"Immovable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... laws, to guarantee him the sole 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, ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... mother's old family recipe had been the chief duty of able-bodied seamen, this could not have elicited more nods of approbation. But we listened spell-bound and immovable to the passion and pathos with which the singer poured forth the conclusion ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... abstractedly, his thoughts busy elsewhere. He quite recognized the type of man with whom he had to do—light-hearted, careless, frivolous even up to a certain point, but beyond that immovable. To question further would be useless, and almost in violation of the strange code of honour which permitted unscrupulous violence but respected the right of reticence in an equal—in an equal, be it observed; an inferior ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... is formidable enough. Many a man, Indian and foreign, has fought it and failed. It is a huge and most rigorous system of tyrannical oppression, a very pyramid to look at, old, immovable. But there is Something greater behind it. It is only the effect of a Cause—the ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... English merchant receives an order, and is paid for it, it signifies nothing to him who governs the country. This is my creed of politics. If I have any where expressed myself over-warmly, 'tis from a fixed, immovable hatred I have, and ever had, to cruel men and cruel measures. I have likewise an aversion to monarchy, as being too debasing to the dignity of man; but I never troubled others with my notions till very lately, nor ever published a syllable in England in my life. What I write is pure nature, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Yudhishthira, the son of Kunti, moved his army headed by Dhrishtadyumna and others. And that vast army commanded by Dhrishtadyumna, consisting of four kinds of forces, viz., foot-soldiers and elephants and cars and cavalry, terrible, and immovable like the earth herself, and guarded by mighty car-warriors led by Bhimasena and Arjuna, could be compared to the vast ocean lying in stillness. And at the head of that vast force was that mighty bowman, the prince of Panchalas, invincible in battle, viz., Dhrishtadyumna, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... keenest critic or scholarly unbeliever can plausibly dispute. So the gospel sets its record in the rigid frame of history; it roots its origin down in the rocky ledge of Judea. Christ was not born in a dream, but in Bethlehem. We are not, then, building our faith on a myth, but on immovable matters of fact. This thing was not done in a corner, but in the broad day, and it is not afraid of the geographer's map and the historian's pen. The Christmas story is not another beautiful legend in the world's gallery of myths, but is sober and solid reality; its story is history. Our religion ...
— A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas • James H. Snowden
... considered in different views, may by 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, ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... about, first visibly as light, then invisibly as heat and electric current. Hold a magnet near it. If the magnet is weak and movable, in the form of a magnetic needle, the beam of light will cause it to deviate; if it is strong and immovable, it will in turn cause the beam of light to deviate. AND ALL THIS FROM A DISTANCE, WITHOUT ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... never been so far away before; he had never trodden on the wide-spreading ocean of snow that lay here with its immovable billows, from which the wind blows off the snowflake now and then, as it cuts the foam from the waves of the sea. The glaciers stand here so close together it might almost be said they are hand-in-hand; and each is a crystal palace for the Ice Maiden, whose power and will it is to ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... conventionalized naturalism, all combined, showing how their principles, though quite distinct, can mix and unite. The conventional form often superseded and effaced the naturalistic, and became the sign of an idea, or the hieroglyphic picture of a thing; immovable and unalterable in Egypt, where every effort was made to secure eternity on earth, but continually returning to naturalism in India, where the Aryan tendency, with the assistance of the "Code of Manu," always recurred to the restoration ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... inside the door, 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 stared at her ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... steadfast, immovable. He was an indefatigable worker. In the evenings of a single week he wrote "Rasselas," a beautiful little story of the search for happiness, to get money to pay the funeral expenses of his mother. With six assistants he worked seven years on his Dictionary, which made his fortune. His name was ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... hardly five minutes before the three bells rang again; and before the fourth sounded, suddenly he saw drop beneath, like a stone into a pit, the huge immovable platform that just now he had conceived of as solid as the earth from which it had risen. Down and down it went, swaying ever so slightly from side to side, diminishing as it went; but before the motion had ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... dromedary. At this they chattered a great deal and quarrelled among themselves but finally, with the aid of ropes, shaggy coverlets, and short bamboo poles they made something in the shape of a deep, immovable basket in which Nell could sit or lie down, but from which she could not fall. Above this seat, so broad that Dinah also could be accommodated in it, they stretched a ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... she approached her Creator—and was I worthy? I knew I was not. And though my life had been free from those polluting sins which glow like rubies in the souls of some men, I felt that here I had no fitting place, that her prayers would be clogged by the unholiness of my presence. She knelt, immovable as the statued Christ which hung almost over our heads. The glow in the stained-glass windows to our left had turned to a gray blur; the outlines of her figure were growing indistinct. As suddenly and as quickly as she had knelt, she ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... more, but stood there in the doorway with McNab's rum under his arm. He did not stir, nor did he seem to notice the "good-bye" that came down the winding trail through the pines, but remained there stolid and immovable, gazing vacantly at the writing-paper on the rough table. Suddenly he straightened himself up to his full height, and taking the bottle from under his arm, held it out at arm's length and apostrophized it in terms which Mr. McNab would have regarded as a personal insult, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... were brought to him." The "looting" of England by William and his "twenty thousand thieves," as Mr. Emerson calls his army, was a singularly methodical proceeding, and Domesday Book is a searching inventory of their booty, movable and immovable. ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... once slowly, then rapidly. He stands immovable staring at the news-sheet. It slips from his fingers and he cowers down, stooping at the shoulders, glaring at ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... passengers crowded by the shore rail, on the main deck; the bustling mate shouting orders, apparently for the benefit of landsmen, for no one on board appeared to heed him; and high up, in front of the pilot-house, the spruce captain, in gold-laced cap, and glass in hand, as immovable as ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... has come; the mass of water feels the resistance of the rocks, and, curling over into a long green cylinder, brings its head down with terrific force on the immovable side of the Brig. Columns of water shoot up perpendicularly into the air as though a dozen 12-inch shells had exploded in the water simultaneously. With a roar the imprisoned air escapes, and for a moment the whole Brig ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... one awful lunge forward, and dived under the coming swell, hurling her crew into the eddies. Nothing but the point of her poop remained, and there stood the stern and steadfast Don, cap—pie in his glistening black armor, immovable as a man of iron, while over him the flag, which claimed the empire of both worlds, flaunted its gold aloft and upward in the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... had she been able to carry the burden it would have availed nothing, for the dizziness attacked her whenever she drew near the verge. In her desperation, she even crept the length of the tunnel a second time, on the faint chance that the exit might now be less secure. She found the rock barrier immovable as before, though the rim of light showed that here was, in very truth, the way to freedom, and she pushed frantically at the obstacle until ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... guns were fired, shouts were uttered, and signals were sent out that were intended for his ear alone, but he was no more conscious of them, than if he had been wrapped in slumber a hundred miles distant. No statue in bronze could have been more immovable ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... eyes upon a page in the book, and sat immovable. He was a noble picture of a struggle for self-control in a savage ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... as though in a flash. "In that case I've nothing more to say." He got up. "Come on, Hobbs, Mr. Brewster seems immovable. We'll have to wire Philadelphia for the money." With that he went ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... Rupert stood immovable on guard. He knew the desperate nature of his enemy, and feared that if he himself were drawn for a moment from his post into the conflict, he would rush past and endeavour to avenge himself upon ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... land have been cleared round huge blocks of granite, the smaller stones, wrenched up, forming a fence or border, whilst between the immovable, columnar masses of rock, potatoes, rye, or other hardy crops, have been planted. Not an inch of available soil is wasted. These scenes of mingled sternness and grace are not marred by any eyesore: no hideous chimney of factory with its column of black smoke, ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... fell upon Franklin. In a crowded meeting of the Privy Council, with scant respect for the forms of law, Franklin was subjected to elaborate abuse. There were none to defend him who could gain a respectful hearing; he stood immovable under the tongue-lashing of the Solicitor-General, and made no reply. "I have never," he said afterwards, "been so sensible of the power of a good conscience, for if I had not considered the thing for which ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... your control. Where I stop, interdicted by the stain of trade, the successful artist is free to enter. You have stamped me plebeian—you would not share my slow progress toward a higher sphere, and you have disqualified me for attaining it alone. In your mercenary and immovable will, and in that only, lies the secret ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... made a low, indrawn whistle and raised his eyebrows—the rooms were so sumptuously furnished; immovable largeness and heaviness, lofty sobriety, abundance of finely wrought brass mounting, motionless richness of upholstery, much silent twinkle of pendulous crystal, a soft semi-obscurity—such were the characteristics. The long windows of the farther apartment ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... cella; the point where the two branches met was the place for the door, and the first stone was 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 ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... dash of icy water could have had the effect those quiet words had, combined with the immovable calm out of which ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... perfection. He had the thorough mastery of his instrument. He did the most difficult things not only with admirable precision, but without the least appearance of effort. He was a great, tall fellow: and it was really a fine sight to see him standing very upright, and immovable save as to his arms, looking fixedly into distance, and his bosom swelling with the lofty belief, that, out of four or five thousand persons who were present, there was not one who, to save his life, could have done what he was doing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... between duty and inclination. Temperley and Miss Du Prel strolled off together, his vast height bent deferentially towards her. This air of deference proved somewhat superficial. Miss Du Prel found that his opinions were of an immovable order, with very defined edges. In some indescribable fashion, those opinions partook of the general elegance of his being. Not for worlds would he have harboured an exaggerated or immoderate idea. In politics he ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... passionate 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 ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... 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 ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... the whole time with the same immovable calm in the midst of this tumult as that with which he had defied storm and waves at the Iron Gate. At last he broke silence: "Will you take charge of the money which belongs to the orphan, or shall I give it over to the City Orphanage?" (At this last question ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... furnished with straight points even I shall check, like snakes with mantras, all those angry monarchs.' Having said this, the mighty Arjuna taking up the bow he had obtained as dower accompanied by his brother Bhima stood immovable as a mountain. And beholding those Kshatriyas who were ever furious in battle with Karna ahead, the heroic brothers rushed fearlessly at them like two elephants rushing against a hostile elephant. Then those monarchs ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... must needs run the whole gamut of emotion, and resolve every point raised by himself or others into a definite negative or affirmative in his own life. Once settled in a position to his entire satisfaction, he was as immovable as a mountain, and this was at once the source of his power and his weakness, for thousands gladly followed the resolute man, and found their own salvation therein, while on the other hand the will which would never bend clashed hopelessly with ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... of the voice checked his absurd linguistic and physical capers, and caused him to look at his wife. She was standing and pointing to a chair. Her face was calm and immovable, only her eyes appeared to expand and contract with startling rapidity. One glance was enough for Bellamy. He felt frightened, and sat down in the ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... oaken brace and copper band, Lay the rudder on the sand, That, like a thought, should have control Over the movement of the whole; And near it the anchor, whose giant hand Would reach down and grapple with the land, And immovable and fast Hold the great ship against the bellowing blast! And at the bows an image stood, By a cunning artist carved in wood, With robes of white, that far behind Seemed to be fluttering in the wind. It was not shaped in a classic mould, ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... and corporeal is most real. But they are not the same, and they have a different origin and nature. The one comes to us by instruction, the other by persuasion, the one is rational, the other is irrational; the one is movable by persuasion, the other immovable; the one is possessed by every man, the other by the gods and by very few men. And we must acknowledge that as there are two kinds of knowledge, so there are two kinds of being corresponding to them; the one uncreated, indestructible, immovable, which is seen ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... hand was taken and other words were uttered, she that had crouched there so long between death and life immovable, loving neither, rose possessed of a passion for the darkness and the void, and struggling bitterly with the detaining hand, crying for instant death. No strength was in her ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... find such an unexpected vein of grave pleasantry about the demure-looking church-dignitary; for the Deacon asked his question without moving a muscle, and took no cognizance whatever of the young man's tone and smile. First-class humorists are, as is well known, remarkable for the immovable solemnity of their features. Clement promised himself not a little amusement from the curiously sedate drollery of the venerable Deacon, who, it was plain from his conversation, had cultivated a literary taste which would make him a more agreeable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... less a personage than her Most Gracious Majesty THE QUEEN. Sleep, Brother Donkeys, sleep! But I fancy you're sleeping already, for you make no reply; Not a quiver of your ears, not a sign from your motionless drooping noses, dark against the dusky night sky. As black and immovable as the silent fir-trees you solemnly slumber beneath, Whilst I wakefully meditate on a glorious past, and painfully ponder the future, as the dews fall ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... with the ivory face, so inelastic, so unbending, so secure in its inherited authority. There was war between her and Stephen's mother; and she stood alone, with only her undaunted spirit to support her, while on the opposite side were entrenched all the immovable dead ranks of the generations. "I shall fight it out," thought the girl bitterly. "I don't care what she thinks of me. I shall fight it ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... raced after as if to drag me back, but finding that impossible, retired sullenly to spring yet once again. Shrieking and hissing, the great white monsters tore along, dashing in fury and breaking in impotence against the immovable rocks. The wild, weird scene, too, frightened me; for I was but a boy, remember, who up to this had never met with a more stirring adventure, perhaps, than a tussle with a high-spirited pony. I was worn out, too, by hard toil, faint from loss of blood, saddened by ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... done, we saw a boat pull away from the brig, towards the town. Before the men aloft had left the yards, a sudden flaw of wind drove the ship's head off the bank, when her anchor was let go, and she swung head to wind. Her heel, however, was still on the shoal, and the rudder immovable. To get her off, the launch was hoisted out, and the kedge anchor with a hawser, was put into her. While we were engaged in hauling the frigate off the shoal, a boat appeared coming down the harbour, and being hailed some one in her answered ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... he seemed to fall into one of his trances, and lay immovable an hour or more. When I took his dinner to him he lifted his large, sandy ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... prepared to detect any resemblance which might reveal itself between the phenomena of light and those of wave-motion. Such resemblances he did detect; and, spurred on by the discovery, he pursued his speculations and experiments, until he finally succeeded in placing on an immovable basis the ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... struggle in which powers friendly and unfriendly to men are opposed to one another. A similar conception is found in the figures of the Fates, who are the embodiment of the course of events in the world—the immovable, remorseless, absolute fortune of men, good and bad—a picture of life as it has presented itself, doubtless, to men in all periods of history. Out of this came the abstract conception of Fate, the impersonal power that ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... to move a little, they gently protrude themselves with their pinnae pectorales; but it is with their strong muscular tails only that they and all fishes shoot along with such inconceivable rapidity. It has been said that the eyes of fishes are immovable; but these apparently turn them forward or backward in their sockets as occasions require. They take little notice of a lighted candle, though applied close to their heads, but flounce and seem much frightened by a sudden stroke of the hand ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... knavery carries his goods to a more lucrative market. At the instance of Dashall, therefore, Sir Felix was determined to retain the animal until the claimant brought irrefragable proof of ownership. The fellow blustered,—the Baronet was immovable in his resolution;—when the other threw off all disguise, and exhibiting himself in pristine blackguardism, inundated Sir Felix with a torrent of abuse; who disdaining any minor notice of his scurrility, seized the fellow, with one hand by the ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... steamer came down upon her. The Yankee was evidently taken by surprise. The Alabama fired a gun, and brought her to. When first we got sight of the Alabama, it was difficult to make out what she was doing; the barque's head had been put about, and the Alabama lay off quite immovable, as if she were taking a sight at the "varmint!" The weather was beautifully calm and clear, and the sea was as smooth and transparent as a sheet of glass. The barque was making her way slowly from the steamer, with every bit ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... for you to leave the room," said Joyce with immovable calm. Her queenlike dignity was something new to her husband, and it commanded Mrs. ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... but the opening of the royal answer in the council of state at Brussels disappointed all these pleasing hopes. "Although in regard to the religious edicts," this was its tenor, "his resolve was firm and immovable, and he would rather lose a thousand lives than consent to alter a single letter of it, still, moved by the representations of Count Egmont, he was, on the other hand, equally determined not to leave any gentle means untried to guard the people against the delusions ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the corporal remained fixed and immovable with his hand up to the salute; but on being questioned by his mistress, he replied, remaining in the same ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... 