"Immovable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which really amounts to asking, "Can the Almighty destroy His own omnipotence?" It is somewhat similar to the other question, "What would happen if an irresistible moving body came in contact with an immovable body?" Here we have simply a contradiction in terms, for if there existed such a thing as an immovable body, there could not at the same time exist a moving body that ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... enthusiasts of the new school, partly carried away by its characteristic admiration of the heroism of their attack and the fiery eloquence of their champion, Ruskin, and perhaps not quite assured of its final effect, forgets to unmask its terrible artillery. But to upset the almost immovable English conservatism, to teach the nation new ways of thought and feeling, in a generation! Cromwell could not do it; and this wave of reform that now surges up against those prejudices, more immovable than the white cliffs of Albion, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... therefore must lay hold on every human being at his birth, and direct his education with powerful hand. Solon's weak confidence threw Athens into fresh slavery, while Lycurgus's severity founded the republic of Sparta on an immovable basis."[197] These words, which come from a decree of the Committee of Public Safety, might well be taken for an excerpt from the Social Contract. The fragments of the institutions by which Saint Just intended to regenerate his country, reveal a man with the example ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... grief, or to face the harder trial of witnessing her speechless despair. But they were not prepared for her invincible resolution to read the Instructions; for the terrible questions which she had put to the lawyer; for her immovable determination to fix all the circumstances in her mind, under which Michael Vanstone's decision had been pronounced. There she stood at the window, an unfathomable mystery to the sister who had never been parted from her, to the governess who had trained her from ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... but the same line courtesy which led him to give up his cigar, was shown again as he spared her the mortification of even a questioning glance, still less of a look of amusement, although she watched his dumb, immovable figure with apprehension ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... the search, stood there wholly immovable, as if petrified. Hodge especially, poor Hodge, was as if struck by lightning. His great bluish-white eyes appeared to be coming out of their sockets; his long arms hung down, flapping and dangling about like a flail; his knees, half bent, seemed already to be giving way in expectation ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... the prie-dieu, stirring neither hand nor foot; as immovable, in fact, except for my breathing, as a figure cut out of stone. Looking and wondering still, after a time it seemed to me that the lights were growing dimmer, that the room was growing colder; that some baleful presence was beside me with malicious intent to ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... behind the cypress trees remained immovable and silent until the five searchers had gone away with their lamps and tools and the sound of their retreating footsteps in Friary Lane had died out. Then Dick Bewery moved and began to slip off, and Bryce reached out a hand and ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... possession of his land and uphold his claims and rights by force if necessary. These were all the basic laws that he needed and these laws did not change. From generation to generation they remained fixed, immovable. The interests of all landowners were identical; those of the traders were varying and conflicting. For long periods the landowner could expect the continuance of existing fundamental laws regarding the ownership of land, while the shipper, the factory owner, the banker ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... 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 ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... Catherine, in her strong Castilian austerity, measured her steps by the letter of the law; the more her husband withdrew from her, the more she insisted upon her relation to him as his wife; and continued with fixed purpose and immovable countenance[124] to share his table and his bed long after she was aware of his dislike ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... but to stir the life in the country: and no vital danger appeared to threaten it; nor did any, so long as the surrounding countries—France, Germany, and Spain—remained mere vast feudal nebulae, formless, weightless, immovable. The Italians feared nothing from them; they would call down the King of France or the Emperor of Germany without a moment's hesitation, because they knew that the king could not bring France, nor the emperor bring Germany, but only a few miserable, hungry retainers with him; but Florence would ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... some measure made clear is that there is a reason why Christ should be manifested, and should suffer, and rise again, and that so far from being a baseless superstition the Reconciling of the world to God through the One Offering once-for-all offered for the sin of the whole world, lays the immovable foundation upon which we may build securely for all ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward
... me of the pledge engraved upon it, to love her forever." His devotion to her was beautiful. "No language," says his daughter, "can give any adequate idea of it. Exhausted by wakefulness at night, she slept often in the daytime, resting her head on his arm. I have seen him remain immovable, for hours together, standing in the same position for fear of awakening her by the least movement. Absent from her during a few hours of sleep, he inquired, on his return, of her attendant, if she had asked ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... Western Law Journal for 1852, we find a judicial anecdote related of Mr. Willey, in illustration of his wit, and immovable self-possession. The writer says: "At his last term in Cleveland we happened in while he was pronouncing sentence upon a number of criminals who had been convicted during the week, of penitentiary offenses. One of them, ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... child might have upon us: with what had quieted her heart in the old time she sought now to quiet ours, helping us to trust in the great love that never ceases to watch. And she did make us quiet. But the time glided so slowly past that it seemed immovable. ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... the Hague to have personal consultations with the States-General, the Advocate, and Prince Maurice, and returned before the close of the year. He had an audience of the King at the palace of Whitehall early in November, and found him as immovable as ever in his apathetic attitude in regard to the affairs of Germany. The murder of Sir Thomas Overbury and the obscene scandals concerning the King's beloved Carr and his notorious bride were then occupying the whole attention of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... top, and not the bottom, as is the usual way. The clergyman now ascended the pulpit, arrayed in his black gown. The congregation composed themselves to attention, as did also my companions, who fixed their eyes upon the clergyman with a certain strange immovable stare, which I believe to be peculiar to their race. The clergyman gave out his text, and began to preach. He was a tall, gentlemanly man, seemingly between fifty and sixty, with greyish hair; his features were very handsome, but with a somewhat melancholy cast: the tones of his ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... Olga Tcherny stood immovable where he had left her, one foot upon the fender, her gaze upon the fire. After a time she stretched forth her fingers to the blaze. All over! She straightened slowly and caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror. The firelight gleamed under her brows, brought out with unpleasant sharpness the ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... little table under the tree, the apparently immovable young lady had moved away after all, and it was some time before they came upon the track of her. She had risen, though languidly, and wandered slowly along the upper path of the terraced garden looking down on ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... No one of to-day can say how low down in the scale of intelligence the human mind began to exercise its untried faculties; what apposition and deduction of thoughts it required to individualise the commonest objects that met the eye; even to determine that the body it animated was not an immovable part of the earth itself; to obtain fixed notions of distance, of color, light, and heat; to learn the properties and uses of plants, herbs, and fruits; even to see the sun sink out of sight with the sure faith that it would rise ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... feel by turns the bitter change Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce, From beds of raging fire, to starve in ice Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine Immovable, infixed, and frozen round, Periods of time, thence hurried back ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... their courage, their fortitude and their greatness of soul. Here it is: "When Vesey was tried, he folded his arms and seemed to pay great attention to the testimony, given against him, but with his eyes fixed on the floor. In this situation he remained immovable, until the witnesses had been examined by the court, and cross-examined by his counsel, when he requested to be allowed to examine the witnesses himself. He at first questioned them in the dictatorial, despotic manner, in which he ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... nothing below worth attention and trooped upstairs. The flickering glare of their torches fell upon a life-like image of Kali the Terrible. With protruding scarlet tongue and fixed staring eyes, the girl stood immovable and breathless, silently invoking all her family gods to come to her aid in ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... that he should be there. I thought of contriving a tackle called a whip, and making one end fast to him and taking the other end to the little capstan on the main deck; but on inspecting the capstan I found that the frost had rendered it immovable, added to which there was nothing whatever to be done with the iron-hard gear, and therefore I had to give ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... appeared to be a little, much-worn prayer-book. Presently he opened it gingerly, and read something written on the fly-leaf. He spelled it out with some difficulty and slowly, and yet he looked at it as if the page were a familiar vision to him. Then he remained immovable for a long time, gazing out to sea, with the little book crunched to a shapeless mass in his huge fist. When at last he turned to ascend the cliff again, his face was ashen pale, and his step was ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... of the miner from Argentina was not to be gainsaid. The predicament of the giant Kansas—inert, immovable, lying in that peaceful bay at the mercy of a horde of painted savages—was one of the strange facts almost beyond credence which men encounter at times in the byways of life. It reminded Courtenay of a visit he paid to the crocodile tank at Karachi when he was a midshipman ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... 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 battalion, already ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... an immovable face, occasionally casting a crumb to his flock. When Garnett ended he asked: "Does her mother ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... Indians lay down flat on the ledge, and crawled along without raising themselves in the slightest until they reached a point where the cliffs projected somewhat. From here they could see down the valley, and they lay immovable, with their rifles in ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... deposited on the threshold. Numerous lighted lamps illuminated these ceremonies, after which the chief priest, the pontifex maximus, consecrated the area, and from that moment it became settled and immovable. If it crumbled, it must be rebuilt on the same spot, and the least change made, even should it be to enlarge it, would be regarded as a profanation. Thus had the dwelling of the god that rises before us at the extremity of ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... effort he begins again his slow retreat, till at last a sigh of relief comes from the whole watching multitude. Morico with his burden has reached a spot of safety. What will he do next? They watch in breathless suspense. But Morico does nothing. He only stands immovable as a carved image. Suddenly there is a cry that reaches far above the roar of fire and crash of falling timbers: "Mon fils! mon garcon!" and the old man totters and falls backward to earth, still clinging to the lifeless body of his son. All hasten towards him. Hosmer reaches ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... then locked up the cabin, and went on shore. Though he was burning with excitement, he managed to demean himself with his ordinary coolness, and Cyd looked as immovable as a statue. ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... of the detectives, and he had raised himself on his elbow, and was looking round, uttering curses volubly. He nodded slightly on seeing us enter, but did not change his position. There he lay, quite heroic in his immovable sloth; of all the many fighters he alone remained staunch at his post; and that because he was positively too lazy ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... and to examine thoroughly whether this opinion is one of those which people receive with credulous simplicity, or one of those which, although obscure in themselves, have nevertheless a solid and immovable foundation, I look upon them in ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... He kept his law to which he was y-sworn, And thereto* he was hardy, wise, and rich, *moreover, besides And piteous and just, always y-lich;* *alike, even-tempered True of his word, benign and honourable; *Of his corage as any centre stable;* *firm, immovable of spirit* Young, fresh, and strong, in armes desirous As any bachelor of all his house. A fair person he was, and fortunate, And kept alway so well his royal estate, That there was nowhere such another man. This noble king, this Tartar Cambuscan, Hadde two sons by Elfeta his wife, Of which the ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... was all up with me this time; I was immovable in my bed of mud, and, instead of the clean brown barrel that I could usually trust to in an extremity, I raised a mass of mud to my shoulder, which encased my rifle like a flannel bag. I fully expected ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... favor, and the hate of many is like the sting of hornets: one sting is not fatal, but a general attack sometimes brings death. Make use, therefore, of your sunshine, and fix yourself strongly in an immovable position." ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... 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 instant into ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... obeyed the summons, and advanced into the room. Wingrave eyed him with immovable face. Nevertheless, his manner ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... its appearing variety move 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 ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... "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 causes proprement ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... fact, an inveterate hater, a miser even in misanthropy, and hoarded up a grudge as he did a guinea. Thus, though my mother was an only sister, he had never forgiven her marriage with my father, against whom he had a cold, still, immovable pique, which had lain at the bottom of his heart, like a stone in a well, ever since they had been school boys together. My mother, however, considered me as the intermediate being that was to bring every thing again into harmony, for she looked upon me as a prodigy—God bless her. My heart ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... so far obeyed as to continue immovable and silent. But there was still sufficient light to convince his companion, by the contracted brow and threatening eye of the young man, that a discovery would not bestow a bloodless victory on the ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... presence—the embodiment of the Old Faith. Meynell only knew that as far as he was concerned something had happened—something which he could not define. She was no longer his enemy; and he blessed her humbly in his heart. He thought also, with a curious thankfulness, of her strong and immovable convictions. Each thinking mind, as it were, carries within it its own Pageant of the Universe, and lights the show with its own passion. Not to quench the existing light in any human breast—but to kindle and quicken where no light is: ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Nyoda noted this manoeuver approvingly. It indicated good sense. Gladys covered the last twenty-five yards by sheer grit. Every breath was a gasp, the shore line wavered dizzily before her, and it seemed that she was pushing against an immovable wall. Nyoda watched her closely, and saw her rear up her head and set her teeth and battle on against wind and wave. "She'll do," she said to herself joyfully, "she has physical courage as well as the others. She will uphold the honor of ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... epaulettes, no ostrich-plumes. Plain and unpretending was his green uniform with its white facings; unadorned was his small three-cornered hat. He sat carelessly and proudly on his magnificent charger, which, prancing and rearing, seemed to greet the crowd. The rider's features were as immovable as if made of stone; his eyes occasionally, however, bent a piercing glance on the multitude, and then gazed again into vacancy—the living emperor was transformed once more into one of the marble triumphators ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... break my promise, Lily!" cried the old lady; her hands trembled on her stick, but her cap was erect, immovable. "I didn't tell him, but I never promised not to tell James Stedman, you know ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... terrible racket in the woods, deliver scattering shots in our rear. I ride back and urge them either to cease firing or move to the left, go forward and look after our flank. One regiment does move as directed; but the others are immovable, and it is with great difficulty that I succeed in making them understand that in firing they are more likely to injure friends than foes. Fortunately, soon after this, the ammunition of the Third and Eighty-eighth becoming ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... bound, he thought to secure relief by turning his face to one side, so that his vision might seek the soft darkness which seemed to lie on every side of him. In this effort he was equally unsuccessful. His head, his neck, his whole body, were rigid, immovable. He could not stir an inch in ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... perceived that it was a human being in a kind of red jacket, seated on the extreme verge of the precipice which I have already made a faint attempt to describe. Wondering who it could be, I shouted; but it took not the slightest notice, remaining as immovable as the rock on which it sat. 