—arm and arm with those who did; never in scrapes—advising those who were; imperturbable, immovable, calm above mortal cares as an Epicurean deity. What can wealth give that he has not got? In the houses of the richest he chooses his room. Talk of ambition, talk of power—he has their rewards without an effort. True prime minister of all the realm he cares ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... imperturbable; this will be useful in France. 'You see, mater, he said I was the head of ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... what Knowles wanted himself. He was deeply interested in the situation as far as he understood it, and he looked forward to its development. This little diversion created, Miss Armstrong continued with imperturbable calm. But Audrey, listening with one ear to Mr. Flaxman Reed, only heard the ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... managing to quell the uproar. He was like a pilot who finds the tempest too strong for him. Among all the men with purple faces and barking mouths who were gathered in front of him, the ushers alone maintained imperturbable gravity. At intervals between the bursts of shouting, Mege's voice could still be heard. By some sudden transition he had come to the question of a Collectivist organisation of society such as he dreamt of, and he contrasted it with the criminal ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Magister Artium, scientist,—devoting his attention chiefly to Insecta, Mollusca, and Radiata, but giving penetrating glances at geology and physical geography,—attracted to the North, where he had been before,—imperturbable, equal in humor and good-humor, companionable, a boon to the party, and richly meriting the thanks I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... I tell ye? I knowed all along as how it was a porkypine!" exclaimed Mrs. Gammit, triumphantly, as if Joe Barron could hear her across eight miles of woods. Then, as she eyed the imperturbable animal on the limb above her, her face flushed with quick rage, and snatching up a stone about the size of her fist she hurled it at ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... character, and often, during the debates, Bonaparte's voice had resounded in thundering tones, and flashes of anger had burst forth from his eyes. But the Austrian plenipotentiaries had not been struck by them. The flashes from the great chieftain's eyes had recoiled powerlessly from their imperturbable smile. When his voice thundered at them, they had lowered their heads only to raise them slowly again as soon as the ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... the Nurnbergers once, in the Burggraf's absence, built a ring-wall round his Castle; entrance and exit now to depend on the Nurnbergers withal! And how the Burggraf did not fly out into battle in consequence, but remedied it by imperturbable countenance and power of driving. With enough of the like ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... lad's imperturbable good humor at once irritating and disarming. Whatever his faults, they were more negative than positive; there was no malice prepense about him, no absolute personal wickedness. And he had the strange charm of manner and speech which keeps up one's outer surface of habitual ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... trait of people accustomed to good society is a calm, imperturbable quiet which pervades all their actions and habits, from the greatest to the least. They eat in quiet, move in quiet, live in quiet, and lose their wife, or even their money, in quiet; while low persons cannot take up either a ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... at this discomfiture of the hated Jews and apparently siding with Paul, the Greeks then went in a body, seized Sosthenes, the leader of the Jewish synagogue, and beat him in full view of the Proconsul seated on his tribunal. This was the event at which Gallio looked on with such imperturbable disdain. What could it possibly matter to him, the great Proconsul, whether the Greeks beat a poor wretch of a Jew or not? So long as they did not make a riot, or give him any further trouble about the matter, they might beat Sosthenes or any number ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... was past; and if Jack knew it, so also did Jocelyn. She knew that the imperturbable gentlemanliness of the Englishman had conveyed to the more passionate West Indian the simple, downright fact that in a lady's drawing-room there was to be no raised voice, no itching fingers, no flash ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... infinite patience, severe conscientiousness, and imperturbable frigidity in a style that was pure, though somewhat prolix, that History of Florence, virtually a history of Italy, which from its first appearance was hailed as a classic and has remained one. His history is altogether that of a statesman; ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... the commission I learned to respect more and more the calm, steady, imperturbable character of Mr. Cleveland. Of course the sensational press howled continually, and the press which was considered especially enlightened and which had steadily supported him up to this period, was hardly less bitter; but he persevered. ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... a southern night, with its sense of rich, luscious, breathing intensity, lay over that romantic spot in Southern Rhodesia where the grey walls of the Zimbabwe ruins, with a sublime, imperturbable indifference, continue to baffle the ingenuity and ravish the curiosity of all who would read their story. Scientists, archaeologists, tourists come and go, but the stern old walls, guarded by the sentinel ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... reply. He had become the tiger, and had recovered the imperturbable cool ferocity that had been so striking at dinner. He was as calm as a bankrupt the day after he ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... sympathise with him on any ground but his manifest delight in the strife of tongues. Infinitely the superior of his antagonists in power, he could affect to treat them with good humour, but this good humour was not easy to reciprocate when combined with an imperturbable assumption that they were all fools or knaves. When we find him, after humbly asking pardon for all his errors of the press, errors of the pen, or errors of opinion, expressing a wish that "all gentlemen on the other side would give him equal occasion to honour them for their charity, temper, ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... these diverse conditions when they occur. That Yogin who has been able to achieve the conquest of the earth-element, attains by such lordship to the power of Creation. Like a second Prajapati endued with a nature that is perfectly imperturbable, he can from his own body create all kinds of creatures. With only his toe, or with his hand or feet, that person can singly cause the whole Earth to tremble who has achieved the lordship of the Wind. Even this is the attribute of the Wind ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... quietly dressed in well-cut but unobtrusive clothes. His long, narrow face had features of sensibility. His hair was grizzled a little at the temples. His composure seemed part of the man, passive and imperturbable. ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... thought, moving up this very street, the old familiar sovereign face, eyes straining towards the star that even then had become a fallen star, his ears thrilled with the plaudits of shouting armies and shouting people, his soul imperturbable in its dream of conquest. Then the man was everything, the people nothing; now the people are everything, the man—he is asleep and his heart is not colder in the grave ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... on and between the five lines, the black and white keys were no less so: and not a syllable was heard, either of "thumbling," "pointerling," or "gold finger;" while the countenance of the man remained as imperturbable during his dry teaching as it had been before during his dry jests. My sister reproached me most bitterly for having deceived her, and actually believed that it was all an invention of mine. But I was myself confounded and learned little, though the man at once went regularly enough ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... house in Holborn, it was hard to recognise the poor companion in this proud and magnificent lady, who looked as though all her life she had trodden the marble floors of courts, and consorted with nobles and with queens. Up the great hall she came, stately, imperturbable, looking neither to the right nor to the left, taking no note of the whisperings about her, no, nor even of Morella or of Margaret, till she reached the open space in front of the bar where Peter and his guards, gazing with all their eyes, hastened to make place for ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... feeding his cow a bit: he wouldn't make me the least trouble in the world. I reminded him that he had been told again and again not to come here; that he might have all the grass, but he should not bring his cow upon the premises. The imperturbable man assented to everything that I said, and kept on feeding his cow. Before I got him to go to fresh scenes and pastures new, the Sabbath was almost broken; but it was saved by one thing: it is difficult to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... sovereign injustice to the correspondent of the Interviewer to assign a dishonourable motive to any act of hers. This conviction passed into his mind with extreme rapidity; it was perhaps kindled by the pure radiance of the young lady's imperturbable gaze. He returned this challenge a moment, consciously, resisting an inclination to frown as one frowns in the presence of larger luminaries. "Who's the ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... agitation on receiving at Brent's hands the little card photograph of herself, it had subsided after a brief, low-toned conference with Sandy, who quickly came and speedily hastened away, and a later visit from Dr. Frank, whose placid, imperturbable, restful ways were in themselves well-nigh as soothing as the orange-flower water prescribed for her. Even the little night-light, floating in its glass, had been extinguished ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... his imperturbable face. The wine had brought a faint colour to her cheeks, and the young man sighed regretfully at the idea of her prospective engagement. He had always been one ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... before going to sleep and take a look at it—one more look before I sleep, upon the tower, strong, unyielding, alive, sinewy, imperturbable, lifting up within itself the steel and soul of the world. I am content to go ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... dressed himself elaborately for an interview with Miss Harden. But he endeavoured to adjust his mind to a new and less disturbing view of the lady. He had seen her last night through a flush of emotion that obscured her; he would see her to-day in the pure and imperturbable light of the morning, and his nerves should not play the devil with him this time. He would be cool, calm, incorruptibly impersonal, as became Rickman, the man of business, ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... and his men departed, while Ramabai and his friends reentered the house, to find the imperturbable Lal Singh decked out in ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... to have words with you, Sir Castellane," said the imperturbable Fleming;—"but I hold here, in this township, certain mills, tenements, cloth-yards, and so forth, for which I am to pay man-service in defending this Castle of the Garde Doloureuse, and in this I am ready. But if you call on me to march from hence, leaving the same castle defenceless, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... image to Miss Heredith and see how she received it, Caldew slipped the chain into his pocket and hurried downstairs. At the bottom of the staircase he was stopped by Tufnell, who had evidently been waiting for him to descend. The usually imperturbable dignity of the butler was for once ruffled, and he looked slightly ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... of those imperturbable blues that hang over that latitude of the country like a hot wet blanket steaming down. The corn belt shriveled of thirst. The automobile had not yet bitten so deeply into the country roads, but ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... manifestation with undisguised astonishment, but he was imperturbable, and merely chewed his ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... looked after the dining-room as usual, but she was all the time uneasily aware that Jack Flatray had quietly disappeared. Where had he gone? And why? She found no answer to that question, but the ranger dropped in on his bronco in time for supper, imperturbable ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... and, by the time he was fifteen, had established a reputation among, not only the boys of his own school, but of the district. In addition to his strength and quickness, he had a fund of dogged endurance, and imperturbable good temper, that did not fail him; even on the rare occasions when, in combats with boys much older than himself, he was forced ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... volume is the most beautiful and the most valuable which has found its way into my hands for I know not how long, I shall not pretend to have read it with ease, or to have understood every word of it. D'exhiber les choses a un imperturbable premier plan, en camelots, actives par la pression de l'instant, d'accord—ecrire, dans le cas pourquoi, indument, sauf pour etaler la banalite; plutot que tendre le nuage, precieux, flottant sur l'intime gouffre ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... that you are a student; let me counsel you to go back to your books. There you will be in your element. For myself, I am familiar with faces as angry as these—and hands something more formidable. Believe me, I see nobody here," and he affected to speak with imperturbable coolness, but his voice became tremulous with passion, "whom I can even esteem worthy of a ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... aged 25; has studied law, but has no definite occupation. Member of the Cycling Club, Jockey Club, and of the Society for Promoting the Breeding of Hounds. Enjoys perfect health, and has imperturbable self-assurance. Speaks loud and abruptly. Is either perfectly serious—almost morose, or is noisily gay and laughs loud. Is ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... that the twin vulgarities of ostentation and pretence have no place here. But certainly for a mile and a half or more there are many very comfortable-looking dwellings, very attractive to the eye, with an ease and imperturbable serenity of demeanour as if they had nothing to fear from heat, cold, wind, or criticism. Their architecture is absolutely unostentatious, and their one beauty is that they are embowered among trailers, shadowed by superb exotics, and surrounded by banks of flowers, while the stately cocoanut, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... surrender; yet Charles, with twenty companions, held his house, defended it with a valour and temporary success which were almost miraculous, and were only overwhelmed by numbers when they sallied forth and charged the Turkish army with swords and pistols. Once captured, the king displayed a calm as imperturbable as his ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... I could not, consistently with the regard I professed for the marchioness, interfere in the execution of her vengeance." "I do not agree with you," said I. "Why, what else could I do?" asked Louis XV, with the most imperturbable calmness; "she had superior claims, was acknowledged as chief favorite, and I could not refuse her the sacrifice of a mere temporary caprice." "Very well said," answered I, "and founded upon excellent principles; but surely it was not necessary to ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... long expected letter during a visit from the Hillards. I feared you were ill, but not that you had forgotten me; for I have an imperturbable faith in the love of my friends ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... York, with L50 and other perquisites in hand, might offer her a new career. She had therefore yielded, but even now could hardly forbear from expressing disgust at the folly of her mistress. Marie bore it with imperturbable good humour. She was running away,—and was running to a distant continent,—and her lover would be with her! She gave Didon to understand that she ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... four or five similes still follow. Tormented by examples, overwhelmed with similitudes, the adventurous reader, who to-day risks a reading of "Euphues," feels it impossible to keep his composure. He would like to protest, to defend himself, to say that he has lied, this imperturbable naturalist, that bitter kernels are found indeed in the hardest shells, that painted pots often contain something other than poison, and that if toads appear less ugly in foul water, it is perhaps because they are the less seen. But what does it matter to Lyly? ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... the morning. Villagers had thronged the noisy bar-room until midnight, scanning and discussing the strangers, and speculating upon the event which had called them together. Jim had moved among them, smiling, and returning their good-natured badinage with imperturbable coolness, so far as appearances went, though he acknowledged to Mr. Balfour that he felt very much as he did about ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... too from the ground, saw Napoleon, riding calmly through the hail of shot—-his hat pulled down over his large head—his gray great-coat open, a broad red ribbon crossing his white vest—there he rode, calm and imperturbable, his face lit up with the reflection from the bayonets. None stood their ground before him; the Prussian artillerymen abandoned their pieces and sprang over the garden-hedge, despite the cries of their officers who sought to ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... of her index-finger she started to search her imperturbable pink cheek for the spot where Joe ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... him on the point, but he suffered her inquiry with imperturbable sangfroid, and she found herself no wiser respecting the cause of his annoyance. Painful twinges of conscience came during the ensuing days, when she found herself in her fiance's company, but she never ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... and swept out with a loud rustle of silks. She looked back once and beckoned angrily to her husband, but he did not stir. He was on the school-board. The school-master trembled when he saw that imperturbable face of storing recollection before him. Mr. Lloyd leaned towards Lyman Risley, who sat beside him and whispered and laughed. It was quite evident that he did not consider the flight of this little ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... is received by the man whom she has so often described to Deighton—a man of thin, erect form, a high and narrow forehead, regular and imperturbable features, fixed and filmy black eyes, a ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... camp," observed the imperturbable Swede when at last the tent stood upright, "no stones and precious little firewood. I'm for moving on early tomorrow—eh? This sand won't ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... as they would at it, they were impressed by Ranny's firmness, his unalterable and imperturbable determination to marry, and to ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... amid the wreckage of opinion and belief stands forth the figure of Charles Darwin, calm, imperturbable, serene; scatheless to ridicule, contumely, abuse; unspoiled by ultimate success; unsullied alike by the strife and the victory—take him for all in all, for character, for intellect, for what he was and what ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... convey the French back to their country,—that fleet was destroyed. The French ships were burned. The news of this disaster spread rapidly in Egypt, and for a moment filled the army with despair. Bonaparte received the tidings with imperturbable composure. "Well," he said, "we must die in this country, or get out of it as great as the ancients." He wrote to Kleber: "This will oblige us to do greater things than we intended. We must hold ourselves in readiness." The great soul of Kleber was worthy of this language: "Yes," ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... lamp and swung off in the dark back to Woodhouse. He was a powerfully built, imperturbable fellow. He pressed slowly uphill through the streets, then ran downhill into the darkness of the industrial country. He had continually to cross the new tram-lines, which were awkward, and he had occasionally to dodge the brilliantly-illuminated ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... this language was second nature. We had plenty to talk of during luncheon, and learnt much from the Paris banker which had never appeared in the newspapers. He had, indeed, passed through a trying ordeal, and that with an imperturbable nerve and coolness of head. He made, however, little of his own difficulties, and gave all his attention to Madame's affairs. Whenever he made mention of my name I saw ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... parliament of Paris was still in force, to a house at Fleury. But the Friend of Men, to use his own account of himself, "bore letters as a plum-tree bears plums," and wrote to his guest with strange humoristic volubility and droll imperturbable temper, as one who knew his Jean Jacques. He exhorts him in many sheets to harden himself against excessive sensibility, to be less pusillanimous, to take society more lightly, as his own light estimate of its worth should lead him to ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... imperturbable reply; and the second stroke was administered with even more threatening preliminaries than the first, but with, if possible, even ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... Numerous hints were thrown out to the stranger that the seat had by prescriptive right and ancient custom become the property of my uncle; he either did not or would not understand them, and continued to keep his possession of the leather-backed chair with the most imperturbable sang-froid. My uncle in despair took another seat, and endeavoured to appear as if nothing had occurred to disturb him,—but he could not dissimulate. He ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various
... were sure to be that); in fact, they remind one of another forgery, pious and Aryan, 'The Institutes of Vishnu.' "Let him not levy any tax upon Brahmans," says the Brahman forger of the Institutes, which "came from the mouths of Vishnu," as he sat "clad in a yellow robe, imperturbable, decorated with all kinds of gems, while Lakshmi was stroking his feet with her soft palms." The Institutes took excellent care of Brahmans and cows, as the Decretals did of the Pope and the clergy, and the earliest Popes had about as much hand in the Decretals ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... which is irresistibly droll, aided as it is by the effect of a figure singularly gaunt and lean and a face to match. And he has found an audience by whom his caustic humor is thoroughly appreciated. Not one of the odd pleasantries slipped out with such imperturbable gravity misses its mark, and scarcely a minute elapses at the end of which the sedate Artemus is not forced to pause till the roar of mirth has subsided. There is certainly this foundation for an entente cordiale between the two countries calling themselves ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 6 • Charles Farrar Browne |
