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Literary notes about impalpable (AI summary)

In literature, impalpable is often deployed to evoke an essence that eludes precise definition—a quality both nebulous and mysteriously influential. Writers use it to describe everything from the elusive aura of the divine, where spiritual presence is sensed but never grasped [1], to the subtle, almost imperceptible shifts in emotion or character that defy explanation [2], [3]. Its application extends to descriptions of the physical world, as when the fine dust of shells or the delicate powder of a pigment is portrayed as almost non-existent yet profoundly effective in setting a scene [4], [5]. At times, the term underlines a metaphysical quality, suggesting forces that are at once omnipresent and intangible—imparting to art and nature alike a sense of hidden grandeur and mystery [6], [7].
  1. Many complain that they know Christ, pray to Christ, are conscious of Christ, but that the Father is far away and impalpable.
    — from Love to the UttermostExpositions of John XIII.-XXI. by F. B. (Frederick Brotherton) Meyer
  2. He felt he had become impalpable—so much he had expected, but he had not expected to find himself enormously large.
    — from International Short Stories: English
  3. Jules La Touche felt the impalpable change in her; and yet it would have puzzled him to define it.
    — from Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters: A Novel by May Agnes Fleming
  4. For a quarter of an hour I trod on this sand, sown with the impalpable dust of shells.
    — from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne
  5. Over all was dust, gray, thick, impalpable dust.
    — from Johnny Nelson How a one-time pupil of Hopalong Cassidy of the famous Bar-20 ranch in the Pecos Valley performed an act of knight-errantry and what came of it by Clarence Edward Mulford
  6. The 'things' are now invisible impalpable things; and the old visible common-sense things are supposed to result from the mixture of these invisibles.
    — from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking by William James
  7. One had not the courage to decide; but it was a charming and deceptive light, throwing the impalpable poesy of its dimness over pitfalls—over graves.
    — from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

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