"Imperiousness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no difference. Things were prepared for me and put upon my plate, and a soft little command laid on me to do with them what I was expected to do. It was not like the way Dr. Sandford used to order me, nor in the least like Preston's imperiousness, which I could withstand well enough; there was something in it which nullified all my power and even will to resist, and I was as submissive as possible. Thorold grew very bright again as the meal went on, and began to ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... cheerful imperiousness. Miss Vesta glanced timorously toward the door, then sat down by the bedside. "Hush!" she said, softly. "You must not excite yourself, my dear young friend, you must not, indeed. I will tell you all about it, if you think—if you are quite sure you ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... first great body which threatened to stand wholly outside the law of the land; and the ecclesiastical pretensions of the time were perhaps well matched by the pretensions of the State. The king had prepared for the coming conflict by a characteristic act of high-handed imperiousness in the election of the chancellor-archbishop to carry out his policy. But all such schemes of imperative despotism were vain. No sooner was Thomas consecrated than it became plain that his ecclesiastical training would carry ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... least, though it might possibly have been resumed, and I might have been re-committed to hers, had I given him reason to think I made an arrogant use of it), you cannot imagine what a triumph I had in my mind over the mortified guilt, which (from the highest degree of insolence and imperiousness, that before had hardened her masculine features) appeared in her countenance, when she found the tables likely to be soon ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... "Lily the Lovely Laundress." The handsome rat-catcher had just beaten the aristocratic villain to a pulp and would have finished the job neatly and thoroughly had not Lily raised her lovely fair hand and cried with the imperiousness of ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... his straight, fierce brows with a sudden touch of imperiousness, and his commanding presence became magnetic, almost over-powering. Tormented with a dozen cross- currents of feeling, young Denzil Murray was mute;—only his breath came and went quickly, and there was a certain silently- declared antagonism in his very attitude. Gervase saw it and ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... back!" said he with the sharp imperiousness which I had associated only with moments of crisis. "If you approach me, Watson, I shall order ...
— The Adventure of the Dying Detective • Arthur Conan Doyle
... is, I am going to help you, Martha, and you have got to show me how," I answered her as a kind of determination that was stronger than any like emotion I had ever had came over me. "Tell me what to do, Martha, for you and—and for the kiddie," I commanded her with my usual imperiousness. ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... you say me nay already," she said with arch imperiousness, and a charming little pout of the lips, a woman's way ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... like that!" she said, with gay imperiousness. "You pale-eyed folk have a horrible knack of making one feel as if one is under a microscope. Your worthy uncle is just the same. If I weren't so deeply in love with him, I might resent it. But Nick is a privileged person, isn't he, wherever he goes? Didn't ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... and saw how his late imperiousness had given place to earnest, sorrowful entreaty, she hesitated for the moment how to answer him. There is, perhaps, a latent sympathy in the hardest heart; and despite her resolve to become at once lost and unpitying, some sparks of tender feeling, kindled into ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... moment; then looked up with a touch of her old, bright imperiousness. "My uncle loves me, has never denied me anything, and he will not in this—that ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... because I wanted you, because I am tired of lying to my heart, because I have a right to be happy, because—because I love you! Take me, and oh! be good and kind to me, for I have been very lonely and unhappy.... Kiss me!" with a touch of the old imperiousness. ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... was a pleasant old lady, with a sunny temper and a strong will. She always had her own way, and decided all doubtful matters with a charming imperiousness which offended nobody. ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... his love for science, DeWitt Clinton was a born politician, with all the characteristic incongruities incident to such a life. He had the selfishness of Livingston, the inconsistency of Spencer, the imperiousness of Root, and the ability of a statesman. Unlike most other men of his party, he did not rely wholly upon discipline and organisation, or upon party fealty and courtesy. Hamilton had cherished the hope that Clinton might become a Federalist, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... return, they inquired whether he would come with them and hunt the voice, saying that they would catch it for him. "I shall catch a cold for myself," said Mr. Pericles, from the elevation of a shrug, feeling that he was doomed to go forth. He acted reluctance so well that the ladies affected a pretty imperiousness; and when at last he consented to join the party, they thanked him with a nicely simulated warmth, believing that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... trunks, portmanteaux, and strong-boxes, all helped to increase her prestige; while her wheeled chair, her sharp tone and voice, her eccentric questions (put with an air of the most overbearing and unbridled imperiousness), her whole figure—upright, rugged, and commanding as it was—completed the general awe in which she was held. As she inspected her new abode she ordered her chair to be stopped at intervals in order that, with finger extended towards some ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the Vice-President on the raw: thus stung, he turned and demanded if the senator alluded to him. Forsyth's manner was truly grand, as it was intensely fierce: turning from the Senate to the Vice-President, he demanded with the imperiousness of an emperor: "By what right does the Chair ask that question of me?" and paused as if for a reply, with his intensely gleaming eye steadily fixed upon that of Calhoun. The power was with the speaker, and the Chair was awed into silence. Slowly turning to the Senate, every member ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... embrace—such a hush as might perchance occur before the coming of Doom. Then, after an interval that seemed too age-long to be endured, out of the very core of the silence Dante heard a voice calling to him that he had never heard before, and that spoke to him with such a sweet imperiousness that he was as physically and spiritually bound to obey and attend as ever Moses was on the holy hill. And the commanding voice cried to him, "Dante, behold a deity stronger than thou, who comes ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... farther Folly and ill Consequence in Men's intitling Ladies to Glory on account of Chastity which is, that the conceit hereof (especially in those who are Beautiful) does ordinarily produce in them a Pride and Imperiousness, that is very troublesome to such as are the most ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... sweet passions of life blend into an exaltation half sexual and half religious, but pure with the purity of a great flame. The miracle too remains, but it is the miracle of love that subdues the despairing heart, that reconciles man to his universe, and that slays the imperiousness of self. Thus Henry, firmly individualised as he is, becomes in some sense, like all the greater protagonists of the drama, the spirit of man confronting eternal and recurrent problems. The minor figures—Gottfried, Brigitte, Ottacker—have the homely and delightful truth ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... marked, but proud and aristocratic features, and a manner with more than a tinge of imperiousness. Her face, her figure, her voice were familiar, yet strange to me—familiar because I had heard of her, and been in the habit of occasionally seeing her from my very earliest childhood; strange, because she was reserved and not given to seeing her neighbors' houses for ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... the bowknot she had just tied, and turned away not wholly dissatisfied. Indeed, as the acknowledged belle of Canada City and the daughter of its principal banker, small wonder that a certain frank vanity and childlike imperiousness were ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... in the dark entry of the old farmhouse, and Cynthia said, with involuntary imperiousness: "Come in here, Mrs. Durgin; I want to tell ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... after her father's death, she felt a strong disinclination to live with Aunt Agatha, had not played her false. As inmates of the same house, the two ladies hit it off badly enough. Perhaps because in a certain imperiousness and hardness of character they were somewhat alike, their differences, though only on rare occasions culminating in a battle royal, smouldered perpetually, breaking out, more often than was seemly, in brisk skirmish ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... have been amused at his guest's audacity, or have combated it with his old imperiousness, but he only remained looking at him in a dull sort of way as if yielding to his influence. It was part of the phenomenon that the two men seemed to have changed character since they last met, and when Ezekiel said confidentially: "I reckon you're ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... pliability, the only virtue which was here indispensable to its success. He was naturally overbearing and insolent, and the royal authority only gave arms to the natural impetuosity of his disposition and the imperiousness of his order. He veiled his own ambition beneath the interests of the crown, and made the breach between the nation and the king incurable, because it would render him indispensable to the latter. He revenged on the nobility the lowliness of his own origin; and, after the fashion ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... step forward appears as an outrage against a sacred thing, as rebellion against the old, dying, but through custom, sanctified, circumstances, and on the other hand that since the rising of class antagonism, the evil passions of men, greed and imperiousness serve as the levers of historical progress, of which, for example, the history of feudalism and the bourgeoisie affords a conspicuous proof. But Feuerbach does not trouble himself to examine the role of moral evil. History is to him a particularly barren and unwonted field. Even his statement, ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... she said, with a pretty imperiousness of manner, "tell us some of the things that you have seen and heard these last days. My father says you have been keeping fine company, and I would learn what that is like; for I am but a humble citizen's daughter, and I live my life away in the country, so all I know ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... from the upper strata to our humbler domain, who—Pagan that she is!—indiscriminately accepts all things beautiful simply for their beauty. Having arrived, Miss Holland proceeded to organize us with all the energy of high-blooded sweet-and-twenty and all the imperiousness of confident wealth and beauty. She organized an evening sewing-circle for women whose eyelids would not stay open after their long day's work. She formed cultural improvement classes for such as Leon Coventry, the printer, who knows half the literatures of the world, ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... though I had been in the temple of some very dignified but completely temporal religion. And it was generally on these occasions that under the great carriage gateway Lady Ded—I mean Madame Delestang—catching sight of my raised hat, would beckon me with an amiable imperiousness to the side of the carriage, and suggest with an air of amused nonchalance, "Venez donc faire un tour avec nous," to which the husband would add an encouraging "C'est ca. Allons, montez, jeune homme." He questioned me some times, ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... would, possibly, after no more than a few entreaties, make them a present of her person as well as the purchase money. In the second place, never had they in the Chia mansion ill-used any of those below; there being always plenty of grace and little of imperiousness. Besides, the servant-girls, who acted as personal attendants in the apartments of the old as well as of the young, were treated so far unlike the whole body of domestics in the household that the daughters even of an ordinary ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... who love not your brother, because of his natural imperiousness and fierce and uncontroulable temper: these say, that the young gentleman's passion was abated on seeing his blood gush plentifully down his arm; and that he received the generous offices of his adversary (who helped him off ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... of which he had never heard before, and there, to his anger, almost at the next table, he found Foster. With a trace of his former imperiousness of manner, he summoned him. The young man rose, after a moment's hesitation, and ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hall-porter received his inquiry for Elizabeth with an air of faint but well-bred surprise. Tavernake, in those days, was a person exceedingly difficult to place. His clothes so obviously denoted the station in life which he really occupied, while the slight imperiousness of his manner, his absolute freedom from any sort of nervousness or awkwardness, seemed to bespeak a consideration which those who had to deal with him as a stranger found sometimes a ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... conversation between them at that interview, however. Supposing Alyosha to be very shy, Katerina Ivanovna had talked all the time to Dmitri to spare him. Alyosha had been silent, but he had seen a great deal very clearly. He was struck by the imperiousness, proud ease, and self-confidence of the haughty girl. And all that was certain, Alyosha felt that he was not exaggerating it. He thought her great glowing black eyes were very fine, especially with her pale, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... as every American here does, respecting the causes of the present war.... 'Tis the character of Englishmen to be haughty, proud, and overbearing. If this conduct meets with no resistance, their treatment becomes more imperious, and the more submissive and conciliating is the object of their imperiousness, the more tyrannical are they towards it. This has been their uniform treatment towards us, and this character pervades all ranks of society, whether in public or ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... days of triumph for Vesalius; of triumph deserved, because earned by patient and accurate toil in a good cause: but Vesalius, being but a mortal man, may have contracted in those same days a temper of imperiousness and self-conceit, such as he showed afterwards when his pupil Fallopius dared to add fresh discoveries to those of his master. And yet, in spite of all Vesalius knew, how little he knew! How humbling to his pride it would have been had he known then—perhaps he does know now—that he had actually ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... first time that he had been given to see the Dabney imperiousness shining star-like in ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... the stories of the time. Friends and foes agree in attributing the schism, at least the immediate schism, to the imprudent zeal, the imperiousness, the ungovernable temper of Pope Urban. The cardinals among themselves talked of him as mad; they began to murmur that it was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... said Van, "I'll take something different from what I got last time. No imperiousness this trip." He smiled grimly. "There was a time when I used to take orders. Suppose you call ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... now that though she was such a fine figure, quite as tall as himself, she was but in the bloom of young womanhood. Her face was certainly striking, though rather by its imperiousness than its beauty; and the beating of the wind and rain and spray had inflamed her ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... what bee I thus helped to keep buzzing in her pretty head, which she now carried with all the alternate imperiousness and graciousness of confident and proven beauty. Little I divined of feminine dreams of conquest in larger fields; or foresaw of dangerous fruit to grow from seed planted with thoughtlessness. To my mind, nothing of harm or evil ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... voice, as if he wanted to atone for Stumm's imperiousness. 'We are men who love our Fatherland, Herr Brandt,' he said. 'You are not of that Fatherland, but at least you hate its enemies. Therefore we are allies, and trust each other like allies. ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... the strange life that had thrown him amongst men whom safety itself made it necessary to command despotically, partly from the habit of power and disdain of the world, his nature was incrusted with a stern imperiousness of manner, often approaching to the harsh and morose, though beneath it lurked generosity ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book II • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... acceptance; and so it came about that Anstice once more entered the hospitable doors which guarded Greengates, incidentally making the acquaintance of Lady Laura Wells, Sir Richard's widowed sister, who kept house for him with admirable skill, if at times with rather overbearing imperiousness. ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... progressions in the development of civil order and society in France. But it was to the advantage of absolute power that all these facts were turned, and the perverted ability of Philip the Handsome consisted in working them for that single end. He was a profound egotist; he mingled with his imperiousness the leaven of craft and patience, but he was quite a stranger to the two principles which constitute the morality of governments, respect for rights and patriotic sympathy with public sentiment; he concerned himself about nothing ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... who would lead forlorn hopes with a jest or plot whimsically lawless conspiracies against convention. In its corners and in the firm line of the chin beneath it there lurked, too, more than a hint of imperiousness. A physiognomist would have gathered, correctly, that Ann Chester liked having her own way and was ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... downward advances in months that in some instances require years of moderate indulgence. Moreover, as with alcohol, many natures have an unusual and morbid craving for opium after once acquiring the habit of its use. Their appetite demands it with an imperiousness which will not be denied, even while in soul they recoil and loathe the bondage. This was especially true of Mr. Jocelyn. The vice in his case was wrecking a mind and heart naturally noble and abounding in the best impulses. He was conscious, too, ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... society; because, in order to relieve myself from sullen gloom, or apparent dependency, I generally make my best exertions to appear gay and chatty; for when I can do this, she forbears both rudeness and imperiousness. She then, I have reason to believe, says to the queen, as I know She does to some others, "The Bernan bin reely agribble"; and the queen, not knowing the incitement that forces my elaborate and painful efforts, may suppose I am lively at heart, when she hears I am so in discourse. And there is ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... me, and dwelt with hope on the future. All this I told Herbert the night when I explained, and he turned pale. "You people fly away with yourselves. I cannot follow you. What is wrong, Hester?" He smiled in his distress. Yet was there in his softness an imperiousness, commanding me to be other than I am, forbidding me the right to crave in secret what I had made bold to ask for openly. His man was stronger than my woman, and I leapt to him again. "My husband," I whispered, my hands in his. This, even after ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... resembled Bunsen in more ways than one; in his ardent religious sentiment, in his eagerness, in his undoubting and not always far-sighted self-confidence and self-assertion, and in a combination of practical vagueness of view and a want of understanding men, with a feverish imperiousness in carrying out a favourite plan. In 1841 he sent Bunsen to England to negotiate the ill-considered and precipitate arrangement for the Jerusalem bishopric; and on the successful conclusion of the negotiation, Bunsen was appointed permanently ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... panted, "for we got along capitally. Dr. Cardington gave me this candle, but declined to come with us. I thought he quite resented our intrusion, and was anxious to pass us up without delay." Then, turning to her companions with whimsical imperiousness, "Stand in a row, the whole class, till I introduce you to ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... unbearable affliction which makes Chaucer's patient Griselda almost incomprehensible to modern readers, is in Imogen completely redeemed by her resolution in the face of danger, and by a certain {202} imperiousness which well becomes the daughter of ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... before," said Priscilla abruptly, and with true feminine imperiousness, which heretofore I had never seen her exercise. "It pleases me best to loiter along by myself. I do not walk so ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... party. She was two years older than Claude, a typical Featherstone, fair and straight of limb, with finely chiseled features and delicate complexion. Her eyes were large and long-lashed, but somewhat cold. A life of indolence and luxury had bred a certain air of imperiousness in her. She was known to her friends as Angela the frigid. But this appellation was not quite justified. At times she was far from frigid. Under different circumstances she might have been as warm-blooded as any Southern peasant-girl, but pride of birth ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... struggled about his mouth at her bairnly imperiousness, but he came obediently enough and sat down. Nevertheless he took away the heavy axe from her and said, "Put this down, then, or give it to me. It is not a pretty plaything ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... sway. The allegorical serpent of Eden is working upon the feminine portion, symbolized by the heart, and, like a magnetic tractor, the soul's affinities are drawn downward, and, as if in defiance of all responsibilities, consequences, and Karma, the soul, lion-like, "shakes his mane in the imperiousness ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... happiness, cost that witness what it may. Paulina had forbidden letters, yet Dr. Bretton wrote; she had resolved against correspondence, yet she answered, were it only to chide. She showed me these letters; with something of the spoiled child's wilfulness, and of the heiress's imperiousness, she made me read them. As I read Graham's, I scarce wondered at her exaction, and understood her pride: they were fine letters—manly and fond—modest and gallant. Hers must have appeared to him beautiful. They had not been written to show her talents; still less, I think, to express ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... equal; but one ought to reflect how very few men are worthy of their wives in any sense. After his fashion he certainly loved her always,—even when she tried him most, for it must be owned that she really had that hot temper which he had dreaded in her from the first. Not that her imperiousness directly affected him. For a long time after their marriage, she seemed to have no other desire than to lose her outwearied will in his. There was something a little pathetic in this; there was a kind of bewilderment in her gentleness, as though the relaxed tension of her long self-devotion to ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... islanders like wheat, and appropriated the lands their swords had cleared. Still the aborigines held out in corners, and defied the conquerors. The latter ground them down, confiscated the property of their half-dozen chiefs, and distributed it among themselves. By way of showing their imperial imperiousness, they built over some ruins left by their devastations a great church, in which they ordered all the islanders to worship. This was at first abomination to the islanders, who fought like devils whenever they could, and ended by accepting ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... defiance in the sudden, tensity of her erect body, an imperiousness in the carriage of her head. Her eyes met his with something of the same defiance in them. But in them, too, was a ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... will not say a word of it. It is all bye with me, and what for not with you? I command you to say no more about it, do you hear?" And her foot beat with an imperiousness almost comical from one with ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... sentimentalist nor yet in that of the curious investigator. Undoubtedly at times it must be a most immodest "I," an "I" which discloses a name and a surname, an "I" which is positive and self-assertive, with the imperiousness of a Captain General's edict or ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... purple-black hair coiled about her shapely head, a hundred times handsomer than any artifice of dressing, her brilliant complexion, her large eyes with their long sweeping lashes that veiled their depth, but seemed to add a certain imperiousness, her coral-red lips that shaped differently with every breath, her straight nose, with the nostrils thin as a bit of shell, and the softly rounded chin, made her a picture that Jack Darcy ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... Bulstrode's native imperiousness and strength of determination served him well. This delicate-looking man, himself nervously perturbed, found the needed stimulus in his strenuous circumstances, and through that difficult night and morning, while he had the air ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... Oakford?" she asked, turning her grey eyes on me. She spoke almost abruptly, and with a touch of imperiousness that suddenly recalled to me where I had seen ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... said, with his easy imperiousness. "I can't spare you yet. I must have one more dance just to soothe my nerves. I've been dancing with a faultless automaton who didn't understand me in the least. Now I ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... little table in the centre of the room, one hand resting upon it for support. She was so agitated, and so fearful lest Calvert should notice it and guess its true cause, that she summoned all her pride and old imperiousness to her aid. Looking at her so, he wondered how it was that Mr. Morris had found her so softened. Looking at him so, weak and ill and hurt for one she loved, she could have thrown herself at his feet and kissed his wounded arm. It was with difficulty she commanded her voice sufficiently ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... But celestial imperiousness, love, wrath, and fervour had proved to be somewhat thrown away on netherward Egdon. Her power was limited, and the consciousness of this limitation had biassed her development. Egdon was her Hades, and since coming there she had imbibed much of what was dark in ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... memories of the past which had come back to her last night when her husband had left her. She concealed nothing, she veiled nothing; there were intervals when her tears no longer flowed, and a cruel hardness and return of her old imperiousness of voice and manner took their place, as if she was doing a rigid penance and took a bitter satisfaction in laying bare her whole soul to him. "I never had a friend," she whispered; "there were women ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... Her face was pale, but her lips were smiling. "Get down there where you were!" she continued, with tender imperiousness. He obeyed her, hardly daring to trust his senses. "Now put your hands between my hands," she said, still with that pale, singular smile, which filled him with unquiet transports, "and tell me ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... priest, wounded by the imperiousness with which the Brother so roughly sought to dominate him, looked up and ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... wonderful to watch the transformation on her countenance. A great love, a great joy, swept away like a gust of wind, the peace on its surface; and a glowing, loving intelligence made her instantly restless. She called him with sweet imperiousness, "George! Joris! Joris! My dear one!" and he answered her with the one word ever near, and ever dear, to a ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... which needs much cultivation by the missionary. He has constant temptation to pride. The sin of masterfulness is naturally his besetting sin; for his influence over his people and his control in the direction of his work gradually grow sweet to him and develop, if he is not very careful, into an imperiousness of will which is neither pleasant to those who come in contact with him, nor consistent with the golden grace of humility, nor in any sense ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... attraction which his great personal gifts exercised over most of those with whom he came in immediate contact. The extreme copiousness of his vocabulary, the extreme subtlety of his mind and reasoning, and the imperiousness of temper with which he seldom failed to meet opposition, were all repugnant to her. To those who have experienced the sustained emphasis of language with which Mr. Gladstone was accustomed in ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... pity to let the yard run to waste," she responded, with an imperiousness which took Miss Polly's breath away, though it left the irrepressible O'Hara ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... formalities of an introduction, but at once opened with: 'Well, who are you? What's your name? Where do you live? What's your business—salvation, sinners, eh?'—all at a single breath, and with a rapidity that would defy the pencil of the most skilful stenographer. There was an air of imperiousness, too, in his tone of voice, that seemed to say, 'Come, talk quickly now, and then go about your business; I have no time to waste.' The inquiries, in the main, having been answered, Allen closed the door of the saloon, dragged a small table and two chairs into the ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... and darkness she lost something of her imperiousness, and yielded herself to his guidance with a delicious return to woman's weakness in the face of practical material details. To Bradley this seemed vastly significant and his spirits rose. He grew quite facetious ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... with imperiousness, unlike herself. He walked on mechanically a dozen paces and turned. She had disappeared. He remembered there was a smaller gate opening upon the plain near where they had stopped. Perhaps she had passed through that. ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... instant the courier looked around like a hunted animal seeking a retreat, and then up at her in dumb pleading; but she stamped her foot and held him to the spot by the imperiousness of ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... watched contentedly the contests between the older of his knights who played chess under the shade of the fruit trees, and the fencing bouts of the younger warriors. Very dear to him were all his Douzeperes, yet dearest of all was his own nephew, Roland. In him he saw his own youth again, his own imperiousness, his reckless gallantry, his utter fearlessness—all those qualities which endeared him to the hearts of other men. Roland was his sister's son, and it was an evil day for the fair Bertha when she told her brother that, in spite of his anger and scorn, she had disobeyed ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... will join us or wait," said Mrs. Ashwood incisively, with her first exhibition of the imperiousness of a rich and pretty woman. Perhaps she was a little annoyed that her elaborate introduction of herself had produced no reciprocal disclosure by her companion. "Will you please send the landlord to ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... hand on her arm with a touch of his customary imperiousness. "That won't do. You're to go to bed properly—and sleep till you can't sleep any longer. Yes, that's an order, see?" He smiled again at her, his sudden transforming smile. "Be a good child and do as I tell you! Cox is within ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... young man made no reply. His eyes were again on the hills and gleaming with a sudden fascination. From far above, they seemed to call to him, to taunt him with their imperiousness, to challenge him and the low-slung high-powered car to the combat of gravitation and the elements. The bleak walls of granite appeared to glower at him, as though daring him to attempt their conquest; the smooth ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... condescend. Certainly she neither feared nor even admired him. To tell the truth, she rather disliked him: the great, red-faced bachelor of fifty-three, with his bald spot and his stomach as weak as a baby's, and his mouthing imperiousness and his good heart which was as selfish as it could be. Nothing can be more cocksuredly selfish than a good heart which believes in its own beneficence. He was a little too much the teetotaller on the one hand to be so largely manly on the other. Alvina ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence |
