"Imaginable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rowed into a little sandy cove, where we fastened the boat and proceeded to ascend the hill to endeavour to discover the ship's whereabouts. About half-way we came upon a neat shepherd's cottage in one of the most picturesque localities imaginable, and commanding a magnificent view of the bay and harbour. On calling we found the cottage occupied by the shepherd's wife, a pleasant buxom Scots-woman, who immediately proffered us food, an offer too tempting to be declined, and we presently sat down to our first Colonial meal of excellent ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... unto my feet, and a light unto my path." Each one had this lamp according to their understanding and use of the Word. All denominations of Christians claim the Word as their lamp or guide through the darkness of this world. But lamps differ greatly in almost every imaginable way,—in form, size, material and illuminating capacity. Much also depends upon the sight. If the sight be diseased, not good, the same lamp that shines brightly to one may be darkness to another. "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light; but if thine eye be evil, ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... arithmetic would not amount unto the least shadow of the continuance of him who is "from everlasting." All that huge product of all the multiplications of men and angels, hath no proportion unto that never-beginning and never-ending duration. The greatest sum that is imaginable hath a certain proportion to the least number, that it containeth it so oft and no oftener; so that the least number being multiplied will amount unto the greatest that you can conceive. But O! where shall ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... at the table, among them the assistant of Kanine, a tall blonde man with a white face, who talked like a Gatling gun about everything imaginable. He was half crazy and his semi-madness expressed itself when any loud talking, shouting or sudden sharp report led him to repeat the words of the one to whom he was talking at the time or to relate in a mechanical, hurried manner stories ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... Enver, who is still young, impressed me as a very agreeable, energetic, man. Then I went through the Bazar, with an interpreter. This is a network of streets, alleys and loopholes, in which everything imaginable is sold. Then went to the Agia Sofia, the largest mosque, and to the Sultan Ahmed, which has been changed to ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... of the faith, infused of God once for all,—a faith living and strong,—always labours, seeking for further light on this side and on that, to mould itself on the teaching of the Church, as one already deeply grounded in the truth. No imaginable revelations, not even if it saw the heavens open, could make that soul swerve in any degree from the doctrine of the Church. If, however, it should at any time find itself wavering even in thought on this point, or stopping to say to itself, If God says ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... Pretender's son had not thought fit to come into any of His Majesty's territories, since I believed the visit would be far from being agreeable. To which the King of Poland replied that IT WOULD BE A VERY DISAGREEABLE VISIT TO HIM, and after that expressed himself in the handsomest manner imaginable with respect to His Majesty, and the regard he had for his Sacred person and Royal House; and I am convinced if the Pretender's son had gone into Poland, His Polish Majesty and his minister would have done everything in their power to have drove him out of that kingdom ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... Permit me," remarked the professor, in the easiest and most matter-of-fact tone imaginable. And, so saying, he took the pistol from Vasilovich's ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... this striking difference, that there was no absurd deference to any existing code of etiquette in the conduct of the party generally, each person quizzing his neighbour in the most free and easy style imaginable, and all, evidently from long habit and conventional usage, seeming to enjoy the practice exceedingly. Thus, droll allusions, good stories, and smart repartees, fell thick as hail, and twice as harmless, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... did every imaginable thing to make matters worse in the house, by way of proving his contrition. He besought Wake not to let the story go about, greatly to the amusement of that young humourist, who had already heard it from half a dozen sources since the beginning of the term. He threatened Dimsdale with all sorts ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... very long journey, in which my little Norman had performed to admiration, I reached Amiens about eight o'clock, on the sweetest summer evening imaginable. The aspect of Amiens, as it is approached by the road, resembles Canterbury—the cathedral rising above the town—the town, as it were, gathering around it as its parent and protector. My companion would ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... 19.—The hut is becoming the most comfortable dwelling-place imaginable. We have made unto ourselves a truly seductive home, within the walls of which peace, quiet, and ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... God, and Christ, and saints, and angels, being the sweetest; the pleasures of heaven the most comfortable, and to live always in the greatest height of light, life, joy, and gladness imaginable, one would think were enough to persuade the very ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... fond I was of my wife till I left her." He paused, and put his hand to his fevered head. Was his mind wandering into some other train of thought? He astonished his brother by a new entreaty—the last imaginable entreaty that Randal expected to hear. "Dear old fellow, I want you to do me a favor. Tell me where ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... be considered, that in human affairs, the very best imaginable result is seldom to be obtained, and that it is wise to content ourselves with the best which can be got. This principle speaks with a voice of thunder against violent innovation, for the sake of possible improvement, where things ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... the young man, with a faint smile, "my narrative is of the most commonplace character imaginable, save only for the final chapter. But ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... much if captain Erskine himself ever fared better; although I was the only author in the company, which I own surprised me not a little. Donaldson is undoubtedly a gentleman perfectly skilled in the art of insinuation. His dinners are the most eloquent addresses imaginable. For my own part, I am never a sharer in one of his copious repasts, but I feel my heart warm to the landlord, and spontaneously conceive this expressive soliloquy,—Upon my word I must ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... arm she held, felt her shiver at this gallantry, which for her, with her natural haughty disposition, must have been the worst humiliation imaginable; but the movement was restrained, and her face gave no sign. She now came to the porch of the Conciergerie, between the court and the first door, and there she was made to sit down, so as to be put into the right condition for ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... genuine a sense of human dignity, there should be so much of an impossible petty tyranny. I am not referring solely or even specially to Prohibition, which I discuss elsewhere. Prohibition is at least a superstition, and therefore next door to a religion; it has some imaginable connection with moral questions, as have slavery or human sacrifice. But those who ask us to model ourselves on the States which punish the sin of drink forget that there are States which punish the equally shameless sin of smoking a cigarette in the open air. The same American atmosphere ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... We have known many people who had a fine perception in many things: an eye for a fine house, pleasant grounds, beautiful trees, and all the surroundings which such a place might command; and when these were complete, would place about it the veriest brutes, in the way of domestic animals, imaginable. The resident of the city, who lives at his country-house in summer, and selects a picture of mean or inferior quality, to hang up in his house by way of ornament, would be laughed at by his friends; yet he may drive into his ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... and let them share in the warmth of his heart. His prefaces are delightfully autobiographical, and are valuable in proportion to the glimpses they give of one of the most amiable and most widely sympathetic natures imaginable. ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... estaminet, of stucco evidently brand new, and bearing a gilt lion over its door. Here a wide and rather well paved street led towards the town, bordered upon either hand by well kept and clean but blank looking houses, with the very narrowest sidewalks imaginable, all of which somehow reminded us of some of the smaller streets of Philadelphia. The windows of these houses flush with the street were closely hung with lace, and invariably in each one was either a vase or a pot of some ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... bowl imaginable, adorned with flights of storks, is the most wildly impossible soup made of seaweed. After which there are little fish dried in sugar, crabs in sugar, beans in sugar, and fruits in vinegar and pepper. All this is atrocious, but above all unexpected and unimaginable. ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... by. He cast a severe and scrutinising look upon me. My face presented the wildest aspect imaginable: I blushed and turned pale alternately; dazzling lights flashed before my eyes. A companion took pity on me. He seized my arm and led me out. I could not possibly have found my way back to the seminary unassisted. ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... to the theatre, which has the most inconvenient form imaginable, being a rectangle. As anti-Gallicanism is the order of the day, only German dramas are allowed to be performed and this night it was the tragedy of Faust, or Dr Faustus as we term him in England, not the Faust of Goethe, which is not meant for nor at all adapted to the stage, but a drama ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... see the sports of the inhabitants. A great crowd surrounded a dancing party; the dances, however, consisted more in wanton gestures, than in muscular exertion or graceful attitudes. The women vied with each other in displaying the most voluptuous movements imaginable. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... to love her child because it is her husband's more than because it is her own, and because it is God's more than either's. I saw in the papers the other day, that a woman was brought before the Recorder of London for stealing a baby, when the judge himself said that there was no imaginable motive for her action but a motherly passion to possess the child. It is the need of a child that makes so many women take to poor miserable, broken-nosed lap-dogs; for they are self-indulgent, and ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... most fascinating creature: a real goddess in my eyes, as long as she took no notice of me. I 'never told my love' vocally; still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might have guessed I was over head and ears: she understood me at last, and looked a return—the sweetest of all imaginable looks. And what did I do? I confess it with shame—shrunk icily into myself, like a snail; at every glance retired colder and farther; till finally the poor innocent was led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... and caprices. About this time he became the lover of a widow who had two daughters. The widow dying, Roderigo took the girls under his protection, put one into a convent, and as the other was one of the loveliest women imaginable, made her his mistress. This was the notorious Rosa Vanozza, by whom he had five children—Francesco, Caesar, Lucrezia, and Goffredo; the name of the fifth ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... southward and, this being the direction of our intended journey, I perceived that we could more conveniently in less time pursue its course by land. The country on its banks was, as far as I could see, the finest imaginable, either for sheep and cattle or for cultivation. A little rill then ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... mountain, wheat, apples, melons, berries, all the best production of farm and garden growing and ripening there at the foot of the great white cone, which seems at times during changing storms ready to fall upon them—the most sublime farm scenery imaginable. ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... arose some Bubbles by reason of its viscousness, and it chanc'd that in the midst of it there was a viscous Substance with a very little bubble in it, which was divided into two with a thin partition, full of Spirituous and Aerial Substance, and of the most exact Temperature imaginable. That the Matter being thus dispos'd, there was, by the Command of God, a Spirit infus'd into it; which was join'd so closely to it, that it can scarce be separated from it even so much as in thought; which did as constantly influence ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... young person of leisure were so much at a loss as to ask advice as to what he should read, mine should be exceedingly simple—Read anything bearing on a definite object. Let him take up any imaginable subject to which he feels attracted, be it the precession of the equinoxes or postage stamps, the Athenian drama or London street cries; let him follow it from book to book, and unconsciously his knowledge, ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... Among these was a young lady, apparently about nineteen, in a tight-fitting basque of black velvet, which showed her elegant figure to fine advantage, a skirt of garnet silk, looped up over a pretty Balmoral, and the daintiest imaginable pair of kid walking-boots. Her height was a trifle over the medium; her eyes a soft, expressive brown, shaded by masses of hair which exactly matched their color, and, at that rat-and-miceless day ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... fritters of almost everything imaginable," continued the Professor's wife. "One day in early Spring I saw a German neighbor gathering elderberry blossoms, of which she said she intended making fritters. I asked her how they were made, being curious, ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... set, say, a locomotive on the stage; but why should we pay two dollars to see a locomotive in the theatre when we may see a dozen locomotives in the Grand Central Station without paying anything? Why, indeed!—unless the dramatist contrives to reveal an imaginable human mystery throbbing in the palpitant heart—no, not of the locomotive, but of the locomotive-engineer. That is something that we could not see at all in the Grand Central Station, unless we were endowed with eyes as penetrant as those ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... petticoated professors of "the science of things in general." The intellectual cultivation among the middle and higher class of society in Prussia, the patronage bestowed by the court upon learning, the arts, and sciences; the encouragement to discuss freely every imaginable theme in politics or religion, with the single exception of the measures of the administration, all tended to create a taste for mental display in which it was necessary that women should participate, if they wished to retain their old position in the social world. In the salons of Berlin, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... widest sense, signifies not of use for any valuable purpose, and is thus closely similar to valueless and worthless. Fruitless is more final than ineffectual, as applying to the sum or harvest of endeavor. That which is useless lacks actual fitness for a purpose; that which is vain lacks imaginable fitness. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... would be surprised and pleased. His development has been wonderfully logical, and he now affords the spectacle, so intensely interesting to the observant eye, of a person whose every capacity, under the influence of the most favorable combination of circumstances imaginable, has attained to the utmost limit of growth which is possible to it. Paul has become the ideal type of our North German landed proprietor. He is ultra conservative, and considers the Socialist Act too mild. He loathes parliamentarianism, but ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... Himself would have laid out all our journeyings for us, and we should have gone placidly along in well-ordered paths. As it is, we are already pledged to do the most absurd and unusual things, and Ireland bids fair to be seen in the most topsy-turvy, helter-skelter fashion imaginable. ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... lip, speaking of nervous susceptibility and haste of mood. The hateful fashion of that day which pervaded all ranks, from the highest to the lowest, was the prodigal use of paints and cosmetics, and all imaginable artificial adjuncts of a spurious beauty. This extended often even to the men, and the sturdiest warrior deemed it no shame to recur to such arts of the toilet as the vainest wanton in our day would never venture ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with the most insolent smile imaginable. Perhaps at the moment the scoundrel had an idea of stopping any struggle between Benito and him, and he could have done so. In fact he had seen that Joam Dacosta had said nothing about the document which formed the material ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... all the evening, the thing bothered him. In every way imaginable he tried to account for that other man in Young's house. He canvassed the neighborhood. A chance visitor wouldn't be upstairs, and anyhow he'd have looked out to see the row with Young. But this man kept away from the window. ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... with the most touchingly sentimental air imaginable; "yes, for when you are no more I must renew my quest, seek, ask, and find a fifth husband. Think, then, of the difficulties and obstacles to overcome. Perhaps I shall not succeed. Think, then, a widow for the fourth time. You forget that; it is a fact, however; my friend, ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... diabolical cleverness in concocting toddies. So I brought whisky along—a couple of gallons. Alas! Many another gallon I bought, for Cloudesley and I got into the habit of drinking a certain hot toddy that actually tasted delicious going down and that carried the most exhilarating kick imaginable. ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... the pleasantest thing imaginable, though I was still dazed and my tongue seemed to have died in my mouth. This girl, this wholly charming and delightful young woman, was the monstrous being I had conjectured as the globe-trotting widow who had kidnapped and married my uncle! Not only had she married my uncle Bash and in ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... almost cellars. The edifice is called to this day, "Princeps Konak." This mixture of the coarse, but picturesque features of oriental life, with the dilapidated stateliness of palaces in the style of the full-bottom-wigged Vanbrughs of Austria, has the oddest effect imaginable. ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... state of things in the country, and nothing could be more preposterous than to judge of the rural population by Kingston. The Kingstonians themselves are laughably ignorant of the country parts. One of them assured a clergyman of my acquaintance, with all the gravity imaginable, that the country negroes lived principally upon fruits! No doubt he has had the chance of telling some American touching at the port the same story, who has been able to attest it at home on the authority of a 'Jamaica gentleman of great intelligence.' The Kingston people ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... The boys had crept into the pen in the night, with a lantern, and some pots of paint taken from Mr. Rabow's shop, and painted the whole drove in every color imaginable. One, he said, looked like the American flag. Another had four legs of different hues; a third was striped yellow and green, and so it went. Imagine the old man's amazement as he saw them kicking up their ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... not be thought, however, that the symptoms of functional and organic troubles are identical. Hysteria and neurasthenia closely simulate every imaginable physical disease, but they do not exactly parallel any one of them. It may take a skilled eye to discover the differences, but differences there are. Functional troubles usually show a near-picture of organic ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... and purposeless murder imaginable. Even as I write down its well-remembered particulars there comes again the sense of its strangeness, its pointlessness, its incompatibility with any of the neat and definite theories people hold about life and ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... described the glens and ravines of Scotland, that it seems vain and presumptuous to meddle with them; and yet we must ask our readers to figure to themselves a sharp cleft sloping downwards to a brawling mountain stream, the sides scattered with gray rocks of every imaginable size, interspersed here and there with heather, gorse, or furze. Just in the widest part of the valley, a sort of platform of rock jutted out from the hill-side, and afforded a station for one of those tall, ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Jennings's. She amused herself going about with them and with the "musical" men they attracted—amateur and semi-professional singers and players upon instruments. She drew Mrs. Brindley into their society. They had little parties at the flat in Fifty-ninth Street—the most delightful little parties imaginable—dinners and suppers, music, clever conversations, flirtations of a harmless but fascinating kind. If anyone had accused Mildred of neglecting her work, of forgetting her career, she would have grown indignant, and if Mrs. Brindley had overheard, ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... way imaginable, my dear Edmond. He called to pay his respects to the Admiral; being on duty at the time, I heard his name, and made myself known as your friend. He was eager to hear news of you, and carried me off. I met your sister, and you will not be surprised that within twenty-four ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... and other adventurers operated throughout Europe, and were found at every country fair and fete displaying the wonders of the invisible agent by giving shocks and professing to cure all imaginable ailments. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... about a year after their birth, when Rosanne fell ill of a wasting sickness as inexplicable as it was deadly. Without rhyme or reason that doctors or mother could lay finger on, the little mite just grew thinner and more peevish day by day, and visibly faded under their eyes. Every imaginable thing was tried without result, and, at last, the doctors grown glum and the mother despairing were obliged to admit themselves beaten by the ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... excuse imaginable but the direct answer until finally one man I was trying to make a trade with admitted that "De cabin war ter clos ter de barn Mr. —— killed himself in." Finally I prevailed on this man to move in by giving him a different garden spot, hog-pen and cowpen as these were still ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... a very pretty one, although it was quite rude and very simple. It was built of logs and had a thatched roof, which projected far out over the walls. But it was all overrun with the loveliest flowering vines imaginable, and, inside, nothing could have been more exquisitely neat and homelike; although there was only one room and a little garret over it. All around the house were the flower-beds and the vine-trellises and the blooming shrubs, and they ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... master of ceremonies, and that the guests under his guidance became known to each other, danced, rode, and married to their own and doubtless to his satisfaction. The further west one goes the more pronounced this mania becomes. Everybody is introduced to everybody on all imaginable occasions. If a man asks you to take a drink, he presents you to the bar-tender. If he takes you for a drive, the cab-driver is introduced. "Boots" makes you acquainted with the chambermaid, and the hotel proprietor ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... observer; the batteries were all masked, but the gunpowder was there. I felt confident that George would carry everything before him, and he did. He brought Miss Van over to spend the evening, and we had the pleasantest time imaginable. He would not allow his mother to say a word against Miss Van, and made a fair show of proving that the latter had, not only better blood, but also better breeding and a truer sense of propriety than my ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... as unlike one another as the various shapes and hues of coarse broadcloth, woollen jeans, cottonades, coloured blankets, and buckskin, can make them. They wear caps of 'coon-skin, and cat's-skin, and squirrel; hats of beaver, and felt, and glaze, of wool and palmetto, of every imaginable shape and slouch. Even of the modern monster—the silken "tile"—samples might be seen, badly crushed. There are coats of broadcloth, few in number, and well worn; but many are the garments of "Kentucky jeans" of bluish-grey, of copper-coloured nigger cloth, ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... to her straight away, that's just it," said Florence. She turned back to drop her letter into the school letter-box, and then conducted the Major across the lawn and into the outer garden. In this garden every old-fashioned flower imaginable bloomed and thrived, and reared its graceful head. The Major walked down through great lines of tall hollyhocks and peonies of every color and description. Then he passed under a sweet-briar hedge and then along a further hedge of Scotch ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... he isn't a Sergeant!" It was Scotty, reinstated in our unit in his former capacity of cook, and he had brought with him his nerve, his twinkle, his bow legs and all. I must confess I was glad to see him, and when we had a few minutes together he told me, with all the gusto imaginable, of ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... the repairing sheds and workshops, established near by, and that is the most wonderful thing of the whole to my mind—never done before in connection with an army in the field. Trainsful of articles to be repaired come down from the front every day, and almost every imaginable article that the men at the front can use, from guns to boots, comes here to be repaired, or if found beyond repair, to be sent to Yorkshire for shoddy. The marvellous thing is that, as soon as ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... city the Avon passes between the rocks which are known as St. Vincent's on the one side, and Leigh Woods upon the opposite one. These rocks are amongst the sublimities of nature, and the Avon for about three miles presents the wildest and sweetest bit of scenery imaginable. These cliffs have been for ages the admiration of all beholders, and though thousands of tons are taken from the quarries every year, yet the inhabitants say that no great change takes place in their appearance. The Avon has a prodigious rise of tide at Bristol, and at low ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... presbyterian principles, and being designed either to make him comply in settling an episcopal incumbent in the parish of Dalry in Galloway (where, by the once established laws, he had some right in presenting) or, if he refused to concur with the bishop, which they had all reason imaginable to suspect he would, to bring him to further trouble. Accordingly they wrote him a letter in the following tenor:—"Finding the church of Dalry to be one of those that the bishop hath presented, an actual minister Mr. George Henry fit and ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... "Simplest thing imaginable. I'll climb down with a rope around me, so that in case I slip anywhere you can straighten me up. I promise you I ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... dark, and impossible to see the island, even the outside of the cottage; but when the door was open, it showed the prettiest picture imaginable: the entrance was brilliantly illuminated, and our two servants—a maid and a young lad ("Thursday" of the "Painter's Camp"), both healthy and cheerful-looking, were standing ready to relieve us of our wraps. The drawing-room had an inviting ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... Sir, he can hold out no longer; he says he feels the greatest pains imaginable in ...
— Monsieur de Pourceaugnac • Moliere
... old gentleman would allow; but as she folded the letter, she surreptitiously added the slightest imaginable postscript to explain the matter—such words as occurred to her at the spur of ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... greeted the close of that luculent and powerful exposition, the zeal with which the concourse hailed him unanimously Savior of Rome and Father of his country, the eagerness of affection with which all ranks and ages thronged around him, expressing their gratitude and their devotion, by all means imaginable, proved satisfactorily that, whatever might have been the result had massacre, plunder, and conflagration fallen upon them unawares, the vast mass of the people were now loyal, and true ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... think this is the queerest old town imaginable. Almost all the houses are "adobe" houses, that is, made of a kind of black mud, then whitewashed, and they have tiled roofs. And around the gardens are high adobe walls. Nearly all of these adobe houses are fifty years old, and some of them are said to have been built ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the most painfully intense pink was made with a full, plain skirt and an ill-fitting basque, which failed to accomplish a meeting with the skirt at the usual trysting-place. Over this she had a shawl of the most royal shade of purple imaginable, and instead of looking like a pretty, graceful Indian girl, she appeared ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole
... see a cactus burr? They are similar to those you find in the country, but larger, with pointed daggers sticking out in all directions, and they grow on a crooked, prickly stalk or spine in the most comical way imaginable. As they ambled along they discovered more and yet more of them. Mary, being an inquisitive child, jumped down from Bepo's back for a closer inspection of the strange things. Then she discovered a queer thing. ...
— Little Tales of The Desert • Ethel Twycross Foster
... get your feet wet!" That was all, when I was expecting every form of concern imaginable. For a moment I felt indignant at Mac's recklessness and lack of concern, and said severely, ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... beginning to be looked upon as marvels, and we have won for ourselves among the nations of the world the unenviable title of worshippers of the 'almighty dollar.' Religion itself is twisted and distorted into every imaginable shape to bring it into harmony with our all-absorbing pursuit: all our ideas of public policy and of social progress are made to depend upon and modified by this unworthy motive. We mean not to include those individuals who, with loftier motives and a true appreciation ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the one hand, and a not by any means ill-looking personation of one hanging on to his arm, on the other. After a minute, the detective withdrew his hand from his companion's arm, but continued to practise his assumed voice upon him, in every imaginable enquiry as to what he knew of Miss Du Plessis, of her friend Miss Carmichael, and of the working geologist's intentions. He was thus pretty well primed, and all promised well, till, within a quarter of a mile of the house, a vision appeared that filled ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... then sat down with the quickest motion imaginable, and then the policeman gave his evidence as to taking the man into custody; and produced the huge watch. Mr. Bumpkin was recalled and asked how long he had had it, and where he bought it; the only answers to which were that he had had ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... all about it," said Marjorie, in the most sympathetic tone imaginable. She thought of her own first days at the school, when Ruth, obviously so popular, had totally neglected her, and when her own room-mate, Lily Andrews, had seemed impossible. Remorseful, too, because of her own selfish happiness, ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... hated the aristocrats—when they were of the sex feminine. "An aristocrat in adversity is an eagle," she would say, "but an aristocrat in prosperity is a peacock." Which was the reason why she flouted glittering young nobles with all the insolence imaginable, but took the part of "Marquise," of "Bel-a-faire-peur," and of such wanderers like them, who had buried their sixteen quarterings under the black shield of the Battalion of Africa. With a word here and a touch there,—tender, soft, and bright,—since, however ironic her mood, ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... little California by turning all he touched into gold; his stock-in-trade consisting of geological specimens from the vicinity of the Falls—pebbles, plants, stuffed birds, beasts, and sticks cut from the timber that grows along the rocky banks, and twisted into every imaginable shape. The heads of these canes were dexterously carved to imitate snakes, snapping turtles, eagles' heads, and Indian faces. Here, the fantastic ends of the roots of shrubs from which they were made were cut into a grotesque triumvirate of legs and feet; here a black snake, spotted ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... finished. The beauty, and especially the execution of them, is, according to Winkelman, the surest sign by which to discriminate the antique from additions and restorations. The hair was curly, abundant, and disposed in floating locks, and executed with the utmost imaginable care; in females it was tied in a knot behind the head. The frontal hair was represented as growing in a curve over the temples in order to give the face an oval shape. The face was always oval, and a cross drawn in the oval indicated the design of the face. The perpendicular line marked the position ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... they ought to bear everything from you; but were it not for this consideration alone, I should think that your bastions would not be always strong enough to protect you." The Duke soon came to himself, and treated me with all the civilities imaginable, such as laid a foundation for our future friendship. I stayed two days longer at Sedan, during which the Count changed his mind five different times, as I was told by M. Saint-Ibal, who said little was to be expected from a man ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... (see ads) New Year's Eve diners for whom food was provided that night, the big, busy kitchen was the most orderly, shining, spotless place imaginable. But Miss Gussie Fink was the neatest, most immaculate object in all that great, clean room. There was that about her which suggested daisies in a field, if you know what I mean. This may have been due to the fact that ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... means of wig-wag, light, smoke, or whistle which is as simple as it is effective. The fundamental principle can be learnt in ten minutes and its application is far easier than that of any other code now in use. It permits also the use of cipher and can be adapted to almost any imaginable conditions of weather, light, ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... coffee-house, or any free-thinker whom they shall find publishing his deliriums, or any other person who shall give the like manifest signs of a crazed imagination. And I do at the same time give this public notice to all the madmen about this great city, that they may return to their senses with all imaginable expedition, lest, if they should come into my hands, I should put them into a regimen which they would not like; for if I find any one of them persist in his frantic behaviour I will make him in a month's time as famous as ever ...
— English Satires • Various
... was the roughest imaginable. Bunks of unplaned timber were strung up in tiers under the forecastle, and wherever space could be found for them in the dark and musty depths of the ship. A few second-class male passengers shared these delectable quarters with the sailors, and the Francis Cadman ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... conditions. What can be said in excuse for other moralists is equally available for them, namely, that if there is to be any error, it is better that it should be on that side. As a matter of fact, we may affirm that among utilitarians as among adherents of other systems, there is every imaginable degree of rigidity and of laxity in the application of their standard: some are even puritanically rigorous, while others are as indulgent as can possibly be desired by sinner or by sentimentalist. But on the whole, a doctrine which brings prominently ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill
... canvas, however beautifully painted, isn't comparable with the moving, living interpretation of beauty possible to a dancer. I remember, years ago—ten years, quite—seeing a kiddy dancing in a wood." Magda leaned forward. "It was the prettiest thing imaginable. She was all by herself, a little, thin, black-and-white wisp of a thing, with a small, tense face and eyes like black smudges. And she danced as though it were more natural to her than walking. I got her to pose for me at the foot of a tree. The picture of her was my first real success. So you ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... thoughtful, and look all the while as if he were saying his prayers." A French princess, desirous of seeing the great moralist NICOLLE, experienced an inconceivable disappointment when the moral instructor, entering with the most perplexing bow imaginable, silently sank into his chair. The interview promoted no conversation, and the retired student, whose elevated spirit might have endured martyrdom, shrunk with timidity in the unaccustomed honour ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... turning out, evidently thought that a rebellion had broken out or at least that a prisoner had escaped. Seizing their rifles they blazed away for dear life. They did not aim at anything in particular but shot haphazardly at the stars, haystacks, and trees in the most frantic manner imaginable and as rapidly as their magazine arms would let them. Undoubtedly the Germans were half-mad with fear. It rained bullets around the barracks and every man within crouched down on his bed, away from ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... her once: she was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and the most wicked-looking; which is saying a good deal for both statements. I remember, during a walking tour one year, coming across a lovely little cottage. It was the sweetest place imaginable. I need not describe it. It was the cottage one sees in pictures, and reads of in sentimental poetry. I was leaning over the neatly-cropped hedge, drinking in its beauty, when at one of the tiny casements I saw, looking out at me, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... approach it, and to think of an ascent. In a rugged little water-course in its bosom, we found water enough for our horses, the product of last night's rain. The view from the summit, made up for the deviation from my route. A group of the most picturesque hills imaginable lay to the northward, and were connected with this, the whole being branches from the Table Land of Hope. Some appeared of a deep blue colour, where their clothing was evergreen bush. Others were ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... nocturnal disturber of the peace of Brockhurst might be. But only vaguely as yet, since that which she had recently experienced was so great, so wide-reaching in its meaning and promise, that, for the moment, it dwarfed all other possible, all other imaginable, events. The gracious tranquillity which enveloped her could not be penetrated by any anxiety or premonition of momentous happenings as yet. It was not so, however, with Camp. For a spirit of extravagant and unreasoning excitement appeared ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... 'im I'd bring 'im the picnic," concluded Dumps; and Diddie, being the gentlest and kindest-hearted little girl imaginable, at once consented to that plan; and, leaving Tot with the little negroes in the woods, the two children took their baskets, and went higher up the ditch, on pretence of finding a good place to set the table; but, as soon as they were out of sight, they cut across the ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... elaborately illustrated small octavo volume, representing, after its manner, the poetical and artistic inspiration of the age. It is not a little wonderful to me, looking back to those pleasant years and their bestowings, to measure the difficultly imaginable distance between the periodical literature of that day and ours. In a few words, it may be summed by saying that the ancient Annual was written by meekly-minded persons, who felt that they knew nothing about anything, and did not want to know more. Faith in the usually accepted principles ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... exquisitely ludicrous to Erica herself than to her hearers. Still the wit of Charles Dickens, even when translated, called forth peals of laughter from the French girls, too. It was the brightest, happiest little group imaginable; perhaps it was scarcely wonderful that old Mme. Lemercier, when she came to break it up, should find her eyes dim ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... barkentine! Imagine taking leave of the people here—of Felipe! In what words should he tell the boy to go on industriously with his music? No, this was not imaginable! The mere parting alone would make it for ever impossible to think of such a thing. "And then," he said to himself each new morning, when he looked out at the ocean, "I have given to them my life. One does not ...
— Padre Ignacio - Or The Song of Temptation • Owen Wister
... a part of life that to discourage it is to discourage life itself - as if one would say: "Others have lived; all imaginable kinds of life have been lived. Therefore it is unnecessary for you ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... Mademoiselle. She had always professed a great aversion to love, regarding it as "unworthy of a well-ordered soul." She even went so far as to say that it was better to marry from reason or any other thing imaginable, dislike included, than from passion that was, in any case, short-lived. But this princess of intrepid spirit, versatile gifts, ideal fancies, and platonic theories, who had aimed at an emperor and missed a throne; this amazon, ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... concerned for whatever overtakes me. I have sifted the sands of France: now I sift those of England. Here I am held in the greatest kindness and honour imaginable by all whom I meet. Though I am useless as a child yet they are unwearied of me. The nurses in my Maharanee Baharanee's Hospital, which is by day a home and a house to me, minister to me as daughters to a father. They run after me and rebuke me if I do not wear a certain coat when it rains ...
— The Eyes of Asia • Rudyard Kipling
... kindness on him. Her daughters treated him as a brother, and her husband, a famous old warrior, gave a feast in his honor, presenting him to the company under the name of Orinha, which was that of his son who had been killed. He enjoyed the savage life for a time, having "all the pleasures imaginable," such as ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... by the little Hotel Monte Carlo, waiting for my mistress and her husband to be supplied with a guide. He was the most intelligent and efficient-seeming guide imaginable, who looked as if he had the whole history of Les Baux behind his bright dark eyes; and I hoped that the humble maid and chauffeur might be allowed to follow the "quality" within ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... dresses of white and red, the priests with their robes of flaming yellow—all these are diverting enough, but words cannot tell of the beauty of the country here. The roads are all of some strange red soil, and run for miles beneath the most beautiful trees imaginable—bamboos, palms, and others unknown to me, but covered with crimson and yellow blossom. Then the long stretches of rice fields, and again more avenues of palms, with here and there a lovely pool by the wayside—all this I cannot here describe. ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... kind, prudently introduced into society, so as gradually to mix with the habits and to be interfused with the opinions of the people, might subsist in other countries besides America. If the laws of the United States were the only imaginable democratic laws, or the most perfect which it is possible to conceive, I should admit that the success of those institutions affords no proof of the success of democratic institutions in general, in a country less favored by natural circumstances. But as the laws of America ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... veritably a mountain), a place beyond conception rugged and difficult. The horses strain and tug; they are at point of exhaustion. I look at Pasquale; Pasquale has served me since my cradle. Does his head move, a very little, the least imaginable motion? It is too dark to see; the moon is not yet risen. But I feel the horses checked, I feel the carriage pause, an instant, a breath only. I step noiselessly to the ground; the volante is low, permitting this without danger. Manuela ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... given all that he possessed (which was not much), he would have endured any imaginable suffering, he thought, to have his ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... mad-blazing with flame of all imaginable tints, from the red of Tophet to the stellar-bright, blazes off this Consummation ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... stagers grumbling away their existence in disappointed hopes; yet there can be little doubt that the navy, and, of course, the country at large, are essentially better served by the present system of employing active, young, and cheerful-minded officers, than they ever could be by any imaginable system by seniority. It must not be forgotten, indeed, that at a certain stage of the profession, the arrangement by which officers are promoted in turn is already made the rule, and has long been so: but, by a wise regulation, ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... fireworks delighted the Ladies of the Princess exceedingly; and, with their usual good logic, they deduced from his taste for illuminations, that the King of Bucharia would make the most exemplary husband imaginable. Nor, indeed, could LALLA ROOKH herself help feeling the kindness and splendor with which the young bridegroom welcomed her;—but she also felt how painful is the gratitude which kindness from those we cannot love excites; and that their best blandishments come over the heart with all ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... strolled to the window, and being then engaged in looking carelessly out, was as unmoved by this impressive entry as man could possibly be. He stood whistling to himself with all imaginable coolness, with his hat still on, and a certain air of exhaustion upon him, in part arising from excessive summer, and in part from excessive gentility. For it was to be seen with half an eye that he was a thorough gentleman, made to the model of the time; weary of ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... learnt to know the disowned and rejected son as a gallant young officer in Galicia, and the relations which had sprung up between them were the tenderest imaginable. ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... the Lord's Sabbath in the Bible.) Now if the Apostle did mean to include the Sabbath of the Lord God with the Jewish feasts and Sabbaths in the text, then the course he took to do so, was the strangest imaginable. His manner always was, as recorded, with the exception of one night, to preach on the very day that he was laboring to abolish. If you will look at the date in your bibles, you will learn this same apostle had been laboring in this way as a special messenger ...
— The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign, from the Beginning to the Entering into the Gates of the Holy City, According to the Commandment • Joseph Bates
... he changed the chapel into a meeting hall, which is now the music room; but, before he came here, the house was occupied by Manetti, a violent Catholic without tolerance or vision; and in the interval between these two, Julius Weinbaum had it, Hebrew of most rigid orthodox type imaginable—so they ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... surely no imaginable Situation of Mind so sweet and so reasonable, as that which we feel, when we humbly refer ourselves in all Things to the Divine Disposal, in an intire Suspension of our own Will, seeing and owning the Hand of GOD, and bowing ...
— Submission to Divine Providence in the Death of Children • Phillip Doddridge
... not succumb— but I now began to combat the approaches of one sort of insanity with the actual presence of another—I wrote verses. That was "tempering the wind to the shorn lamb," as Sterne would have expressed it, after the prettiest fashion imaginable. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... a work shop. The majority of the bodies are nude, their clothing having been torn off. All along the river bits of clothing—a tiny shoe, a baby dress, a mother's evening wrapper, a father's coat, and in fact every article of wearing apparel imaginable may be seen hanging to stumps of trees and scattered ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... the most favourable circumstances imaginable, knows nothing of 'absolute certainty;' and if historical facts are bound up with the creed, and if they are to be received with the same completeness as the laws of conscience, they rest, and must rest, either on the divine truth of Scripture, or on the divine witness in ourselves. ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... the King appear'd in all the Pomp imaginable on his Throne of State, surrounded by his Grandees, the Magi, and the Deputies, from all the surrounding Nations, of every Province that attended these public Sports, where Honour was to be acquir'd, not by the Velocity of the best Race-Horse, or by bodily ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... fashion, for the making of coffee; walls and ceiling carved, gilded, and painted in brilliant colours; the floor tiled with the charming "windmill" pattern; many shelves adorned with countless little coffee cups in silver standards; with copper and brass utensils of all imaginable kinds; and in a gilded recess was a curious apparatus for ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... were concerts, and excursions, and great daily dinners the gayest and most enjoyable imaginable, at which both sexes were considered to be equally scientific and equally welcome. The dinners were not absolutely gratuitous, but the tickets for them were issued at a price very much inferior to the real cost of the entertainment. ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... those who think that the "impossible" requires justification—or cannot be justified—I would suggest that the only impossible thing is to define and delimit the impossible. In an infinite, eternal universe, there is nothing imaginable—or unimaginable—which might not happen, might not be true, somewhere or sometime. Science has discovered, and will continue to discover, an enormous amount of relative data; but there will always remain an illimitable residue of the undiscovered and the ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... Gout. That, of all imaginable exercises, is the most slight and insignificant, if you allude to the motion of a carriage suspended on springs. By observing the degree of heat obtained by different kinds of motion we may form an estimate of the quantity of exercise given by each. Thus, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... shapeliness is fain to take Shape from the steadfast shore that rules it round, And only from the storms a casual sound: The sea, that harbours in her heart sublime The supreme heart of music deep as time, And in her spirit strong The spirit of all imaginable song. ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... never was one. Hence, just as Spinoza saw everything sub specie aeternitatis, we may very well have a tendency to see many things sub specie novi. New things, astonishingly new things, in every imaginable department of life have been witnessed by men who saw the opening years of the century, and fin-de-siecle as we are, the capacities of man are apparently as ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... a mountain of responsibility, of which he had never before dreamed, and for the clearing of which he was entirely dependent on the good faith of a man who had, not a week ago, played him one of the meanest tricks imaginable. ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... some bread, without butter, was placed upon the little table; and the meal was the most cheerful and happy imaginable. "Oh, my dear Mr. Blocque!" I could not help saying to myself, "keep your champagne, and canvass-backs, and every luxury, and welcome! I like dry bread and tea, with ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... and it's as fresh as new. I'll go over to your house and alter it for you. Then with a white cape of Bishop's lawn, and a white cap and apron, we'll make you into the most charming little Quaker maiden imaginable. The character will just suit you, because you suit it. That matter is settled. Go home now and go to bed, and you mustn't ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... had been left out of the line at Pommier to practice. At 3-30 a.m. on the 4th the Boche, either annoyed at our wire-cutting, or to celebrate his favourite anniversary, the declaration of war, opened a heavy fire with guns, mortars, rifle grenades, coloured lights and everything else imaginable. The noise was terrific, and the C.O. and Adjutant rushed to the Defence Scheme to find what was the correct message to send; most of the noise was at trench 86. They decided to tell the Gunners "assist L," but, between F.O.O. ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... Our Lord were not displeased at the sight of my many failings. This was her answer: "Be comforted, for He Whom you have chosen as your Spouse has every imaginable perfection; but—dare I say it?—He has one great infirmity too—He is blind! And there is a science about which He knows nothing—addition! These two great defects, much to be deplored in an earthly bridegroom, do but make ours infinitely more lovable. Were ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... aqueducts had been uniformly made to retain the water necessary for navigation by means of puddled earth retained by masonry; and in order to obtain sufficient breadth for this superstructure, the masonry of the piers, abutments, and arches was of massive strength; and after all this expense, and every imaginable precaution, the frosts, by swelling the moist puddle, frequently created fissures, which burst the masonry, and suffered the water to escape—nay, sometimes actually threw down the aqueducts; instances of this kind having ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... back, to show her zeal for Mahomet, who, begging pardon of his Holiness, has not, after all, been so very kind to the ladies in his religion, unless it be the compliment which he has paid them, by placing all the imaginable felicity of Paradise in their embraces. I took no notice of the virago. I find it's no use. I was glad, however, to hear she was not Touarick, and only a Billingsgate Mooress of the place. I am also happy to tell my fair readers, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... followed a roaring torrent of ice-water up to its far source in a sort of little grass-carpeted parlor, walled in all around by vast precipices and overlooked by clustering summits of ice. This was the snuggest little croquet-ground imaginable; it was perfectly level, and not more than a mile long by half a mile wide. The walls around it were so gigantic, and everything about it was on so mighty a scale that it was belittled, by contrast, to what ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Hospital had been founded by an eccentric old gentleman of enormous wealth for an entirely original purpose. He observed that great buildings were erected everywhere to receive patients suffering from all imaginable bodily ills, chronic mania, of course, when the brain was diseased, being one of them; but no one had thought of making provision for such troubles, mental, moral, and religious, as affect the mind; and he held that such ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... that looked and sounded like nothing imaginable. The fighting pairs were choosing each other and taking place. They had plenty of room. When it was settled between them, Nut Kut was facing the most powerful-looking of the wild fighters; and Gunpat ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... was observed with all imaginable punctuality on both sides. Melvil had arrayed himself in a suit of deep mourning, and he found the good lady in the like habit, assumed upon the same occasion. The goodness of her heart was manifest in her countenance; the sensibility ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... underwent a lightning change. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to see her open the flat, silver case that dangled at the end of the cannon-ball chain, take out a cigarette, light it, and smoke it there in that little German dining room. She wore the most gracefully nonchalant air imaginable as she blew little rings and wreaths, and laughed and chatted brightly with her husband and the other men. Occasionally she broke into French, her accent as charmingly perfect as it had been in her native tongue. There was a moment of breathless staring on the part of ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... Prince Ali said, 'I must own, brother, that your carpet is one of the most surprising things imaginable, if it has, as I do not doubt in the least, that property you speak of. But you must allow that there may be other things, I will not say more, but at least as wonderful, in another way; and to convince you there are, here is an ivory tube, which appears to the eye ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... outriggers. In short, every living creature among us was somehow or other employed, not even excepting our dogs, which were set to drag up the stores on the beach, so that our little dockyard soon exhibited the most animated scene imaginable. The quickest method of landing casks, and other things not too weighty, was that adopted by Captain Hoppner, and consisted of a hawser secured to the ship's mainmast head, and set up as tight as possible to the anchor on the beach,—the casks being hooked to a block traversing on this as a jack ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... whole way from where he commences to the shoulders, and when freshly done, presents one of the most dreadful spectacles imaginable, the blood gushes out in torrents, and though frequently wiped away with grass by some of the women present, is scarcely removed before the crimson stream flows as profusely as ever. During the time of the ceremony the mother and other female relations lament and mourn, whilst ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... beautiful tropic islands, and of them and of the people who lived upon them he wrote to the king and queen of Spain: "This country excels all others as far as the day surpasses the night in splendor. The natives love their neighbors as themselves; their conversation is the sweetest imaginable; their faces smiling; and so gentle and so affectionate are they, that I swear to Your Highness there is not a better people in ...
— The True Story of Christopher Columbus • Elbridge S. Brooks
... than he could be sure of, but who was not likely to abridge thought by oracular responses, or to give aphorism for argument. He accepted the necessity of the situation. A time came when everybody was invited, once a week, to put any imaginable question from the whole of Church history, and he at once replied. If this was a stimulus to exertion during the years spent in mastering and pondering the immense materials, it served less to promote originality and care than premature certitude and ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... to cease, the time seems to have arrived for distinguishing with appropriate honors the brave army that have so long encountered the perils of savage warfare in a country presenting every imaginable difficulty and in seasons and under a climate fruitful of disease. The history of the hardships which our soldiers have endured, of the patience and perseverance which have enabled them to triumph over obstacles altogether ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... held the ear; her aquiline comeliness pleased the eye without enticing it; her capable, fit-looking clothes were so happily secondary to her personality that even the women could not tell how she was dressed. She was the least seductive person imaginable; and she looked so self-sufficient that it seldom occurred to any one to offer her help. Yet she was in no sense bold or aggressive. No one ever thought of accusing her of being any of those things. Many loved ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... in which he lived there was always something going on; every day many strangers came there. One day two impostors arrived who gave themselves out as weavers, and said that they knew how to manufacture the most beautiful cloth imaginable. Not only were the texture and pattern uncommonly beautiful, but the clothes which were made of the stuff possessed this wonderful property that they were invisible to anyone who was not fit for his office, or who was ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... measure prepared her for what she would see, but not quite. She scarcely could believe her senses. Half the bread compartment was filled with dainty sandwiches of bread and butter sprinkled with the yolk of egg and the remainder with three large slices of the most fragrant spice cake imaginable. The meat dish contained shaved cold ham, of which she knew the quality, the salad was tomatoes and celery, and the cup held preserved pear, clear as amber. There was milk in the bottle, two tissue-wrapped cucumber pickles in the folding drinking-cup, and a fresh napkin in the ring. No lunch ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... copper lid and saw a most beautiful harp. The giant placed it on the table, said, "Play!" and it played of its own accord, without anybody touching it, the most exquisite music imaginable. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... too! and I know another country, north and west, where such shows might have this effect—if it is not too late—Drove there in our hired victoria in the hot dusk, and dust, in a rout of carriages, gharries, rickshaws, dog-carts, and every sort of wheeled craft imaginable; nabobs and nobodies, spry young soldiers in uniform, minus hats, driving ladies in chiffons and laces, natives, civilians, eurasians, now one ahead then the other, till we met in a grand block at the great gates, and then strung out orderly-wise ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... shawl was pinned over her gauzy dress to keep her warm. Alice lost her fears at once. She realized that here was no fairy princess, but a little girl like herself. Mignon's face was no less sweet when seen so near. Her cheeks were the loveliest pink imaginable. Her blue eyes looked up frankly and trustfully. When the Mayor spoke to her she blushed and made a pretty courtesy, clasping Alice's hand very tight in ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... "all the use which God will have for them is to suffer; this is all the end they can answer; therefore all their faculties, and their whole capacities, will be employed and used for this end.... The body can by omnipotence be made capable of suffering the greatest imaginable pain, without producing dissolution, or abating the least degree of life or sensibility.... One way in which God will show his power in the punishment of the wicked will be in strengthening and upholding their bodies and souls in torments ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... general against him, and so furnish the city with new matter of triumph, and his own house with the plunder of Pontus, and the riches of its king. Therefore, though Mithridates entertained him with all imaginable attention and respect, yet he was not at all wrought upon or softened by it, but said, "O king, either endeavor to be stronger than the Romans, or else quietly submit to their commands." With which he left Mithridates astonished, as he indeed had often heard the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough |