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 of ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... not moved an inch since he lay down, became somewhat apparent to Jarwin from the fact that Cuffy's chin still rested immovable on his neck, but his mind was too indolent to pursue the thought. He had not the most remote idea as to where he was, but he cared nothing for that. He was in absolute ignorance of the time of day, but he cared, if possible, still less for that. Food, he knew, was necessary to ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... your own blind stupidity accounts for the lack of efficiency. Once in awhile an automobile gets uproariously full of spirits and runs away with itself, and almost runs away with you, too, simply for the reason that the carburetion is good and everything is pulling well. Again it is as silent and immovable as a sphinx and gives no hint of its present or expected ailments. It is most curious, but an automobile invents some new real or fancied complaint with each fresh internal upheaval, and requires, in each and every instance, an entirely new and ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... standing before the door, enveloped in his cloak, with his hat pulled down over his eyes. On seeing this figure, mute and immovable as ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... toboggan until I fetched up against a dead log. I discovered it to be a dead log after a confused interval during which I vaguely believed myself to have been swallowed by an alligator. While the alligator illusion endured I must have lain comatose and immovable. Indeed, when my senses began to come back I was still quite inert. I experienced that curious tranquillity which is said to visit those who are actually within the jaws of death. There I lay prone, absolutely at the mercy of the mysterious white prowler ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... to come from the world of shades rather than from the land of the living. She is so slender, so light, so filmy, she must be diaphanous. Her face was as white as milk; her eyes, her clothes, her hair jet black. She looked at me as she flitted by, and though I may say I'm no coward, that cold immovable look froze the blood ...
— Adieu • Honore de Balzac
... allow nothing for English oak and English comfort, mine host?" said the immovable captain; "do you think, good sir, that I measure fitness and propriety by square and compass, as if I were planning Solomon's temple anew? All I mean to say is, that the Alacrity is a vessel of singular compactness and magical arrangement ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... resources of his neighbor, where complete indifference is shown to luxury and dress,—pleasures which are thought childish in comparison to that of obtaining ten or twelve acres of pasture land,—a purchase coveted for years, which has probably given rise to endless diplomatic combinations. Immovable in its prejudices, good or evil, this social circle follows a beaten track, looking neither before it nor behind it. It accepts nothing from Paris without long examination and trial; it rejects cashmeres as it does investments ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... the Church was approaching in person. They drew themselves, like sentinels on duty, one on each side of the door by which the long gallery communicated with Fairford's apartment, and stood there immovable, and with countenances expressive ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... eastern end of the Amphitheatre a small iron gate slowly swung upon its hinges, and in the dark recess beyond it a couple of men appeared. For a moment they stood there immovable, a closely huddled mass, shoulder to shoulder, with round open eyes dilated with fear and a cry of nameless terror still hovering ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... of light, but not so gross as a common fire, which ascended to heaven and filled all the court before the house, amply justified the good-wife's suspicions. But to the terrors of fire Sandie was as immovable as he was to the imaginary groans of the barren wife of Laird Laurie; and he held his wife, and threatened the weight of his right hand—and it was a heavy one—to all who ventured abroad, or even unbolted ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... close to the shed and stood silent and ghost-like beside its daubed walls. Immovable as a cat crouching in the hedge to spring on her prey, she waited until the waning moon had sunk behind the crags. She laid her ear close to a crack in the logs from which she had once pushed the red mud to let in the light. All was still at last. The sobbing had stopped. ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... will give us the victory, for he has said, 'Whosoever resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God.'" Philip then gave the signal of attack. It was the 15th of May, 1525. The army was put in motion; but the peasant host stood immovable, singing the hymn, "Come, Holy Ghost," and waiting for heaven to declare in their favor. The artillery soon broke down their rude rampart, carrying dismay and death into the midst of the insurgents. Their fanaticism and courage at once forsook them; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... females; and we have likewise endeavored to instil into them the precepts of lunar philosophy. We have insisted upon their renouncing the contemptible shackles of religion and common sense, and adoring the profound, omnipotent, and all perfect energy, and the ecstatic, immutable, immovable perfection. But such was the unparalleled obstinacy of these wretched savages that they persisted in cleaving to their wives, and adhering to their religion, and absolutely set at nought the sublime doctrines of the moon—nay, among other abominable heresies they even went so far as blasphemously ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... the life into which she was born looked so unlovely to her. She preferred the twitter and twaddle of Priscilla's workroom to the intense realities of an existence always verging on eternity. She dared to contrast those large, heroic fishers, with their immovable principles and their constant fight with all the elemental forces for their daily bread, with Roland Tresham; and to decide that Roland's delicate beauty, pretty, persuasive manners, and fashionable clothing were vastly superior attributes. So she was glad when the morning came, for she was ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... coffee-money has got abroad. The yard is full, and Rogers of the flaming eye is beleaguered with entreaties to show other Lodging Houses. Mine next! Mine! Mine! Rogers, military, obdurate, stiff-necked, immovable, replies not, but leads away; all falling back before him. Inspector Field follows. Detective Sergeant, with his barrier of arm across the little passage, deliberately waits to close the procession. He sees behind him, without any effort, and exceedingly ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... there, immovable except for the nervous hands which still twisted and worried the telegram, he saw a sign on the building opposite. The first line, bearing the name, doubtless, was illegible; the second, fully legible, lingered for ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... rush. Mick Darby had the lasso this time, and flung it faultlessly over the animal's horns. There was a shout of excitement and the blacks outside the rails pulled for all they were worth. But no power of man could make such a creature stir unless it wanted to. It braced its fore legs and stood immovable, then shook its mighty head till the lasso twanged like a fiddle-string, but did not give an inch. Finally the steer caught sight of its tormentors outside the yard, and rushed. At once the rope became slack and the watchful men pulled it tight ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... mechanism exhibited by Monsieur Maelzel were very popular at Washington. The chess- player was the figure of a Turk of the natural size, sitting behind a chest three feet and a-half in height, to which was attached the wooden seat on which the figure sat. On the top of the chest was an immovable chess-board, upon which the eyes of the figure were fixed. Its right hand and arm were extended on the chest, and its left, somewhat raised, held a pipe. Several doors in the chest and in the body of the figure ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... Bobbie's married life. Of course, one's always mildly interested in one's friends' marriages, hoping they'll turn out well and all that; but this was different. The average man isn't like Bobbie, and the average girl isn't like Mary. It was that old business of the immovable mass and the irresistible force. There was Bobbie, ambling gently through life, a dear old chap in a hundred ways, but undoubtedly a ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... Indian, with immovable calm, "will pay with beaver skins for the milk that his little daughter drinks, but he will keep what he has found, and the door must open when he comes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... the 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 the frozen sea, to find some place ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... party felt, by the energy and decision with which he spoke the last words, that he was immovable. His resolution filled them with melancholy, and an absolute sense of death. They left him, therefore, in silence, with the exception of his parents, whose grief ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... take off his cap and wipe his forehead. I, for the sake of comforting him in this his heaviness, placed my hand upon his crown; and truly I might have taken it for a tuft of bents, the hair on end, the skin immovable as ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... peduncle, flexible, and provided with muscles. Scuta[3] furnished only with an adductor muscle: other valves, when present, not united into an immovable ring. ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... ropes which held me so cruelly immovable, I would have leaped to my feet in astonishment; as it was, I involuntarily gave so violent a start as to cause myself considerable pain, and then asked, in ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... Rhetrae that none should be written. For what he thought most conducive to the virtue and happiness of a city, was principles interwoven with the manners and breeding of the people. These would remain immovable, as founded in inclination, and be the strongest and most lasting tie; and the habits which education produced in the youth, would answer in each the purpose of a lawgiver. As for smaller matters, contracts ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... Thy 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 not ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... you a wrist," repeated Mr. Jaggers, with an immovable determination to show it. "Molly, let them ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... done 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
... of the room where the pianoforte then stood. They examined it and found that it would easily admit of removal, being, in fact, only the frame of a bookcase, and showing at the back the painted panelling of the wall. Mr. Gaskell noted it as curious that all the shelves were fixed and immovable except one at the end, which had been fitted with the ordinary arrangement allowing its position to be altered at will. My brother thought that the change would improve the appearance of his rooms, besides being advantageous for the books, and gave instructions to the college upholsterer to ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... protect its occupants from interference was fully borne out by its aspect. There was no access to the basement; the main entrance was situated at the side; all the ground-floor and first-storey windows facing into the street were fitted with immovable wooden venetians. Presumably those on the Park side were similarly secured, whilst the back wall abutted on to that of another mansion, equally large and strongly built, tenanted by a ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... of the 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... silence and the quiet consideration of his manner touched Joan. Her face, upturned almost submissively, for the moment seemed tremulous, and she set her lips together. She did not speak until he had finished, and then she rose and stood before him immovable ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... refused to make any engagement beforehand (it would be so dreadful to have to keep it if she shouldn't have made a hit), and this attitude had blighted the pleasant plan, which fell to the ground. He had called her morbid, but she was immovable. Mrs. Alsager's messenger let him know that he was expected to supper in Grosvenor Place, and half an hour afterwards he was seated there among complimentary people and flowers and popping corks, eating the first orderly meal he had partaken of for a week. Mrs. Alsager ...
— Nona Vincent • Henry James
... applied on the layer of pitch, its outer surface being covered with the same preparation. Lastly, the bandage, adhering to the piece of pasteboard, to the skin, and to the different turns which it makes around the body, is carefully applied so as to form an immovable, rigid, and solid bandage, which will retain the hernia long enough for the wound in the abdominal ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... over the open space along the river bank it had found its path obstructed by some boxes, etc., that were in front of the tent opening, and had suddenly changed its route, not noticing me, as I stood there immovable. It thus formed a right angle about me scarcely twenty-five centimetres distant. At first glance its shape suggested the redoubtable king cobra, but two very conspicuous yellow parallel bands running obliquely ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... and that his thoughts were engrossing, no one doubted who saw him sitting enthralled at such a time, for he neither rocked, nor talked, nor moved a muscle hour after hour, and only his eyes were alive. To-night the spell was on him again, and he sat bulked up in his chair, rocklike and immovable. ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... 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 not loved by anyone, absolute ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... by this word, for it has an evil sound?" But there was not a flush on William's pale, immovable face, and it was marvellous to see so young a Prince carry himself so quietly under the polite scorn of Claverhouse's manner and the rising insolence of ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... then was so intolerable that her mind revolted from it as from a thing that simply could not be. The idea by which she lived asserted itself against the menace of destruction. It was not so much an idea as an instinct, blind, obstinate, immovable. It had behind it the wisdom and the persistence of life. It refused to believe where ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... in this way, forgetting is fatal. He has memorized words. When the words do not come he has no recourse but to wait for memory to revive, or to look to his colleagues for help. Again, the man who has learned his argument can give no variety to his attack or defense. He is like a general with an immovable battery, who, though able to hurl a terrific discharge in the one direction in which his guns point, is powerless if the attack is made ever so slightly on his flank. Perhaps the greatest disadvantage of this method is that it ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon
... clothes are stolen. Thy groom wakes up in the night; he sees what has happened to him; he takes what is left, he goes off to bad company, he joins the Beduin. He transforms himself into an Asiatic. The police (?) come, they [feel about] for the robber; he is discovered, and is immovable from terror. Thou wakest, thou findest no trace of them, for they have ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce
... many savage and barbaric peoples fire-worship has nourished or still flourishes. The Indie Aryans of old produced fire by the method of the twirling stick, and in their symbolism "the turning stick, Pramanta, was the father of the god of fire; the immovable stick was the mother of the adorable and luminous Agni [fire]"—a concept far-reaching in its mystic and mythological relations ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... to the stool and for a few moments remained immovable, watching the workman's busy fingers. How carefully they moved—with what ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... dissatisfaction in marriage (require) three. The produce(371) of the fourth year,(372) the second tithes, of which the value is unknown (require) three. The valuation of holy things (requires) three. The estimation of movable things requires three. R. Judah said, "one of them must be a priest." Immovable things require nine judges and a priest; and the valuation of a man ...
— Hebrew Literature
... noticing his rapt air, forbore breaking silence; while the gipsy, who knew that she was the admiration of the forestieri, stood immovable as a statue, looking steadily at them, without ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... his eyes counterbalance the possible danger and shame of a position, which might place him between the two alternatives of stifling his intelligence and outraging his conscience—the one by blind, unscrutinising, and immovable acceptance of all the dogmas and sentiments of the Church; the other by the inculcation as truths of what he believed to be false, and the proscription as falsehoods of what he believed to be true. The horror ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... said I, after waiting a considerable time for a reply, during which his countenance remained immovable, only there was the faintest conceivable tremor of the white ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... Baltic provinces came out. All of them stout, full-breasted, blonde, powdered, very important and respectful. The conversation did not catch on at first. The girls sat immovable, like carvings of stone, in order to pretend with all their might that they were respectable ladies. Even the champagne, which Ryazanov called for, did not improve the mood. Rovinskaya was the first to come to the aid of the party. Turning to the stoutest, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... wood-box, takes the glass jar between her knees, runs out her tongue, and twists. But the cover does not twist. The cover seems to feel as though it was placed there to keep guard over that fruit, and it is as immovable as the Egyptian pyramids. The little lady works until she is red in the face, and until her crimps all come down, and then she sets it down to wait for the old man to come home. He comes in tired, disgusted, ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... said Marguerite, with a short laugh, as the cab came suddenly to a halt -"it looks to me as if you were likely to have more than that of it; for we are in an apparently inextricable, immovable mixture of trucks, horse-cars, and incompetent policemen, and nothing short of a miracle will get us a mile farther along ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... brethren, I should do to this fellow?" A hollow sound burst from the bosoms of the unanimous assembly. The verdict was short and decisive:—"Knock out his brains!" And in order to suit the action to the word, the whole four-and-twenty arose at once, and with their immovable eyes fixed firmly on the face of our hero—who horror struck with the sight as he was, could not close his—they began to glide slowly but regularly towards him, bending their line into the form of a crescent, so as to environ him on all sides. In vain he fled ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 342, November 22, 1828 • Various
... week the Abbe {95} Paquin, parish priest of St Eustache, had been urging the insurgents to go back quietly to their homes. He now renewed his exhortations. He begged Chenier to cease his revolutionary conduct. Chenier, however, was immovable. He refused to believe that the rebels at St Charles had been dispersed, and announced his determination to die with arms in his hands rather than surrender. 'You might as well try to seize the ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles
... mystery was quickly solved when we saw detaching itself from the surface of the planet beneath us, where, while it remained immovable, its color had blended with that of the soil so as to render it invisible, another ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... reasons for her delay and plenty of comfort for her lover. Naturally slow of pulse and speech, she had been long coming to a conclusion; but, having satisfied herself of its justice, she was likely to be immovable in it. She gave John her hand frankly and lovingly, and promised, in poverty or wealth, in weal or woe, to stand truly by his side. It was not a very hopeful troth-plighting, but they were both sure of the foundations ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Further, the word "state" seems to denote immobility according to 1 Cor. 15:48, "Be ye steadfast (stabiles) and immovable"; wherefore Gregory says (Hom. xxi in Ezech.): "The stone is foursquare, and is stable on all sides, if no disturbance will make it fall." Now it is virtue that enables us "to act with immobility," according to Ethic. ii, 4. Therefore it would seem that a ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas |
