"Impetuous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Waldstricker's ears, he couldn't comprehend their import entirely. Elsie was found! But—Then, the full horror of his impetuous action burst upon him. The squatter girl had brought her back! Oh! Brute and fool that he was! He groaned and started to speak but ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... lawless and violent adventure, upon a feeble and distracted people in Mexico and Central American, she must not come in contact with that cool, determined courage and resolution which forms the striking characteristic of the Anglo- Saxon race. In such a contest, her hasty and impetuous violence may succeed for a time, but the victory will be short-lived and transient, and leave nothing but bitterness behind. Let us not war with each other; but with the grasp of fellowship and friendship, regarding ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... to notice his proffered arm, Chloe walked beside him in a sudden pensive silence which Anstice found oddly appealing after her impetuous speech; and for a moment he forgot his own equivocal position in a desire to help her through what he guessed to ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... what I make of it, mother. Peter's gone beyond me, I think, now, that I have always feared a little that he might. Of course, he's impetuous and headstrong, but it is more than that. He feels differently from me, from all of us. I can see that, though I don't understand him a bit. I thought" (her voice faltered) "he loved me more. He knows how I ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... she seemed to sit upon the wind. Now she swirled in the billows, now she spring upward on a gigantic wave, only to be driven down with angry howl and hiss. Down came the mainsail. Tacking and jibbing, we wrestled with opposing winds that drove us from side to side with impetuous fury. Our hearts beat fast, and our hands trembled with excitement, not fear, for we had the hearts of vikings, and we knew that our skipper was master of the situation. He had steered through many a storm with firm hand and sea-wise ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... in the acquaintance of Kelly and Dee it is necessary to mention. It serves strikingly to illustrate the ascendancy of the junior and impetuous party over his more gifted senior. Kelly led Dee, we are not told under what pretence, to visit the celebrated ruins of Glastonbury Abbey in Somersetshire. Here, as these curious travellers searched into every corner of the scene, ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... stage was War—under the guidance of a man whose whole character displayed the most prominent features of soldiership. From that moment, the republic bore the sole impress of war. France had placed at her head the most impetuous, subtle, ferocious, and all-grasping, of the monarchs of mankind. She instantly took the shape which, like the magicians of old commanding their familiar spirits, the great magician of our age commanded her to assume. Peace—the rights of man—the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... laid along the waters of the Cumberland, the lair of moonshiner and feudsman. The knight is a moonshiner's son, and the heroine a beautiful girl perversely christened "The Blight." Two impetuous young Southerners' fall under the spell of "The Blight's" charms and she learns what a large part jealousy and pistols have in the love making ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... so suddenly confused by this frank, impetuous appreciation of his efforts, for there was no mistaking the application, that he could not find a word. Rhetta did not give him much time, to be sure, but ran on with her denunciation of the citizenry of ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... from its rags, and surround it with trees in an enclosed square. But it has always lived in its network of black streets, and is voluntarily humble, in accordance with the miserable district it aids. In the Middle Ages the church was a monument seen only within, and not one of those impetuous basilicas which are put up as ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... cheerful assent to the proposal, when Peter quietly interposed, and changed the discourse to himself, in a way that he had, and which would not easily admit of denial. It was apparent to le Bourdon that this mysterious Indian was not content that one so direct and impetuous in his feelings as Bear's Meat, and who was at the same time so little qualified to manage his portion of an intellectual conversation, should be foremost any longer. For that reason he brought himself ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... affirm), that thereby some parts of the world may be habitable, others uninhabitable, according as the various climates are affected with a rigorous cold, or a scorching heat, or a just temperament of cold and heat. Empedocles, that the air yielding to the impetuous force of the solar rays, the poles received an inclination; whereby the northern parts were exalted and the southern depressed, by which means the whole world received ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... often acted speedily after a thought had entered her brain. But she was wondrously quick at weighing all reasons for or against the suggestions of her imagination; and thus, to any one who was not acquainted with her character, she might frequently appear to obey the first dictates of her impetuous passions. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... and Irish saints. It is probable that his account of the state of the Irish Church took a tinge of gloom from the heavy trials he had endured in his efforts to remove its temporary abuses. St. Bernard's ardent and impetuous character, even his very affectionateness, would lead him also to look darkly on the picture: hence the somewhat over-coloured accounts he has given of its state at that eventful period. St. Malachy returned to Ireland after ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... to starvation. But they are not soldiers, least of all to meet the hot-blooded, thorough-bred, impetuous men of the South. They are trencher-soldiers who enlisted to make war upon rations, not upon men. They are such as marched through Baltimore, squalid, wretched, ragged, half-naked, as the newspapers ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... But no blockade could keep Uruj Barbarossa for long within stone walls; sortie after sortie did the gallant corsair lead against the foe, and it was in one of these that he characteristically came by his death. Ever rash and impetuous, he allowed himself to be drawn too far away from possible shelter or support; and, as there was something dramatic in the whole life of this man, so also was there in the manner of his death. They had him trapped at last, this grim ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... Marian. Insolence and gaucherie are on the one hand, coolness and finished grace on the other, and, although there are several moments of hatred between the two, their affection is the proper theme of the book. As for Nigel, he is impetuous and handsome, and falls in love with Marian because she is sympathetic, and with Cherry because she is Cherry, and also perhaps a little because the War has begun and the day of youth triumphant has arrived. But ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... had his qualities. Whether he was your friend or your enemy, he never forgot you; and he gave you cause to remember him. His memory was long; his temper not to be ruffled; his humour, in victory and defeat, invincible; his purse unfathomable. He was never known to be angry, impetuous, or bitter. And he never deviated from his aim. That aim, as he once told the New York Yacht Club, in words that were trumpeted across the world, was "to lick the English thoroughbred on his own ground, at his own game, all ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... and desperation in the air. It needed but a spark to destroy the usefulness of the company. But, as is often the case with impetuous, hot-headed spirits, Jack cooled as his friends grew hot. He was the more patient that the injustice was his injury alone. He remained in his place at the right of the company, and confronted the rebellious group with amazing self-control. ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... the Gehenna, those who had not cast themselves into the waters, under the cool direction of Holmes and Bonaparte, calmly lowered the boats, and in a short while were not only able to felicitate themselves upon their safety, but had likewise the good fortune to rescue their more impetuous brethren who had preferred to swim for it. Ultimately, all were brought aboard the House-boat in safety, and the men in Hades were once more reunited to their wives, daughters, sisters, and fiancees, and Elizabeth had the satisfaction of once more ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... of vexation and self-reproach, caused by their own conduct or that of others, made them hard to be pleased—and so the cloud thickened about them, and with all outward means for being happy, loving and beloved, they were a wretched family. James, the eldest, was impetuous and self-willed, but affectionate, generous, and very fond of reading and study, and with gentle and judicious management, would have been the joy and pride of his family, with the domestic and literary tastes so invaluable to every youth, in our day, when temptations of every kind are so rife in ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... on wave of some tempestuous ocean, the men swept out to meet her in one great surging tide of life, impetuous, passionate, idolatrous, exultant, with all the vivid ardour, all the uncontrolled emotion, of natures south-born, sun-nurtured. They broke away from their mid-day rest as from their military toil, moved as by one swift breath of fire, and ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... friend's opinions in black and white before him, in order to overthrow them singly, point by point, brilliantly to overthrow them. He now held in his hand Guentz's views, succinctly and definitely expressed; but whither had flown his former keen spirit? He could no longer summon up the old impetuous dash with which he had meant to fall upon his opponent's arguments one after another, raze them to the ground and trample them underfoot like the entrenchments and fortifications ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... inaccessibility. Prominent among the men in his confidence was Prince Tsai, who had taken so discreditable a part in the arrest of Parkes and his companions at Tungchow, and among his other advisers were several inexperienced and impetuous members of the Manchu family. They were all agreed in the policy of recovering, at the earliest possible moment, what they considered to be the natural and prescriptive right of the occupant of the Dragon Throne to treat all other potentates ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... "I saw him continually advance," said he, "but I never saw him stop in the path of knowledge." Again he says: "The wisest of my disciples, having one idea, understands two. Hwuy, having one understands ten." One of the select ten disciples, Tszee-loo, was rash and impetuous like the Apostle Peter. Another, Tszee-Kung, was loving and tender like the Apostle John; he built a house near the grave of Confucius, wherein to mourn ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... Nicky was not impetuous. He found Desmond in her studio working on the last drawing of the Moving Fortress, with the finished model before her. That gave him his opening, and ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... natural chance in the world for him to tell this woman what she was to him; at the next turn in the shore, by that rock, surely the moment would come. What is this airy nothing by which women protect themselves in such emergencies, by a question, by a tone, an invisible strong barrier that the most impetuous dare ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to be "strong in spirit"? The man who carries everything before him with the impetuous rush of his nature, before whose outbursts men tremble, and who insists in all things on asserting his wild, masterful will—is he the strong man? Nay! most evidently he must be classed among the weaklings. The strength of a man is in proportion to the feelings ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... three-quarters of a mile in extent, having a fall of more than one hundred feet in that distance. The stream is broad, and interspersed with endless little wooded islands and rocks, around and above which it dashes the spray and foam in its impetuous descent. The climate is lovely, the atmosphere pearly; and when, from the height above, you look down upon the panorama spread beneath your feet, it recalls to the mind the beautiful view so many of us must have frequently been entranced with, while inhaling ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... and misery ever since I knew you. I saw you first, so impetuous, yet self-contained! Incapable of insincerity, devoid of affection and courageously naturally beautiful. Then, to my amazement, I saw that, unlike most women, you understood your instincts; that you dared to define them, and were impious enough to follow them. You debased my ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... entered the parlor Mr. Worthington was standing in the window. When he turned and saw her he started to come forward in his old impetuous way, and stopped and looked at her in surprise. She herself did not grasp ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... clouds poured smoky volumes through the expansion; a deep, hollow, distant roar, announced the approach of "summoned winds." The whole forest bowed in awful grandeur, as from its dark bosom rushed the impetuous hurricane, twisting off, or tearing up by the roots, the stoutest trees, whirling the heaviest branches through the air with irresistible fury. It dashed upon the sea, tossed it into irregular mountains, or mingled ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... changed. Once more she had become her own, delightful self. This sudden volte-face did not, I must admit, in the least surprise me, for I knew what a child of moods she was, how impulsive and impetuous, and I think I loved her the more because she ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... temperament, I have my own method of preaching, and my method and temperament necessitate errors. I am not worthy to be related in the hundred-thousandth degree to those more happy men who never make a mistake in the pulpit. I make a great many. I am impetuous. I am intense at times on subjects that deeply move me. I feel as though all the ocean were not strong enough to be the power beyond my words, nor all the thunders that were in the heavens, and it is of necessity ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... and the other the worse side of the action. For instance what in ourselves we call prudent regard for our own interest, we call, in our neighbour, narrow selfishness; what in ourselves is laudable economy, in him is miserable avarice. We are impetuous, he is passionate; we generous, he lavish; we are clever men of business, he is a rogue; we sow our wild oats and are gay, he is dissipated. So we cheat ourselves by more than half-transparent veils of our own manufacture, which we fling round the ugly features and misshapen limbs of these ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... attack from the conservative side, in the beginning of 1520, when the mighty struggle which Luther's action had unchained kept the world in ever greater suspense. Six months later followed the first serious reproaches on the part of radical reformers. Ulrich von Hutten, the impetuous, somewhat foggy-headed knight, who wanted to see Luther's cause triumph as the national cause of Germany, turns to Erasmus, whom, at one time, he had enthusiastically acclaimed as the man of the new ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... so quiet, that it stilled Daisy's feeling, which else might have been impetuous. There was danger of that, as the child's eye and cheek bore witness. But she only said, "I'll get ready, Dr. Sandford—" and went off in orderly style till she reached the hall and was out of sight. Then Daisy's ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... difficulties of Browning's actual narrative, he is apparently expected to start with an exhaustive knowledge of that most shadowy and bewildering of all human epochs—the period of the Guelph and Ghibelline struggles in mediaeval Italy. Here, of course, Browning simply betrays that impetuous humility which we have previously observed. His father was a student of mediaeval chronicles, he had himself imbibed that learning in the same casual manner in which a boy learns to walk or to play cricket. Consequently in a literary sense he rushed up to the first ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... stood, a large living skeleton, with famine written in his face, and my father christened him 'Calamity.' As Calamity grew to maturity, he was found to be as sluggish in disposition as his master was impetuous; so my father was driven to invent his patent Tantalus, which consisted of a small sieve of corn, suspended on a semicircular bar of iron, from the ends of the shafts, just beyond the horse's nose. The corn, rattling as the vehicle ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... impulsive, even impetuous. Beneath his seeming cold exterior and admirable self-control—the discipline of the master artist—lay the moods and tenses of the musical temperament. He knew little or nothing outside of music ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... left in consequence to some relatives of his mother, the latter being too poor to afford him any instruction beyond mere reading and writing. He was sent in his fifteenth year to a monastery, to be taught the elements of chemistry and physic; but his temper was so impetuous, his indolence so invincible, and his vicious habits so deeply rooted, that he made no progress. After remaining some years, he left it with the character of an uninformed and dissipated young man, with good natural talents ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Willis, and for a while could not keep his eyes from him. At first he had some difficulty in believing he had before him the impetuous youth he had known two years and a half before. He had always been silent in general company; but in that he was changed, as in everything else. Not that he talked more than was natural, but he talked freely and easily. The great change, however, was in his appearance and manner. He had ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... for centuries as a res nullius. The firm resolve of the Bohemian people to revive the glorious kingdom which has so valiantly stemmed the onset of the Germans is the same resolve which moved our ancestors and our fathers to conspiracy and revolt, that Italy might become a united state. The impetuous and vigorous character of the Southern Slavs and the Rumanians of Transylvania already has led to the making of heroes and martyrs; and here they are met by the endless stream of our heroes and martyrs; who across time and space fraternise on the scaffold ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... and meanwhile we learn, too late, that prolonged adherence to morality trivialises the mind as hopelessly as a prolonged vice trivialises the countenance. I fear this has been said by someone else, my too impetuous Jill, and I hope not, for in that event I might possibly be speaking sensibly, and to be sensible is a terrible thing and almost ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... she said it set Mary's teeth on edge. She had never known any one before who purposely said disagreeable things. She often said them herself in her blundering, impetuous way, but was heartily sorry as soon as they were uttered. Now for the first time in her life she wanted to retaliate by saying the meanest thing she could think of. So she answered, hotly, "Oh, I don't know. I'd rather be named Mary than a name that ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the delicately pacing palfrey turned the darkness of her eyes from the white-robed choristers to the face of the young man. Then, with an impetuous motion of her hand, she urged him to listen for the next words, which swept over Earl William's heart with a cadence of unutterable pain ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... the idea of fighting, dirking, and gouging. The people of whom we are now writing do not deserve this character. They live together in great harmony, with little contention and less litigation. The backwoodsmen are a generous and placable race. They are bold and impetuous; and when differences do arise among them, they are more apt to give vent to their resentment at once, than to brood over their wrongs, or to seek legal redress. But this conduct is productive of harmony; for men are always more guarded in their deportment to each ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... habit to have something wanted at the shop. They seemed to me very good workmen, and always willing to stop and talk about the job, or any thing else, when I went near them. Nor had they any of that impetuous hurry that is said to be the bane of our American civilization. To their credit be it said, that I never observed any thing of it in them. They can afford to wait. Two of them will sometimes wait nearly half ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... against it, a rush of thoughts, of feelings which he kept struggling to hold back, but in the end they were generally too strong for him, and poured themselves out in a torrent of eloquence all the more impetuous from having been so long repressed. The effect of these outbursts was irresistible, and carried his hearers beyond themselves at once. Even when his efforts of self-restraint were more successful, those very efforts ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... impetuous rage I could not check, "and 'twill be hot for you some day. You've no right to bring me here against my will, and I demand to ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... enterprise had he ever failed to perform the part allotted him; never had he faltered in the hundred battles fought by Morgan's veteran corps; never had he seemed dismayed. And if sometimes he did a little more than he was asked to do, his superior officers forgave this handsome, impetuous young man—the more readily, perhaps, because, so far, no disaster had befallen when he exceeded the orders ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... Daggett's craft, though a good sealer, was an impetuous and reckless man, and had more than once found fault with the great precautions used, by the orders of Roswell. Macy, as this officer was called, was for making a regular onslaught upon the animals, slaying as many as they could at once, and then take up the business of curing and trying-out ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Durindana such misdeed To him appeared, it past all other woes; Though he could hardly sit upon his steed, Through mighty loss of life-blood, which yet flows. Now, when his anger and his heat secede, After short interval, his anguish grows; His anguish grows, with such impetuous pains, He feels that life is ebbing ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... plebeian who had arisen by force of military genius—and the Gaulish hordes were annihilated on the Rhone and the Po. The Romans at first viewed those half-naked warriors—so full of strength and courage, so confident of victory, so reckless of life, so impetuous and savage—with terror and awe. But their time had not yet come. Numbers were of no avail against science, when science was itself directed by genius and sustained by enthusiasm. The result of the decisive ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... natural to him. He had many advisers who opposed Joan's counsel. There were no men, no money, for so great a journey, they said. Councils were held, but nothing was decided on. Joan grew impatient and impetuous. Many supported her. Great lords from all parts of France promised their aid. One of these, Guy de ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... their impetuous charge. On they came right up to the rifle pits. In a rush they were across them, and over the barricades. Then with a yell of victory they threw themselves upon the guns, bayoneting the gunners. Leaping upon the barricade a man held aloft the Confederate flag, ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... near you; but I must leave you forever, and to-night, unless you can trust your life in my keeping. God help me, since we have been together I have lost my faith in almost everything but you. Pardon me, if I am impetuous—different from what I have seemed. I have struggled so hard to speak! I have been a coward, Eunice, because of my love. But now I have spoken, from my heart of hearts. Look at me: I can bear it now. Read the truth in my ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... and with infinite labour and difficulty, up the boulder-strewn bed of some half-dry mountain stream that was liable at any moment—if there happened to be rain higher up among the hills—to become swollen into a raging, foaming, irresistible torrent, against the impetuous fury of which no man could stand for an instant. To do the Indians no more than the barest justice, they were to the last degree solicitous to spare their prisoner the least fatigue, and repeatedly assured him that there was not the slightest ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... Botticelli, 1447-1515. He was an apprentice to a goldsmith, and then became a scholar of Filippo Lipi's. Botticelli was vehement and impetuous, full of passion and poetry, seeking to express movement. He was the most dramatic painter of his school. Occasionally he rises to a grandeur that allies him to Signorelli and Michael Angelo. His circular pictures of the Madonna and Child, with angels, are numerous. Like Fra Filippo, Botticelli's ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... had been a wilful, headstrong, passionate boy always, but yet loving and generous. He fled from his friends, in a miserable hour of passion, and never returned to them any more; for the sick, sinful, broken-down, wretched man who returned was as different from the hot-headed, impetuous, happy boy, as day differs ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... consequence of his ferocity, not only took him to task in private for his impolite behaviour, but also entreated her lover to make allowances for the roughness of her brother's education. He kindly assured her, that whatever pains it might cost him to vanquish his own impetuous temper, he would, for her sake, endure all the mortifications to which her brother's arrogance might expose him; and, after having stayed with her two days, and enjoyed several private interviews, during which he acted the part of ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... released his nephew's arm with a sigh. The boy was the very counterpart of his father, of Brother Noll, he thought,—the same fair, high forehead and curling locks, the same deep blue eyes, the same eager, impetuous manner. This resemblance touched him somewhat; he noted, also, that the boy's lips quivered a little, and so ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... I had sense to keep my tongue still; for, if I had spoken, I must have let bolt some impetuous thing better left unsaid. ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... the yard, her calico wrapper blowing wildly and lashing about her slender legs, to her own house, the doors of which she locked. Presently the other woman followed her, stepping with the ponderous leisure which results from vastness of body and philosophy of mind. The autumn wind, swirling in impetuous gusts, had little effect upon her broadside of woollen shawl. She had not come out on that raw evening with nothing upon her head. She shook the kitchen door of her friend, and smiled with calm reassurance when it was cautiously set ajar to disclose a wide-eyed ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... him. Was she trying to tell him something,—to undeceive him with regard to Raymond and herself? Impetuous words rose and trembled on his lips, while the thought raced through his brain that it would not be dishonourable to ask if there were the least hope for him. He would not utter another word if she said the sacred tie was already entered ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... with wide-open eyes, looking up at the oriel window where the sparrows twittered. On a near vault a catbird poised for an instant, surveying him with bright, distrustful eyes. Then, with an impetuous flutter of slate-gray wings, it fled to the poisonous oak on the far brick wall. A red-and-white cow, passing along the lane outside, stopped before the closed gate, and stood philosophically chewing the cud as she looked within through ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... Judas, dost thou betray the Son of Man with a kiss?' The soldiers immediately surrounded Jesus, and the archers laid hands upon him. Judas wished to fly, but the Apostles would not allow it, they rushed at the soldiers and cried out, 'Master, shall we strike with the sword?' Peter, who was more impetuous than the rest, seized the sword, and struck Malchus, the servant of the high priest, who wished to drive away the Apostles, and cut off his right ear; Malchus fell to the ground, and a ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... was now, towards the close of June, 1862, selected to command the "Army of Virginia," formed by uniting the corps of Fremont, McDowell, and Banks.[28] Fremont resigned, in a pet at having an officer who was his junior in the service placed over his head; but he was no loss, since his impetuous temperament did not fit him for the duties of a corps commander. He was succeeded by General Sigel. The fusing of these independent commands, whose separate existence had been a wasteful and jeopardizing ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... a great, torrential downpour. It came in sheets, with an impetuous, though genial, clatter. It seemed as though the valley was swiftly filling with water and in less than an hour's time it would reach the tops of the trees. I thought of Noah's flood. I could almost ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... gluttony and lust, are concerned with pleasures of touch in matters of food and sex; and these are the most impetuous of all pleasures of the body. For this reason these vices cause man's attention to be very firmly fixed on corporeal things, so that in consequence man's operation in regard to intelligible things is weakened, more, however, by lust than by gluttony, forasmuch as sexual pleasures are more ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... the more humblie because he saw he had done me some grievous Hurt, though he knew not what, a Voice in the adjacent Chamber in Alternation with mine Uncle's, drove the Blood of a suddain from mine Heart, and then sent it back with impetuous Rush, for I knew ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... care not where the victory is won, so we do but gain it," Washington said. Schuyler again pleaded his want of general officers. Washington sent him Arnold, the dare-devil of the army, and Lincoln, a man of sound head, steady hand, and even temper, as a counterpoise to Arnold's over-confident and impetuous nature. Thanks to these efforts, we had created a new army on the ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... in 649 condemned in a synod at the Lateran under Martin I., who ended his days in exile for disobeying the imperial power. The quarrel became one between Rome and Constantinople, at a time when the popes had recovered their orthodoxy and the patriarchs were subservient to impetuous emperors. [Sidenote: The Type, 648.] In 648 the Type issued from New Rome as an attempt at pacification; but the Old Rome rejected it, with anathemas. In 680 a synod, under Pope Agatho, at which S. Wilfrith of Ripon was present and signed for the north part of Britain, rejected as heresy the ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton
... and two Spanish and one French ship firing into his starboard side. The pressure on him decreased as the other ships of his division, coming rapidly into action, closed with ship after ship of the allied rear. Further relief was afforded by Nelson's impetuous attack on ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... blase', and too long versed in the ways of courts and courtiers to retain more than a whimsical tolerance of the naked truth and an appreciation of its excellence as a diplomatic manoeuvre. Nevertheless, he was by nature too impetuous ever to become under any provocation a dishonest man, and too normally a gentleman to deviate from a certain personal code of honor. He might come to California with fair words and a very definite intention of annexing it to ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... the same time impetuous and curious. He had made up his mind that he would go to the Palais-Cardinal, and that he would learn what his Eminence had to say to him. Nothing could turn ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of the social life of to-day in Denver—that city of gold and ozone—and deals of that burg's peculiarities with a keen and flashing satire. The character of the heroine, Patricia, will hold the reader by its power and brilliancy. Impetuous, capricious, and wayward, with a dominating personality and spirit, she is at first a careless girl, then develops into a loyal and loving woman, whose interference saves the honor of both her father and lover. The love theme is in the author's best ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... estimated by numbers. They smote the astonished van of the mob like a thunderbolt, Carpenter leading by several steps, his face aflame with his desperate resolve. He dealt the first blow, sending down, bleeding and senseless, a huge ruffian who was rushing upon him with a club. A second later the impetuous officer was in the midst of the mob, giving deadly blows right ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... youthful Governor that William the Silent awaited his antagonist. Were Don John admitted to confidence, the peace of Holland and Zealand was gone. Therefore it was necessary to combat him both openly and secretly—by loud remonstrance and by invisible stratagem. What chance had the impetuous and impatient young hero in such an encounter with the foremost statesman of the age? He had arrived, with all the self-confidence of a conqueror; he did not know that he was to be played upon like a pipe—to be ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... rite, With altars heaped, and dolorous cries, And savage dance, and bale-fires light, An unaccepted sacrifice. At last, when thousand years were flown, The great Ma-anda filled the throne: A prince of generous heart and high, Impetuous, noble, fierce, and true; His wrath like lightning hurtling by, His pardon like the healing dew. And chiefs and sages swore each one He ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... this impetuous host may be imagined, but never described. No railroads, no telegraphs, no skilled commissariat with ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 22, April 8, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... instance they found it necessary to curb a too hasty and impetuous Royalist. This was Dr. Matthew Griffith, a clergyman over sixty years of age, once a protege of the poet Donne. Sequestered in the early days of the Long Parliament from his rectory of St. Mary Magdalen, London, he had ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... of the morning. Grandmother breakfasting in bed! It was unheard of. In her impetuous rush from the room Blue Bonnet almost collided with Benita. "Is Grandmother awake—can I go to ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... breeding. The Indian the while took the opportunity, in a few monkey-like bounds, to make good his escape. The sight of the coat-of-arms on the cigarette-case aroused in Heideck the desire to make nearer acquaintance with his impetuous neighbour. As though he had quite forgotten the extraordinary manner of his entrance into the room, he asked, blandly, if he might invite his neighbour, whom accident had thus thrust upon him, to a cigar ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... act of generosity on the part of "old Hand" deprived even the impetuous Ted of his powers of expression. But Mrs. ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Holaf," murmured Nokomee in Korean to me. "He is a chief among us now, since the fall of our strength. He is good, but young and always too impetuous. He needs long experience, and it looks as if he would ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... fan the flame; add fuel to the flame, pour oil on the fire, oleum addere camino[Lat]. explode; let fly, fly off; discharge, detonate, set off, detonize[obs3], fulminate. Adj. violent, vehement; warm; acute, sharp; rough, rude, ungentle, bluff, boisterous, wild; brusque, abrupt, waspish; impetuous; rampant. turbulent; disorderly; blustering, raging &c. v.; troublous[obs3], riotous; tumultuary[obs3], tumultuous; obstreperous, uproarious; extravagant; unmitigated; ravening, inextinguishable, tameless; frenzied &c. (insane) 503. desperate &c. (rash) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... seems impossible. This discussion occurred. Beauchamp opened the case in a couple of sentences, and when the turn came for Renee to speak, and she shrank from the task in manifest pain, he spoke for her, and no one heard her contradiction. She would have wished the fearful impetuous youth to succeed if she could have slept through the storm ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "Impatient, piqued, impetuous, I Sprang in the boat, and flung 'Good-by' From pouted mouth with angry hand, And madly pulled away from land With lusty stroke, despite that she Held out her hands entreatingly: And when far out, ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... been so impetuous and fertile. For five moons he dragged his enemies after him. He had an end to which ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... springs of life are clear and abundant: it was a development rather than a diminution. The old purity of outline remained; and deep below the surface, but still visible sometimes to his lessening insight, the old girlish spirit, radiant, tender and impetuous, stirred for a ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... cross lying across her knees, the whole weight of it resting upon her. As might have been expected, where the conception is so languid, the execution is little delighted in; it is throughout steady and powerful, but in no place affectionate, and in no place impetuous. If Tintoret had always painted in this way, he would have sunk into a mere mechanist. It is, however, a genuine and tolerably well preserved specimen, and its female figures are exceedingly graceful; that of St. Helena very queenly, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... with one hand. His face sought hers, the face she knew, with its look of impetuous flight, of curves blown back, the face that seemed to lean forward, breasting the wind of its own speed. It leaned now, swift to its desire. It covered her face. Its lips were pressed to her lips, lips that drank her breath, that were fierce in their ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... at length they came to the Gorge of Gondo. This is a narrow valley, the sides of which rise up very abruptly, and in some places precipitously, to a great height. At the bottom flows a furious torrent, which boils and foams and roars as it forces its impetuous way onward over fallen masses of rock and trees and boulders, at one time gathering into still pools, at other times roaring into cataracts. Their road had been cut out on the side of the mountain, and the path had been cleared away here many feet above the buried road; ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... disappears; so that the aforesaid Frenchman finds himself with one side of his body uncovered and frozen, and the other side sunk in the feather bed and perspiring profusely. This arises, say the Germans, from the circumstance of the French being so impetuous and lively. With a calm and phlegmatic German the case is quite different. The latter raises the counterpane very cautiously, creeps underneath, and places himself with his back against the pillows, and his feet against the bottom of the bed, screwing himself up into the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... the impetuous rush of the train. It seemed to be life itself that was sweeping her on with headlong inexorable force— sweeping her into darkness and terror, and the awe of unknown days.—Now all at once everything was still—not a sound, not a pulsation... She was dead in her turn, and lay beside him ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... the waters of the Cumberland, the lair of moonshiner and feudsman. The knight is a moonshiner's son, and the heroine a beautiful girl perversely christened "The Blight." Two impetuous young Southerners fall under the spell of "The Blight's" charms and she learns what a large part jealousy and pistols have in the love making ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... all parts of France, and was unquestionably the most noisy, unruly and unreasonable set of beings that I ever saw in a legislative assembly. The frequent efforts of Thiers, Jules Favre, and other leading men to restrain the more impetuous were of little avail. When at the sittings a delegate arose to speak on some question, he was often violently pulled to his seat and then surrounded by a mob of his colleagues, who would throw off their coats and gesticulate wildly, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... crush a man may also exalt him. And so it was with Grundtvig. His suffering crushed the stony shell of cynical indifference in which he had long enclosed his naturally warm and impetuous spirit and released the great latent forces within him. In the midst of his struggle, new ideas germinated springlike in his mind. He read, thought and wrote, especially on the subject that was always near to his heart, the mythology ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... see you," continued Mrs. Ogilvie. "She has been, on the whole, behaving very nicely. Of course, making both friends and foes, as is her usual impetuous way." ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... how much could be done for humanity by the highest virtue in the highest fortune! There is scarcely anything in history more remarkable than the descriptions which remain to us of that extraordinary man. The fierce and impetuous temper which he showed in early youth,—the complete change which a judicious education produced in his character,—his fervid piety,—his large benevolence,—the strictness with which he judged himself,—the liberality with which he judged others,—the fortitude with which alone, in the whole ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... consoling, her, she brightened up, eager and impetuous. "Will you marry me to-night?" she said. "Will you prove it that way. I have a reason for wishing it ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... he and Flemming were returning from a stroll in the leafy gardens, outside the moat; "but, after all, Goethe was a magnificent old fellow. Only think of his life; his youth of passion, alternately aspiring and desponding, stormy, impetuous, headlong;—his romantic manhood, in which passion assumes the form of strength; assiduous, careful, toiling, without haste, without rest; and his sublime old age,—the age of serene and classic repose, where he stands like ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... paper. The irate visitor then began using his tongue, with no regard for the rules of propriety, good breeding, or reason. Meantime Mr. Greeley continued to write. Page after page was dashed off in the most impetuous style, with no change of features and without his paying the slightest attention to the visitor. Finally, after about twenty minutes of the most impassioned abuse ever poured out in an editor's office, the angry man became disgusted, and abruptly turned to walk out of the room. Then, for ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... commencement of this year, and made some noise, on account of the prodigies of the Abbe's life. This Vatteville was the younger son of a Franche-Comte family; early in life he joined the Order of the Chartreux monks, and was ordained priest. He had much intellect, but was of an impetuous spirit, and soon began to chafe under the yoke of a religious life. He determined, therefore, to set himself free from it, and procured some secular habits, pistols, and a horse. Just as he was about to escape over ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... of that year the historian has written: "These youths were in general very serious, very lavish in patriotic feeling, fiery and spirited in the defence of freedom and national dignity. The new tendency which manifested itself so vividly in our country was reflected by their impetuous and susceptible natures with all its noble yearnings, its virtues and excesses exaggerated. The frivolous pastimes, the senseless or dissolute amusements that were so fashionable in those days were abandoned for serious reading, ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... from the room. When his form became visible on the walk without, Deborah watched him from where she stood far back in the room. Why? Was this swelling of her impetuous heart in the midst of such suspense an instinct of thankfulness? A staff had been put in her hand, rough to the touch, but firm under pressure, and she needed such a staff. Yes, ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... General Hood, especially distinguished themselves. These, followed by their comrades, charged the Federal left on the bluff, and, in spite of a desperate resistance, carried the position. "The enemy were driven," says General Lee, "from the ravine to the first line of breastworks, over which one impetuous column dashed, up to the intrenchments on the crest." Here the Federal artillery was captured, their line driven from the hill, and in other parts of the field a similar success followed the attack. As night fell, their line gave ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... then, unworthy of it? Why do so many men pass through life dispossessed of love, while others, the vilest beings sometimes, seem to possess a mysterious power, which charms and seduces, and inspires those blind and impetuous feelings which to assert themselves rush to the sacrifice all the while longing for it? Have women, ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... not in favor of relief; but on the whole he did not think that civil war would result, and therefore, on the whole, he favored a relief expedition. One member of the Cabinet, Montgomery Blair, the Postmaster General, an impetuous, fierce man, was vehement for relief at all costs. Lincoln wanted to agree with Chase and Blair. He reasoned that if the fort was given up, the necessity under which it was done would not be fully understood; that by many it would be construed ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... our boast that we can quell The wildest passions in their rage, Can their destructive force repel, And their impetuous wrath assuage.— Ah, Virtue! dost thou arm when now This bold rebellious race are fled? When all these tyrants rest, and thou Art warring with ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... levied an army larger than she had ever supported, except at the time of the invasion, and sent it to Ireland under the command of a man who was utterly unfit for the place. And when, beset by enemies, harassed by defeat, and overwhelmed with shame, the impetuous and noble-hearted Essex rushed into the presence of majesty as a lover would have sought his mistress, her woman's heart forgave him all. Had this frame of mind continued, had not the resumed majesty of the queen condemned what the woman forgave, the world would have been spared the consummation ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... to that representation of coldness and neglect with which the king's temper has been so freely aspersed; and such too is the true portrait of James the First in domestic life. His first sensations were thoughtless and impetuous; and he would ungracefully thunder out an oath, which a puritan would set down in his "tables," while he omitted to note that this king's forgiveness and forgetfulness of personal injuries were sure to follow the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... came, grim and terrible, its baleful eyes glaring above its distended jaws, its lips curled in a frightful snarl which exposed a whole mouthful of formidable teeth. At sight of me it had abandoned its impetuous rush and was now sneaking slowly toward us; while the girl, a long knife in her hand, took her stand bravely at my left and a little to my rear. She had called something to me in a strange tongue as she raced toward me, and now she spoke again; but what she said I could ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the door-steps. Sergius drew up the sleighs, and they took their seats—three abreast—Kseniya, Elena and himself, and whirled along over the crackling snow, down to the ice-covered Volga. The sleighs flew wildly down the slope, and in this impetuous flight, in the sprinkling and crackling snow, and bitter, numbing frost, Kseniya dreamed of a wondrous bliss: she felt a desire to embrace the world! Life ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... realities. Why should the night of mystery and beauty hasten towards the common light? Her being thrilled under the first faint approaches of the dawn, and yet—yet a little longer, oh, ardent, impetuous, all-conquering Sun! It seemed as though the girl's very soul were pleading. The rich-hued, fragrance-laden flowers in the sweet dim place bent their heads to listen, but her impassioned lover paid no heed to the unspoken prayer. The sense of her beauty—of her unsurpassable charm, ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... that Diderot added to the play, Lessing cannot help discerning the mixture of superficiality with an almost pompous pretension. Rosenkranz, it is true, finds the play rich in fine sentences, in scenes full of effect, in which Diderot's moral enthusiasm expresses itself with impetuous eloquence. But even he admits that the hero's servant is not so far wrong when he cries, "Il semble que le bon sens se soit enfui de cette maison," and adds that the whole atmosphere of the piece is sickly with conscious virtue.[252] For ourselves we are ready for once ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... sense, that is so bewitching, of remoteness, intermixed with intimacy, because he was so unlike herself; having a woman's respect for scholarship, her imagination the more impressed by all in him that she could not comprehend,—Rose yielded to his impetuous suit, and gave him the troth that he requested. And yet it was with a sort of reluctance and drawing back; her whole nature, her secretest heart, her deepest womanhood, perhaps, did not consent. There was something in ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Dorothea's impetuous generosity, which would have leaped at once to the vindication of Lydgate from the suspicion of having accepted money as a bribe, underwent a melancholy check when she came to consider all the circumstances of the case by the light of ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... Dabtree with an impetuous lunge towards the point of attack, which made Skippy modestly avert his gaze. "This place is filled with mosquitoes. We never ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... their labour, progressed slowly and stolidly, never yielding an inch in their course to the importunities of shouting gondolier or shrieking steam-whistle. Here the light shell of a yellow sandolo shot by, there a black-hooded gondola crept in and out among the more impetuous water-folk. Over yonder the stars-and-stripes floated from a slim black prow, a frank, outspoken note of colour that had its own part to play among the quieter yet richer hues of the scene. It was like an instantaneous transition from twilight ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... grandson, Tom, was not an unmixed comfort to him. Tom did not mean to hurt his grandfather's feelings. He was a good-hearted boy, but impetuous and somewhat hasty. More than once we heard him go on to tell what great things he meant to do at home, "after grandpa dies." Grandpa, indeed, may sometimes have heard him say that; and it is the saddest, most hopeless thing in life for elderly people to come to see that the younger generation ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... gradual waste of my cigar accomplished itself with an easy and gentle expenditure of breath. My book was of the dullest, yet had a sort of sluggish flow, like that of a stream in which your boat is as often aground as afloat. Had there been a more impetuous rush, a more absorbing passion of the narrative, I should the sooner have struggled out of its uneasy current, and have given myself up to the swell and subsidence of my thoughts. But, as it was, the torpid life of the book served as an unobtrusive accompaniment to the ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to the order contained in the Imperial edict, were expected to be found in readiness to embark. In some of the passages, formed by the numerous islands, the currents ran with amazing rapidity, appearing more like the impetuous torrents of rivers, swelled by rains, than branches of the great ocean. The depth too of these narrow passages was so great as to make it difficult, dangerous, and frequently impossible, for ships to anchor in the event of a calm; in which case they must necessarily drive at the mercy of the ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... is the experience that called forth this poem. (Compare Goethe's first letter to Friederike, October 15, 1770) Notice how all nature is personified and assumes human attributes. In the opening stanzas impetuous haste is stirring, the first two lines have a marked rising rhythm. Notice the quieting effect of the metrical inversion at the beginning of 17, 18, and 19 and of the break in 25 after ach and how the whole poem ends with a ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... their tribunes. Though the aristocrats managed to have his name placed fourth on the list, his force and eloquence made him really first in all public labors, and he proceeded to use his influence to further his brother's favorite projects. He was impetuous in his oratory. As he spoke, he walked from side to side of the rostra, and pulled his toga from his shoulder as he became warm in his delivery. His powerful voice filled the forum, and stirred the hearts ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... much," said Ready, musing over the impetuous stream; "well, better too much water than too little." Ready waded through, as he wished to examine the turtle-pond, which was on the other side of the stream. Finding all right, he again crossed the water, where it was now spread ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... choose words which should not express too forcibly the impetuous feeling that shone in his eyes and rang in his ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... Impatient, impetuous Lulu did not know how to endure the suspense; she seemed to herself like a criminal awaiting execution. Softly she opened the door and stepped out in front of her father, ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... Leslie, with their cavalry, fought bravely, and to them, as well as to Cromwell's brigade of Independents, the honour of the day belonged; but the old Earl of Leven, the covenanting general, was driven out of the field by the impetuous charge of Prince Rupert, and was thirty miles distant, in full flight towards Scotland, when he was overtaken by the news that his party ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... loud din; Or that some member to be chosen, Had got the odds above a thousand, 570 And by the greatness of its noise, Prov'd fittest for his country's choice. This strange surprisal put the Knight And wrathful Squire into a fright; And though they stood prepar'd, with fatal 575 Impetuous rancour to join battel, Both thought it was the wisest course To wave the fight and mount to horse, And to secure by swift retreating, Themselves from danger of worse beating. 580 Yet neither of them would disparage, By utt'ring of his mind, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... of the vehicle had for some time lain along the banks of a turbulent river, whose waters, when not brawling over a rocky bed in impetuous velocity, or raging down a narrow gorge in misty spray, were curling calmly in deep pools or caldrons, the dark surfaces of which were speckled with foam, and occasionally broken by the leap of a yellow trout or a ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... anticipated with singular pathos and force. "It is at such moments as these," says Mr. Oldbuck, "that we feel the changes of time. The same objects are before us—those inanimate things which we have gazed on in wayward infancy and impetuous youth, in anxious and scheming manhood—they are permanent and the same; but when we look upon them in cold, unfeeling old age, can we, changed in our temper, our pursuits, our feelings,—changed in our form, our limbs, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... communicating with departed souls. Still the matron would not allow herself to be persuaded, and after the chief priest had been called away to the service of the god, Euryale reproved her sister-in-law for her too great zeal. When the wisdom of hoary old age and impetuous youth agree in one opinion, it is commonly ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and distrusting her own powers, she made little effort to reply, taking refuge in comparative silence. This course encouraged him and her uncle. The former liked her manifestation of spirit as long as he believed it to be within control. To his impetuous, imperious nature the idea of a tame, insipid bride was not agreeable; while Mr. Baron, still under the illusion that she was yet but a submissive child, thought that her bad mood was passing and would be gone in the morning. He little dreamed how swiftly her mind was awakening ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... confess it?—has always hovered for me close to that border which is not sublime. For the hapless lovers missed all for want of a little common sense. There was naught inevitable in their plight. I see the Comic Spirit leaning across to stay the hand of the impetuous Romeo. Why not take a moment's sober ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... in love with me and in his impetuous way made no secret of it. I need not say it did not take long for my step-mother to become aware of it, and with the idea that I was encouraging him she became furious. Except that poor Archie was a welcome change from the atmosphere of my home and the hateful attentions of the ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... Upper House, he can either assent or refuse. Assent means the destruction of a portion of the Constitution—and a portion very close to the Throne and which acts as a real buffer against the hasty action of an impetuous and sometimes imperious Commons. Refusal means that the Ministry must resign or go to the country on an issue in which it is quite possible the ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... this been going on; you may read it in the worn limestone layers that have been eaten through, inches in centuries, by the impetuous stream. Thus, also, has the St. Lawrence carved out its mile-wide bed beneath the Heights of Abraham—the stepping-stone to Wolfe's fame and ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... hair started up on end. "The balloon, then, had actually burst!" These were the first tumultuous ideas that hurried through my mind: "The balloon had positively burst!—I was falling—falling with the most impetuous, the most unparalleled velocity! To judge by the immense distance already so quickly passed over, it could not be more than ten minutes, at the farthest, before I should meet the surface of the earth, and be hurled ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... year, when he was himself a teacher, 'can be known only to those who have tried it, and to Him who made the heart and knows it all. One meets with few spectacles more afflicting than that of a young man with a free spirit, with impetuous though honourable feelings, condemned to waste the flower of his life in such a calling; to fade in it by slow and sure corrosion of discontent; and at last obscurely and unprofitably to leave, with an indignant joy, the miseries of a world which his talents might have illustrated and his ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... appears to have been engaged in practical navigation. In his address to the Queen [10] he says, "this is the art which in my early years won my love, and has induced me to expose myself almost all my life to the impetuous waves of the ocean." That he began the practice of navigation at an early period may likewise be inferred from the fact that in 1599 he was put in command of a large French ship of 500 tons, which had been chartered by the Spanish authorities for a voyage ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... 2 combined) petition, petulant, impetus, impetuous, perpetuate, repeat, compete, competent, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... clicked. Then Jenny held the letter up under the flame of the passage gas. She read there by this meagre light her own name, the address, written in a large hand, very bold, with a sharp, sweeping stroke under all, such as a man of impetuous strength might make. There was a blue seal fastening the flap—a great pool of solid wax. Trembling so that she was hardly able to tear the envelope, Jenny returned to the kitchen, again scanning the address, the writing, the blue seal with its Minerva ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... times as a lagoon. Laet, who wrote his Orbis Novus in 1633, and who had some excellent notions respecting these coasts, expressly states, that the lagoon was separated from the sea by an isthmus above the level of high water. In 1726, an impetuous hurricane destroyed the salt-works of Araya, and rendered the fort, the construction of which had cost more than a million of piastres, useless. This hurricane was a very rare phenomenon in these regions, where the sea is in ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... entitled The Lesson of Life. A young man and a young woman turn to each other through natural impulse, while an older woman with the experience of life attempts to counsel them. On the other side an old man restrains an impetuous youth who evidently ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney
... "The first impetuous joy was, however, soon stilled. Sometimes a feeling of indifference came over me, and I passed unmoved by the most beautiful things, because I already possessed so much that was lovely. 'Another opportunity will occur,' I thought, 'if I should ever ...
— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various |