'I should never have thought of going near that edge,' said I to myself; 'however, as you have done it, why should not I? And I should like to know who you are.' So I commenced the descent of the rock, but with ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... been the old maid as portrayed in the illustrated weekly. Nothing was lacking—corkscrew curls, prunella boots, cameo brooch and chain, a gown of the antiquated Redingote type, trimmed with many small ruffles and punctuated, irrelevantly, with immovable buttons. ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... 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 blue, and her ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... suicide, but it would be a suicide. Under certain circumstances it is selfish to be merely a hero. A man accomplishes it at once, he becomes illustrious, he enters into history, all that is very easy. He leaves to others behind him the laborious work of a long protest, the immovable resistance of the exile, the bitter, hard life of the conquered who continues to combat the victory. Some degree of patience forms a part of politics. To know how to await revenge is sometimes more difficult than to hurry on its catastrophe. There are two kinds of courage—bravery and perseverance; ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... quarters were echoed back from Antonia and from Hippicus. The startled shouts of commanders; the nervous dropping of arms; the sharp excited response to roll-call; the sound of sentries challenging, the curt response by countersign, showed everywhere irregularities and the symptoms of panic in the immovable ranks ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... strength and skill uselessly. Finally I dropped upon my knees, creeping inch by inch across the floor, but with no better result. It likewise was composed of great slabs of stone, one having an irregular crack running through it from corner to corner, but all alike solid and immovable. ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... is good to rest here, immovable but alert, in the breathless hush of noon. Showers of benevolent heat stream down upon this desolation; not the faintest wisp of vapour floats upon the horizon; not a sail, not a ripple, disquiets the waters. The silence can be felt. ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... the effort it cost Darrell in his condition to go over the details of the terrible scene, but he forced himself to give a clear, succinct, calm statement of all that took place. The elder man sat looking straight before him, immovable, impassive, like one who heard not, yet in reality missing nothing that was said. Not until Darrell repeated Whitcomb's dying words was there any movement on his part; then he turned his head so that his face was ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... choke back the sobs which shook her voice, and to wipe away the tears which blinded her. The sculptor stood immovable; but his face was softened and ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... Slowly the arm fell and the stern look departed from the face. Ancient with the youth of the Gods, it was such a face and form the toilers in the shadowy world, mindful of their starry dynasties, sought to carve in images of upright and immovable calm amid the sphinxes of the Nile or the sculptured Gods of Chaldaea. So upright and immovable in such sculptured repose appeared Labraid, his body like a bright ruby flame, sunlit from its golden heart. Beneath his brows ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... only one other individual left in this collection who had not as yet spoken, and now, although Madge fixed her eyes instantly upon him, he remained in his chair as he was, with immovable, sphinxlike countenance and gloomy eyes. He was a tall, spare, rather well-dressed figure, when he rose at last in reply to her spoken request, and he stood, half leaning upon a cane which he held in his two hands, and bent a little toward ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... peasant; handsome, swarthy, with a black beard—an athletic appearance. He did not care for mill work and thought it tiresome and unprofitable, and he only lived at the mill to escape from home. He was a saddler and always smelled of tan and leather. He did not like talking, was slow and immovable, and used to hum "U-lu-lu-lu," sitting on the bank or in the doorway of the mill. Sometimes his wife and mother-in-law used to come from Kurilovka to see him; they were both fair, languid, soft, and they used to bow to ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... disturbed. He is very cunning, though his wit is not profound. It is difficult to approach him by stealth; you will try many times before succeeding; but seem to pass by him in a great hurry, making all the noise possible, and with plumage furled he stands as immovable as a knot, allowing you a ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... likes large towns, and tries to deter me from taking the "unbeaten tracks," which I prefer—but when he finds me immovable, always concludes his arguments with the same formula, "Well, of course you can do as you like; it's all the same to me." I do not think he cheats me to any extent. Board, lodging, and travelling expenses for us both are about 6s. 6d. a day, and about 2s. 6d. when we are stationary, and this ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... different Chinese dialects, and are also of great worth to other scientific points of view. They are especially useful in enabling us to form a correct opinion as to the merits of the works that have lately appeared on China; and everyone must acknowledge his rare talent, must value his immovable fixedness of purpose, and must admire his zealous perseverance in the cause of science, and his unshaken belief in the principles of his religion. (Dr. Gutzlaff ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... impatiently away. The manner of the woman was so inexpressibly calm and sweet, the dignity of her beautiful presence was so immovable, that the lady felt it in vain to waste words upon her. Juanita ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... doctrine, base marriage not on emotion, not on sentiment, but on duty. To build upon emotion, with the unruly wills and affections of sinful men, is to build, not upon the sand, but upon the wind. There is but one immovable rock on which steadfast character, steadfast relations, steadfast subordination of the lower and personal desires, to the higher and immutable obligations and trusts and responsibilities of life can be built—duty. When this rock has been faithfully clung to, when in the midst of disillusionment ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... guards left their cantonments he wanted to see the different corps and hold a great review. He loved to see again the manly figures of the soldiers, their chests of iron, these braves who stood before him, immovable in parade, irresistible in fight. Their bearing and their expression gave him pleasure. Notwithstanding the fatigues and the privations of the march, enthusiasm shone on all the faces, in the brightening ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... lady, sir,' Mr. Jack Maldon answered, laughing. But appearing to remark that Mr. Wickfield went on with his dinner in the same sedate, immovable manner, and that there was no hope of making him relax a muscle of his face, he added: 'However, I have said what I came to say, and, with another apology for this intrusion, I may take myself off. Of course I shall observe your directions, in considering ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... was a true British matron, and preserved a quiet, immovable countenance; only a grim smile passed over it now and then. At last she remarked coolly, as if commenting on the weather, "I don't believe she will trouble you, my son." Never a word about the lace episode ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... 'the finest gentleman about town,' as she earlier described him (ib. i. 25), who desired to make his acquaintance. This 'superb' gentleman was afraid to begin to speak. 'Assuming his most supercilious air of distant superiority he planted himself, immovable as a noble statue, upon the hearth, as if a stranger to the whole set.' Johnson, who 'never spoke till he was spoken to' (ante, in. 307)—this habit the Burneys did not as yet know—'became completely absorbed in silent rumination; very unexpectedly, however, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... sultry day; the turf was dry, the air was spicy under the great trees; shadow and sunshine alternately crossed her path, or more correctly, her path crossed them. A certain sense of contrast smote her as she went. Around her were the tokens of a broad security, sheltering protection, quiet and immovable possession, careless wealth; and within her a tumult of fear, uncertainty, exposure, and craving need. Life seemed a very unequal thing to the little American girl. Her step became slower. What was she going to say to Mrs. Jersey? It was impossible ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... this point 'Lena had stood immovable, amid the loud shouts of her companions, but the fire of a hundred volcanoes burned within and flashed from her eyes. And now springing forward, she caught the letter from Carrie's hand, and inflicting a long scratch upon her forehead, fled from the room. Had not Durward Bellmont been present, ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... to a great extent by giving them a slightly oblique direction. To this very day the Turkish bath-houses over the whole of the Levant from Belgrade to Teheran, are almost universally lighted by these small circular openings, which are pierced in great numbers through the low domes, and closed with immovable glasses. Besides which we can point to similar arrangements in houses placed both by their date and character, far nearer to those of Assyria. The Sassanide monuments bear witness that many centuries after the destruction ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... treasonably bringing certain Englishmen to the lands of Glenquhome; and for common theft, common reset of theft, out-putting and in-putting thereof. Sentence. For which causes and crimes he has forfeited his life, lands, and goods, movable and immovable; which shall be ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... her not the wonder at his sudden flight, but the clear memory of that one moment's look into his eyes. A century of experience, with its tears and its laughter, its joy and its anguish, its desire and its fulfilment, seemed crowded into the single instant that held her immovable ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... our pathway squeezes itself between two melancholy sentinel-pines, tracing its white scroll into the forest farther than the eye can follow, and in a few moments we leave the clearing behind, and pass into the shadow of the endless avenue, and bow beneath the trailing branches of the silent, stern, immovable warders at the gate. We were fairly in the Pines; and a drive of somewhat more than three miles lay before ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... was evidently coming to a crisis. The negro was becoming excited, the Cuban nervous, the Englishman more immovable than ever. ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... not his hand again; his jaw dropped and most of the strong colour died down in his face. Turned to stone, stiff and immovable, he sat staring at the singer, while Bertran, biting his lip, still grinning and twitching with his ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... remained fixed and immovable with his hand up to the salute; but on being questioned by his mistress, he replied, remaining ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... wholesome influences in all society. These are among the results of a really liberal education. Education does something to overcome the prejudices of mere ignorance. Of all sorts of massive, impenetrable obstacles, the most hopeless and immovable is the prejudice of a thoroughly ignorant and narrow-minded woman of a certain social position. It forms a solid wall which bars all progress. Argument, authority, proof, experience avail nought. And remember, that the prejudices of ignorance are responsible for far more evils in this ...
— Three Addresses to Girls at School • James Maurice Wilson
... up the narrow stairs. Besides an old horsehair armchair, there were two low plush "spring-rockers," against the massive pedestals of which one was always stumbling in the dark. Thea sat in the dark a good deal those first weeks, and sometimes a painful bump against one of those brutally immovable pedestals roused her temper and pulled her out of a heavy hour. The wall-paper was brownish yellow, with blue flowers. When it was put on, the carpet, certainly, had not been consulted. There was only one picture ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... 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 ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... had invented printing without being aware of it; or perhaps the senate dreaded the inconveniences attending its use, and did not care to deprive a large body of scribes of their employment. They even used stereotypes, or immovable printing-types, to stamp impressions on their pottery, specimens of which still exist. In China the art of printing is of great antiquity. Lithography was well known in Germany, by the very name which it still bears, nearly three hundred years ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... men were they all, though the eldest was not yet eighteen years old when their father, Messer Tedaldo, died very rich, leaving to them as his lawful heirs the whole of his property both movable and immovable. Finding themselves thus possessed of great wealth, both in money and in lands and chattels, they fell to spending without stint or restraint, indulging their every desire, maintaining a great establishment, and a large and well-filled ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... through the weeds on his belly as it were, then suddenly appearing unawares before me; while something in his manner suggested a subtle, cold-blooded, venomous nature. Those swift glances of his, which perpetually came and went with such bewildering rapidity, reminded me, not of the immovable, stony gaze of the serpent's lidless eyes, but of the flickering little forked tongue, that flickers, flickers, vanishes and flickers again, and is never for one moment at rest. Who was this man, and what did he there? Why was he, though manifestly ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... 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 ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... Poland, was residing at Cracow. Nicholas, unaware of the circumstances, immediately took the oath of allegiance to his brother and also administered it to the troops at St. Petersburg. It required some time for Constantine's letter to arrive, stating his immovable determination to abide by the decision which would be found in his letter to the late Emperor. There followed a contest of generosity—Nicholas urging and protesting, and his brother refusing the elevation. Three weeks passed—weeks of disastrous ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... of earthly love. We await some further manifestation of thy will, that we may know whether the fountains of our affection shall be dried in the certainty of her blessedness—" (scalding tears were rolling down the cheeks of the pallid and immovable mother) "or whether hope, nay, whether duty to thee calleth for the interference of those bound to her in the tenderness of the flesh. When the blow was heaviest on the bruised spirit of a lone and solitary wanderer, in a strange and savage land, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... great immovable gods have their shoulders whitened by the dung of birds, and the wind, as it passes along the desert, carries with it the ashes of the dead!—Anubis, protector of shadows, do ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... making so great a sacrifice for the advantage of the empire, it was expedient that an equanimity of deportment should be assumed. The scene which took place could never be forgotten by those who witnessed it. Napoleon stood pale and immovable as a statue, showing in the very stillness of his air and countenance a deep emotion. Josephine and Hortense alone appeared divested of every ornament, while those about them sparkled in all the splendor of court costume. Every eye ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... crowd, Jean forced her way, coming in between Lady John and Stonor, who stood there immovable. The girl strained to bring her lips ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... so. She informed him of the fact with an immovable face. It might have been a subject of total indifference ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... acute misery and suffering of those long, long nights standing in water; cold, hungry and weary. Body aching from the fierce winter's blast and the fingers gone stiff, immovable, almost unfeeling ... with no hope for the future, but always the ceaseless watch and wait until the great Peace of Death overtakes the tired body and a troubled soul leaves its burden to be carried on by those who ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... decided, heady, obdurate, resolved, determined, immovable, opinionated, stubborn, dogged, indomitable, persistent, unconquerable, firm, inflexible, pertinacious, unflinching, fixed, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... not from fright, but even from a recognition of any real danger impending over us, which I then felt; it was not courage, but a something stronger than myself or my own weakness; it was not even a superstitious faith that I should be preserved from the threatened peril, but a profound and immovable conviction that the danger was not real; and the whole thing was to me simply a magnificent spectacle, in which the apprehension of my shipmates ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... advice, and 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 ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... rescue of Franklin, commanding four years later the brig "Advance," and voyaging northward through Baffin's Bay. Narrowly, indeed, he escaped the fate of the man in the search for whom he had gained his first Arctic experience. His ship, beset by ice, and sorely wounded, remained fixed and immovable for two years. At first the beleaguered men made sledge journeys in every direction for exploratory purposes, but the second year they sought rather by determined, though futile dashes across the rugged surface of ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... sonorous voice, raising his face with respectful enthusiasm to the King, "Thine are we, O Friedrich, and on thy side, thou Son of Friedrich Wilhelm;" and so went on: sermon brief, sonorous, compact, and sticking close to its text. Friedrich stood immovable, gazing on the eloquent Demosthenic Quandt, with admiration heightened by surprise;—wrote of Quandt to Voltaire; and, with sustained enthusiasm, to the Public long afterwards; and to the end of his days was wont to make Quandt an exception, if perhaps almost the only one, from ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... profit by re-distribution. Many such live in the west and northwest of Ireland. Take a farmer of Donegal. There there's stony, boggy land. Fires must be built about the stones so that the soil will lose its grip upon them and they may be hauled away to help make fences. Immovable boulders are frequent, so frequent that the soil cannot be ploughed but must be spaded by hand. Seaweed for fertilizer must be plucked from the rocks in the sea, carried up the mountain side and laid black and thick in the sterile brown furrows. Near Dungloe in Donegal, one holding ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... dinner Charlotte, sitting pale and immovable amidst all the chat, let the news of Mr. and Mrs. Mason Whitney's and Dick's determination to come on to greet the arrivals from the Brierly farmhouse, fall ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... if Sir Gervaise's notion about the bounty be true," answered the immovable secretary. "Scotia is a small country, but it's well filled with 'braw sperits,' if there's an opening ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... have chosen thee Let all the people wish for thee Stand steadfast and immovable Be like a mountain unremoved And hold thy kingship ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... 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
... a divine state, is, as I have already said, an immovable rock, proof against all blows or shocks, unless it be when the Lord desires it to do something contrary to custom; then, if it does not yield to His first promptings, it has to suffer the pain of a constraint to which it can offer no resistance, and is compelled by a violence, ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... and immovable as if he had been turned to stone, Travers Gladwin peered with one eye through the narrow aperture he had slashed in the heavy brocade portiere. Still gazing into inky darkness he could hear the cautious tread of two persons. His senses told him that one of the visitors was a heavy, ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... Accordingly, Boston and the larger towns favored concession, while the country was the ministers' stronghold. The result of this divergence of opinion was that the moderate party, to which Bradstreet and Dudley belonged, predominated in the Board of Assistants, while the deputies remained immovable. The branches of the legislature thus became opposed; no course of action could be agreed on, and the theocracy drifted ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... her pale and immovable, rooted to the spot on which they had parted. "Dear, dear ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... to bulldoze him they would find him immovable. What he believed was right and just he would do; but he had his own set notions of right and justice. He was sympathetic. His attitude toward the five thousand was one of friendliness. He regarded them as a charge and a responsibility. He was oppressed by the magnitude of the responsibility.... ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... interest straight before him for a minute, and then buried himself in his reading again. The council for the defence moved the blunt end of his pencil about the table and mused with his head on one side. . . . His youthful face expressed nothing but the frigid, immovable boredom which is commonly seen on the face of schoolboys and men on duty who are forced from day to day to sit in the same place, to see the same faces, the same walls. He felt no excitement about ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... little Elmira, whom Paulina Maria had dressed in a little black Canton-crape shawl of her own, sat on either side. Elmira wept now and then, trying to stifle her sobs, but Jerome sat as immovable as his mother. ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... with his hands in his pockets, gnawing the end of his moustache, gazing covertly at the man who stood waiting for him to pass on. Tallente's face was immovable. ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... nothing of the cause of this commotion at first—she stood with open mouth, immovable as a statue, watching the departure of her escort until the flame reached her fingers. Then, with a little shriek of pain, she flicked the burnt wood into ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... death, how broken were his utterances as he knelt and prayed for comfort and support. I still recall, too, going into the large darkened parlor to see my brother, and finding the casket, mirrors, and pictures all draped in white, and my father seated by his side, pale and immovable. As he took no notice of me, after standing a long while, I climbed upon his knee, when he mechanically put his arm about me and, with my head resting against his beating heart, we both sat in silence, ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... survived for upwards of 2000 years as unchanged in all its leading characteristics as the genius of the people has remained torpid and inanimate under its influence. In this respect the Singhalese are the living mummies of past ages; and realise in their immovable characteristics the Eastern fable of the city whose inhabitants were perpetuated in marble. If change has in any degree supervened, it has been from the corruption of the practice, not from any abandonment of the principles, of Buddhism; and in arts, literature, and civilisation, the ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... carefully again, and put six arrows on the floor of the cave beside him, with the quiver just beyond them. Tayoga sat immovable, his rifle across his knees, ready in the last emergency to use the bullet. Thus more time passed in silence ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... table, and opened it out flat. From that time on he seemed to be unconscious of the presence of any one else. He laid out the shining, queer implements swiftly and orderly, whistling softly to himself as he always did when at work. In a deep silence and immovable, the others watched him as ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... design to weary you with a close account of our proceedings. How we opened the main-deck hatch, rigged up tackles, clapping purchases on to the falls, as the capstan was hard frozen and immovable; how we hoisted the powder-barrels on deck and then, by tackles on the foreyard, lowered them over the side; how we filled a number of bags which we found in the forecastle with powder; how we measured the cracks in the ice and sawed a couple of spare studding-sail booms ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... a single lamp. Little of the interior was visible, save the grim and ascetic faces of the monks who sat nearest to the centre of illumination. Their features, in deep masses of alternate light and shadow, looked as if carved out, hard and immovable, from the oak wainscot. Occasionally, a dull roll of the eye relieved the oppressive stillness, and the gazer would look out from the mystic world he inhabited, through these loop-holes of sense, into the world of sympathies and affections, with ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Ecclesiastes we read, that "a living dog is better than a dead lion;" and though I had often quoted this saying, I never felt the truth of it so deeply as now. The dead lion and the dead elephant are quite immovable things for a live dog to bark at or fret about. It was a hard and trying time to me in that place. I could not see my way, or understand at all what was the Lord's will towards me. While in this state of mind I had a vivid dream. I thought that the ornamental iron grating, which was for ventilating ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... Major's wife, was the only other woman in the regiment, and hill stations were not (as she would have expressed it) "in her line." But Desmond was immovable. ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... phantasmagoric image—all the ladies' black bonnets sinking away, like a cluster of clouds—and (shame on the confession!) I have performed head worship to the front of my seat, instead of keeping an immovable post-like position, before his reverence. However, a church doze is seldom admired by the wakeful. Should an embryo snore escape from one's nose (and this is possible,) some old grandam, or an upright piece of masculine sanctity, is sure to rouse you; the former will either ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... story of the charter oak. The assembly had met the royal governor in the meeting-house; the demand for the charter had been made; and the assembly had exhausted the resources of language to show to Andros how dear it was to them, and how impossible it was to give it up. Andros was immovable; he had watched that charter with longing eyes from the banks of the Hudson, and he had no intention of giving up his object now that the king had put him in power on the ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... breathing like a fighting dog. Frowenfeld, large, white, and immovable, stood close ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... make Capt. Rossitur leave her a little longer," said Mrs. Evelyn; "but he says furloughs are immovable, and his begins to-morrow morning—so he was immovable too. I should keep her notwithstanding, though, if her aunt ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... means and method employed to reduce the side motion by attaching the longitudinal beams or trusses of stiffened suspension bridges to the central piers sidewise said attachment being on one pier perfectly immovable in any horizontal direction while at the other piers allowance is made for the variations of the length of the beams substantially as set forth ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... all by himself, but near by. He seemed to be quite as immovable as Vi. And perhaps Russ would have been unable to get out either ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... chair, now placed on the opposite side of the large table, she eyed him doubtfully through her long eyelashes; then gathering courage from the immovable expression of his face, she said in her most ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... the union takes place in truth and becomes real, then the inner man stands henceforth immovable in the union, and God permits the outer man to be driven hither and thither from this to that. It must and shall be and happen, that the outer man says—and is so also in truth—'I will neither be nor not be, neither live nor die, neither know nor not know, neither ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... tugged at the canvas to free it from the mast. It was wrapped round it like Dejanira's shirt, and with as fatal an effect; the boat was filling; and as this brought her lower in the water, and robbed her of much of her buoyancy, and as the fatal cause continued immovable, her destruction was certain. ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... friends, and resolved to adhere to him in every fortune. She was anxious that the family should fly from danger, and would willingly have fled in their company; but while they stayed, it was her immovable resolution ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... I mean," returned the prince in his courtliest tones. But it wasn't hard to picture him now with a glitter in his gaze,—immovable, sure of himself. ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... When I complained to a landlord of a hotel out in the West that his furniture was useless; that I could not write at a marble table whose outside rim was curved into fantastic shapes; that a gold clock in my bed-room which did not go would give me no aid in washing myself; that a heavy, immovable curtain shut out the light; and that papier-mache chairs with small, fluffy velvet seats were bad to sit on, he answered me completely by telling me that his house had been furnished not in accordance with the taste of England, ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope |
