"Impressible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... itself less and less frequently. The experience may be worth considering by some who have the care of children. It would be difficult to overstate the intensity and accuracy of an intelligent child's observation. At that impressible time of life, it must sometimes produce a fixed impression. If the fixed impression be of an object terrible to the child, it will be (for want of reasoning upon) inseparable from great fear. Force the child ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... property of his own, some fifteen hundred dollars a year, I believe, Lynde at first thought to go abroad. It was always his dream to go abroad. But I persuaded him out of that, seeing how perilous it would be for a young fellow of his inexperience and impressible disposition to go rambling alone over the Continent. Paris was his idea. Paris would not make a mouthful of him. I have talked him out of that, I repeat, and have succeeded in convincing him that ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... relations, who hardly pardoned him for not being a captain of horse as his father had been before him. About the same time, or a little later, he performed a pilgrimage of a kind that could hardly help making a mark upon a character so deeply impressible. In company with D'Alembert he went to Ferney and saw Voltaire.[4] To the position of Voltaire in Europe in 1770 there has never been any other man's position in any age wholly comparable. It is true that there had been ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... whom the mission had gathered round it, Mrs. Mattoon shared her labors by occasionally teaching in the palace, which was for some time thrown open to the ladies of her faithful sisterhood. Here, as elsewhere, the blended force and gentleness of her character wrought marvels in the impressible and grateful minds to which she ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... remarkably impressible and susceptible to influence, owing to the delicacy of her organization and the peculiarities of her structure. Her proper culture therefore calls for the greatest possible skill and care to protect her from those corrupting influences to which she is by nature especially susceptible. We should ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... the province of Bearn, about the middle of the seventeenth century. Three great influences conspired to make him unhappy—first, education, which at that time was held to be a reputable part of the discipline of the scions of noble families; next, a delicate and impressible mind, and lastly, he was born under the shadow of the Pyrenees, and within sight of the Atlantic. He had also served in the wars of Louis XIV. as colonel of the Carrignan, Cavignon, or Corignon regiment; therefore, from his military education, was formed to ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... realised images, all they knew, felt, or fancied, of the natural world about them. The sky in its unity and its variety,—the sea in its unity and its variety,—mirrored themselves respectively in these simple, but profoundly impressible spirits, as Zeus, as Glaucus or Poseidon. And a large part of their experience—all, that is, that related to the earth in its changes, the growth and decay of all things born of it—was covered by the story of Demeter, the myth ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... homes do we find among these people, where the children with their impressible minds are ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various
... in the indolent Mortimer, which seems to hint that if good society might on any account allow itself to be impressible, he, one of good society, might have the weakness to be impressed by what he here relates. It is hidden with great pains, but it is in him. The gloomy Eugene too, is not without some kindred touch; for, when that ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... succeeding age, with the probability that, so long as the language in which it is written endures, it will not cease to be read by a great number of the youth of all future generations at that period of life when their minds, their imaginations, and their hearts are most impressible with moral excellence, splendid picture, and religious sentiment. It would be difficult to name another work of any kind in our native tongue, of which so many editions have been printed, of which so many readers have lived and died, the character of whose lives and deaths ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... renewed enjoyment. Yet he surprises us from time to time by intuitions which could come only from a deep experience and power of observation; and men listen to him, old and young, in spite of themselves. He is quickly impressible to the slightest clouding of the spirits in social intercourse, and has his moments of extreme seriousness: his trial-task may well be, as Rosaline ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... with you for wanting to laugh, and I like to make you laugh, well enough, when I can. But then observe this: if the sense of the ridiculous is one side of an impressible nature, it is very well; but if that is all there is in a man, he had better have been an ape at once, and so have stood at the head of his profession. Laughter and tears are meant to turn the wheels of the same machinery of sensibility; one is wind-power, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... that a student during his college course should have a year's work in a chemical laboratory or else, if his taste inclines him to botany, geology, or zoology, a year's training of his observing powers in some one of these studies. For he ought to get, while at an impressible age, a superficial knowledge of the methods of scientific men, as a basis for his future reading. We all know that science is moving the world and to keep abreast with the movement is a necessity for every ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... to enrich the nations. The French alone, says Michelet, understood Italy. How terrible would have been a conquest by Turks with their barbarism, of Spaniards with their Inquisition, of Germans with their brutality! But France, impressible, sympathetic, ardent for pleasure, generous, amiable and vain, was capable of comprehending the Italian spirit. From the Italians the French communicated to the rest of Europe what we call the movement of the Renaissance. There is some truth in ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... streets, like the rue Montmartre, have a charming head, and end in a fish's tail. The rue de la Paix is a wide street, a fine street, yet it wakens none of those gracefully noble thoughts which come to an impressible mind in the middle of the rue Royale, and it certainly lacks the majesty which reigns in ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... I saw no monkey that showed so strong a personal attachment as this gentle, timid, silent, little creature. The eager and passionate Cebi seem to take the lead of all the South American monkeys in intelligence and docility, and the Coaita has perhaps the most gentle and impressible disposition; but the Parauacu, although a dull, cheerless animal, excels all in this quality of capability of attachment to individuals of our own species. It is not wanting, however, in intelligence as well as moral goodness, proof of which was furnished one day by an act of our ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... action on higher planes led to this curious prophetic vision. The parties were entirely unknown to one another, so that it was not caused by any close sympathy between them. If it was an attempt made by some helper to avert the threatened doom, it seems strange that no one who was sufficiently impressible could be found nearer than Cornwall. Perhaps Mr. Williams, when on the astral plane during sleep, somehow came across this reflection of the future, and being naturally horrified thereby, passed it on to his lower mind in the hope ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... the children's nursery. It is good philosophy, too, to furnish it attractively, even if the sum expended lower the standard of parlor luxuries. It is well that the children's chamber, which is to act constantly on their impressible natures for years, should command a better prospect, a sunnier aspect, than one which serves for a day's occupancy of the transient guest. It is well that journeys should be made or put off in view of the interests of the children; that guests should be invited ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... equipment for a few hours' journey, would not there and thereafter forever ignore the use of these articles, or recoil from that particular quality. Or, as an unbiased observer, he wondered if, on the other hand, impressible passengers, after passing three or four stations, had ever leaped from the train and refused to proceed further until they were supplied with one or more of those articles. Had he ever known any one who confided to him ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... mild as in the month of August in Europe,—then I am more sad than usual. All memories, pleasant or painful, fall with the same weight upon my heart. Beautiful weather dilates the heart and renders it more impressible, while bad weather contracts it. The passions alone are independent of the changes of the seasons. When we left the barracks of Austerlitz, a flurry of snow fell upon us. Colonel Vaudrey, to whom ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... of the lake. Here Wordsworth passed nine years, among a people of simple habits and scenery of a sweet and pastoral dignity. His earliest intimacies were with the mountains, lakes, and streams of his native district, and the associations with which his mind was stored during its most impressible period were noble and pure. The boys were boarded among the dames of the village, thus enjoying a freedom from scholastic restraints, which could be nothing but beneficial in a place where the temptations were only to sports that hardened the body, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... one of his earliest and closest school-friends, 'retiring, thoughtful to pensiveness, affectionate, without envy or jealousy, almost without emulation, impressible, but not wanting in moral firmness. No one was ever more formed for friendship. In all his words and acts he was simple, straightforward, true. He was very religious. Religion had a real effect upon his character, and made him tranquil about ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... books descriptive of the hopes and struggles of those no better situated, who have made impress on the age in which they lived. We seldom remember from whence we first received the idea which gave impulse to an honorable action; we received it, however, most probably from tongue or pen. For impressible youth such biography should be as ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... stateliest public square of a city; for then, by its remoteness, it melts all the petty personalities, of which it is made up, into one broad mass of existence,—one great life,—one collected body of mankind, with a vast, homogeneous spirit animating it. But, on the other hand, if an impressible person, standing alone over the brink of one of these processions, should behold it, not in its atoms, but in its aggregate,—as a mighty river of life, massive in its tide, and black with mystery, and, out of its depths, ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... one fact of our human existence that has a stronger influence upon us than the house we dwell in,—especially that in which our earlier and more impressible years are spent. The building and arrangement of a house influence the health, the comfort, the morals, the religion. There have been houses built so devoid of all consideration for the occupants, so rambling and hap-hazard ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... youthful piety, though somewhat given to over-severity towards weaker brethren, and to be so dazzled by his own light as to hold himself wiser than his teachers. But whatever blemishes others might discern in William, to his friend's mind he was faultless; for Marner had one of those impressible self-doubting natures which, at an inexperienced age, admire imperativeness and lean on contradiction. The expression of trusting simplicity in Marner's face, heightened by that absence of special observation, that defenceless, deer-like gaze ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... impression was not altogether natural. I thought that, amid all that mad enthusiasm, you were over-excited, not depressed. A solemn solitude like this would, to my thinking, be much more likely to lower your spirits. I don't like solitude, myself, and therefore, I suppose it is that I thought an impressible nature, like yours, would find something sad in the loneliness of these ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... a pause in front of the snapper on the end, and that pause was the most important thing in the whole story. If I got it the right length precisely, I could spring the finishing ejaculation with effect enough to make some impressible girl deliver a startled little yelp and jump out of her seat—and that was what I was after. This story was called "The Golden Arm," and was told in this fashion. You can practice with it yourself—and mind you look out for the pause and get ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... encircling arm, went to a book-stand near and took from it a richly bound Bible. With this she came and stood before Gus, who was half trembling with fear and perplexity, and said in a tone so grave and solemn that his weak impressible nature was ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... they're more impressible, for one thing. You can work them up into any kind of passion you want to. Then they're more submissive to discipline; they're used to being ordered about and kicked and cuffed, and they don't mind it. Besides, they're accustomed ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... upright himself, and having a clear and distinct view of right and wrong, would not allow himself to find any excuses for the crime, though anxious as his wife for the good of the criminal; nor did he fail to blame himself, as Mrs Morgan blamed herself, for allowing their child, during the most impressible years of his life, to go ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... world so early. Young Graham became reticent and to superficial observers shy. Those who cared to observe him closely, however, discovered that it was not diffidence, but indifference toward others that characterized his manner. In the most impressible period of his life he had received instruction, advice and discipline in abundance, but love and sympathy had been denied. Unconsciously his heart had become chilled, benumbed and overshadowed by his intellect. The actual world gave him little ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... facts which occurred in his practise would now have been deemed either mythical or miraculous. He seemed to reproduce the wonders of Gospel history. But all this was only an exhibition of the force of suggestion, or the action of the law of faith, over a patient in the impressible condition." ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... extreme salubrity, of contiguity to a charming little tumbled country in which the troops may indulge in ingenious imitations of difficult man[oe]uvres; to which it behooves me to add the advantage of enchanting drives and walks for the entertainment of the impressible visitor. In winter, possibly, the great circle of the camp is rather a prey to the elements, but nothing can be more agreeable than I found it toward the end of May, with the light fresh breezes hanging about, and the sun-rifts ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... man or woman, in the nursery, the traits, the habits, the customs of the best etiquette, and you have stamped upon them, at an age when the character is impressible as wax, not only the outer semblance, but, in a great degree, the inner reality, of a ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... table, chamberlains, "awakers," "adorners," all distinct from one another, crowded each noble mansion, helping forward the general demoralization. It was probably at this comparatively late period that certain foreign customs of a sadly lowering character were adopted by this plastic and impressible people, who learnt the vice of paederasty from the Greeks, and adopted from the Assyrians the worship of Beltis, with its ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... of exaggerated self-confidence, mismeasurement of forces, and pliability to external influences could not but be baleful in one of the leaders of an assembly composed, as was the Paris Conference, of men each with his own particular ax to grind and impressible only to high moral authority or overwhelming military force. It cannot be gainsaid that no one, not even his own familiars, could ever foresee the next move in Mr. Lloyd George's game of statecraft, and it is demonstrable that on several occasions he himself was so little aware of what ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... friendships at school and was never very popular with my schoolfellows, who, however, tolerated my odd ways better than might have been expected. I was easily brought to appreciate good literature, but I never had much power of expression or of strenuous thought. I was extremely susceptible and impressible, moved by beauty of any kind, but never at all ambitious or in any way creative. I was easily stimulated to work, and then loved to work; but, unless the stimulus were maintained the natural indolence of my disposition ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Gude, are satires against bigotry and hypocrisy. But in spite of the rollicking profanity of his language, and the violence of his rebound against the austere religion of Scotland, Burns was at bottom deeply impressible by religious ideas, as may be seen from his Prayer under the Pressure of Violent Anguish, and Prayer in Prospect ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... mountain rising steeply, its nearer side, which was in deep shade, the sun having long sunk below its top, hirsute with all kinds of trees, from the highest pinnacle down to the torrent's brink. Cut on the top surface of the wall, which was of slate, and therefore easily impressible by the knife, were several names, doubtless those of tourists, who had gazed from the look-out on the prospect, amongst which I observed in remarkably bold letters that of T ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... used as describing George Sand: "Thou large-brained Woman, and large-hearted Man." She blended in closest union and swift interplay feminine receptiveness with masculine energy. She was at once impressible and creative, impulsive and deliberate, pliant in sympathy yet firmly self-centred, confidingly responsive while commanding in originality. By the vivid intensity of her conceptions, she brought out in those around their own consciousness, and, by the glowing vigor of her intellect, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... me—daring adventure, the need for courage, the patriotism that fires the young man's heart, and, at the final analysis, my loyalty to the defenceless, my secret notions of the value of the American home, my horror of Indian captivity, a horror I had known when my mind was most impressible—all these were motives driving me on. I wondered that my companion could be so calm, sitting there in the dim twilight explaining carefully what lay before me; and yet I felt the power of that calmness building up a surer strength in me. I did not dream of home that night. I chased Indians until ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... greatly to the credit of Madame de Maintenon that she was interested in whatever tended to improve the morals of the people or to develop the intellect. She was one of those strong-minded women who are impressible by grand sentiments. She would have admired Madame de Stael or Madame Roland,—not their opinions, but their characters. Politics was perhaps the most interesting subject to her, as it has ever been to very cultivated women in France; and it was ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... reason for persevering in his intention, and getting an additional security against himself. Nevertheless, at this point in the conversation, he was conscious of increased disinclination to tell his story about Hetty. He was of an impressible nature, and lived a great deal in other people's opinions and feelings concerning himself; and the mere fact that he was in the presence of an intimate friend, who had not the slightest notion that he had had any such serious internal struggle ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... Ashbourne was one of the most memorable periods in Lord Mallow's life. He was an impressible young man, and he had been unconsciously falling deeper in love with Lady Mabel every day during the last three months. Her delicate beauty, her culture, her elegance, her rank, all charmed and fascinated him; but her sympathy with Erin was irresistible. It was not the first ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... love. The king's watchfulness saved her from this romantic folly, and gave her another husband. This unhappy match was now at an end. Louise was again free. She still felt in her heart some of the wild love of romance and adventure of the little Louise; she was the same daring, dreamy, impressible Louise, only now she was less innocent. The little coquette from instinct was changed into ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... She gazed at him with tearful eyes. Ah, he was still the foundling, who needed her care! Pelle himself had tears in his eyes; he suddenly felt weak and impressible. Here was a human child whose heart was beating for him—and how beautiful she was, in ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Brooklyn. The boy had scanty schooling, and by the time he was twenty had tried typesetting, teaching, and editing a country newspaper on Long Island. He was a big, dark-haired fellow, sensitive, emotional, extraordinarily impressible. ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... and with a strong and noble physical development, he seemed born to command the love of women. The only trouble with him was, in common parlance, that he was too clever a fellow; he was too social, too impressible, too versatile, too attractive, and too much in demand for his own good. He always drew company about him, as honey draws flies, and was indispensable every where and to every body; and it needs a steady head and firm nerves for such ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Philippus. "Just like a woman! A little juggling, and lo! what was only rose color is turned to purple. No. The son of the Mukaukas has not yet undergone such a dazzling change of hue; but he has a feeling and impressible heart—and I hold even that in high esteem. I have no doubt that he loved his father deeply, nay passionately; though I have ample reason to believe him capable of the very worst. So long as I was present at the scene of death ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... manner as in another. The test of a distaste for former simple pursuits, and want of interest in them, is a much safer one, more universally applicable, and not so easily evaded. It is equally effectual, too, as a religious safeguard; for the natural and impressible state in which the mind is kept by the absence of habitual stimulants is surely the state in which it is best qualified for the exercise of devotion,—for self-denial, ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... was visible on many countenances, and immediate starvation seemed to be waiting at the door to clutch them as they went out; for the impressible creatures believed every word and ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... The impressible visitor declares that he felt disposed to fall upon his knees before this grand and simple human being, but refrained. They went to the middle of a bridge thrown across an arm of the lake, and Chateaubriand ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... and useful in their lives to the love of virtue, and truthfulness, and piety, and the fear of God instilled into their hearts by the lips of a pious mother. It is her special function to plant and develop in their young and impressible minds the seeds of virtue, love, reverence, and obedience, and to train her daughters, by precept and example, not to catch husbands that will give them splendid establishments, but to be, in due time, modest and affectionate wives, tender and judicious mothers, and prudent and ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... to New York earlier than usual, worked steadily at my profession and with increasing success, and began to accept opportunities (which I had previously declined) of making myself personally known to the great, impressible, fickle, tyrannical public. One or two of my speeches in the hall of the Cooper Institute, on various occasions—as you may perhaps remember—gave me a good headway with the party, and were the ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... said this he would grasp tighter his crutch and look wrathfully about the room for a seat. 'Bolt!' he would continue, having adjusted his shabby drab hat, 'soon learned that in Europe tradesmen are exceedingly impressible, and notwithstanding they are held in utter contempt by the fine gentlemen of the diplomatic world, will be their humble servant to any amount, asking no other security than the, to them, immaculate ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... temper is deep in us all. Israel holds up the mirror in which we may see ourselves. If blows do not break iron, they harden it. A wasted sorrow—that is, a sorrow which does not drive us to God—leaves us less impressible than ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... digestive organs are highly impressible or diseased, it is very important to adopt a nutritious, unstimulating, vegetable diet, as soon ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... a lady from whom society expected so much as from Mrs. Marsden could not give her time to her children. In the impressible period of infancy and early childhood, Lottie and her brother, and an invalid sister older than herself, had been left chiefly to the charge of servants. But Mrs. Marsden's conscience was at rest, for she ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... this point, to say from afar:—"I hope we are going to have some 'Ifigenia in Aulide.' Because I should have enjoyed that." Which carried an implication that the musical world had been palming off an inferior article on a public deeply impressible by the higher aspects ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... haste to shake hands with the ill-mated couple, say a few soothing words, and take leave of them. From that time, I saw Pendlam occasionally, but avoided the house. It was a peculiarity of his impressible nature, to imbibe, unconsciously to himself, the sentiments of powerful persons with whom he came in contact, retain and revolve them in his intellect, until they reappeared as his own original convictions. He now went with reformers, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... proved an inspiration to Mr. Burroughs cannot be doubted. Possibly we should never have had him as a nature writer at all, had he spent his impressible youthful years in a less favored locality. It is, however, a curious fact that the town which produced this lover of nature also produced one other man of national fame, who was as different from him as could well ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... had not been blissful in her first marriage, she had abandoned the chase of an ideal man, and she had found one who was tunable so as not to offend her ears, likely ever to be a fund of amusement for her humour, good, impressible, and above all, very picturesque. There is the secret of her, and of how it came to pass that a simple man and a complex woman fell to union after the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Government sent an Indian agent to treat with them, in its usual half-paternal, half-aggressive, and wholly inconsistent policy. Elijah, who still retained the imitative sense and adaptability to surroundings which belong to most lazy, impressible natures, and in striped yellow and vermilion features looked the chief he personated, met the agent with silent and becoming gravity. The council was carried on by signs. Never before had an Indian treaty been entered ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte
... Madison Wayne, the elder, was tall, well-knit and spare, reticent in speech and slow in deduction; his brother, Arthur, was of rounder outline, but smaller and of a more delicate and perhaps a more impressible nature. It was believed by some that it was within the range of possibility that Arthur would yet be seen "taking his cocktail like a white man," or "dropping his scads" at draw poker. At present, however, they seemed content to spend their evenings in their own cabin, and their Sundays ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... aspect and a vigorous nature. He was a favorite with his female patients,—perhaps many of them would have said because he was good-looking and pleasant in his manners, but some thought in virtue of a special magnetic power to which certain temperaments were impressible, though there was no explaining it. But he himself never claimed any such personal gift, and never attempted any of the exploits which some thought were in his power if he chose to exercise his faculty in that direction. This girl was, as it were, a child to him, ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... follies, but the strength and the virtues of other types of men. He will be a man raised to the highest power. He will be self-centred, equipoised, and ever master of himself. His sensibility will not be deadened or blunted by violation of nature's laws. His whole character will be impressible, and will respond to the ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... out-of-the-way country village. Such a thing had never occurred before in his lifetime, nor within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. All were therefore properly impressed with the importance of the occurrence, and none more so than the excitable, impressible, enthusiastic Poet. For days before the one appointed to make the journey to the Market Town, he was in a great state of excitement and hilarious pleasure, and with difficulty controlled his inclinations ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... full work of suggestion and decoration, it is in a hall which is otherwise bare of ornament. Pictures in dining-rooms make very little impression as pictures, because the mind is engrossed with the first and natural purpose of the room, and consequently not in a waiting and easily impressible mood; but in a hall, if one stops for even a moment, the thoughts are at leisure, and waiting to be interested. Aside from the colour effect, which may be so managed as to be very valuable, pictures hung in a hall ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... under the chill and dismal shadow of death once more, such was the eloquence of Puddock, and so impressible his own nature, as he followed the appeal of his second. 'Life is sweet;' and, though the compound was nauseous, and a necessity upon him of swallowing it in horrid instalments, spoonful after spoonful, yet, though not without many interruptions, and many a shocking apostrophe, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... voluntary contribution on his own part, because he knows that it is at all times in his power to see the thing as it really is. I have often observed that little children are actually deceived by stage-scenery, never by pictures; though even these produce an effect on their impressible minds, which they do not on the minds of adults. The child, if strongly impressed, does not indeed positively think the picture to be the reality; but yet he does not think the contrary. As Sir George Beaumont was shewing ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... himself that he was not impressible, or at least that the outward trappings of wealth and rank did not impress him. But he was distinctly pleased to find that Sir John's carriage and pair, which met them at the station, was irreproachable, ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... direction, parents must cultivate a love for the same objects themselves. Take the little ones into the country, if they are not so fortunate as to live there, and in the midst of nature's glories, point their impressible minds upward to the Author of all the surrounding loveliness. Gather flowers and leaves and call attention to the peculiarities and special beauties of each, and thus arouse curiosity and cultivate habits of close observation ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... domed roof. Hebrew texts which the curate could not decipher were painted on the dark walls. He took off his hat reverently and sat down. There was no one there. He felt very much surprised at finding himself alone. To his impressible nervous nature it seemed that he had suddenly entered a place far removed in time and space from the every-day life with which he was so familiar. He sat a long time; it was cold, and the evening light grew dim, and yet no one came. Issachar entered now and ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... two languages is a rascal,' says the saying, and it rightly represents the feeling of primitive communities when the sudden impact of new thoughts and new examples breaks down the compact despotism of the single consecrated code, and leaves pliant and impressible man—such as he then is—to follow his unpleasant will without distinct guidance by hereditary morality and hereditary religion. The old oligarchies wanted to keep their type perfect, and for that end they were ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... gentle, yielding in character, impressible, unelastic. But the positive blondes, with the golden tint running through them, are often full of character. They come from those deep-bosomed German women that Tacitus portrayed in such strong colors. The negative blondes, or those women whose tints have faded out as their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... originality, he was so impressible that there are in his writings traces of the authors whom he was reading, if he did not mean to ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... somewhat alarming. People were careful not to trifle with old Mr. Ormiston. His will was absolute in his own house, with his tenants, and in the great iron-works—almost a town in itself—which fed his fine fortune. While from his equals—even from his fellow-members of that not over-reverent or easily impressible body, the House of Commons—he required and received a degree of deference such as men yield only to an unusually powerful character. And there was now just such underlying energy in Katherine's expression. Her eyes were dark, as a clear ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... these young voices, many of them blending for the last time,—for the scholars were soon to be scattered all over the country, and some of them beyond its boundaries,—but why the Mistress was so carried away, I did not know. She must be more impressible than most of us; yet I thought Number Five also looked as if she were having a struggle with herself to keep down ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of him during the interval between the anointing of Jehu to the Israelitish monarchy and the time of his own death, and that period must have extended over nearly fifty years. After all these years of eclipse and seclusion he was lying dying somewhere in a corner, and the king, young but impressible, although, on the whole, not reliable nor good, came down to the prophet's home, and there, standing by the pallet of the dying man, repeated the words, so strangely reminiscent of a very different event—' My father, my father! ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the impressible and lively Shmul, holding his head with both hands. "I would not believe what the people said of you, and called them liars; but now I see myself that you are a bad Israelite, and the covenant and customs of your forefathers are no longer dear ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... its restless elements had been drawn towards the seat of the conflict. But the air was full of a vague disturbance. To me, at least, it seemed so, emerging from such a solitude as has been hinted at, and the more impressible by rumors and indefinable presentiments, since I had not lived, like other men, in an atmosphere of continual talk about the war. A battle was momentarily expected on the Potomac; for, though our army was still on the hither side of the river, all of us were looking towards the ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Parents, teachers and preachers, had all shared in the work of storing his mind with the precepts of religion, and now, in manhood, his conscience rested on these and upon the states wrought therefrom in the impressible substance of his mind. Try as he would, he found the effort to push aside early convictions and early impressions a simple impossibility; and, notwithstanding these had been laid on the foundation of a far more literal interpretation ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... of goodness, is a generalization of the various instances of justice or goodness which ever came to his knowledge; and of course, among the materials of this generalization those instances that were brought to his mind during the impressible years of childhood must have taken a very prominent part. Every story, therefore, which you relate to a child to exemplify the principles of justice or goodness takes its place, or, rather, the impression which it makes takes its place, as one of the ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... he began to struggle, and in the darkness of the place it seemed to those of his comrades who observed him as if he were writhing like a snake. But little did his fellow-pirates heed. Their hearts had long ago ceased to be impressible by horrid fancies. They could not help but see what went on before their eyes—it did not require an effort ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... by a rose-bud, is emphatically a botanical emotion. A sweet, tender perception of beauty, such as this study requires, or develops, is at once the most subtile and certain chain of communication between impressible natures. Richard Hilton, feeling that his years were numbered, had given up, in despair, his boyish dreams, even before he understood them: his fate seemed to preclude the possibility of love. But, as he gained a little strength from ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... nor utt'ring word? Another wife lives not who could endure Such distance from her husband new-return'd To his own country in the twentieth year, After much hardship; but thy heart is still As ever, less impressible than stone, To whom Penelope, discrete, replied. 120 I am all wonder, O my son; my soul Is stunn'd within me; pow'r to speak to him Or to interrogate him have I none, Or ev'n to look on him; but if indeed He be Ulysses, and have reach'd ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... however, taken a deep interest in Clotilda and Annette,—had gone to their apartment unobserved, and in secret interviews listened to Clotilda's tale of trouble. Its recital enlisted his sympathies; and being of an ardent and impressible temper, he determined to carry out a design for her relief. He realised her silent suffering,—saw how her degraded condition wrangled with her noble feelings,—how the true character of a woman loathed at being the slave of one who claimed her as his property. And this, too, without ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... when father went to feed the chickens in the barn yard, a beautiful bird with silky wings of blue fluttered down among them to be fed. How impressible my artless brain! As great an event was this to me, as the inauguration of our ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... these affairs were proceeding, Silvanus was living at Agrippina,[42] and having learnt by continual information sent to him by his friends what Apodemius was doing with the hope of effecting his ruin; and knowing also how impressible the mind of the feeble emperor was; began to fear lest in his absence, and without being convicted of any crime, he might still be treated as a criminal. And so, being placed in a situation of the greatest difficulty, he began to think ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... made it my first visit, it was in company with my father, when I was still a boy, in the year 1808. I was about twelve years old, and my imagination impressible, as it always is at that age. I looked about me with great awe. I was here in the very centre and scene of those occurrences which I had heard recounted at the fireside at home, with ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... was being drawn tighter and tighter yearly in the Italy of his day. That a sympathy of no commonplace kind subsisted between this delicate and polished princess and her sensitively gifted poet, is apparent. But it may be doubted whether Tasso had in him the stuff of a grand passion. Mobile and impressible, he wandered from object to object without seeking or attaining permanence. He was neither a Dante nor a Petrarch; and nothing in his Rime reveals solidity of emotion. It may finally be said that had Leonora returned ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Corne St. Luc; "I have spoken to the Sieur Philibert and cautioned him, but he is not impressible on the subject of his own safety. The Intendant spoke savagely of him ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... calcium, potassium, alumina, etc., of which the Moonstone is a variety. The connecting link is that clairvoyance is found to be unusually active during and by means of moonlight. What psycho-physical effect either basalt or moonlight has upon the nervous system of impressible subjects appears to be somewhat obscure, but there is little difference between calcium light and moonlight, except that the latter is moderated by the greater atmosphere through which it comes to us. It is only ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... part of the sitting was devoted to the discussion of the Zoellner experiments, the Medium narrating some of the phenomena that had been witnessed in the presence of Dr. Zoellner. He said, however, that Zoellner was a peculiarly impressible person, and one who had entire confidence in his (the ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... however, have been bred into youth for generations, they may to an extent be true simply as a result of this breeding. Darwin in his "Descent of Man" says: "It is worthy of remark that a belief constantly inculcated during the early years of life, whilst the brain is impressible, appears to acquire almost the nature of an instinct; and the very essence of an instinct is that it is ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... apartment to which she flew nothing could have been seen during the next half-hour; but from a corner a quick breathing was audible from this impressible creature, who combined modern nerves with primitive emotions, and was doomed by such coexistence to be numbered among the distressed, and to take her scourgings ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... still in the spiritual state of "original sin" and the political one of Missouri. He had not indeed found it by persistent youthful seeking or spiritual insight, but somewhat violently and turbulently at a camp-meeting. A village boy, naturally gentle and impressible, with an original character,—limited, however, in education and experience,—he had, after his first rustic debauch with some vulgar companions, fallen upon the camp-meeting in reckless audacity; and instead of being handed over to the district ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... made any remark, and there was silence in the carriage as the stranger approached. The ladies bowed somewhat coolly, except Minnie, who threw upon him the most imploring look that could possibly be sent from human eyes, and the Italian's impressible nature thrilled before those beseeching, pleading, earnest, unfathomable, tender, helpless, innocent orbs. Removing his hat, he ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... clearness, may be produced by directly stimulating the proper organs with the fingers, which should be placed upon the organ of Somnolence on each side of the head, in the temples, about an inch horizontally behind the brow. In persons who are impressible this produces a quiet dreamy feeling, and a disposition to close the eyes. If carried further, the eyes become closed so that it is difficult to open them, and the unconscious state soon follows. The same effect may be produced by placing the hand on the body just below the breastbone (sternum). ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... to believe in portents and omens, however insignificant; it might even require some philosophy to despise them; and among ourselves in modern times it will be found, if we mistake not, that strong poetical sensibilities, or a peculiarly impressible temperament, is the foundation of what can be regarded in no other light than an hallucination. The world of spirits, with all its shadowy tenants and imaginary impulses, might be a reality to Scott, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... kidnaps the child of his enemy, through the child to revenge himself. Kill it?—no! he is no short-sighted bungler; he has refinement, foresight, understanding. She is but an infant,—open and impressible, warm and sanguine! He isolates her from sight and reach. He pries into her nature with keenest delicacy,—no leaf is unread. Being learnt, he works upon it; touches each budding trait with gentlest impulse. ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... mean that children hear stories before they learn gymnastics, and that the stories are either untrue, or have at most one or two grains of truth in a bushel of falsehood. Now early life is very impressible, and children ought not to learn what they will have to unlearn when they grow up; we must therefore have a censorship of nursery tales, banishing some and keeping others. Some of them are very improper, as we may see in the great instances of Homer and ...
— The Republic • Plato
... young societies, are very impressible, and their character—the quality, that is, of their life—is fixed by prevailing influences, which show themselves in fashions, habits, and tendencies, in the common types of thought, or taste, ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... valerian, asafoetida, compound spirit of ether, etc., which would yield a prompt effect upon many individuals seem to have little or no effect upon him, nor do moderate quantities of wines or spirits stimulate him. That is to say, he has not a very impressible nervous organization, is not imaginative, nor very liable to accept results on insufficient or ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... Yes, indeed. Do you know, there seems to be nothing else to do. Tom is in actual danger. I know he goes very often to Mrs. Wishart's; and you know Tom is impressible; and before we know it he might do something he would be sorry for. The only thing is to ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... companion is no common mortal I clearly see. However, this impressible young man is ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... the time, is forgiven or explained in the long run; but self-love, vanity, never ceases to bleed from a wound given, and never forgives it. The moral being is actually more sensitive, more living as it were, than the physical being. The heart and the blood are less impressible than the nerves. In short, our inward being rules us, no matter what we do. You may reconcile two families who have half-killed each other, as in Brittany and in La Vendee during the civil wars, but you can no more reconcile the calumniators and the calumniated than ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... Chateaubriand, and it made such an indelible impression on his mind that he in after years spoke of it as having been one of the most potent influences of his life, since it stimulated the natural melancholy of his character when his nature was most flexible and impressible. ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... in Addison's easy phrase. The spectacle of a nation so distinguished, which had carried tyranny to a perfection and invested it with a splendor never before seen, becoming the coryphaeus of freedom, might easily have fascinated a mind less impressible by nature, and less disposed by education for favorable impressions, than that of Jefferson. He shared the feeling of the hour. His advice was asked, and respectfully listened to. This experience, while, as he says, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... me, that I descried in the second car, through the portal in which the charioteer was seated, a figure stretched upon the floor. At the same time, I thought I smelt tobacco. The latter impression passed quickly from me; the former remained. Curious to know whether this prostrate figure was the one impressible man of the whole capital who had been stricken insensible by the terrors revealed to him, and whose form had been placed in the car by the charioteer, from motives of humanity, I followed the procession. It turned into Leadenhall-market, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... There is an excuse for this, inasmuch as he holds our destinies in his hands, and decides whether, in case of accident, we shall have to jump from the third or sixth story window. Lesser grandeurs do not find us very impressible. There is, however, something about the man who deals in horses which takes down the spirit, however proud, of him who is unskilled in equestrian matters and unused to the horse-lover's vocabulary. We followed the master of the stables, meekly listening and once in a while questioning. ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... society at home, this species of gentry the more readily find themselves in high favor with ours. They are always Oxonians, as the sons of green grocers and fishmongers are sure to be when they come over here (so Mr. Toddleworth has it, and he is good authority), and we being an exceedingly impressible people, they kindly condescend to instruct us in all the high arts, now and then correcting our very bad English. They are clever fellows generally, being sure to get on the kind side of credulous mothers ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... the faults of her nature to be ready to make any sacrifices for those who loved her, and to value affection almost above its price. She had yet to learn the lesson, that it is more blessed to love than to be beloved; and lonely as the impressible years of her youth had been—without parents, without brother or sister—it was, perhaps, no wonder that she clung tenaciously to every symptom of regard, and could not relinquish the love of any ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... that as a critic he had certain peculiarities. He was, perhaps, too sensitive and impressible; too easily thrown off his guard by qualities in a writer for which he had an aversion. He would not only mention them once, but again and again. He ignored Schiller, who was at least one of the world's greatest dramatists; he was dissatisfied with Tennyson and could not endure ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... seemed to brace the sinews of Patrick Prunty and to nerve his determination to rise above his surroundings. He grew up a tall and strong young fellow, unusually handsome with a well-shaped head, regular profile and fine blue eyes. A vivacious impressible manner effectually masked a certain selfishness and rigour of temperament which became plain in after years. He seemed a generous, quick, impulsive lad. When he was sixteen years of age Patrick left his father's ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... Phoebe was happy in doing her duty by profiting by all opportunities of observation, in taking care of Maria and listening to Mervyn, and Miss Charlecote enjoyed scenery, poetry, art, and natural objects with relish keener than even that of her young friends, who were less impressible to ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in so doing was most commendable, and a worthy example to those young ladies who have to extinguish the tiny embers of a month or two's idle fancy, created by an impressible nature, by girlhood's frantic longing after unseen mysteries, and by the terrible misfortune of having nothing to do. But Miss Bowen's demeanour, so highly creditable, cannot be set forward in words, as it consisted in the very ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... seems to me that in fact they are neither. Woman is not an angel nor a demon, not a conqueror nor a slave. But the seed from which any of these conflicting natures may develop lies in more fertile soil, within her impassioned and impressible soil, than in man's. The Suffrage movement will leave her much better or worse than it found her. The phrase "the new woman," with the instinctive explanation that she "is as refined, or as good a wife, mother, sister, daughter, housekeeper," as ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... had passed through since sunrise; but our friends were bent on entertaining us with stories and sights of the New World, and we followed them rather reluctantly. I have since been glad that I did so; for my mind was in a state that rendered it far more impressible than usual, and therefore better fitted to observe much that would have been lost to me in a less-excited condition. Here I first saw the type of common German life on Sunday in America; and I saw enough of it on that one Sunday afternoon to last a whole lifetime. My friends called ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska |
