"Immovable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... life. Of course, one's always mildly interested in one's friends' marriages, hoping they'll turn out well and all that; but this was different. The average man isn't like Bobbie, and the average girl isn't like Mary. It was that old business of the immovable mass and the irresistible force. There was Bobbie, ambling gently through life, a dear old chap in a hundred ways, but undoubtedly a chump of the ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... Century, it was supposed by our stupid ancestors that the Earth was the center of all creation, being a large, flat body resting on a rock which rested on another rock, and so on "all the way down"; and that the Sun, planets and immovable stars all revolved about ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... The survivor still clung here, and Zeb—who had been vaguely wondering how on earth he contrived to keep his seat and yet hold on by the rope without being torn limb from limb—now discovered this end of the mast to be so tightly jammed and tangled against the wreck as practically to be immovable. The man's face was about as scaring as the corpses'; for, catching sight of Zeb, he betrayed no surprise, but only looked back wistfully over his left shoulder, while his blue lips worked without sound. At least, ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... old words which have now each two exactly opposite meanings. The word fast means sometimes "immovable," and sometimes it means the exact opposite—"moving rapidly." We say a key is "fast" in a lock when we cannot get it out, and we say a person runs "fast" when we mean that he runs quickly. The first meaning of steadiness is the original meaning; then the word came to be used ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... felt as if I were converted into cold, heavy stone; I could not get my breath. As I stood there immovable my mother seized me by the arm. "Come, Nathanael! do come along!" I suffered myself to be led away; I went into my room. "Be a good boy and keep quiet," mother called after me; "get into bed and go to sleep." But, tortured by indescribable fear and ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... virility and therefore of virtue. A live wire is not only active, it is also sensitive. Thus sensibility becomes actually a part of virility. Something more is involved than the vulgar simplification of the American as the irresistible force and the Englishman as the immovable post. As a fact, those who speak of such things nowadays generally mean by something irresistible something simply immovable, or at least something unalterable, motionless even in motion, like a cannon ball; for a cannon ball ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... neither be shamed nor convinced. With desperate beseechings, with every argument of passion, no matter how it debased him, he strove frantically to subdue her to his purpose. But Miriam was immovable. At length she could not even urge him with reasonings; his prostrate frenzy revolted her, and she drew away in repugnance. Reuben's supplication turned on ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... And he hopes, by the fact that you will pull one way and your companion another, to establish some sort of an equilibrium that will keep you on your feet. If we follow this theory, like the other, to its legitimate conclusion, we will find the old problem repeating itself, "When an immovable body meets an irresistible body, what is the result?" According to this theory, I should step into this audience and select the most delicate, refined and accomplished lady among you and marry her to a South African cannibal, and I would ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... often able to raise large gatherings on chosen ground. They could always attack us; we were rarely able (except when they chose) to find them at home." This observer says the regular troops of the Ameer were not so formidable as the tribal gatherings. The presence of a tactically immovable artillery hinders the action of an Asiatic army. The mounted men are usually the first to leave when the fight is going against their side in a general engagement. One of the best specimens of their tactics was at Ahmed-Kheyl, on the Ghazni-Kandahar road, when ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... death-dealing mission against him, in vain have immense shells exploded in his immediate neighbourhood. Nothing, not even the ramming of one whole squadron by another, has succeeded in daunting him. He has remained immovable in the midst of an appalling explosion which reduced a ship's company to a heap of toe-nails. And now, his mind fired by the crash of conflict and the intoxication of almost universal slaughter, he proposes to show ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... her back turned, immovable, and her mother looked at her helplessly a little longer, and then left the room. When she had gone, Beth sat down on the piano-stool. Her shabby shoes had holes in them, her dress was worn thread-bare, and her sleeves were too short for her. She had no collar or cuffs, and her thin ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... instant was quickly overpast, and he once more reared his head erect and lofty as before. To revenge himself by the ruin or disgrace of Sussex was however beyond his power: the well-founded confidence of Elizabeth in his abilities and his attachment to her person, he found to be immovable; but against his friends and adherents, against the duke of Norfolk himself, his malignant arts succeeded but too well; and it seems not improbable that Leicester, for the purpose of carrying on without molestation his practices ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... covered with the same preparation. Lastly, the bandage, adhering to the piece of pasteboard, to the skin, and to the different turns which it makes around the body, is carefully applied so as to form an immovable, rigid, and solid bandage, which will retain the hernia long enough for the wound in the abdominal walls ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... had chalked on its sides "H.M.S. Immovable"; and after tugging valiantly at it for nearly half an hour, the Maluka and Mac and Jackeroo proved the truth ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... against the fretting of waves, his grasp stood against hers; and his voice was as immovable as his hand. "Certainly you are going to a palace, you did not let me carry out my meaning. Adjoining the Monastery there is a dwelling-place which was once a house for travellers, that King Edgar himself ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... "unknowable universal causal agent and source of things," as "the nature of the power manifested in phenomena," and in calling this the idea common to both religion and "ideal science," fell far behind Comte, who expressed the immovable position, not only of positive science but of all intelligence, in these words: "Le veritable esprit positif consiste surtout a substituer toujours l'etude des lois invariables des phenomenes a celles de leurs ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... ships lay side by side—an intricate tangle of bowsprits and rigging, masts and chains. Around them the water was black as basalt, only that now and again a spark of light was struck by the faint lifting of the current against the immovable hulls. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... this common soldier? Was he going to be strangled like a clerk at the hands of a footpad? Was the end coming here, within perhaps a hundred yards of Jo? He threw every ounce in him into a final effort to throw off this demon. The fellow, with legs wide apart, remained immovable save spasmodically to take a ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... week-end at Godmother's. It was as dull as usual; she had ample leisure to brood over what lay before her. It was now a certainty, fixed, immovable; for, by leaving school that day without having spoken, she had burned her ships behind her. When she went back on Monday M. P. would be there, and every loophole closed. On Sunday evening she made an excuse and went down into the garden. There was no moon; but, overhead, the indigo-blue ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... said Joe from his lofty position on the steed, addressing his favourite little pet. "Get along," he continued, striking the animal gently with his whip. But Pete was as immovable and unconscious of the lash as would have been a stone. And the steed seemed likewise to be infected with the pony's stubbornness, after the wagon was brought ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... ligaments which hold the spine in a proper position are defective. Where the bone is felt to be good-sized and hard, and the surrounding substance too soft, it is a case of this kind. To proper nourishment, in this case, must be added proper exercise of the muscles concerned. Immovable plaster jackets are bad, because they forbid this. This exercise may best be given by rubbing (see Exercise and Massage). Gentle rubbing and pressure over the back, with hot OLIVE OIL (see), will work wonders in such a case. During the rubbing the patient should lie down at ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... toad, laid out among the beech-nuts); wagtails on the shingle, whirling over the water, where the big trout and salmon leap; every sort of swallow; pigeons crossing from wood to wood; wild duck rattling up, and seagulls circling above the stream; nay, two herons, standing immovable, heraldic, on the grass ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... at the door for admission, which Nixon reluctantly granted. For half an hour they used every art of persuasion to induce him to go down to the ball, the glorious success of which was glowingly depicted; but Nixon remained immovable, and they took their departure, baffled and cursing. In two hours they returned drunk enough to be dangerous, kicked at the door in vain, finally gained entrance through the window, hauled Nixon out of bed, and, holding a glass of whisky to his lips, bade him drink. But he knocked ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... of Mr. Ransome reached its height at four o'clock on this Sunday afternoon, when Ranny's Uncle John Randall (Junior) and Aunt Randall dropped in to tea. Both Mr. and Mrs. Randall believed in Mr. Ransome with the fervent, immovable faith of innocence that has once for all taken an idea into its head. Long ago they had taken it into their heads that Mr. Ransome was a wise and good man. They had taken it on hearsay, on conjecture, on perpetual suggestion conveyed by Mrs. Ransome, and on the grounds—absolutely incontrovertible—that ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... works, he was the author of four of a popular cast, which are worthy of all regard, on "The Destiny of Man," "The Nature of the Scholar," "The Characteristics of the Present Age," and "The Way to the Blessed Life"; "so robust an intellect, a soul so calm," says Carlyle, "so lofty, massive, and immovable, has not mingled in philosophic discussion since the time of Luther ... the cold, colossal, adamantine spirit, standing erect and clear, like a Cato Major among degenerate men; fit to have been the teacher of the Stoa, and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... with celestial flowers used to yield their continuous sound. And desirous of slaying Jarasandha they seemed by that act of theirs to place their feet upon the head of their foe. And attacking with their mighty arms that immovable and huge and high and old and celebrated peak always worshipped with perfumes and floral wreaths, those heroes broke it down. And with joyful hearts they then entered the city. And it so happened that the learned Brahmanas residing within the city saw many ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... reach the parapet—that immovable rampart over which we have peeped so often and so cautiously with our periscopes—and clamber up a sandbag staircase on to the summit. We note that our barbed wire has all been cut away, and that another ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... ears of several of the neighboring women, or else was staring with haggard eyes of fearful hope from a window. When she looked from the eastern window she could see her mother-in-law, Mrs. Zelotes Brewster, at an opposite one, sitting immovable, with her Bible in her lap, prayer in her heart, and an eye of grim holding to faith upon the road for the fulfilment of promise. She felt all her muscles stiffen with anger when she saw the wild eyes of the child's mother at the other window. "It is all her fault," ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... in the carrier's hand. Struck by the look on De Young's face, the postman did not turn, but stood near by watching. The exile, once the immovable, seized the missive feverishly, then paused to examine. It was a man's writing he held, and he winced as at a blow, but with a hand that was nerved too high to tremble, he tore open the envelope. He read the few words, and read again; then in a motion of ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... I gazed, the more convinced was I that I was right; the immovable devotion of my eyes attracted the attention of a French ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to us now was whether this rock reef communicated sufficiently with the island for us to get to it. Abandoning conjecture; tying very firmly our canoe up to the rocks, a thing that seemed, considering she was jammed hard and immovable, a little unnecessary—but you can never be sufficiently careful in this matter with any kind of boat—off we started among the rock boulders. I would climb up on to a rock table, fall off it on the other side on to rocks again, with more or less water on ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... Germany—we have today the sad but immovable conviction of this—was never that of Goethe, of Beethoven, nor of Heine. It was that of implacable Landgraves ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... an island in the river Rhone, and the warriors of both camps were ranged on either shore, spectators of the battle. At the first encounter both lances were shivered, but both riders kept their seats, immovable. They dismounted, and drew their swords. Then ensued a combat which seemed so equal, that the spectators could not form an opinion as to the probable result. Two hours and more the knights continued to strike and parry, to thrust and ward, neither showing any sign ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... made as if to go over backward, then suddenly stiffened all four legs and sprang up and down as automatically as if worked by a spring. Roldan was now in his element. He had broken in more than one bucking horse. He remained as immovable as a fly on the top of a coach, only giving an occasional prick with his spur to madden the animal and ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... only one rudder, and this is in the rear. It tends to keep the apparatus with its head to the wind. Unlike the rudder on a boat it is fixed and immovable. The real motor-propelled flying machine, generally has both front and rear rudders manipulated by wire cables at the will of ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... of detached stones put together in the ordinary manner. Here, what is chiefly remarkable in the Phoenician architecture is the tendency to employ, especially for the foundations and lower courses of buildings, enormous blocks. When the immovable native rock is no longer available, the resource is to make use of vast masses of stone, as nearly immovable as possible. The most noted example is that of the substructions which supported the platform whereon stood the Temple of Jerusalem, which ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... lengthening into minutes, he sat immovable, fighting back the agonized and torrential flood of thought which burst upon him with unwarned temptation. The danger was not after all a danger to the woman he loved, but a menace to his enemy. She was safe three thousand feet above the threatening city. He had only to hold ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... ceased speaking Darrow remained where he was, his arms folded, his eyes lowered, immovable. She waited, her gaze ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... thee, O hero, like cows that have not been milked; we praise thee as ruler of all that moves, O Indra, as ruler of all that is immovable. ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... befriended them merged into the level, and the crew forced its way on through ever deepening drifts. For about fifty yards the snow was above the hubs of the wheels, and more than once it seemed that the apparatus cart was so deeply stuck as to be immovable. The men left the shafts, and crowding round the cart like ants they forced it free, and half carried and half pushed it ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... in torrents, as if the windows of heaven were opened to wash away the world's defilements. The stout walls of the Manor House were immovable as rocks, but the wind and the rain and the noise of the storm struck an awe into the two girls. They crept closer together in their bed; they dared not separate for the night. The storm seemed too much the reflex of the agitation of their own minds, and ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Moslems God is in the heavens; His immovable seat is there. To the ecstatic visionaries who live, as his old friend lived, so cut off from their natural selves as to be unconscious of their physical body, these are the delights of paradise, seen through ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... conversational powers. She usually exercised a controlling influence over all with whom she associated. Happy it was for Mrs. Dexter that a friend like Mrs. De Lisle came to her in the right time, and filled her mind with right principles for her own pure instincts to rest upon as an immovable foundation. ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... paintings; and light is whitewash; and durations are deceptive; and form is imprisonment; and heaven itself a decoy.'" All of which we see reproduced in Emerson's poem "Brahma."—"The country of unity, of immovable institutions, the seat of a philosophy delighting in abstractions, of men faithful in doctrine and in practice to the idea of a deaf, unimplorable, immense fate, is Asia; and it realizes this faith in the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... at the aligned Caesars, scarcely bowing to Demeter of the remote gaze. In that long gallery, where the Caryatid thrusts her bosom that her neck may be the prouder to the weight, she saw the objects of her present pilgrimage— beaten, blind, and dumb, immovable as the eternal hills, the Attic Fates; and before them at gaze, his arms folded over his narrow ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... and application that Mrs. Garfunkel deemed her a treasure and left to her discretion almost every domestic detail. Thus Anna always rose at six and immediately awakened Mr. Garfunkel, for M. Garfunkel's breakfast was an immovable feast, scheduled ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... like the strings of a musical instrument, stretched to proper tension, according with their intended notes. The king should do good to all persons without transgressing the dictates of righteousness. That king stands immovable as a hill whom everybody regards—'He is mine.' Having set himself to the task of adjudicating between litigants, the king, without making any difference between persons that are liked and those that are disliked by ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... heard. In passing by me, the noise was more of a crackling and humming nature, while a million faint sparks flashed from the stones (porphyry and rhyolite) as the wave passed over. But the effect on me became constant. Every muscle was almost immovable. I could climb only a few steps without weakening to the stopping-point. I breathed only by gasps, and my heart became violent and feeble by turns. I felt as if cinched in a steel corset. After I had spent ten long minutes and was only half-way up a slope, the entire length ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness, that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it, accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity, watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety, discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned, and indignantly ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... white brow the heavy drops of perspiration which had gathered thickly upon it, Mr. Hastings attempted to leave the place, but the same hand which twice before had sealed his lips, was interposed to keep him there, and he stood silent and immovable, while his surprise and indignation ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... from the time that her keel is laid until she is making her way across the ocean is a slow and gradual process; yet there is a cataclysmic epoch opening up a new era in her history. It is the moment when, after lying for months or years a dead, inert, immovable mass, she is suddenly endowed with the power of motion, and, as if imbued with life, glides into the stream, eager to begin the career for which ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... Fairfax proved immovable. "Every man," said he, "must stand or fall by his own conscience"; and as he offered to lay down his command, there was nothing for it but to accept the resignation and appoint his successor. This was speedily done, and on the 28th of ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... their bustle contrasting strongly with the sudden rigidity of their ship. How had the Marie come to a stop in that spot? In the midst of that immensity of fluid in this dull weather, seeming to be almost without consistence, she had been seized by some resistless immovable power hidden beneath the waves; she was tight in its grasp, and might ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... Tsang sat immovable, lost in thought. Stray words and phrases helped, but it was by some subtle working of his own complex brain that he ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... only seen him once or twice before, and judged from remarks made to him by acquaintances of the family that Eddie did not often honor the parental roof with his presence. Eddie's irregular career appeared to be the one subject on which the family maintained an immovable and melancholy reserve. The disappointment in his only son was the bitter drop ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... observing the three boys as they glanced each down his paper would once more have been struck by the strange contrast in their faces. Oliver's, as his eyes glanced rapidly down the page, was composed and immovable; Wraysford's, as he looked first at his paper and then hurriedly at Oliver and Loman, was perplexed and troubled; Loman's was blank and pale ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... gentlest spirits when provoked (causelessly and cruelly provoked) are the most determined. The reason may be, that not taking up resolutions lightly—their very deliberation makes them the more immovable.—And then when a point is clear and self-evident, how can one with patience think of entering into an argument or contention ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... observed in the fastenings of an American country house; when he walked forth upon the lawn, like one who felt the necessity of breathing the open air He cast more than one inquiring glance at the windows of the room which was occupied by Oloff Van Staats, where all was happily silent; at the equally immovable brigantine in the Cove; and at the more distant and still motionless hull of the cruiser of the crown. All around him was in the quiet of midnight Even the boats, which he knew to be plying between the land and the little vessel at anchor, were invisible; and he re-entered his habitation, with ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... outdoor sports, but always strike camp and come home rather sooner than they intended. And there be some who plunge into an unbroken forest with a feeling of fresh, free, invigorating delight, as they might dash into a crisp ocean surf on a hot day. These know that nature is stern, hard, immovable and terrible in unrelenting cruelty. When wintry winds are out and the mercury far below zero, she will allow her most ardent lover to freeze on her snowy breast without waving a leaf in pity, or offering him a match; and scores of her devotees may starve to death ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... does that which his charge assigns him; for she had previously told her brother, that though she consented, at his importunity, to make part of the exhibition, it was as a piece of the scene, not as an actor, and accordingly a painted figure could scarce be more immovable. The expression of her countenance seemed to be that of deep sorrow and perplexity, belonging to her part, over which wandered at times an air of irony or ridicule, as if she were secretly scorning the whole exhibition, and even herself for condescending ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... of the inner room open, he remained immovable, with no intention of entering, and called in a harsh, aged voice: "Senor Ramon! Senor Ramon!" and then twice: "Sera-phina—Seraphina!" ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... peaceful appearance on so military an occasion. The cavalry and infantry had nearly concluded their evolutions when we arrived. The troops were spread out on a vast plateau. The view was magnificent. The coachman pointed to one immovable figure on horseback, and said, "Concha." We found it was indeed the Captain-General; for as the different bands passed, they all saluted him, and he returned their courtesy. Unluckily, his back was towards us, and so remained until he rode off in an opposite ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... who make and unmake ministers. A letter was shown to me from one of those personages who represent the stable and immovable thought of the State." ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... entertained that the Vice President's decision may yet yield to the wishes of many of his oldest friends. Those, however, who know him best have no such hopes. Judge Yates has said that he never refused an offer of any sort in his life."[201] And so it proved in this instance. Tompkins was immovable. Like a race horse trained to running, he only needed to be let into the ring and given a free rein. When the bell sounded he was off on his fifth race ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... assaulted this point with great fury, throwing his divisions, one after the other, against it. Their efforts were of no avail. Our men defended their ground against every attack. It was like the dash of the French at Waterloo against the immovable columns of the English. Stubborn resistance overcame the valor of the assailants. Again and again they came to the assault, only to fall back as they had advanced. Our left held its ground, ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... a moment. And Flush came and I assure you that nearly as much attention has been paid to Flush as to me from the beginning, so that he is perfectly reconciled, and would be happy if the people at the railroads were not barbarians, and immovable in their evil designs of shutting him up in a box when we ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... can not imagine the personal Creator without caprice and arbitrariness; again and again he advocates monism with great warmth, and also identifies, in express words, God and the universe, God and nature. {193} "Corresponding to our progressive perception of nature and our immovable conviction of the truth of the evolution theory, our religion can be only a religion of nature." "In rejecting the dualistic conception of nature and the herewith connected amphitheistic conception of God, ... we certainly lose the hypothesis of a personal Creator; but ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... of Guynemer as "the most sublime military figure I have ever been permitted to behold, one of the finest and most generous souls I have ever known." Guynemer was not satisfied to be merely calm and systematically immovable, and to display sang-froid, though to an extraordinary degree. He amused himself by counting the holes in his wings, and pointing them out to the observer. He was furious when the explosions occurred outside his range of vision, because he was not resigned to missing anything. ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... of the four vanes he found a small blade, showing by its connection that it possessed range of action, yet immovable as the vane itself, as though held firmly by inner leverage. Those on the horizontal vanes were tilted upward. Just abaft the T-shaped projection—which, fastened firmly to the hull, told him nothing of its purpose—were numerous ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... an immovable attention, the grey eyebrows twitching now and then, the arid face betraying a grim enjoyment. When Philip had finished, he still sat looking at him with steady slow- blinking eyes, as though unwilling ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... pelisse, almost staggered back as the child spoke. He had, as Julian said, been regarding the droski and its load with an air of supreme contempt, and had been about to demand angrily why it ventured to drive up into the courtyard of the palace. He stood immovable until Stephanie threw back her sheep-skin hood, then, with a loud cry, he sprang down the steps, dashed his fur cap to the ground, threw himself on his knees, and taking the child's hand in his, pressed it to his forehead. The tears streamed down ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... willing to humour him, the whole party stood immovable, like statues, and thus avoided attracting the attention of the monkeys, who continued their game. It seemed to be a sort of "follow my leader," for one big strong fellow led off with a bound from one branch to another which evidently tried the nerves of his more timid and ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... tall figure stood mute before him. The silence was dead as death—every breath was hushed—and the persons assembled stood immovable as statues! Still she spoke not; but the violent heaving of her breast evinced the internal working of some dreadful struggle. Her face before was pale—it was now ghastly; her lips became ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... Plotinus, is an immaterial substance like the [Greek: Nous],[457] is an image and product of the immovable [Greek: Nous]. It is related to the [Greek: Nous] as the latter is to the Original Essence. It stands between the [Greek: Nous] and the world of phenomena. The [Greek: Nous] penetrates and enlightens it, but it itself already touches the ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... point Ayesha was immovable. Instigated thereto by Leo, and I may add my own curiosity, when we were alone I questioned her again as to the reasons of this self-denying ordinance. All she would tell me, however, was that between them rose the barrier of Leo's mortality, ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... thought all was over with me. The leopard, as it sprang, threw its full weight on my comrade, here. We had just risen to our feet; and the blow struck me, also, to the ground. I raised that cry as I fell. I lay there, immovable. I felt the leopard's paw between my shoulders, and heard its angry growlings; and I held my breath, expecting every moment to feel its ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... Bartleby," said I, after waiting a considerable time for a reply, during which his countenance remained immovable, only there was the faintest conceivable tremor ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... Cyril's translation of the Scriptures and the liturgical books. The kindred language of these writings was intelligible to them; but was still distinct enough from the old Russian to permit them to exist side by side as two different languages; the one fixed and immovable, the voice of the Scriptures, the priests, and the laws; the other varying, advancing, extending, adapting itself to ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... cold and inattentive, because she does not know that it is necessary to give some sign that she is attending to what is addressed to her. She averts her eye from the speaker, and listens in such profound silence, and with a countenance so immovable, that no one could suppose her to be at all interested by what she is hearing. This is very discouraging to the speaker and very impolite. Good manners require that you should look at the person who speaks ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... represented, but sprawling should be avoided. It is not necessary to move the arm, but a slight leverage at the elbow is conducive to ease and is permissible, provided the hand delivers the letters steadily within an imaginary immovable ring of, say, ten inches ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various
... Kaoues commanded that they should take up the rock and put it before his throne. But when the strongest men in the army came to handle the rock, or sought to draw it with cords, they could do nothing; it remained immovable. Rustem, however, without any one to help him, lifted it from the earth, and carrying it into the camp, threw it down before the King's tent, and said, "Give up these cowardly tricks and the art of magic, else I will break this ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... Round the edge are the ever-restless waves; on the surface the foam blown by fitful gusts of wind, the translucent play of sunbeams, and the clamour of storms lashing up the billows; but down in the sombre depths broods the resistless, immovable force which tinges with its reflection the dancing and play above, and is the genius and fascination, the mystery and ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... ropes which held me so cruelly immovable, I would have leaped to my feet in astonishment; as it was, I involuntarily gave so violent a start as to cause myself considerable pain, and then asked, in ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... Joe, were the chances of all those white, fleshy faces staring there, immovable? The crowd in the back parlour—a single, silent, pasty-faced, fan-waving convention, over which the fat, pasty white hand of death was significantly hovering, and about which the odour of jasmine was ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... constantly present in her mind. She felt a sad, but immovable assurance, that she should not live long, and the thought, "what will become of my darling when I am gone; who will guard and love my child when I am in my grave; to whom is she to look for tenderness and protection then?" perpetually haunted her, ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... with large gold and onyx buttons, watching his valet screw the necks of three champagne bottles deeper into ice-pails. Between the points of his stand-up collar, which—though it hurt him to move—he would on no account have had altered, the pale flesh of his under chin remained immovable. His eyes roved from bottle to bottle. He was debating, and he argued like this: Jolyon drinks a glass, perhaps two, he's so careful of himself. James, he can't take his wine nowadays. Nicholas—Fanny and he would swill water he shouldn't wonder! Soames didn't count; these young nephews ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... made a resolution in his favour, which, as well as her attachment (unlike most others formed during the freshness of the heart), through time and circumstance, absence on his part, temptations on hers, continued stedfast and immovable to ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... silk skirts lashed about them. She rose superbly above the situation. For some abstruse reason Margaret's skirts were not affected by the wind. They might have been weighted with buckram, although it was no longer in general use. She stood, except for her veering bonnet, as stiffly immovable as ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... contempt for his blindness and his lack of the sense of scent. Had I not again and again, when in the town, dodged round the corner of a building, and waited while he passed a few yards away, or stood immovable in the dark shadow of a building, and looked straight at him while he went by utterly unconscious that I was near? Nothing could live in the forest for a week with no more eyesight, scent, or hearing ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... his elderly companion on the other, seemed alike unconscious of the many curious glances cast in his direction and of the dark looks of Ralph Mainwaring now fastened on him. At a little distance was the old servant, his immovable features expressing the utmost indifference to his surroundings, looking neither to the right ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... new household goods, and the linens, and the wine-coloured silk and its less magnificent satellites, that it was almost a fortnight before she realized fully that this solid young man, Hermie Slocum, was not only solid but immovable; not merely thrifty, but stingy; not alone taciturn but quite conversationless. His silences had not proceeded from the unplumbed depths of his knowledge. He merely had nothing to say. She learned, too, that the ten thousand dollars, soon dispelled, ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... Mayor moved restlessly in his chair. In vain he turned his cold and repelling look toward the immovable chief. You might have seen a covert smile now and then gleam in the eyes of that obstinate functionary, but otherwise he seemed profoundly unconscious that his presence was in the least disagreeable. The Mayor did not venture upon the ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... her mother found her in a stupor, immovable, with her eyes closed. In 24 hours she woke up, began to sing "Rest for the Weary," prayed, then was stuporous again for six hours. When she came out of this, she said she was "going to die," God had told her so and talked of her own funeral arrangements. She again went into ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... different affections. Thus, the severity of justice would not affect us in the same way as an act of mercy. The adventitious qualities of wisdom and power may be considered in themselves; and even the strength of mind which this immovable goodness supposes may likewise be viewed as an object of contemplation distinct from the goodness itself. Superior excellence of any kind, as well as superior wisdom and power, is the object of awe and reverence to all creatures, whatever their moral character be; but so far as creatures ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... not yielded? Old Tappelmine gives up his whiskey for the sake of money and employment, which inducements are strongly backed by his neutral-colored wife; but how if he had been brutally selfish and immovable? In both these cases, and in all the others, failure was at least quite as likely as success. People in real life cannot be managed as they can upon paper. Still the book contains a truth, and is likely ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... Diana knelt still immovable. In her face was that agonized shock and recoil with which the young and pure, the tenderly cherished and guarded, receive the first withdrawal of the veil which hides from them the more brutal facts of life. But, as she knelt there, gazing at Fanny, another ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 'Evolution, Old and New,' three years ago, I thought, as now, that the only possible Church must be a development of the Church of Rome; and seeing no chance of agreement between avowed free-thinkers, like myself, and Rome (for I believed Rome immovable), I leaned towards absolute negation as the best chance for unity among civilized nations; but even then, I expressed myself as "having a strong feeling as though Professor Mivart's conclusion is true, that 'the material universe is always ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... pulled the coarse dress closer about his chin. A violent wish born of the love she had for him came into her heart. Oh, that she had one bit of lace, to make his skin look less blue and the mouth less drawn! The wide eyes were still fixed upon her, immovable and unblinking. Once only had she seen the lids fall slowly downward, to rise ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... Osiris the lifegiver; whom here the poet has set forth as the defender of the mystic city, the defender of harmony, and order, and beauty throughout the universe? Apart sits his great father—Priam, the first of existences, father of many sons, the Absolute Reason; unseen, tremendous, immovable, in distant glory; yet himself amenable to that abysmal unity which Homer calls Fate, the source of all which is, yet in Itself Nothing, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... of trade, the successful artist is free to enter. You have stamped me plebeian—you would not share my slow progress toward a higher sphere, and you have disqualified me for attaining it alone. In your mercenary and immovable will, and in that only, lies the secret of our ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... upon the tail of the reptile, who remained immovable; then he made a cord of a vine that was growing near, with a running knot at the end, and slipping this round the boa's neck, and drawing it with all his might, he ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... ornamental, and with vigorous lungs. He has taken his office in the right place, in the attic of the palace, at the top of long, narrow and steep stairs, so that the line of women stretching up between the two walls, piled one above the other, necessarily becomes immovable. With the exception of the two or three at the front, no one has her hands free to grab the haranguer by the throat and close the oratorical stop-cock. He can spout his tirades accordingly with impunity, and for an indefinite time. On one occasion, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... and, half-burned, from the funeral pile mock the authors of their sufferings; when, with indomitable strength of courage and joyful countenance, they endure the lacerating of their bodies by means of heated pincers; when, in short, like an immovable rock, they receive and break all the billows of the most bitter sufferings at the hands of the executioner, and, like those who have eaten the Sardinian herb, die laughing? The lamentable sight of such incredible ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... the factions proceeds with activity, the cabinet and the majority in both Houses of Congress. The President remains immovable in his determination not to yield to the demand for new men in the government, and the country seems to have lost confidence in the old. God help us, or we are lost! The feeble health of the President is supposed to have enfeebled his intellect, and if this ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... mankind, to adopt such an hypothesis. Even the Stagirite proclaimed that "every thing which is moved must be referable to a motor, and that there would be no end to p 147 the concatenation of causes if there were not one primordial immovable morot."* ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... minutes, the chipmunk-caller was besieged with them. Some ran all over his person, others under him and still others ran up the tree against which he was sitting. Each boy remained immovable until their leader gave the signal; then a great shout arose, and the chipmunks in their flight all ran ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... of the size and colour of life, a certain character of reality, which at first sight cannot do less than make a profound impression on the mind, leaving it for a time in a state of some perplexity between truth and fiction. That immovable attitude, those fixed eyes, those features which never alter the expression of the grief or the joy impressed upon them by the hand of the artist, have in themselves something of the awful and mysterious, which powerfully affects us, despite our reason and experience. ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... motionless, and sharply drawn, and rigid, even to the straight stern and lifted foot, as a block wrought to mimic life by some skilful sculptor's chisel; and, scarce ten yards behind, his liver-colored comrade backs him—as firm, as stationary, as immovable, but in his attitude, how different! Chase feels the hot scent steaming up under his very nostril; feels it in every nerve, and quivers with anxiety to dash on his prey, even while perfectly restrained ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... Rothhals bellowed, 'Time's up!' He was answered by a chorus of agreement from the troop. They had hitherto patiently acted their parts as spectators, immovable on their horses. The assault on the Thier was all in the play, and a visible interference of fortune in favour of Henker Rothhals. Now general commotion shuttled them, and the stranger's keen hazel eyes read their intentions ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... drawbridge, for when a part of the gathering had left to follow the king, they had taken advantage of it to press forward towards the gates, and in a few minutes were inside the Tower. All was in confusion. The men-at-arms and archers remained immovable on the walls, while a crowd of well-nigh twenty thousand men poured into the Tower with shouts of "Death to the archbishop! Death to the treasurer!" Knowing their way better than others, Edgar and Albert ran at full speed towards the royal apartments. Finding themselves ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... learning and noble chivalry of the Irish from the earliest periods; while the various educational institutions throughout the continent, founded shortly after the introduction of Christianity into Ireland, establish, upon a basis the most immovable, the truth of an assertion made by one of the authors just mentioned, namely, that "most of the lights that illumined those times of thick darkness proceeded out of Ireland". As may be presumed, then, a people so refined and chivalrous—so sensitive to all that was noble and ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... easily navigable, was not free from ice; ice-fields lay as far as the utmost limits of the horizon; a few icebergs appeared here and there, but they were immovable, as if anchored in the midst of the frozen fields. The Forward, with all steam on, followed the wide passes where it was easy to work her. The wind changed frequently from one point of the compass to another. The variability of the wind in the Arctic Seas is a remarkable fact; ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... not see. That finger at Piero's lips was enough to seal her own. But it was not enough to check the sob in her throat. She gazed at him intently, her lips pressed tightly together, while great, silent tears rolled down her face. Immovable, his arms hanging close to his sides, Benedetto slightly bent his head and closed his eyes, absorbed in prayer. The great, black, imperious word, big with shadows and with death, triumphed over these two human souls, while from the shining balcony the fierce souls of the Anio and of the ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... their travel across the heavens. A star appearing in the horizon can thus be observed from its rising to its setting. The astronomer, his eye at the ocular, is always conveniently seated at the same place, observing the distant worlds, rendered immovable, so to speak, in the field of the instrument. For stars which, like the moon and the planets, have a course different from the diurnal motion, it is possible to modify the running of the clockwork, so ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... between the two men slowly lessened. The Mexican stood, immovable, waiting. When scarce five yards separated them a little shower of loosened gravel rattled down from above to the ranger's feet. He glanced upward with instinctive caution. A pair of dark eyes, brilliantly soft, and ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... We have, perchance, observed a star in the distant firmament. We have admired it. It is so far off. What can there be to make us shudder in a fixed star? Well, one day—one night, rather—it moves. We perceive a trembling gleam around it. The star which we imagined to be immovable is in motion. It is no longer a star, but a comet—the incendiary giant of the skies. The luminary moves on, grows bigger, shakes off a shower of sparks and fire, and becomes enormous. It advances towards us. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... was the change in Zora, as she began to earn bits of pin money in the office and to learn to sew. Dresses hung straighter; belts served a better purpose; stockings were smoother; underwear was daintier. Then her hair—that great dark mass of immovable infinitely curled hair—began to be subdued and twisted and combed until, with steady pains and study, it lay in thick twisted braids about her velvet forehead, like some shadowed halo. All this ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... frowning line of black basaltic cliffs Baffles the savage onset of the surf. But, rolled in cloud and foam, old Skidloe lifts His dark, defiant head forever mid The shock and thunder of contending tides, And fixed, immovable as fate, hurls back The rude, eternal ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... reply—she merely beamed and shook her head. Eloquence and persuasion were wasted. He and Sophy might just as well have appealed to the alabaster Buddha in the drawing-room. Flora Krauss never argued—possibly this was one phase of her indolent nature. She merely assumed an immovable, negative attitude and met every suggestion with a smile and a shake ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... prayers were ended, both involuntarily advanced to the window, where, with his handsome, manly face turned fully to the light, Arthur stood immovable, nor flinched a hair, as Edith would ere long when passing the same ordeal. He did not ask what Richard thought of him, neither did ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... physical character. It speaks of a process of formation out of chaos which occupied six days; it speaks of the firmament; of the sun and moon being created for the sake of the earth; of the earth being immovable; of a great deluge; and of several other similar facts and events. It is true; nor is there any reason why we should anticipate any difficulty in accepting these statements as they stand, whenever their ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... movement within; and Clo wondered if, after all, the thing that had jumped under the lid had been created by her own jumping nerves. Suddenly the impulse came upon her to try and open it. She seized the corner of the rounded lid, but it remained immovable. She picked at the metal hasp which covered the cheap lock. It did not yield, but her fingers—or she fancied it—touched moisture. The girl shrank back and looked at her hand. Thumb and forefinger were smeared ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... and the most important of these is the nose; its cavity is entirely enclosed in bone and cartilage, consequently it is immovable; this cavity may or may not be closed to the sonorous waves by the elevation of the soft palate. When the mouth is closed, as in the production of the consonant m, e.g. in singing me, a nasal quality is imparted to the voice, and if a mirror ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... Remembering what that meant, Auntie jumped on to a chair, and sat down. She looked at her master. His eyes looked at her gravely and kindly as always, but his face, especially his mouth and teeth, were made grotesque by a broad immovable grin. He laughed, skipped about, twitched his shoulders, and made a show of being very merry in the presence of the thousands of faces. Auntie believed in his merriment, all at once felt all over her that those thousands ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... heard of his conduct, and looking on his freedom as pride, ordered him to be put to the torture as an audacious calumniator; and when Eusebius had been tortured so severely that he had no longer any limbs left for torments, imploring heaven for justice, and still smiling disdainfully, he remained immovable, with a firm heart, not permitting his tongue to accuse himself or any one else. And so at length, without having either made any confession, or being convicted of anything, he was condemned to death with the spiritless partner of his sufferings. He was then ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus |
