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More "Impossible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... comprehensive conception in philosophy; the idea of the Kingdom of God is the highest and broadest idea in sociology and ethics. It is so high and broad that many find it hard even to grasp the idea. Just as a barbaric tribe of hunters or fishermen would find it impossible to comprehend the social coherence and the patriotism of a nation of a hundred millions; just as the narrow nationalist of today falls down intellectually and morally when he confronts world-forces and relations: so we who are trained to think in terms of family and State, give out when ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... hustled Mr. Page and attacked him sword in hand, and Captain Hill and his noble friend endeavoured to force Madam Bracegirdle into the coach. Mr. Page called for help: the population of Drury Lane rose: it was impossible to effect the capture; and bidding the soldiers go about their business, and the coach to drive off, Hill let go of his prey sulkily, and he waited for other opportunities of revenge. The man of whom he was most jealous was Will Mountford, the comedian; Will removed, he thought Mrs. Bracegirdle ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... but one birth and one death to all things, be it hound, or be it deer; be it red skin, or be it white. Both are in the hands of the Lord, it being as unlawful for man to strive to hasten the one, as impossible to prevent the other. But I will not say that something may not be done to put the last moment aside, for a while at least, and therefore it is a question, that any one has a right to put to his own wisdom, how far he will go, and how much pain he will suffer, to lengthen out a time that may ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... "No, children, it's impossible now. I'm busy over a scene of my storicalnovul. Ask your father." He growled it at ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... not lured there, slaughtered, and made to seem the victim of accident by this unscrupulous man and woman? Such things have been done; but for a daughter to fabricate such a plot as they impute to me is past belief, out of Nature and impossible. With all their wiles, they cannot prove it. I dare them to do so; I dare ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... be wildly happy, in view of her shortcomings, but found it impossible. May was here and she, too, must be riotously joyful. The boys were wont to be off on fishing expeditions once more, and over hill and dale she followed them in spite of all opposition. One radiant afternoon John and Charles Stuart went, as usual, far afield on their homeward journey ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... fortune—and with the fortune that you justly expect—I will say that there is every reason to suppose that these good things have entered into his calculation more largely than a tender solicitude for your happiness strictly requires. There is, of course, nothing impossible in an intelligent young man entertaining a disinterested affection for you. You are an honest, amiable girl, and an intelligent young man might easily find it out. But the principal thing that we know about this young man—who is, indeed, very ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... betwixt his fears and his ignorance. He looked from time to time through the key-hole of the closet in which Forester was confined, and exclaimed, "Grand Dieu! comme il a l'air noble a cet instant! Ah! lui coupable! he go to gaol! it is impossible!" ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... Montaignesque opinions. In the very year of the appearance of Florio's folio, it was a trifle too soon to make the assumption that Montaigne was demoralising mankind, even if we assume Shakspere to have ever been capable of such a judgment. And that assumption is just as impossible as the other. According to Mr. Feis, Shakspere detested such a creed and such conduct as Hamlet's, and made him die by poison in order to show his abhorrence of them—this, when we know Hamlet to have died by the poisoned foil in the earlier play. On that view, Cordelia died by hanging in ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... campaign with the siege of Motya, which was the magazine of the Carthaginians in Sicily; and he pushed on the siege with so much vigour, that it was impossible for Imilcon, the Carthaginian admiral, to relieve it. He brought forward his engines, battered the place with his battering-rams, advanced to the wall towers, six stories high (rolled upon wheels,) and of an equal height with their houses; ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... snowfall Larry Kildene returned. He had lingered long after he should have taken the trail and had gone farther than he had dreamed of going when he parted from his three companions on the mountain top. All day long the snow had been falling, and for the last few miles he had found it almost impossible to crawl upward. Fortunately there had been no wind, and the snow lay as it had fallen, covering the trail so completely that only Larry Kildene himself could have kept it—he and his horse—yet not impeding his progress with drifts ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... fibres that form the wall. The vascular laminae are leaf-like projections, the sides of which are covered by secondary leaves. Horny laminae, arranged the same as vascular laminae, line the wall. These two structures are so firmly united that it is impossible to tear them apart without destroying the tissue. The velvety tissue covers all of the inferior surface of the foot, with the exception of the bars. As the name indicates, its surface is covered by vascular papillae that resemble the ply on velvet. It is firmly ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... thousand pages!" he answered. "Impossible! We must divide the book." It may have been to assuage the disappointment he read on my face that he added, "You'll double ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... "It's impossible to be certain about that. I have precise information. I do not dispute that he may have contributed to accelerate the course of events by the moral influence, so to say, of the affront; but as to the general conduct and moral characteristics of that personage, I am in agreement with you. ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Langham had turned to Rose—a wild fury with Lady Charlotte and the whole affair sweeping through him. But there was no time to demur; that judicial eye was on them; the large figure and towering cap bent towards him. Refusal was impossible. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... observed by the most talented writer on this subject "the history of the bow is practically that of the violin." It will therefore be readily understood that in the earlier portions of this opusculum it will be impossible to separate them to any great extent; also, I must crave my readers' indulgence for going over a considerable tract of already well trodden ground. My excuse must be my desire for completeness, for, as I propose to deal with the evolution of the ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... we came to the Arkansas River—flat-banked, sand-bottomed, wide, wandering, impossible thing—whose shallow waters followed aimlessly the line of least resistance, back and forth across its bed. Rivers had meant something to me. The big muddy Missouri for Independence and Fort Leavenworth, that its steamers might ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... and by that means removing a source of weakness in the tube. In precisely the same way in the shrinkage of gun hoops attention must be paid to the character and value of the stresses which arise in the course of their manufacture; otherwise it will be impossible to hoop the barrel throughout in a proper manner. If prejudicial stresses exist in the metal of a hoop before it is put in its place, then, when the gun is fired, if it had been shrunk on with the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... supporting a large parasitic colony of the persons described as financiers; and such a nation would have as a corollary to be blessed with a class of workers disproportionately large and disproportionately poor. For if industrial conditions are fair over-production is impossible. ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... But just at the moment? You argued, Mr. Thresk, that it is impossible to foresee what people will do under the immediate knowledge that they have committed a capital crime. I agree. But I go a little further. I say that they will also exhibit a physical strength with which ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... boat builder generally has some trouble in producing the necessary fittings for his boats. It is practically impossible to buy such things in this country, and so it ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates
... oxen when half-way across the river by rocking the pont, and, nearly drowning the poor oxen, swam ashore themselves and left them to their fate. It was now 5 p.m. and as there were no men to do anything it was an impossible position, with the pont sunk in the middle of the flooded river; so that at dusk, after telling some soldiers who had come up from General Coke's Brigade in response to my request what to do to right the pont, I drew up my remaining gun and wagons on the south bank, and ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... I tackled the harbor. By day it was quite impossible, all toots and blares, the most frightful discords—but at night its vulgar loudness was toned down sufficiently so that a fellow with artist's ears could really stand listening to its life, especially if I did not go too close but listened from my window. Here with uglier sounds subdued ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... religion have become so closely interwoven in this society that it is well-nigh impossible to separate them. The building of a house, the planting, harvesting and care of the rice, the procedure at a birth, wedding, or funeral, in short, all the events of the social and economic life, are so governed by custom and ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... impossible to make bread, from the kind of flour usually employed by the London bakers, so white, as that which is commonly sold ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... Burrows' position by moving along the northern road to Maiwand and thence pressing on through the Maiwand pass, until at Singiri Ayoub's army should have interposed itself between the brigade and Candahar. There was certainly nothing impossible in such an endeavour, since Maiwand is nearer Candahar than is Khushk-i-Nakhud. Why, in the face of the information at his disposal and of the precautions enjoined on him to hinder Ayoub from slipping ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... maximum economic rate of 85 lb. per square foot of grate per hour would require a grate area of 41 square feet, and about 2,800 square feet of heating surface. Unless a most exceptional construction combined with small wheels is adopted, it appears almost impossible to get this amount on the ordinary gauge. It is true the Wootten locomotives on the Philadelphia and Reading Railway have fire-boxes with a grate area of as much as 76 square feet, but these boxes extend clean over the wheels, and the heating surface in the tubes is only 982 square feet; but ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... truth. But he began to wonder if she had heard something, for he found her eyes on him more than once, and when Margaret had gone up to bed she came over and sat on the arm of his chair. She said an odd thing then, and one that made it impossible to lie to ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... line of the railroad leaves the banks of the Truckee River, is only 4077 feet above the sea-level. So that these numbers would make Pyramid Lake 813 feet above the level of its affluent at Wadsworth; which, of course, is impossible. Under this state of facts, I have assumed the elevation of this lake to ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... serious intra-abdominal disease it is impossible for the surgeon to say exactly what is wrong without making an incision and introducing his finger, or, if need be, his hand among the intestines. With due care this is not a perilous or serious procedure, and the great advantage appertaining ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of impossible things; one after another, he thought of things merely inane and futile, for he was trying to do something beyond his power. Penrod was never brilliant, or even successful, save ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... It seemed to him impossible that a man who had been so terror-stricken as he had fancied Andre-Louis, could have recovered his wits so quickly and completely. Yet ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... to his hotel and have a wash and return later," and leaves the store not only undetected but entirely unsuspected. Very probably the theft remains undiscovered until the next taking of stock, when it is impossible to tell how the goods were lost, and in many cases some attache of the store is discharged, never knowing for what sin of omission or commission he was suspected. The success of this mode of theft is best shown by the infrequency ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... may be still alive; and those who are not accustomed to find themselves in print have a sort of horror of publicity. I have, therefore, altered several proper names. In other cases, by means of a slight transposition of date and place, I have rendered identification impossible. The story of "the Flax-crusher" is absolutely true, with the exception that the name of the manor-house is a fictitious one. With regard to "Good Master Systeme," I have been furnished by M. Duportal du Godasmeur ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... by one of the forts with 15 guns, which were returned; nothing of moment occurred during our passage, except being once overtaken with a tornado: this is a hurricane which prevails upon the windward coast of Africa about this season of the year, preceding the rainy season; and it is impossible to convey by description an adequate idea of this explosion of the elements. It announces its approach by a small white cloud scarcely discernible, which with incredible velocity overspreads the atmosphere, and envelopes the affrighted mariner in a vortex ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... with—that the British envoy, the British officers employed in the districts and provinces, and the British army, stood too much between the Shah and his subjects—that we were forming a government which it would be impossible to work in our absence, and creating a state of things which, the longer it might endure, would have made more remote the time at which our interference could ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... is impossible not to see in this description, a spring-tide thunderstorm. But to make it more evident that the untaught mind did regard such a storm as a dragon, I think the following quotation from John of Brompton's Chronicle will convince the most sceptical: "Another remarkable thing is this, that took ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... how long they had to prepare, the captain replied, "She may, or may not, last half an hour; over that, impossible; she leaks like a ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... caused by the keen commercial rivalry of the two maritime states. The Dutch were unprepared, and suffered severely through the loss of their carrying trade, and De Witt resolved to bring about peace as soon as possible. The first demands of Cromwell were impossible, for they aimed at the absorption of the two republics into a single state, but at last in the autumn of 1654 peace was concluded, by which the Dutch made large concessions and agreed to the striking of the flag to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... shown themselves, the Irishman knew it was about impossible for him to harm them at such a distance, while their dexterity in the use of the gun made it too dangerous for him to expose himself to their fire. He watched them until he had floated quite a way below, when he began to hope that they had given up their designs upon ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... accused himself of being a double fool, first, for not holding her when he had her; and secondly, having allowed her to depart, he bemoaned the fact that he had acted rudely to her, and thus had probably made her return impossible. His prison seemed inexpressibly dreary lacking her presence. Once or twice he called out her name, but the echoing ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... Kasim. He needed help at once, if his life was to be saved. Dipping my waterproof boots in the pool I filled them to the top, passed the straps over the ends of the spade shaft, and with this over my shoulder retraced my steps. It was pitch-dark in the wood and it was impossible to see the track. I called out "Kasim" with all the force of my lungs, but heard no answer. Then I sought out a dense clump of dried branches and brushwood and set it on fire. The flame shot up immediately, the pile of dry twigs crackled, burst and frizzled, the ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... information, the Ambassador exclaimed—'If it had been six hundred leagues, I would go to see him; and I am determined to set out in the course of three or four days.' The King, who now perceived that he had committed himself, endeavoured to divert him from his purpose; but, finding this impossible, he immediately caused letters to be written to the college, stating the case as it really stood, and desired the Professors to get rid of the Ambassador in the best manner they were able, without exposing their Sovereign. ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... as feudal nobles, though the duty of personal service was in many cases commuted for an equivalent. Below the gentle class were freemen, and the remainder of the population were serfs or villeins. It was not impossible for villeins to purchase freedom. In France the privileges possessed by the vassals of the Crown were scarcely consistent with the sovereignty. Such were the rights of coining money, of private war, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... chaos. She could not in any way read the riddle of his manner of last night. Had the sudden resumption of his old friendship with her mother absorbed his mind to the exclusion of everything else? Impossible, if he loved her. Had purely physical weariness or mental worry blotted her out completely for the time being? Impossible, if he loved her. ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... caught in the crowd that filled the lobby of the theatre, and conversation became impossible as they hurried through it ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... "like a horse," as her husband frequently complimented her, walking as fast as she was talking and, with Bonny Angel in her arms, Goober Glory did her best to keep a similar pace. But this was impossible. Not only were her feet heavy beneath the burden she bore, but her heart ached with foreboding. With Bonny Angel ill, how was the search for grandpa to go on? How to look for the little one's own people? Yet how terrible that they must be left in their grief while she could do nothing ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... referred to are his comedy The Jealous Lovers, his pastoral Amyntas; or, The Impossible Dowry, and the following verses On ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... "That is impossible, sir!" he exclaimed. "I have had my orders, which are that his Royal Highness is not at home to-night, and until I know whether or not these orders are to stand, nobody, not if it were the Emperor, ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... Sainte-Croix to be quite broken off, joyfully accepted. Offemont was exactly the place for a crime of this nature. In the middle of the forest of Aigue, three or four miles from Compiegne, it would be impossible to get efficient help before the rapid action of the poison had ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... breadth, was an abattis constructed of pine trees, the needles stripped, the limbs cut and pointed five to ten feet from the trunks. These were packed and stacked side by side and on top of each other, being almost impossible for a single man even to pick his way through, and next to impossible for a line of battle to cross over. All along the entire length of the fortifications were built great redoubts of earthwork in the form of squares, the earth being of sufficient thickness to ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... from Granard to Longford, for the Reay Fencibles, and all the troops; that there was another rising and an attack upon Granard: four thousand men the first report said, seven hundred the second. What the truth may be it is impossible to tell, it is certain that the troops are gone to Granard, and it is yet more certain that all the windows in this house are built halfway up, guns and bayonets dispersed by Captain Lovell in every room. The yeomanry corps paraded to-day, all steady: guard sitting up in house ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... It is impossible in cold print to indicate the mournful and long-drawn-out accent on the word "dead," to rhyme ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... with his yeoman, overtakes the pilgrims, is the rich canon, the alchemist who could pave with gold "all the road to Canterbury town." He is said to have already ridden three miles, but whence he had come it is impossible to say. That the pilgrims who had ridden not quite five miles had come from Ospringe might seem certain, and since they were overtaken by the Canon it is possible that he was coming from Faversham. It is, however, more important to explain, if we can, what the pilgrims were doing more ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... Serena was quite an exceptional person and an advanced thinker, considering her opportunities. "The club people were going to take them up, and so I felt that we should get in first," she explained. "If they should prove to be impossible we can drop them at any time, ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... appreciate a present joy. Had Jerome and Elmira been older at the time of their father's disappearance, it would have been otherwise, but as it was, their old love for him had been obliterated, not merely by time and absence, but growth. It was practically impossible, though they would not have owned it to themselves, for them to love their father, when he first returned, as they had used. They were painfully anxious to be utterly faithful, and had an odd sort of tender but imaginative pity towards him, but they could grasp ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... future gain from continents and islands. You will say that some one else will arise to do it for us on easier terms. Perhaps—and perhaps not for a century, and another Crown may thrust in to-morrow! France, probably. It is not impossible that England might do it. As for what is named overweening pride and presumption, at least it shows at once and for altogether. We are not left painfully to find it out. It goes with his character. Take it or leave it together with his patience, courage and long head. Leave ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... should it be impossible to refloat the brig? If she has only a leak, that may be stopped up; a vessel from three to four hundred tons, why she is a regular ship compared to our 'Bonadventure'! And we could go a long distance in her! ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... be impossible for him to turn away unaided an applicant for assistance, especially if a soldier, or belonging to a soldier's family. The presence of his two brothers in the army; their active work and death, naturally attracted and ...
— Fifty years with the Revere Copper Co. - A Paper Read at the Stockholders' Meeting held on Monday 24 March 1890 • S. T. Snow
... near. The three men, by a sudden effort, burst open the door, rushed upon Bettys, and seized him in such a manner that he could make no resistance. He was then pinioned so firmly that to escape was impossible; and so the desperado, in spite of all his threats, was a tame and quiet prisoner, and no one hurt in taking him. Bettys then asked leave to smoke, which was granted; and he took out his tobacco, with something else which he threw into the fire. Cory saw this movement, and snatched ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... the three wire mains, especially in the larger sizes, the neutral wire is made of much smaller section than that of a lateral conductor, because in extensive districts it is practically impossible that the current should be ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... one man killed and one wounded. A number of brave and dashing acts were performed by naval men during the operations of the fleet in the Baltic, to which it is impossible to refer in detail. Amongst the many gallant acts performed by seamen on this occasion one may specially be mentioned. During the first attack upon the batteries at Bomarsund, a live shell fell on the deck of the Hecla with its fuse still burning. Had it remained there and been permitted to ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... dying to come and speak to you, Miss Effingham," commenced Miss Ring, "but these five giants (she emphasized the word we have put in italics) so beset me, that escape was quite impossible. There ought to be a law that but one gentleman should speak to a lady ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... followed. Instead of the ten-line paragraph with which patent churns and washing machines are ordinarily turned loose on society, the "Cosmopolitan Window Fastener" received notices so long and ornate, that it was quite impossible to derive from them a correct idea of the ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... of England set invention working on a definite, continuous {8} object. As the shafts were sunk to lower and lower levels, it became impossible to pump the water out of the mines by horse power, and the aid of steam was sought. Just at the close of the seventeenth century Savery devised the first commercial steam-engine, or rather steam fountain, which applied cold water to the outside of the cylinder to condense the steam inside ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... That would have been impossible in a channel so narrow. They were pushing the boat through the water by means of a long pole, but it was not very easily managed, because of the shallowness of the water and the bushes ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... nothing. Erasmus Archer asked him if he could get his boy Pete into one of the departments at Ottawa, and made a strong case of it by explaining that he had tried his cussedest to get Pete a job anywhere else and it was simply impossible. Not that Pete wasn't a willing boy, but he was slow,—even his father admitted it,—slow as the devil, blast him, and with no head for figures and unfortunately he'd never had the schooling to bring him on. But if Drone could get him in at Ottawa, his father truly ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... much to do with shaping subsequent legislation upon the same prohibitory lines. In America disappointment was bitter. Little concern was felt in England. Concerted action by several states was thought most unlikely, and a more perfect union impossible. While Massachusetts, for example, in 1785 forbade import or export in any vessel belonging in whole or in part to British subjects, the state then next to her in maritime importance, Pennsylvania, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... to explain the matter? Is it not too deep for mortal man? Is it not one of the deep things of God, and of God alone, before which we must worship and believe? As for explaining or understanding it, must not that be impossible, from its ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... the formal ceremony of a fashionable introduction, such as—"Mr. Sparkle, my friend Mr. Robert Tallyho, of Belville Hall; Mr. Tallyho, Mr. Charles Sparkle," was altogether omitted; indeed, the abrupt entrance of the latter rendered it utterly impossible, for although Sparkle was really a well-bred man, he had heard from Lady Jane of Tom's arrival with his young friend from the country. Etiquette between themselves, was at all times completely unnecessary, an air of gaiety and freedom, as the friend of Dashall, was introduction enough to Bob, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... that, however innocent his own intent, there was a sickening resemblance to the situation on the boat in the base advantage he had taken of her friendlessness. He had never told her that he was a gambler like Stratton, and that his peculiarly infelix reputation among women made it impossible for him to assist her, except by a stealth or the deception he had practiced, without compromising her. He who had for years faced the sneers and half-frightened opposition of the world dared not ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... generally, we may first observe that it is impossible to place any one of them as late as A.D. 100, {11} and that the first three Gospels must have been written long before that date. This is shown by the internal evidence, of which proof will be given in detail in the chapters dealing with the separate Gospels. The external evidence of the use ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... within two miles of Jerusalem before his purpose failed him. Three times he tried to get out of that neighborhood, but in vain: travelling by day was of course out of the question, and by night he found it impossible to elude the patrol. Again and again, therefore, he returned to his hiding-place; and, during his whole two months' liberty, never went five miles from the Cross Keys. On the 25th of October, he was at last discovered by Mr. Francis as he was emerging from a stack. A ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... It is now perhaps impossible to ascertain whether the cause of this strange adventure of Coleridge's was, "chagrin at his disappointment in a love affair" or "a fit of dejection and despondency caused by some debts not amounting to a hundred pounds;" but, actuated by some impulse or other ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... speculate upon possible and impossible things, and to grow very anxious regarding her safety upon her arrival ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... sensible dangers or calamities to enter into themselves, on whom the terrors of the divine judgment make very little impression. The reason can only be a supine neglect of serious reflection, and a habit of considering them only transiently, and as at a distance; for it is impossible for any one who believes these great truths, if he takes a serious review of them, and has them present to his mind, to remain insensible: transient glances effect not a change of heart. Among the pretended conversions which sickness ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... abolitionists. The author does not seem to realize or at least fails to admit that the abolitionists were radical reformers seeking to eradicate the cause of social disease whereas the colonizationists were merely treating the symptoms of the malady in undertaking the impossible task of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... you. No one can spare you. That cannot be. It is amongst the things that are impossible. But they will have pity upon—your father, and they will let ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... four kinds of matter-of-fact or assertion, must be added a fifth, Resemblance. This was a species of attribute which we found it impossible to analyze; for which no fundamentum, distinct from the objects themselves, could be assigned. Besides propositions which assert a sequence or co-existence between two phenomena, there are therefore also propositions which assert resemblance ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... lodges, perhaps, close to the skin on the other side. Nothing was visible but a small, ragged puncture, bluish about the edges, as if the rough point of a tenpenny nail had been forced into the flesh, and withdrawn. It seemed almost impossible, that through so small an aperture, a musket-bullet could ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... to young Rhodes on their drive to the train. She was profoundly discouraged by Emma's disapproval of her work. It wanted but that one drop to make a recurrence to the work impossible. There it must lie! And what of the aspects of her household?—Perhaps, after all, the Redworths of the world are right, and Literature as a profession is a delusive pursuit. She did not assent to it without hostility to the world's Redworths.—'They have no sensitiveness, we ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... matter it is impossible for me to answer that question," replied I; "and although I have traveled through nearly every country on earth still no such people as you or the magnificent objects represented in that picture have ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... Staring very hard at Hugh he met his appeal, but in a silence clearly calculated; against which, however, the young man, bearing up, made such head as he could. He offered his next word, that is, equally to the two companions. "It's not at all impossible—for such curious effects have been!—that the Dedborough picture seen after the Verona will point a different moral from the Verona seen ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... carrying; but I took good care not to ask any questions about them, as I knew well enough both that I should never be able to understand how they were worked, and that in attempting to do so I should betray myself, or get into some complication impossible to explain; so I merely said, ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... calfs'-foot jelly, like a setting of crystals. The bread revealed new qualities in the wheat, it was so sweet and nutty; and the fried potatoes, with which your beefsteak comes snowed under, are the very flower of the culinary art, and I believe impossible ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... friend, listen to the talk that sudden conversion is impossible or unlikely. It is the only kind of conversion that some of you are capable of. I remember a man, one of the best Christian men in a humble station in life that I ever knew—he did not live in Manchester—he had been a drunkard up to his fortieth or fiftieth year. One ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Pardon me, sir. You will be convinced it is impossible I can allude to your review, when I assure you that I have never read a ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... the land Willoughby saw was Gooseland. or Novaya Zemlya. Nordenskiold supposes it to be Kolgujev Island. This, he says, would make its latitude two degrees less than stated, but such errors are not impossible in the determination ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... heavy afternoon, across the fell, with these thoughts struggling together in his heart. The valley was breathlessly still, and the flies buzzed round him as he disturbed them from the bracken. The whole world looked so sweet and noble, that it was impossible not to think that it was moulded and designed by a Will of unutterable graciousness and beauty. From the top, beside a little crag full of clinging trees, that held on tenaciously to the crevices and ledges, with so perfect an accommodation to their precarious situation, ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to make them part with their little store of hard-earned savings, by offering them these gaudy articles of apparel, to cover or replace their own poor warm clothing. The long sea-voyage from the Brazils must have been very trying to these forlorn creatures, whose hopeless condition it was impossible to avoid sympathizing with and pitying. They appeared most eager to reach the shores of their own dear Italy once more—a fond hope and dream in foreign lands, ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... alone, its effects have been revolutionary. Applied to common life in its minute ramifications these effects could not have been believed or foretold, and are incredible. The thought might be followed indefinitely, and it is almost impossible to compare the world as we know it with the world of our immediate ancestors. Only by means of contrasts, startling in their details, can we arrive at an adequate estimate, even as a moral farce, of the power of steam as embodied in the modern ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... in which she said those words made it impossible, even for old Mr. Ablewhite, to mistake her any longer. His thermometer went up another degree, and his voice when he next spoke, ceased to be the voice which is appropriate to a ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... quietly at the hotel with me. Not that I should trouble you now, only I have to lunch at the Oriental Club, and I've an appointment afterwards to examine and report on a recently-discovered inscribed cylinder for the Museum, which will fully occupy the rest of the afternoon, so that it's physically impossible for me to go to Hammond's myself, and I strongly object to employing a broker when I can avoid it. Where did I put that catalogue?... Ah, here it is. This was sent to me by the executors of my old friend, General Collingham, who died the other day. I ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... in his own house. His death was much resented by the citizens. Nevertheless, when Dion made him a splendid funeral, followed the dead body with all his soldiers, and then addressed them, they understood that it would have been impossible to have kept the city quiet, as long as Dion and Heraclides ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... whatever to discriminate whether that which he calls a sweet taste sensation is not just what I call headache. Where no such direct relation for a physical thing is known, description of the mental element would remain impossible. Of course, every perception of the outer world, all our seeing and hearing, and touching and tasting, offers us at once such definite connection between the inner experience and a piece of the physical universe. Our own organism is also such a piece of physical nature: ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... themselves to the study of the Sanskrit literature. Though inferior to the Vedas in antiquity, it is held to be equally sacred; and being more closely connected with the business of life, it has done so much towards moulding the opinions of the Hindus that it would be impossible to comprehend the literature or local usages of India without being master of ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... is my letter!" absolutely frozen on her lips. He had been reading it! It seemed impossible for her to claim it, and so for a moment's silence she stood, with the green ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... shape, many things that were said about lines apply equally to the spaces enclosed by them. It is impossible to write of the rhythmic possibilities that the infinite variety of shapes possessed by natural objects contain, except to point out how necessary the study of nature is for this. Variety of shape is one of the most difficult things to invent, and one of ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... to the edge of a lake [Footnote: It is impossible to distinguish in any Indian story between lake and sea.] and lay down to sleep. As she awoke, she saw a great serpent, with glittering eyes, crawl from the water, and stealthily approach her. She had no power to resist his embrace. After her return to her people her ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... is right," came the prompt though unexpected reply; "and if you really think you want to play Good Samaritan for a couple weeks, you have my hearty sanction. The fact of the matter is, I find it impossible to be here at home much for the next fortnight, myself; possibly not at all after tonight. So you might just as well be mothering the McKittricks as left alone in this end of the town, so far ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... (the Swilly, of Furneaux) like the Pedra Branca, near the coast of China; the other, the eastern cliff, resembling a high misshapen tower (the Eddystone, of Cook). Between the cliff and the main land they passed, until they came almost to Storm Bay, where they found it impossible to anchor, and were driven by the wind to sea—so far, that land could scarcely be sighted in the morning. In the afternoon of the 1st December, they anchored in a good port (marked Frederick Hendrik Bay in ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... It was impossible for little Mary to sit still when these heavenly glimpses presented themselves. Her cheeks burned, her eyes kindled; her very limbs trembled with suppressed impatience; but she dared not lean forward, and could only obtain tantalizing glances of the sparkling ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... authorities agree with me outright, though they are unprepared to commit themselves at present. A very few years ago this suggestion would have been absurd, in the sense that it wanted facts in support. As our ancestors made it an article of faith that to fertilize an orchid was impossible for man, so we imagined until lately that genera would not mingle. But this belief grows unsteady. Though bi-generic crosses have not been much favoured, as offering little prospect of success, such ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... prices at which you sell provisions higher or lower than those at which they are sold in the neighbouring shops?-It would be impossible for me to say exactly; but I think they ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... officers in full uniform. In the galleries were ladies gayly dressed, whose opera-glasses had been turned on the distinguished personages below as they had successively entered, and who kept up such a buzzing chat that it was almost impossible for the Senators to transact the closing ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... irreconcilable, standpoints and proceed along widely diverging roads. One or another may, indeed, arrive at the goal, but such unanimity of opinion as will lend to our criticism authoritative weight is, on such lines, impossible of achievement. ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... phenomenon is that of blushing! It is impossible to witness this phenomenon without interest and sympathy. It comes at once, unanticipated by the person in whom we behold it. It comes from the soul, and expresses with equal certainty shame, modesty, and vivid, uncontrollable affection. It spreads, ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... force of public opinion compelled the Government to take steps in the summer of 1884 to achieve, if it were not too late, the relief of Khartoum. What was a possible task a few months before had now become an exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, one, and it was thought that, under the circumstances, the route which was the most feasible ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... him; it seemed almost impossible that he could harm her. She retired from the window and went downstairs. When her hand was upon the bolt of the door, her mind misgave her. Instead of withdrawing it she remained in silence where she was, ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... another voice, a clear voice, a quiet voice, a voice capable of the strongest varying accents. She looked at the speaker; he held himself with the assurance of one certain of his ground. His shoulders were straight and broad; he stood like an athlete, and, when he moved, it was impossible to be unconscious of a certain physical grace that came from well-trained muscles. He carried his head high, as if from a habit of thought, of looking up, not down, when he turned from the pages of the heavy tomes in his study; his face conveyed an impression of intelligence and intensity; ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... having been completed, he went out to the mines, leaving Rutherford alone in the camp of the Philistines. He found no one, however, more formidable than Mrs. Maverick, an old woman bent nearly double, with white hair and hollow, deep-sunken eyes, so faded it was impossible to tell what their original color might have been, and the "help," a stout, red-cheeked, coarse-featured girl of fifteen, whom Mrs. Maverick called "Minty," but who rejoiced in the euphonious name of Araminta Bixby, and who ogled and grinned at Rutherford ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... entire days Wolfville has been in darkness as to worldly events, an' is right now knockin' 'round in the problem of existence like a blind dog in a meat shop. Your attitoode of delay, Colonel, is impossible; the public requests your return. If you ain't back at the Coyote office to-morry mornin' by second drink time, dealin' your wonted game, I wouldn't ondertake to state what shape a ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... but talks just as usual; says she is a victim to her husband's brutality and jealousy. It seems impossible to make her see things in their right light. I hope and pray that her eyes may be opened, but I am afraid it will be a long time before they are. But it is hard, Miss Wyllys, to open the eyes of the blind and deluded! It is more ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... wonderful being who seemed destined to follow me throughout my career was not the least interesting part of our conversation. "There are," said the duke, "many very extraordinary things in this life, reason questions them, philosophy laughs at them, and yet it is impossible to deny that there are various hidden causes, or sudden inspirations, which have the greatest effect upon our destiny. As a proof, I will relate to you the following circumstance. You are aware," continued the duke, "that the cardinal de Richelieu, ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... the house plays.) He took the first part prestissimo—the Andante allegro—and the Rondo more prestissimo still. He played great part of the bass very differently from the way in which it is written, inventing at times quite another harmony and melody. It is impossible to do otherwise in playing at such a pace, for the eyes cannot see the notes, nor the hands get hold of them. What merit is there in this? The listeners (I mean those worthy of the name) can only ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... not be possible to omit all mention of him in her coal stories and center attention upon the Trust. It was impossible for her to attack him now, since she had come to understand her feelings toward him. Even so, she reflected with horror that if her articles created the comment she anticipated their effect would be to rob him of his holdings. ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... element (x), and moreover the two are always closely associated (figs. 95, 96). The number of chromatin elements in the equatorial plate of late spermatogonial mitoses is 23 (fig. 97). Later events indicate that one of the 23 is the element x, but it is impossible to distinguish it here. Figure 98 is a very early stage of the spermatocyte of the first order, showing the element x as a U-shaped body. The centrosome was also conspicuous in all of the cells of this group. The spireme here, as also in figure 99, is ...
— Studies in Spermatogenesis (Part 1 of 2) • Nettie Maria Stevens
... Penitentiary at Leavenworth. He was readmitted to the Government Hospital for the Insane on March 25, 1906, from the United States Penitentiary at Leaven worth. No medical certificate accompanied him on admission and it is therefore impossible to set, even an approximate date, for the onset of his present mental disorder; but inasmuch as he had not been in prison even a year before his transfer to our hospital, and as it usually takes several months to carry out the required legal proceedings, ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... dangerous crisis a low rumbling is heard, distant and then near. Impossible to tell whether it comes from the horizon, or arises in the house itself. All three lose ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... the vague remotenesses beyond the bridling Shannon and its long string of lakes, or on the western shore where the long rollers broke in spume and the French and Spanish tongues were spoken more freely than English, still hoped for the impossible. Passing their lives far from the Castle and the Four Courts, far even from the provincial capitals, they shut their eyes to facts and dreamed of triumph. The Sullivans of Morristown and Skull were of these; as were some of their neighbours. And Flavia was especially of these. ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... I have been besieged with requests to open a "Speakers' Class" or "A School of Oratory," or, as one ingenious correspondent puts it, a "Forensic Club." With these requests it is impossible to comply for ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... ruins ever dear to the heart of an American, its verdant shores and rural villages, nestling in the valleys or crowning the hills, could scarce obtain a passing glance from those enraptured with the improbable if not impossible pictures of life. ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... of sugar grains each grain shows just the same characteristics and reacts in exactly the same way as all the other grains of the mass. Individuality, however expressed, is due to structural variation. It is almost impossible to conceive in the enormous complexity of living things that any two individuals, whether they be single cells or whether they be formed of cell masses, can be exactly the same. It is not necessary to assume in such individual differences ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... body, before being born from the womb, can nowise be washed with water; unless perchance it be said that the baptismal water, with which the mother's body is washed, reaches the child while yet in its mother's womb. But this is impossible: both because the child's soul, to the sanctification of which Baptism is ordained, is distinct from the soul of the mother; and because the body of the animated infant is already formed, and consequently distinct from the body of the mother. Therefore the Baptism which the mother receives does ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... the four events occurring at this time. They are grouped together. It seems impossible to say first this, then that. They are grouped. The great essential thing standing out is that our Lord Jesus' coming will be at a terrible climax of evil. There will be partial judgment visited on ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... of great antiquity, and to trace its foundation is at present impossible, tradition itself not giving any clue. It was originally erected with stone, but the exterior being decayed by time, in the year 1690 the body of the church, and also the tower, were cased with bricks of an admirable quality, and mortar suitable ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... of the schools throughout the country are closed. In most places the missionaries are not allowed to hold services. Though innocent of any wrong-doing, they are under continual suspicion. It was impossible for them or others to use the telegraph and post-offices, the strictest censorship prevailing. Undoubtedly an attempt is being made to undermine Christianity and make the position of missionaries ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... lie on his right side, he awkwardly turned over on to his left. "The fact is," he thought, "not one of all the women I have known could ever satisfy me for the whole of my life. Thus, what I have called true love is impossible, not to be realized; and to dream of such ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... apprehension of this fact. That he was a man of many weaknesses may be true; in fact, he was quite aware of them and professed himself no hero. But he never deserted that reformatory movement which he originally contemplated; and it was impossible he should have deserted the specifically Protestant reformation in which he never took part. He was essentially a theological whig, to whom radicalism was as hateful as it is to all whigs; or, to borrow a still more appropriate comparison from modern times, a broad churchman who refused to ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... applied to the Pope's Nuncio at Paris to ascertain whether a Roman Catholic Bishop in America might not perform the ceremony for them as Protestants, and he transcribes as remarkable the natural reply: "The Nuncio says the thing is impossible unless the gentlemen ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... Wiltcher's dinner is that no fruit is ever included in the menu, although coffee is always served. The story goes that Wiltcher the First, who took great pride in his table, found it during one winter time almost impossible to give anything else as dessert beyond apples, oranges, pears, and nuts, there being no other fruit on the market. One day some diners rudely complained, and insisted on a change, expecting perhaps that pineapple should be included in a dinner at this price. "You wish a change ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... has, indeed, a tentative character, and lacks symmetrical completeness, but is the more welcome as not aiming at the impossible. A whole series of phenomena in organic beings are correlated under the term of MEMORY, CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS, PATENT AND LATENT. . . . Of the order of unconscious memory, latent till the arrival of the appropriate stimulus, is all the co-operative growth ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... attentively. Was she an impostor? It was impossible to think so. There was absolutely no evidence whatever that she was acting a part—rather every thing to forbid the supposition, as she thus readily acquiesced in ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... "It is almost impossible to imagine such a thing. Universally respected, suddenly cut off, enormous family with hereditary hunger, all the neighbors well aware of straitened circumstances, the kindest-hearted county in Great Britain—sorrow and abundance must ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... think you must know that you are talking nonsense. I don't mean about Mr. Vandeleur, or any one but your grandmother; but as for saying that she has left off caring for you, that's all—perfectly impossible. I know enough for that; you've been with her all your life, and she's been most awfully good ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... denuded; secondly, the period of the deposition of the Silurian deposits upon the denuded and inclined gneiss, a. Yet the granite produced after this long interval is often so intimately blended with the ancient gneiss, at the point of junction, that it is impossible to draw any other than an arbitrary line of separation between them; and where this is not the case, tortuous veins of granite pass freely through gneiss, ending sometimes in threads, as if the older rock had offered no resistance to their passage. ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... can be really studied to good purpose. There is a new pillar to the memory of Lord Melville; very elegant, and very much better than the man deserved. His statue is at the top, with a wreath on the head very like a nightcap drawn over the eyes. It is impossible to look at it without being reminded of the fate which the original most richly merited. But my letter will overflow even the ample limits of a frank, if I do not conclude. I hope that you will be properly ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... about the native ministers and teachers, who find it impossible to live on the salaries of a decade ago? The problem of the ordinary helper is not so difficult. Springing from the common people, accustomed from childhood to a meagre scale of living, the small salaries which the people can pay ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... created immediately such; for in the world a man is in his fullness, consequently he can there be conceived and born, and afterward be imbued with knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom, and become an angel. To create angels in any other way is impossible. ...
— Spiritual Life and the Word of God • Emanuel Swedenborg
... Duchess of Marlborough's Vindication. But the Duchess was so abandoned a liar, that it is impossible to believe a word that she says, except ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... feet, and stood poised in a perilous position at the end of the roof, like some dark statue hung above its gable. Behind him, huge clouds of an almost impossible purple turned slowly topsy-turvy in the silent anarchy of heaven. Their gyration made the dark ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... qualities—for, unfortunately, while a man's public life is determined wholly by his strong qualities, his intimate life depends wholly on his weaknesses. She was as fond of him as she had ever been; but it was impossible for her to feel any thrill approaching love. Why? She looked at his fine face and manly figure; she recalled how many good qualities he had. Why had she ceased to love him? She thought perhaps some mystery of physical lack of sympathy ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... such a summary as this it would be impossible to describe how each sub-race was further sub-divided into nations, each having its distinct type and characteristics. All that can be here attempted is to sketch in broad outline the varying political institutions throughout the ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... comradeship we have known is something which I shall try to continue while we both live: though we are far beyond our twenties now, Ivan. But more than this, more than pure friendship, seems to me impossible. Marriage—even though it be with the love of my girlhood—is still half-terrible to me. I think that certain memories of my existence with Alexis can never be ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... for he dearly loved his mother. "Monsieur," he replied, with emotion, "it is impossible for me to sanction your request. My mother is resting calmly, and perhaps thinks that she is out of danger. We might give her ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... than three feet deep at the stem of the boat, and it was impossible to get her any nearer to the dry land on the beach. Pearl bit his lip; for both of the boats of the Sylph were pulling towards the schooner, and Peppers would soon have an audience to whom he could tell ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... had to be lifted from the cart. "This yer camp is played out," he said, gloomily, as he affected to be supported into the Magnolia. With what further expression he might have indicated his feelings it was impossible to say, for at that moment Scott joined the group. "Did you speak to me?" he asked of the Colonel, dropping his hand, as if with accidental familiarity, on that gentleman's shoulder. The Colonel, recognizing some occult quality in the touch, and some ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... face, real or feigned, he held open the door; his late friends attempted to escape on the other side; impossible! they must pass him. She whom he had insulted (Latin for kissed) deposited somewhere at his feet a look of gentle, blushing reproach; the other, whom he had not insulted, darted red-hot daggers at him from her eyes; ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... grasped the full significance of Lee's surrender, when, only five days later, Lincoln was assassinated. "It would be impossible for me," said Grant, "to describe the feeling that overcame me at the news. I knew his goodness of heart, and above all his desire to see all the people of the United States enter again upon the full privileges of citizenship with equality ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... boundary of the United States was declared to be about what is the present northern boundary from the mouth of the St. Croix River in Maine to the Lake of the Woods, and then due west to the Mississippi (which was, of course, an impossible line, for that river does not rise in Canada); then down the Mississippi to 31 deg. north latitude; then eastward along that parallel of latitude to the Apalachicola River, and then by what is the present north boundary of Florida ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... with a kind of shock. I imagined with a vividness impossible to describe what Horace would think if I answered him squarely and honestly, if I ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... no other way except mentally, without either using material (and there is none to use), or else reproducing itself (which is also impossible). There is no escape from this conclusion of the Reason, which, as we have said, agrees with the highest teachings of the Illumined. Just as you, student, may create a Universe of your own in your mentality, so ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates
... and you threaten me, if I am not, with the ill opinion of all your friends: but I have such an unaccountable bias for roguery, or what shall I call it? that I believe it is impossible for me to take your advice. I have been examining myself. What a deuse is the matter with me, that I cannot see my honest man in the same advantageous light in which he appears to everybody else? Yet I do not, in my heart, dislike him. On the contrary, I know not, were I to look about ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... and Aunt Betsy generously offered "to pay the fiddler," as she termed it, "provided 'Tilda would never let it get to Silverton that Betsy Barlow was seen inside a playhouse!" To Mrs. Tubbs it seemed impossible that Aunt Betsy could be in earnest, but when she was, she put no impediments in her way; and so, conspicuous among the crowd of transient visitors who that night entered the Academy of Music was Aunt Betsy ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... I said, 'I beg your pardon most sincerely. The shadow-dance has been mainly answerable for my folly. You did look so exactly the little Winifred, my heart's sister, that I felt it impossible to treat you otherwise than as that dear child-friend ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... congratulations. At seven, they were all seated at breakfast, the table strewn with birthday gifts, mostly of that useless and semi-idiotic character peculiar to such tributes-ormolu inkstands, holding a thimbleful of ink—penholders warranted to break before they have been used three times—purses with impossible snaps—photograph frames and pomatum-pots. ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... was a great curse in their islands, as "merchants" encouraged young people to get deeply in their debt, so that when they grew up they could keep them in their clutches and subject them to a state of semi-slavery, as with increasing families and low wages it was then impossible to get out of debt. We were very sorry to see these fine young men leaving the country, and when we thought of the wild and almost deserted islands we had just visited, it seemed a pity they could not have been employed there. We had a longer ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... who appeared to preside and conduct the discussion was a prisoner nicknamed Skeleton. He was provost-marshal or captain of the hall. This man, of a good height, and about forty years of age, justified his appropriate nickname by a leanness impossible to be described, which we should call almost osteological. If the physiognomies of his companions offered more or less analogy to that of the tiger, the vulture, or the fox, the form of his retreating forehead, and his bony, lank, and protruding ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... gravest of situations to American statesmanship. As I write it is quite sure that Russia is beaten on the field. Think now, young man, of the immensity of the statesmanship required right now, which five years ago everybody would have declared impossible ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... are so much a part of our modern thought that we do not realize the fact that in those days of routine, pedantry and slavish worship of authority, they were the daring dreams of an enthusiast, the seeming impossible prophecy of a new era. Aristocratic mothers were converts to his theories, and began nursing their children as he commanded them. Great lords began to learn handicrafts; physical exercise came into vogue; everything that Emile did, other people ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... where such germs ripen as in a hot-bed. In a less noble nature than Hetty's there would have grown up side by side with this pain a hatred of Rachel, or, at least, an antagonism towards her. In the fine equilibrium of Hetty's moral nature, such a thing was impossible. She felt from that day a new interest in Rachel. She looked at her, often scrutinizingly, and thought: "Ah, if she were but well, what a sweet young wife she might make! I wish Eben could have had such a wife! How much better it would have been for him than having ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... tacked on to the Wonders of the Invisible World. But few copies have reached this country; and only persons of peculiar, it may almost be said, eccentric, tastes, would care to procure it. It will be impossible to awaken an interest in the general reading public for such works. They are forbidding in their matter, unintelligible in their style, obscure in their import and drift, and pervaded by superstitions and absurdities that have happily passed away, never, it is to be hoped, again ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... with an intelligent reason for whatever, from the vantage-ground of experience, he takes upon him to recommend. Indeed there is not a chapter from which any reader may not gain something.... It is impossible even to glance at a tithe of the useful information and advice contained in this volume, which will be certain to be the landlord and ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... can't very well forget that on this occasion it is almost impossible for me to get away. Of course you don't understand this, and I am afraid that if I should try I couldn't make it very clear ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... he did not want a priest. Was that clear enough? . . . He was perfectly clear-headed; he knew what he was saying. . . . Yes; even if he were in great danger . . . even if he were practically certain to die. (That, by the way, was impossible; because he had to finish the notes for Dr. Waterman's new History of the Popes; and it would take months.) Anyhow, he didn't want a priest. He knew all about that: he had faced it all, and he wasn't afraid. Science had knocked ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... table that he found it impossible to maintain toward Bobby that attitude of indifference which he had prescribed for himself. With the arrival of the new passengers at Honolulu the places had been slightly changed, and now that he found himself seated between ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... reflection that this was impossible made me get up at last with a sigh of deep grief at the end of the dream. But I got up without despair. She didn't murmur, she didn't stir. There was something august in the stillness of the room. It was a strange peace which she shared with me ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... hostess sat down on the counter without regret to a luncheon consisting of one orange, found by the guest in her bag and divided, and two thin captain biscuits from stock. They were both used to dissolving visions of impossible chops, both were cheerfully familiar with the feeling of light tragedy which invades you towards six o'clock P.M., if you have not been able to ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... duello is punctiliously well understood, the persons engaged in a single combat are bound to halt on the command of a knight, or priest, or lady, and the quarrel so interrupted is held as honourably terminated, and may not be revived.—Nephew, it is, I think, impossible that you can nourish spleen against this young gentleman for having fought for his king. Hear my honest proposal, Markham—You know I bear no malice, though I have some reason to be offended with you—Give the young man your hand in friendship, and we will back to the Lodge, all three together, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... smallpox. McGee had been trained in an atmosphere where discipline was a matter of example rather than a matter of fear, and as a result had always known a sort of good-fellowship which he felt instinctively would be impossible with ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... insufficient to leave much water about, and yet enough to so moisten the soil as to make dry-blowing impossible in the ordinary way. Fires had to be built and kept going all night, piled up on heaps of alluvial soil dug out during the day. In the morning these heaps would be dry enough to treat, and ashes and earth were dry-blown together—the pleasures ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... to her long soaring rise. "We must have made a good third of the distance already—perhaps a half. In ten or fifteen minutes more we ought to sight the blue of the big bay. No use in turning back now. And as for alighting and letting the storm blow over, that's impossible. Among these forests it would mean only total wreckage. Even if we could land, we never could start again. No; the only thing to do is to hold her to it and plow through, storm or no storm. I guess the good old Pauillac can stand ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... Quebec. He was the founder of the city, and for more than a quarter of a century he was its very life. If repeated disappointment and misfortune could have brought this great empire-builder to despair; if obstacles apparently impossible to overcome could have turned the hero from his purpose, Quebec would not be to-day the oldest city in the western hemisphere. As it was, his character gave the keynote not only to the great fortress-capital, but to the whole history of New France. He was an embodiment at once of the religious ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... and highly respectable family, residing at Minshull, in the county of Chester[CY], during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By what mishap he became an inmate of the King's-bench prison, from when he dates[CZ] his Essayes, it is impossible to conjecture, but as he talks of usury and extortion, as well as of severe creditors; and advises those who are compelled to borrow, to pay as soon as they can, we may suppose that imprudence and extravagance assisted in reducing him to the situation ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... It would be impossible to describe the varying emotions which devastated Lady Blore, as her brother made his announcement. Her hands trembled so much that she was obliged to give up any pretence of holding her cup. It ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... that I object to, my dear; my business is so limited that it is impossible for us to live in any other than a plain, quiet way. The cost of a party would be a serious ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... countenance, the electric telegraph of touch,—all these betray the yielding citadel before the word itself is uttered, which, like the key surrendered, opens every avenue and gate of entrance, and renders retreat impossible.—LONGFELLOW. ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... cordiality with the nation from whom most of us sprang! It is well, perhaps, that the two nations should be at peace politically; but can you ever expect cordiality to subsist between our impressed and cruelly treated sailor, and a British navy officer. It is next to impossible. Our ill treated sailor, lacerated in his flesh, wounded in his honor, and debased by the slavish hand of a boatswain's mate, never can forget the barbarians; nor ever can, nor ever ought to forgive them. The God of nature has ordained that nations should be separated by a difference ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... defect was on the side of that delicacy and finesse which was the distinctive characteristic of the whole person, and which was carried out in the clear brown arch of the eyebrows, and the marble smoothness of the sloping forehead. Impossible to say that this face was not eminently handsome; yet, for the majority both of men and women, it was destitute of charm. Women disliked eyes that seemed to be indolently accepting admiration instead of rendering it; and men, especially if they had ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... of the Italian's sober dress; in his long hair, and the chapeau bras, over which he bowed so gracefully, and then pressed it, as if to his heart, before tucking it under his arm, after the fashion in which the gizzard reposes under the wing of a roasted pullet; yet it was impossible that even Frank could deny to Riccabocca that praise which is due to the air and manner of an unmistakable gentleman. And certainly as, after dinner, conversation grew more familiar, and the Parson and Mrs. Dale, who had been invited to meet their friend, did ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... station, they occasionally assume some of the characters proper to the species of that station. With both varieties and species, use and disuse seem to have produced a considerable effect; for it is impossible to resist this conclusion when we look, for instance, at the logger-headed duck, which has wings incapable of flight, in nearly the same condition as in the domestic duck; or when we look at the burrowing tucu-tucu, which is occasionally blind, and then at certain moles, which are habitually ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... when questioned, turned the tables by denying the accusation, and adding that it was Hereford who had tempted him. Since neither of these noble gentlemen was particularly worthy of credit, and they both swore very hard on this occasion, it is impossible to decide which (if either) was telling the truth. The decision finally arrived at was that both the accusers should settle their quarrel by wager of battle, for which purpose they were commanded to meet at ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... clearly visible to the naked eye, and was rapidly decreasing in size on account of the perspective. But the telescopes which Clewe had provided easily overcame this difficulty. He was sure that it would be impossible for his light to penetrate to a depth which could not be made ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... sixteen years old, from a country village. We called them "Mary and Martha." Both of them had been brought to New York under a promise of marriage and sold into a life of sin. We did all we could to free them from their masters, but it was impossible. They were determined that they would not be robbed of their prey which was so valuable a financial investment. Time and time again they were hunted down by their masters and lost their positions through the interference of these men. In two years one of the girls died from the mistreatment and shame ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... Pyrrh. Hyp. i. 220). Finally,in the days of Philo, Antiochus and Cicero, the metaphysical dogmatism of Plato had been changed into an ethical syncretism which combined elements from the Scepticism of Carneades and the doctrines of the Stoics; it was a change from a dogmatism which men found impossible to defend, to a probabilism which afforded a retreat from Scepticism and intellectual anarchy. Cicero represents at once the doctrine of the later Academy and the general attitude of Roman society when he says, "My words do not proclaim the truth, like a Pythian priestess; ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... January 4, Senator Douglas introduced a bill for opening the Territory of Nebraska. All land west of Iowa and Missouri had been closed against immigrants, so that it was impossible for them to secure a farm. By "Nebraska" was meant all territory north of Texas westward to the Rocky Mountains. On January 23, Douglas introduced his second bill, repealing the provisions of the Missouri Compromise ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... without the intelligent, and full consent of the individual experimented upon. Such legal consent of course is impossible to obtain from children, from the feeble-minded, or ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... ill-appointed traveller, with a crushed hat, dusty clothes, and no sword, asked him what he wanted, receiving a blunt reply that the stranger wished to see the Count de Saint-Geran without any further loss of time. The servant replied that this was impossible; the other got into ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... week!" exclaimed the latter, on Mr Mowbray's making known to him his wishes on this subject. "Impossible! my dear sir; impossible! Wholly out o' the question. I hae a stack o' oats to thrash oot; a bit o' a fauld dyke to build; twa acres o' the holme to ploo; the new barn to theek; the lea-field to saw wi' wheat; the turnips to bring in; the taties to bing; forbye a hunner ither ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... of the port will in course of time be remedied. We started with the same strong trade-wind up the coast, passing through some pretty picturesque islands and roads, hoping to anchor at Dungeness for the night. Finding it impossible to get up there before dark, we anchored in Challenger Bay, under shelter of Palm Island, shortly after sunset. Soon after we had dropped anchor aboriginal blacks were reported alongside, and on going on deck I saw two miserable-looking objects in the frailest of boats. Indeed ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... questions Ireland's position as an agricultural country is totally different from that of Great Britain. The same legislation cannot be applicable to both. Ireland should frame her own. Under present conditions it is impossible to know the considered judgment of Ireland. There is certainly much opposition to Insurance, and if all Irishmen thoroughly realized that the scheme might complicate the finance of Home Rule and involve ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... material, its reading-table held books and newspapers, and in its big open fireplace fat logs were blazing. Shaw "did" his prisoners well. Laurie remembered the cigarettes, matches, and blankets so thoughtfully provided for himself. Like Shaw's own room, the chamber breathed simple comfort. It was impossible to take in the thought of anything sinister in connection with it until one observed the gagged woman in the corner, and remembered ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... "I do, my daughter;" and with a gush of tears Ellen sunk her head again upon her bosom. She had no more to say; her mouth was stopped for ever as to the right of the matter, though she still thought it an impossible duty in ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... once there rose a fierce tropical storm. There were loud shouts of approval—equally loud shouts demanding an instant withdrawal; members rose from every part of the House; in short, it was Bedlam let loose, and a scene impossible ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... went across the compound. The guard at the gate scarcely looked up, and if the thing hadn't been impossible, there, in the broad daylight, I could have fancied he saw no one. I turned to Aoodya and took her hands, for she was trembling from head to foot. At my touch she burst out sobbing, clung to my shoulder and begged me ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... avail to hurl a few thousand troops against those impregnable works? The men were not iron, and were they, it would have been impossible for them to have kept erect, where trees three feet in diameter were crashed down upon them by the enemy's shot; they would have been but as so many ten-pins set up before skillful players ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... visited the settlements and trafficked with the fur-traders on the Missouri, he did not love the "Pale-faces," whom he regarded as intruders on the hunting grounds of his fathers, and the peace that existed between them at that time was of a very fragile character. Indeed, it was deemed by the traders impossible to travel through the Indian country at that period except in strong force, and it was the very boldness of the present attempt that secured to our hunters anything ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... Partisans, moving from the mountains Tannu Ola, occupied with their outposts all the border of Mongolia to stop and seize the peasants and Soyots driving out their cattle. To pass the Tannu Ola now would be impossible. I saw only one way—to turn sharp to the southeast, pass the swampy valley of the Buret Hei and reach the south shore of Lake Kosogol, which is already in the territory of Mongolia proper. It was very unpleasant news. To the first Mongol post in ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... life, however, soon wearied me, and I began to long for some occupation, or some pursuit. Teeming with excitement as the world was—every day, every hour, brimful of events—it was impossible to sit calmly on the beach, and watch the great, foaming current of human passions, without longing to be in the stream. Had I been a man at that time, I should have become a furious orator of the Mountain—an impassioned leader of the people. The impulse to stand foremost, to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... place the rose, which lay carefully secured in a fold of his robe, ran great danger of fading if he first waited for his companions near the temple of Seti; next, a hasty return from thence to Thebes might prove necessary; and finally, it seemed to him not impossible that Bent-Anat might send a master of the ceremonies after him, and if that happened any delay might frustrate ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... men would have been in the field, fighting for America's independence. Of the services of the little band, scattered as they were throughout the army, two or three in a company composed of whites, a squad in a regiment, a few companies with an army, made it quite impossible for their record, beyond this, to be distinct from the organizations they were attached to. However, enough has been culled from the history of that conflict, to show that they bore a brave part in the struggle which wrested the colonies from the control of Great Britain, and ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... that there were so many difficulties in the way of having separate English and foreign-language services, the former for the children and those who understand English, and the latter for the old people who do not understand English, that it would be practically impossible to do this. The argument usually given was that presented by Joseph G. Votava of Omaha, a Roman ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek
... Bob, "all this has a good sound enough, but it's quite impossible. It's true, I verily believe, that such a kind of servant in our family would really prolong Marianne's life years,—that it would improve her health, and be an unspeakable blessing to her, to me, and the children,—and I would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... laughed Zeb, "we'll need more men than Congress ever has got together, I'm thinkin'. I was there when Washington tried to hold it, because Congress an' the country expected him to do the impossible. But, Colonel, I will say as how if you led the way, thar'd not be one of 'em, as ever marched with Morgan, who wouldn't be ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... play Doctor Robin, Janina stood behind the scenes to see what would be done with her role. It is impossible to describe that subtle, excruciating pain that rent her soul when she saw Majkowska as "Mary" on the stage. She felt that that other woman was tearing out piecemeal from her brain and heart every word, every gesture, every pose ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... sullen resolution, that their submission was no longer the effect of weakness; and that, in the imperfect state of human virtue, the patience, which is founded on principle, may be exhausted by persecution. It is impossible to determine how far the zeal of Julian would have prevailed over his good sense and humanity; but if we seriously reflect on the strength and spirit of the church, we shall be convinced, that before the emperor could have extinguished ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... found it in his heart to quarrel with any boy whose face looked so much like an apple, and, moreover, it was apparent that here was a boy whom it would be utterly impossible to quarrel with on any ground whatever—or ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... any one had spoken ill of him, he displayed a proud resentment towards the offender; otherwise it was impossible to be more polite and affable than he was. His conversation was pleasing in a high degree. He had the skill of giving an agreeable turn to everything. His manner of talking was natural, without the least affectation, amiable and obliging. Although he had not so much courage as Monsieur, he was still ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... intensified the heat of the sun upon one's head. There were too now, for the first time in our experience, shrapnel. They were not over us, but ran somewhere on our right across the valley. Their sound was "fireworks" and nothing more—so that alarm at their gentle holiday temper was impossible. Brock's Fireworks on a Thursday evening at the Crystal Palace, oneself a small boy sitting with both hands between one's knees, one's mouth open, a damp box of chocolates on one's lap, the murmured "Ah ..." of ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... ratiocinating faculty, in a most stupendous manner, of the radiant virtues latent within the precious caskets and ventricles of your minds. For, contemplating the mellifluous suavity of your thrice discreet reverences, it is impossible not to be persuaded with facility that neither your affections nor your intellects are vitiated with any defect or privation of liberal and exalted sciences. Far from it, all must judge that in you are lodged a cornucopia ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... dreadful proceedings the sufferers appealed to the parliament, which immediately took cognizance of the affair, and annulled the sentence of the capitoul as irregular, but they continued the prosecution, and, upon the hangman deposing it was impossible Antony should hang himself as was pretended, the majority of the parliament were of the opinion, that the prisoners were guilty, and therefore ordered them to be tried by the criminal court of Thoulouse. One voted him innocent, but after long debates the majority was for the torture and wheel, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... thought passed through her mind; but it did not manifest itself upon her face, which was composed and quiet as she decided with Juno that Helen should not trouble them. With the utmost care Juno arrayed herself for the party, thinking with a great deal of complacency how impossible it was for Helen Lennox to compete with ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... At first she had thought of all those London bridges, with the dark rivers swirling through their arches and eddying round their piers; then she became sure that he would not drown himself. He was a vigorous swimmer—such a death would be impossible to him. No, he would poison himself, or shoot himself, or hang himself. Perhaps even now it was ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... baked in bread, probably a sort of paste. The majority of the names on the list are familiar, but a few—the teal, the curlew, the crane, the stork, and the snipe—appear to be new. It is, in all these cases, almost impossible to be sure how much we owe to the poet's imagination and how much to his rhythmical poverty. From another passage it is to be inferred that baked venison was a favourite mode of dressing ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... and pools: under water on the sea shore, instead of a rocky steeply shelving coast, we shall have in some parts bays with mud, sandy beaches and rocky shoals. The formation of the island by itself must often slightly affect the surrounding climate. It is impossible that the first few transported organisms could be perfectly adapted to all these stations; and it will be a chance if those successively transported will be so adapted. The greater number would probably come from ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... little or no credit in this age; but valour is become popular by our civil wars; and in this, we have souls brave even to perfection, and in so great number that the choice is impossible to make. ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... his sister was carried, seized the bridle with his left hand, and flashing his sword upon the ruffian with the other, shouted, 'Let go, villain; give me my sister!' Hall's first impulse was to push his horse forward so as to trample the boy down, but Malcolm's hold rendered this impossible; besides, there was the shouting, the clang, the confusion of the outburst of an ambush all around and on every side, and before the man could free his hand to draw his weapon he necessarily loosed his grasp ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... list of names of sociable spirits, such as the Fabians, the Ashbys, the Alexanders, the Brewsters, the Maynards, the Latimers, the Evans, the Stewarts, and Mrs. Courtney with Jack Baxter to look after her in lieu of other escort. It may be impossible for all members in the families I mention to continue with us on the voyage, but they can accompany us part way and then come back home. I planned to go via the Panama Canal, and thus on to Hawaii, touching there for a short visit to the Islands, and those of our party who must return to the ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Pirna Country, there to be well out of harm's way. Lacy and he, it is thought, would perhaps have got beaten, trying to save Dresden from its misery. Lacy's orders were, Not, on any terms, to get into fighting with Friedrich, but only to cover Dresden. Dresden, without fighting, has proved impossible to cover, and Lacy leaves ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Not that it was an easy matter to give vent to a shout of alarm in such a position, for Stuart's huge fingers and thumb gripped the German so fiercely and firmly about the neck, just below his jaws, that movement of the latter was impossible, and the very attempt to make a sound was excessively painful. Up then he came slowly, struggling, his hands beating the earth and reaching up in the endeavour to grip his assailant, his heavily shod feet lashing to and fro and kicking clods ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... powerful popular movement, apart altogether from the question of Church Reform. And indeed this question Luther was anxious, as we have seen, to restrict to the domain of spiritual, as distinguished from secular, that is to say, political and civil action. It was impossible, however, but that the accusations of lying, tyranny, and hostility to evangelical truth, now freely levelled against the dominant priesthood and the secular lords who were persecuting the gospel, should serve to intensify to the utmost the prevailing ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... at the end of every one of the four stanzas. To match a short vowel to an orotund concert note for two beats and a "hold" was impossible. When the great Peace Jubilee of 1872, in Boston, was projected, Dr. Holmes was applied to, and responded with a lyric that gave each stanza the rondeau effect designed by the composer, but replaced the flat final with a climax ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... their houses and close the windows, so that it will be impossible to allege that there has ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... until finding it impossible to break away from her uncle's arms, she hid her face in his bosom and gave vent to the full tide ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... this is a hard business, involving a quite definite social struggle with evil and atavism, in which some one is likely to be hurt. But surely that manly spirit of adventure which has driven men to the North Pole and the desert, and made them battle with delight against apparently impossible odds, can here find its ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... down again on the jutting rock; and Mercy, leaning forward with her hands clasped on her knees, fixed her eyes on Parson Dorrance's face, and drank in every word that he said. He had a rare faculty of speaking with the greatest simplicity, both of language and manner. It was impossible not to feel at ease in his presence. It was impossible not to tell him all that he asked. Before you knew it, you were speaking to him of your own feelings, tastes, the incidents of your life, your plans and purposes, as ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... had cast aside the fur cloaks to which they owed their life, but the majority were broken men without spirit, without pride—appealing only to pity. They hugged themselves closely in their ragged cloaks and stumbled as they walked. It was impossible to distinguish between the officers and the men. The biggest and the strongest were the best clad—the bullies were the best fed. All were black and smoke-grimed—with eyes reddened and inflamed by the dazzling snow through ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... This valley was owned by Mr. Merkel, and though part of it was timbered, and some scattered sections produced an excellent variety of grass for stock, there was no dependable source of drinking water available. And without water at hand it is impossible to raise cattle in the west—or any place else, ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... have practiced it, but never as you shall during de next few veeks. It iss only by constant application to a certain method dat great violin players are made. Dey are expected to accomplish de impossible. Dat may sound rather vague to you, but you vill some day understand ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... this? What had I done? Was I a sneak, or a leper, or a murderer, that I should thus be excommunicated and tortured? What a fool I had been, not to think of this before! Alas! it was too late now. My pride had made it impossible for me to speak the first word without surrendering all along the line; and even yet, at the eleventh hour, I could not face that. So I shut myself up for another day, miserable, nervous, and ill, and counted ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... uncontrollable. Maecenas was then able to banish his anger and to lead him into a gentler frame of mind. Here is an instance. Maecenas once found his patron holding court, and seeing that would undoubtedly condemn many persons to death, he undertook to push through the bystanders and get Finding this impossible, he wrote on a tablet: "Pray desist now, executioner." Making as if it contained something different, he threw it into the lap of Augustus, and the latter imposed no death sentences but immediately rose and left. The emperor was not displeased at such hints but rather glad of them, because whatever ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... be a dominating influence in the economy and has so far failed to bring about much-needed structural changes. The IMF suspended Uzbekistan's $185 million standby arrangement in late 1996 because of governmental steps that made impossible fulfillment of Fund conditions. Uzbekistan has responded to the negative external conditions generated by the Asian and Russian financial crises by tightening export and currency controls within its already largely closed economy. Economic policies that have repelled foreign ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... to do with earth and not with heaven. Seven quiet days of marching in splendid summer weather, the raw peasant soldiery well fed and comfortable, becoming a unit, all outbreak of separate consciousness anywhere more and more impossible, hardening to the peculiar day's work. They were used to heavy work, but this was a particular task that needed specific hardening of feet and lungs; also the personal idea in each breast required numbing. The physical aim was to make men light for heavy work; to give them ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... "Impossible for me to listen now, I have hundreds of things to see to; but I will listen after breakfast to your foreign climates, child. Now ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... the Apostle, went to the prison with a heart renewed by hope. Somewhere in the depth of his soul, despair and terror were still crying; but he stifled those voices. It seemed to him impossible that the intercession of the viceregent of God and the power of his prayer should be without effect. He feared to hope; he feared to doubt. "I will believe in His mercy," said he to himself, "even though I saw her in the jaws of a lion." And at this thought, even though ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... External and internal combined, such as references in the plays to events or books, etc.; (3) Internal, content and treatment, progressive changes in versification, presence of frequency of rhyme, etc. The genius of S. was so intensely dramatic that it is impossible to say confidently when he speaks in his own character. The sonnets, written probably 1591-94 have, however, been thought to be of a more personal nature, and to contain indications as to his character ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... and throw fire upon it. Then taking each of the commanders, Masinissa and Laelius, aside, he implored them separately to make up by diligence and care for the absence of that foresight which the night rendered it impossible to exercise. He said, that he should himself attack Hasdrubal and the Carthaginian camp; but that he should not begin till he saw the fire in that of the king. Nor did this delay him long; for when the fire thrown upon the nearest huts had taken effect, ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... of grass, namely the dreaded spear-grass (Andropogon contortus), which grows on the coast, and which rendered sheep-raising impossible." ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... influenced by chains of affinities. Nothing can be easier than to define a number of characters common to all birds; but with crustaceans, any such definition has hitherto been found impossible. There are crustaceans at the opposite ends of the series, which have hardly a character in common; yet the species at both ends, from being plainly allied to others, and these to others, and so onwards, can be recognised as unequivocally belonging to this, and ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... of Clapperton and his friends fell on the traitors in their own camp whose presence at the meeting had made it impossible to discredit it as entirely one-sided in ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... nestling movement, and opened her eyes again, deep, watchful eyes that asked endless questions, and made it impossible to answer them, eyes that knew no language but their own, the secret and alien language ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... the British side and North Carolina and Virginia frontier riflemen under Colonels Isaac Shelby, fiery William Campbell, and John Sevier for the United States. Although Ferguson's position from the outset was nearly impossible, he refused to surrender, knowing what was in store if he did. He was correct. The hatred which only the Carolina civil war unleashed during the Revolution burst forth. Only the intervention of Shelby and ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... very pointed as to chin and monopolized by a pair of dark eyes, sad and deep and beautiful. A faded blue "jumper" was buttoned tightly across the narrow chest; frayed trousers were precariously attached to the "jumper," and impossible shoes and stockings supplemented the trousers. Glancing from boy to bottle, the "comp'ny ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... the work been done, if an one Church could have set one chaplain to live each with one battalion, and be responsible as well for one smaller unit. That had made it easy for a chaplain to know his flock intimately; now it is next to impossible. ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... and marched along the edge of the chasm some distance, but no bridge could be found. The ice became more broken up, smaller crevasses intersected the large one, and at last a place was reached where the chaos of dislocation rendered further advance impossible. ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... wine, not to speak of coffee and sugar. And a great increase of the mischief it was always, that the soldiers and common people did not understand one another's language."—Heavy billeting; but what was that?... "Vast, nearly impossible, quantities of forage and provision," were wrung from us, as from all the other Towns and Villages about, "under continual threatening to burn and raze us from the earth. Often did our French Colonel threaten, 'He would have the cannon opened on Freiburg ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... the true explanation of the foregoing history, though all of them together do. Typhon means every phase of Nature which is hurtful and destructive, not only drought, darkness, the sea, &c. It is impossible that any one cause, be it bad or even good, should be the common principle of all things. There must be two opposite and quite different and distinct Principles. In Sec. XLVI., Plutarch compares this view with the Magian belief in Ormazd and Ahriman, ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... her. She stepped back. He put the rim of his cap in his mouth and bit it once or twice, and then looked out at the window. Still neither spoke. A voice at this instant seemed impossible. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... sight—you in London could not imagine anything like our cavalcade! First went Father riding on a mule, with Mother following on another mule. Mother's saddle was made with pillows, for it is impossible for a woman to ride for sixteen or eighteen hours ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... you reply that there are no such servants either, he does not contradict you. Yet he may have been a sad young scamp when he began life as a dog-boy fifty-five years ago, and, on the other hand, it is not so impossible as it seems that the scapegrace for whose special behoof you keep a rattan on your hat-pegs may mellow into a most respectable and trustworthy old man, at least if he is happy enough to settle under a good master; for the Boy is often ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... lined with a hard beach, on which at high tide, or slack water at low tide, one may sit down in comfort and have great sport with bream, whiting, and flathead. As soon as the tide turns, however, and is well on the ebb or flow, further fishing is impossible, for the river rushes out to sea with great velocity, and the incoming tide is almost as swift. On the other side of the harbour is a long, sandy point, called the North Shore, about a mile in length. This, at the north end, is met by a somewhat dense scrub, which lines the right bank of the ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... troopers sent the Sioux whirling in scattered bands over the bold and beautiful upland. The little detachment was safe, but its brave commander was prostrate with a rifle-bullet through the thigh and another in the shoulder. Dr. Weeks declared it impossible to attempt to move him back to Laramie; and in a litter made with lariats and saddle-blankets the men carried their wounded leader back to the stockade at the head of Sage Creek, and there, wrote Weeks, he might have to ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... now seldom visited. Besides being inundated, it was silted so completely with gravel that to cut through the submerged stems would have been an arduous and almost impossible task. Luckily, in his journeys along the edge of the shallows during the flood, Brighteye had found a sequestered pond, near an old hedgerow dividing the wood, where tender duckweed was plentiful, and, with delicious ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... her and looked down again, with what slight air of her little head it is impossible to describe, though it undoubtedly and unmistakably signified her disapproval. It was Matilda's habitual gesture, but resented by Mrs. Candy. She stepped up to her and gave the side of her head a smart stroke with ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... add "he was safe, and aware Of a presence that turned off the balls ... was imprest It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear, And how 't was impossible, quite dispossessed, To live on for ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... some older building; Ferguson, the historian of architecture, when confronted with the fact that the college has still the detailed accounts showing how, week by week, the Jacobean masons worked, swept this evidence aside with the dictum—"No amount of documents could prove what was impossible." But here ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells
... the times afford. We are brought face to face with Socialism, the millennium machine, the Corliss engine of progress. It were idle to deny to the Socialist that he is right—and more right, indeed, than most of us, in seeing that there is a great wrong somewhere; but it would be impossible beyond this point to make any claim for him, except that he is honestly trying to create in the world a wrong we do not have as yet, that shall be large enough to swallow the wrong we have. The term "Socialism" stands for many things, in ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... care, and who laid the foundation of our hero's greatness by the powerful application of birch at the seat of learning, assured us, in a recent interview, that the military propensities of Muggs were developed at an early age. She observed that it was impossible to fix his attention on the classic page of Noah Webster when the Bluetown Fusileers were passing the school house with drum and fife, and that the motive of his first experiment at "hooking jack" was a desire to ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... period of time was necessary to accomplish all these immense changes; and it is impossible to speculate with any degree of certainty how long that period was, which transformed the icebound surface of our island to a land of verdure and wild forests. We must leave such conjectures and the more detailed ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... of warning must be first of all given touching this word government with which it is impossible to dispense. For a long time past the word has entailed ideas of national unity, general organization, and regular and efficient power. There has been no lack of revolutions which have changed dynasties and the principles and forms of the supreme power in the State; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... independently of her parents, for weeks and fortnights at widely scattered mid-Western resorts. Mrs. Bassett was indulging in the luxury of a trained nurse this summer, but even with this reinforcement she found it impossible to manage Marian. It need hardly be said that Mrs. Owen's philanthropic enterprises occasioned her the greatest alarm. It was enough that "that girl" should be spending the summer at Waupegan, without bringing with her all her fellow ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... possible, between the mercury and the sides of the delivery-tube was altogether prevented, since the bacteria would consume every trace of oxygen which might be dissolved in the liquid lying on the surface of the mercury. Hence it is impossible to imagine that the slightest trace of oxygen could have got into the liquid in ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... exalted to a degree beyond what their possessor presumes to believe. There is scarce any man but has found himself able, at the instigation of necessity, to do what in a state of leisure and deliberation he would have concluded impossible; and some of our species have signalized themselves by such achievements, as prove that there are few ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... all were keen, and as they took seats on the ground and ate as well as they could, with the help of the keen hunting knives of the party, it would have been impossible to enjoy it more. Nobody but the Mohawk knew how long it was since he had partaken of food, but had the period been a week, he could not have shown a keener relish for the nourishing meat. While employed in this pleasant manner, it was explained how it came about that they were furnished with this ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... more than usual importance. With all his other cares he was secretly annoyed at the result of the production of "Arivana." If he had had any thought before of openly denouncing Hartmut Rojanow, such denunciation was now almost impossible. ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... storm and high surf it was impossible to communicate promptly with the division commander at Cavite, and I received my instructions direct from the major-general commanding, or his staff officers, one of whom visited my camp every day, and I reported direct to him in ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... indeed made to snatch from Huygens and confer upon Galileo the glory of having first applied the pendulum to a clock, but this attempt not having been made until some time after the publication of "Huygens' Memoirs," it was impossible to place any faith in the contention. If Galileo had indeed solved the beautiful problem, both in the conception and the fact, the honor of the discovery was lost to him by the laziness and negligence of his pupil, Viviani, upon whom he had placed such high hopes. ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... word was spoken by either during the ride, and it would have been impossible to have found two more utterly wretched people in all that ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... time come for fulfilling certain obligations, we can safely argue that the cities have acquired certain functions which put them in a position to meet the obligations which their growing importance has caused to be exacted of them. To trace these steps accurately and satisfactorily is impossible, but by the aid of collateral evidence a rough idea of the epochs at least of their progress can ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams
... struck was the most terrible and efficient in human history—these pale hosts of white-and-scarlet horsemen! They struck shrouded in a mantle of darkness and terror. They struck where the power of resistance was weakest and the blow least suspected. Discovery or retaliation was impossible. Not a single disguise was ever penetrated. All was planned and ordered as by destiny. The accused was tried by secret tribunal, sentenced without a hearing, executed in the dead of night without warning, mercy, or appeal. The movements of the Klan ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... comes to the same thing; 'les absents ont toujours tort.' I speak to a man of the world. No; without some such guarantee for his faith as his daughter's marriage with myself would give, his recall is improbable. By the heaven above us, it shall be impossible!" The count rose as he said this,—rose as if the mask of simulation had fairly fallen from the visage of crime; rose tall and towering, a very image of masculine power and strength, beside the slight, bended form and sickly ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... awkward and audacious attempts, Giotto so remote and yet so modern, childish and noble at the same time, who represents devils roasting the damned on spits, and on the same wall tries to paint the Unseen and disclose to view the Unknown, Giotto with his search after the impossible, an almost painful search, the opposite of antique wisdom, and the sublime folly of the then nascent modern age. Not far from Padua, beside Venice, in the great Byzantine mosaic of Torcello, can be seen a last reflection ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... protocols were secured with great difficulty in fragmentary form, and were translated into Russian in December, 1901. It is almost impossible to get at the secret depositories again where they are hidden, and therefore they cannot be reinforced by definite information as to the place, day, month, year, where and when ...
— The History of a Lie - 'The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion' • Herman Bernstein
... of skirts and the constraints of corsets are still properly made the theme of indignant declamation. Yet let us be just. It is impossible to make costume the prime culprit, when we recall what robust generations have been reared beneath the same formidable panoply. For instance, it seems as if no woman could habitually walk uninjured with a weight of twelve pounds of skirts suspended at her hips,—Dr. Coale is responsible for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... which every one is principled, is imputed to him after death; and so also the good, n. 524. The transference of the good of one person into another is impossible, n. 525. Imputation, if by it is meant such transference, is a frivolous term, n. 526. Evil or good is imputed to every one according to the quality of his will and of his understanding, n. 527-529. Thus adulterous love is ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... his cousin's side with a revolver in each hand, firing right and left among the rebels, who, dismayed at the fall of their leader, began to retreat. But so closely were they followed, that escape was impossible. The chief, after trying in vain to regain his feet, and seeing the bayonet pointed straight at his breast, ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... Besides, in a few months, John, who had learned the tallow-chandler's business of his father, was going to be married, and establish himself in that trade in Providence. Some body must take his place. It was quite impossible for his father ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... the fleet to make its escape from the impending danger, it seemed necessary, therefore, to turn the course of the ships back against the wind; but this, on account of the sudden and terrific violence of the gale, it was impossible to do. The sails, when they attempted to use them, were blown away by the howling gusts, and the oars were broken to pieces by the tremendous dashing of the sea. It soon appeared that the only hope of escape for the squadron was to press on in the desperate attempt to double the promontory, ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... form in which it has been heard for wellnigh three hundred years, or in a form on which, to ensure faithfulness and accuracy, such labour has been bestowed as that which we are now considering? It seems impossible to hesitate as to our answer. And yet numbers do hesitate; and partly from indifference, partly from a vague fear of disquieting a congregation, partly, and probably chiefly, from a sense of difficulty as to the rightful mode of introducing the change, the old Version is ...
— Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture • C. J. Ellicott
... duty to warn you," said the Judge, gravely, "that you will be taking a very serious step. You must be prepared to face powerful, and, I am afraid, unscrupulous enemies. You may find that you have made it impossible for other and very desirable clients to deal with you. You may find your business interests, if you have any, embarrassed—your credit impaired, and so on. You must be prepared to have your character assailed, ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... he fell, he was carrying over his shoulder a flask and a thick fur-lined cloak,—for we expected cold on the heights, and went provided against it,—-not a fragment of anything belonging to him was found. Had he fallen into the torrent, it is impossible his clothing should not have become detached from the body and caught by the innumerable rocks in the shallow parts of the stream. But that is not all. I have another reason for the belief I cherish." He leaned forward, and added in firmer and slower tones: "I ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... being assured here, we endeavored to capture a small fortress situated on the extreme left of the enemy's line. On account of the strategic position of this fortress it was impossible to take it in the ordinary way by an artillery attack, followed by a bayonet charge; such a method would have resulted in heavy loss of life. The attack had to be a surprise. On the night of May 28 a mixed ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... to bear in mind that at that time "the people" had never been able to read; printing had not been heard of in Europe; books were multiplied with great difficulty, and could not be had but at great expense: so that it was impossible the people should be able to read; and while there was an impossibility in the way, it is not necessary to impute an unwillingness. Nor is there any good reason for supposing that the Priesthood, in their simplicity of faith, were then at all apprehensive or aware of any ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... was absent from the table had to give a reason for his absence. The work, conducted underground, was tedious and difficult, but all labored with a will. The candles which had been purchased and hoarded away, now did good service. Without them it would have been almost impossible to finish the task. A code of signals was invented to meet every possible contingency. By pounding a bar of wood upon the stone floor, those above communicated to those underneath information of every danger which threatened, and called on them to come ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... through the fields, and Davies took this pathway, and now he was in sight of his home, and he hastened towards the boundary fence between Tan'rallt and Penrhiw. He knew that there was a gap in the hedge that he could get through, and for this gap he aimed; he reached it, but further progress was impossible, for in the gap was a lady lying at full length, and immovable, and stopping up the gap entirely. Poor Davies was now more thoroughly terrified than ever. He sprang aside, he screamed, and then he fainted right away. As soon as he recovered consciousness, he, on his knees, ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... a few more explorations, and those mostly in the northern part of Australia. Whatever the yet large unknown tract of country in the interior will show in the future it is impossible now to do ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... bundle of separate threads, but one fabric, it is manifestly impossible to give an adequate account of any one of its forms, as the lyric poem, by itself and aside from the larger web of which it is a part. The following pages will attempt only to sketch the main phases which the history of the lyric in France exhibits and ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... assaulted by rude sounds, they are frequently moved by phrases of great and genuine beauty. Unfortunately the Straussian system of composition demands that beauty be looked for in fragments. Continuity of melodic flow is impossible to Strauss—a confession of his inability either to continue Wagner's method, to improve on it, or invent anything new in its place. The best that has been done in the Wagnerian line belongs ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... an inexplicable fact, and it alarmed him. It was impossible to believe that mere reflection during the last twenty-four hours had brought about so complete a revolution in her feelings. He to whom she had passionately cried "Write! Write!" only yesterday could hardly ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... morning, and told him the day's news in the castle. He learned that a lion kept roaring about the walls, and that the bowmen had tried to kill it, but could not. Sir Ivaine was sure that it was his lion, and longed to have it, but knew that this was impossible. And she told him how the people of the castle had been angry at their lady because she would not marry the Black Knight; but now that he was dead, acknowledged her as mistress and obeyed her in everything. The little maiden said she thought that if the lady were told that Sir Ivaine was hidden ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... the cave was wide enough for that. As we penetrated, the bellowing and barking became more deafening. It was impossible to see anything, although we felt an indistinguishable tumbling mass receding before our footsteps. Thrackles swore violently as he stumbled over a laggard. With uncanny abruptness the black wall of darkness in front of us was alive with fiery ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... over this Briggs; pumped him, without obtaining any information, and finally turned the conversation on artists, denouncing the entire body as a set of the keenest swindlers, and citing the instance of one he knew who had a painting which he believed it would be impossible for any man to buy, simply because the artist, knowing that he (Shodd) wished it, would not set a price on it, so as to have a very high one offered (!) Mr. Briggs instantly was deeply interested. Here was a chance for him to display before Shodd of Shoddsville his shrewdness, keenness, and so forth. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... reasonable to suppose that he had marched them a hundred and twenty miles just to march them back a hundred and twenty miles? The men agreed that it wasn't common sense. Still, a number had Richmond firmly fixed in their minds. Others conceived it not impossible that the Army of the Valley might be on its way to Tennessee to take Memphis, or even to Vicksburg, to sweep the foe from Mississippi. The men lounged beneath the trees, or watched the weary Virginia Central bringing in the fag end of things. Fredericksburg was now the road's terminus; ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... she answered or the batteries gave out. But which bell? The building was four-storied, with flats front and rear, and which of the cramped apartments did she occupy? And there were dozens of roomers' cards over the dusty speaking tubes. To find her was impossible. He had been tricked, and tricked nicely, and he ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... their execution. They were all to be made of cast-steel, and the nuts had to be cut to exact hexagonal form. Many of them had collars. To produce them by the use of the file in the ordinary mode would not only have been difficult and tedious, but in some cases practically impossible. ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... go!" said Louis. "She can find her own way. I'm afraid the little fool is going to become impossible. Now, do as I do. But be sure and don't break your nose, for ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... thoughtful persons, probably, would prefer to leave it alone if the indulgence of private feeling in the matter could be made consistent with an adequate sense of public duty. As things have been, and still continue to be, however, silence is impossible. The question presses for solution, from many sides, with a painful persistency, and the further shelving of it would scarcely be good policy. Here in New England the problem may not confront us in that sternly practical ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... asylum which they occasionally reached. The miscellaneous data which may thus be piled up are seldom critically sifted, and often very questionable, for it is difficult enough to obtain any positive biological knowledge concerning great men who died yesterday, and practically impossible in most cases to reach an unquestionable conclusion as regards those who died a century or more ago. Many of the most positive statements commonly made concerning the diseases even of modern genius are without ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... Fussie. He hated the idea of coming of age and of having a great deal of money and a great many active duties and responsibilities. His dream was to be left in peace to write his verses; to get away into some sweet impossible wilderness, and sit there singing with as much of the spirit of Omar Kayyam as could reasonably be expected to descend on a youth who only drank water. He was not bold, I say; and after that one quelling glance from the young saint's eyes did not dare speak ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... happiness that some are found openly to question the advantages of the Constitution itself and many more ready to embarrass the exercise of its just power, weaken its authority, and undermine its foundations. How far these notions may be carried, it is impossible yet to say. We have before us the practical result of one of them. The bank has fallen, or ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... mountains or India's coral strand. The cosmopolitan character of San Francisco is the first thing that impresses a visitor. Almost from one stand-point he may see the church, the synagogue, and the pagoda. The mosque is by no means impossible in the future. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... falcons, which are carried in many directions. From Russia also to OROECH it is not very far, and the journey could be soon made, were it not for the tremendous cold; but this renders its accomplishment almost impossible.[NOTE 3] ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... have other animals preying upon them,—that every plant has its indirect helpers in the birds that scatter abroad its seed, and the animals that manure it with their dung;—I say, when these things are considered, it seems impossible that any variation which may arise in a species in nature should not tend in some way or other either to be a little better or worse than the previous stock; if it is a little better it will have an advantage over and tend to extirpate the latter in this crush and struggle; and if ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... omit, inasmuch as they are foreign to the present inquiry; and we will examine such as are proper to man and concern moral characters and feelings: as, for instance, "Does Friendship arise among all without distinction, or is it impossible for bad men to be friends?" and, "Is there but one species of Friendship, or several?" for they who ground the opinion that there is but one on the fact that Friendship admits of degrees hold that upon insufficient proof; because ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... the minds of the Bohemians this new Church would have found her task very much more difficult. The first three bishops were ordained last year by the Serbian Bishop of Ni[vs]. It was at one time thought that the Orthodox religion would be adopted, but this was found to be impossible, and after a year of negotiations it was settled that the Serbian Church should be regarded as ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... it was impossible to return to his marquee to re-equip himself. The camp was already filled with the insurgent soldiers, and no doubt his tent had been ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... officers—Captain Roupell, Lieutenants Edwardes and O'Malley—were invalided, and left for home in a convoy with over a hundred wounded. This was necessary, owing to the fact that there was no Roentgen apparatus in the colony, and it was found impossible to discover and extract the slugs with which the ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... more untoward Since Fortune was a vixen froward! How should they save their egg—and bacon? Their plunder couldn't then be bagg'd; Should it in forward paws be taken, Or roll'd along, or dragg'd? Each method seem'd impossible, And each was then of danger full. Necessity, ingenious mother, Brought forth what help'd them from their pother. As still there was a chance to save their prey,— The spunger yet some hundred yards away,— One seized the egg, and turn'd upon his back, And then, in spite ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... in the inner man. Give him unfeigned repentance for all the errors of his life past, and stedfast faith in thy Son Jesus; that his sins may be done away by thy mercy, and his pardon sealed in heaven, before he go hence, and be no more seen. We know, O Lord, that there is no word impossible with thee; and that, if thou wilt, thou canst even yet raise him up, and grant him a longer continuance amongst us: Yet, forasmuch as in all appearance the time of his dissolution draweth near, so fit and prepare him, ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... Ushers." While he spoke, the Lady Madeline (for so was she called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared. I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with dread—and yet I found it impossible to account for such feelings. A sensation of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes followed her retreating steps. When a door, at length, closed upon her, my glance sought instinctively and eagerly the countenance of the brother—but he had buried his face in his hands, and I could only ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... for blue was always the color of ideals and aspiration—was not blue sky the nearest one could get to heaven—were not blue violets the flowers of spring? Then, too, Kirsteen was a woman with whom it would be quite impossible to gossip or small-talk; with her one could but simply and directly say what one felt, and only that over things which really mattered. And this seemed to Nedda so splendid that it sufficed in itself to prevent the girl from saying anything whatever. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... If we should try to find a specimen society in which expedient ways of satisfying needs and interests were found by trial and failure, and by long selection from experience, as broadly described in sec. 1 above, it might be impossible to find one. Such a practical and utilitarian mode of procedure, even when mixed with ghost sanction, is rationalistic. It would not be suited to the ways and temper of primitive men. There was an element ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... made it impossible for him to attend the Leger this year, but he had put a little money on it. The result had done nothing for or against him,—except this, that whereas he received between one and two hundred pounds, he conceived the idea of paying ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... stirring up some movement there against England, or at least of finding a place of shelter. Ireland was suffering almost everywhere from famine, and in many districts famine of the most ghastly order. Tyrone found it impossible to carry on the struggle for independence under such terrible conditions. There was nothing for it but to surrender and come to terms as best he could with his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... his lady, either by interposing another image of beauty between the thought of her and his heart, or by flight, is impossible. ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... valuable measurements obtained in our modern observatories are yielded by that instrument of precision known as the meridian circle. It is impossible, in any adequate account of the Story of the Heavens, to avoid some reference to this indispensable aid to astronomical research, and therefore we shall give a brief account of one of its simpler forms, choosing for this ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... reasons; for the poets of England are greater than its moral philosophers; and it is of the nature of the poetic art that, while eschewing system, it presents the strife between right and wrong in concrete character, and therefore with a fulness and truth impossible to ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... of Jackson was a menace to South Carolina, it was a grave embarrassment to the party regularly opposed to him in Congress and elsewhere. That this party could make common cause with the Nullifiers seemed impossible. The whole policy of high Protection against which South Carolina had revolted was Clay's. Adams had signed the Tariff of Administrations. Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, the leading orator of the party and ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... is false. Nay, Signor,' she added, observing the severity of his countenance, 'this is no moment for restraint, on my part; I do not scruple to tell you, that you are deceived—most wickedly deceived, by the suggestion of some person, who aims at the ruin of my aunt:—it is impossible, that you could yourself have imagined ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... 1812-15 by drawing on the military exchequer. As the expenses of the provincial administration increased the royal revenues became inadequate, while the provincial revenues gradually showed a considerable surplus over the expenditure voted by the legislature. In 1813 the cost of the war made it impossible for the government to use the military funds, and it resorted to the provincial moneys for the expenses of justice and civil government. In this way, by 1817, the government had incurred a debt of a hundred and twenty thousand pounds to the province without the direct authority of the legislature. ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... Atlantic which is not volcanic? We likewise stayed a few hours at Fernando Noronha; a tremendous surf was running so that a boat was swamped, and the Captain would not wait. I find my life on board when we are on blue water most delightful, so very comfortable and quiet—it is almost impossible to be idle, and that for me is saying a good deal. Nobody could possibly be better fitted in every respect for collecting than I am; many cooks have not spoiled the broth this time. Mr. Brown's little hints about microscopes, etc., have been invaluable. I am well off ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... am not." And he laughed with a sort of quiet consciousness of strength which his friend secretly envied. "It is true," he added, "that things look easy to me here, which would be utterly impossible in Palermo. We are different with our women—and we are different when we love. Thank Heaven, for the present—I am ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... an extra shilling; but make one step toward a simple acquaintance, and the door will be shut in your face. They will bow down before you as a customer, but they will not have you for a friend. Thus I found it impossible to reach Jeannette. I do not say that I tried, for all the time I was fighting myself; but I went far enough to see the barriers. It seemed a fatality that you should take a fancy to her, have her here, and ask me to admire her,—admire the face that haunted me by day and ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... by strength removed the boat from off the sands again; and they came to their oars again, within an English mile of Stadt, when it was very late, and the boats were two German miles from the frigates, and the tide turning. Whitelocke thought it impossible to reach his ships this night, and not prudent to proceed with unexperienced men upon this dangerous river by night; and understanding by General Potley, and one of the trumpets who had been formerly here, of a house upon the river ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... of residence or a vacation trip are always interested in the climate of the locality attracting their attention, for they know that absolute contentment in any clime, even for a brief period, is impossible without a friendly attitude on the part of the elements. So many regions seem to have been permanently blighted by conditions opposed to human happiness, or at least to have been forgotten in certain important essentials when Nature ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles
... dismissed from their Lord-Lieutenancies. The justices when questioned simply replied that they would vote according to their consciences, and send members to Parliament who would protect the Protestant religion. After repeated "regulations" it was found impossible to form a corporate body which would return representatives willing to comply with the royal will. All thought of a Parliament had to be abandoned; and even the most bigoted courtiers counselled moderation at this proof of the stubborn opposition which James ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... negative. Surely the bile-suffused cheek of Bonaparte, his wrinkled brow, and yellow eye, the ceaseless inquietude of his nervous system, speak no less plainly the character of his unresting ambition than his murders and his victories. It is impossible, had Bonaparte descended from a race of vegetable feeders, that he could have had either the inclination or the power to ascend the throne of ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... in this connection Isaac Asimov's SF novel "The Gods Themselves" in which a character announces that the number 2 is impossible — if you're going to believe in more than one universe, you might as well believe in ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... comfort in this new state of affairs. Her cousin's tone of kinsmanship and friendliness was so genuine and unforced that she and her mother both accepted it naturally, and forgot for the moment that, to a little-minded man, such friendliness might have been difficult and perhaps impossible. ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... senate.(21) The new enlistments brought out the most painful scarcity of men. All Italians capable of bearing arms had to swear that they would not leave Italy; the captains of the vessels lying in the Italian ports were instructed not to take on board any man fit for service. It is impossible to tell what might have happened, had the Cimbri immediately after their double victory advanced through the gates of the Alps into Italy. But they first overran the territory of the Arverni, who with difficulty defended themselves in their fortresses against the enemy; and ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... or four steps and Peter saw right away how very useful those snowshoes were. "My!" he exclaimed. "I wish Old Mother Nature would give me snowshoes too." Strutter and Jumper both laughed and after a second Peter laughed with them, for he realized how impossible it would be for him to have anything like ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... as for acute hydrocephalus. In some cases I found the eye so sensitive to the action of Apis, that an exceedingly violent aggravation of the inflammatory symptoms ensued, which might have proved dangerous to the preservation of such a delicate organ as the eye. Inasmuch as it is impossible to determine beforehand the degree of sensitiveness, I obviate all danger by exhibiting Apis in alternation with Aconite in the manner indicated for hydrocephalus. By means of this alternate exhibition of two drugs, we not only prevent every aggravating primary ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf
... and Patty converse, for as Bill sat behind, and they were flying rapidly along, speech was inconvenient if not impossible. ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... as though his friend had asked the impossible. "I wish I had your confidence, Chan; you're orange most of the time, while I'm ...
— I Like Martian Music • Charles E. Fritch
... so impossible, being lost in Italy, that Maria Angelina could only break off and guard ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... evolution is directly antagonistic to that of creation. Evolution, if consistently accepted, makes it impossible to believe the Bible. ...
— The Church, the Schools and Evolution • J. E. (Judson Eber) Conant
... the thermometer had been as high as 110 degrees at one P.M. The afternoon was occupied in selecting a party of five out of the boats' crews, for a pedestrian excursion; and at night, jaded as we were, it was almost impossible to sleep, owing to the screeching noise of the vampires, and the howling ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... 'Tis impossible to conceive a more disgusting expression than the repulsive features of Tag-rag wore at that moment, while he gazed in ominous and agitated silence at Titmouse. His lips quivered, and he seemed ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... reached a point where longer endurance was impossible. The man whom she loved had been only deceiving her with his protestations of affection; he had laughed with his companions at the kisses he had bestowed on her sweet lips; and she abhorred the man who was to claim her on the morrow as the price ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... her young mind. The father was absent fighting for Heaven alone knew which faction into which France was broken up, there were so many of them, and the mother and daughter lived apart, the disparity in their sentiments making it impossible for them to do otherwise. For this reason, Ninon was practically her own mistress, and not interfered with because the husband and wife could not agree upon any definite course of life for her to follow. Ninon's heart, however, had not lost any of its natural instincts, and she loved her mother ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... eclipse of the sun always try to do the impossible. They seem to consider it a solemn duty to see the first contact of sun and moon. The moon, when seen in the daytime, looks like a small faint cloud; as it approaches the sun it becomes wholly unseen; and an observer tries to see when this unseen object touches the glowing ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... thought pleased him now, as much as the brutal offer of the gold had outraged his honourable feeling. It was far better, he reflected, that the Queen should act thus and help him to look upon her as a being altogether beyond his sphere, as she really was. After this, he thought, it would be impossible and out of the question that any look or touch of hers could send a thrill through him, like little rivers of fire, from his head to his heels. The hand that had been held out to pay him money for its own life, must be as cold as a stone and ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... midnight, one o'clock. . . . I did not sleep. I did not go to my chamber. It is stupid to lie stretched out all alone, and to wait. But in my study I did not rest. I tried to busy myself, to write letters, to read. Impossible! I was alone, tortured, wicked, and I listened. Toward daylight I went to sleep. I awoke. She had not returned. Everything in the house went on as usual, and all looked at me in astonishment, questioningly. The children's eyes were full of reproach ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... his heart betrayed his intellect? Why had his imagination proved true metal, his affection false? He asked himself these questions. He searched his own nature, as many a man has done in moments when he has found himself unworthy. And he was met by mystery, by the "It was impossible for me!" which stings the soul that would be strong. He remembered Carey's words that night in Half Moon Street when Sir Donald had accompanied him home after the dinner in Cadogan Square. Sir Donald had gone. He and Carey were alone, and he had ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... entirely agree with you, but I had believed— indeed it seems to me almost impossible to believe otherwise—that my poor boy had religious principle ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... a long word, Allan, and I dare say that what you are so sure is impossible will happen after all," words that made me angry enough at the time, though in after years I often thought ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... He hears then that Harald and Svein were come to Denmark and were burning and laying waste the land and that the country people were everywhere submitting to them. It was also told that King Harald was stronger and stouter than other men, and so wise withal that nothing was impossible to him, and he had always the victory when he fought a battle; and he was also so rich in gold that no man could compare with him in wealth. Thiodolf speaks ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... secretaries that parity could be imposed only during time of full mobilization, and since conditions in the period between October 1948 and June 1949 could not be considered comparable to those of full mobilization, parity was impossible. He promised, however, to study the qualitative needs of each service. Meanwhile, he had found no evidence that any service was discriminating in the selection of enlistees and settled for a warning that any serious (p. 326) discrimination by any two of the services would place ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... rather, crashed—several miles west of Cheyenne, as you know, but it was impossible to find the man who was piloting it until ...
— The Man Who Hated Mars • Gordon Randall Garrett
... of benefits so great it is impossible either to describe or conceive them; all shall be yours, all that we see here, there, above and below us; this ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... I was about to climb out of the hole, when what was my horror to see four Indians sitting silently smoking their pipes, directly in front of me! To escape was impossible, for I knew that they had perceived me by the loud grunts they uttered, and by one of them immediately springing to his feet and rushing ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... distinguish what sort of cattle they were, but there appeared to be many kinds, both red, and black, and speckled. We could see several figures of men and boys—four of them in all—moving about the enclosures, and there was a woman near the door of the house. It was impossible in the distance to tell whether they were white people, but we never imagined for a moment they could be Indians. No Indian could have built such a house. Of course we were filled with astonishment ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... rendered his departure impossible for more than ten days. When the roads began to become a little practicable, they successively received news of the retreat of the Chevalier into Scotland; then, that he had abandoned the frontiers, retiring upon Glasgow; and that the Duke of ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... cases, recorded on undoubted authority, in which the child has been heard to cry while in the womb. These are very exceptional. Under ordinary circumstances, it is impossible for the child either to breathe or cry, because of the absence of air. It is only when the bag of membranes has been torn, and the mouth of the child is applied at or near the neck of the uterus, that this can take place. The infant is ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... never be better, she may become worse. But I regard it as her only chance. At any rate, she needs a vigilant caretaker. Old Mrs. Mayburn will not be equal to the task much longer, and her place will have to be filled by hired service. I know it is like suggesting an almost impossible sacrifice to broach even the thought, remembering her ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... morning there was a consultation. Lovelle had not appeared and hunting was impossible on two shoots of powder. It was arranged that two of them should keep camp that day by the limestone cliff while Daniel Boone went in search of the missing man, for it was possible that Jim Lovelle had gone to seek ammunition from friendly Indians. If he did not turn ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... firmly, "that is impossible. I shall go to an hotel. No, do not try to dissuade me, for it ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... that she had been told that the Colonel's visit to the lady had been made by express arrangement between the Colonel and Mrs. Stanbury. Mrs. Merton, who was very good-natured, but not the wisest woman in the world, had declared that any such conduct on the part of Mrs. Stanbury was quite impossible. "What does it matter which it is,—Priscilla or her mother?" Mrs. Ellison had said. "These are the facts. Mrs. Trevelyan has been sent there to be out of the way of this Colonel; and the Colonel immediately comes down and sees ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... they were summoned back by those in the camp. I tried to discover the cause of the alarm, but could discover nothing over the white plain spread out before us. If there were enemies, they were in the wood; but to see them was impossible. We waited for the return of the scouts. There was a complete silence: the howl of the wolves had ceased; not a night-bird disturbed the quiet of the night. Suddenly a piercing, terror-inspiring, unearthly shriek was heard ringing through the quiet wood. Directly afterwards the feet of one of ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... my own share of responsibility; but it seems to me as if the commander of this Dangerous Castle, among other inabilities, were, as old people in this country say, subjected to a spell—and one which renders it impossible for him to guide his conduct so as to afford pleasure to those whom he is most desirous to oblige. Not a great many weeks since, whose eyes would have sparkled like those of Sir Aymer de Valence at the proposal ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... be obtained in writing, so as to make all future misrepresentation impossible, and on this alone a decision can well be taken, and, in the Queen's opinion, even the Cabinet ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... a week ago I never heard Conky or his wife allude to Uncle Joseph. The memory was too painful. And yet it is impossible to deny that the experience was salutary. Marjorie is certainly less overwhelming in her hospitality, and Conky less prodigal of song. And when Conky told me last week that Uncle Joseph had died and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 12, 1916 • Various
... other scientific language it is necessary to give it, so far as possible, the same simplicity of signification which attaches to mathematical symbols. This is not easy, because we are obliged to use words of ordinary language, and it is impossible to divest them of whatever they may connote ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... Monsieur Lagnier, that I wish particularly to go out this morning. It is now past one o'clock, and if you continue endeavouring to do what is quite impossible, my hair will never be dressed. You had much better plait ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... standpoint, it was the worst position conceivable. That attack was impending was certain; it was equally certain that retreat was impossible. Desperation, rather than bravado, determined him to reverse the positions. In one spot the wood had been fined to a quarter of an inch. Light filtered through, and cast a dull red shadow on the floor. It was at that spot that he flung himself. As he touched it, every other sound ceased. ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... I am alone. Secondly, I must live. Don't I understand that it is altogether impossible for me to live as I am now? I do not care to be made the laughing-stock of others. I cannot even speak to people. No, nor can I think." Foma concluded his ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... Thrale asked me if I did not want to see Mrs. Montagu. I truly said, I should be the most insensible of all animals not to like to see our sex's glory.' That she was a very extraordinary woman we have Johnson's word for it. (See post, May 15, 1784.) It is impossible, however, to discover anything that rises above commonplace in anything that she wrote, and, so far as I know, that she said, with the exception of her one saying about Voltaire. Johnson himself, in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale, has a ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... nice into camp, expecting to keep it so: it is almost impossible to keep things out of the dirt, dew, rain, dust, or sweat, and from being broken ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... turning towards me, 'concealment is impossible; an officer detected with the mess-plate ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... such treason to the soil is no sign of national decay, if the legions of workers have merely transferred their allegiance from the country to the town, from agriculture to manufacture and commerce. In Italy this comforting explanation was impossible. Except perhaps in Latium and Campania, there were few industrial centres; many of those that existed were in the hands of Greeks, many more had sunk under the stress of war and had never been revived. The great syndicates in which ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... caught cold, she confessed, by some imprudence the day before; and symptoms of pleurisy made it impossible that she should fight sickness as she liked to fight it, on foot. The doctor was not to be thought of; Mrs. Starling gave her best and only confidence to her own skill; but even that bade her lie by ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... time, to your knowledge, his walks have practically been limited by the distance to his office and back from the ferry boat. When you urge him for perhaps the twentieth time, to essay a tramp with you, he will say he would like to very much, but unfortunately so-and-so renders it impossible. And then looking you in the eye, he will tell you how much he enjoyed tramps he took, of twenty or thirty miles—but that was before you knew him! As if a Walker with a big "W," as Thoreau writes the word, would remain satisfied with ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... we want to avoid that if possible. They are the result of immense thought, and no alteration would be as good. Besides, on one or two points change is simply impossible. Still, something could be done, I suppose, if it were absolutely necessary. But you see the difficulty, Hannay. Our enemies are not going to be such fools as to pick Royer's pocket or any childish game like that. They know that would mean a row and put us on our guard. Their ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... a Creole in the strict sense of the term, that of a person born of white parents in the West Indies, and that an unmistakable dash of dark blood passed from her to her son and grandson. Such an occurrence was, on the face of it, not impossible, and would be absolutely unimportant to my mind, and, I think I may add, to that of Mr. Browning's sister and son. The poet and his father were what we know them, and if negro blood had any part in their composition, it was no worse for them, and so much the ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Berkman's act, she now also was unable to find quarters; like a veritable wild animal she was driven from place to place. This terrible persecution and, especially, the attitude of her comrades made it impossible for her to continue propaganda. The soreness of body and soul had first to heal. During 1901-1903 she did not resume the platform. As "Miss Smith" she lived a quiet life, practicing her profession and devoting her leisure to the study of literature and, particularly, to the modern ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... last few weeks is killing me. I am losing my health, losing my power to work. It is the concentration of all my thoughts upon you that is maddening, impossible now that you no longer belong to me. Even your presence, once the sun of my existence, is painful to me now; and when you come straight from another woman to kiss me, it is agony. ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... this plantain-patch were all that our men obtained sight of. How many fell behind the barricades, where all the serious fighting took place, it was impossible to tell; though there was no reason to think that the enemy, fighting under cover, had suffered at all proportionably with our men, or, indeed, had suffered equally, losing man for man, except that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... death. To tread out a roaring bush-fire, or capture alive a wild beast, were some of the tasks imposed as daily training for his would-be warriors. An order was an order, and this, however dangerous or seemingly impossible, had to be obeyed by individual or regiment on pain of the most horrible forms of death. It may easily be imagined that this stern regime was calculated to create a military following of the most brave and ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... switched off from the affairs of Mr. Lavendar and Miss Meredith, it was impossible for Miss Smeardon to talk about them any more, and she had to turn ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... (1834-1902). The most absurd and illogical situations and characters are presented with an air of such quiet sincerity that one refuses to question the reality of it all. Rudder Grange established his reputation in 1879, and was followed by a long list of stories of delightfully impossible events. For several years Stockton was one of the editors of St. Nicholas, and some of his stories for children, of first quality in both form and content, deserve to be better known than they are. Five of the best of them for school use have been brought together in a little volume called ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... enemy's possession. They were to be paid for in cotton. The next was a letter from the Commissary-General to G. W. Randolph, Secretary of War, urging the acceptance of the proposition, and saying without it, it would be impossible to subsist the army. He says the cotton proposed to be used, in the Southwest will either be burned or fall into the hands of the enemy; and that more than two-thirds is never destroyed when the enemy approaches. But to effect his object, it will ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... sister,—she too small to walk, and he too small to take her in his arms,—and therefore working a kind of miracle to transport her from one dirt-heap to another. Beholding such works of love and duty, I took heart again, and deemed it not so impossible, after all, for these neglected children to find a path through the squalor and evil of their circumstances up to the gate of heaven. Perhaps there was this latent good in all of them, though generally they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... family home. But there was no career for him. No profession had as yet been even proposed. His father was fifty-five, a very healthy man,—likely to live for the next twenty years. And then it would be impossible that he should dwell in peace under the same roof with his father. And Davis! Life would be miserable to him if he could not free himself from that thraldom. The sum of money which was to be offered to him, and which was to be raised on the Folking property, would enable him to pay Davis, ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... like his former, not his latter, self. "It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the north there were many projecting points appearing above the level of the range. These seemed to be the northern termination of these hills, and beyond them the country was very low. The outline of the projecting points was hilly, and they were so exactly alike that it would have been impossible to have recognised any to which we might have taken bearings; but there were two little cones in a small range to the north upon which I felt I could rely with greater certainty. They respectively bore 302 and 306 from me; and as they were the only advanced points on which I could now keep up ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... In Tarlton's Jests[16] we find a number of references to that famous actor's pleasantries in the London inns used by the Queen's Players. It is impossible to date these exactly, but Tarleton became a member of the Queen's Players in 1583, and he ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... starting, a man named John McAllister, a native of Tennessee and of excellent family, complained that one of his ankles was badly sprained, and that it was utterly impossible for him to walk. The unfortunate man was naturally lame in the other ankle, and could never walk but with difficulty and with a limp. On starting, he was now allowed to enter a rude Mexican cart, which had been procured by the Alcalde of Valencia for the purpose of transporting some ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... Tuscan pounds per day, the manufacturers were supposed to have reached the maximum, because all the water of the mountains was supposed to have been called into requisition. Experience, however, is perpetually teaching us new methods of economy; and though it would a priori be impossible to say by what means this economy is to be effected, we can not permit ourselves to doubt that the manufacture of borax in Tuscany will hereafter be carried to a degree of perfection greatly transcending the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... disease. If he lives to be cured of his vice his selfishness disappears, and he is another man; but so long as he is mastered by the craving, all things on earth are blotted out for him saving his own miserable personality. So far does the disease of egotism go, that it is impossible to find a drunkard who can so much as listen to another person; he is inexorably impelled to utter forth his views with more ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... states that at the time of which he is writing serious pestilences did not occur, and that depopulation was caused by the selfishness of the Greeks, who, being addicted to pleasure, either did not marry at all or refused to rear more than one or two children, lest it should be impossible to bring them up in extravagant luxury. This ancient historian also noted that the death of a son in war or by pestilence is a serious matter when there are only one or two sons in a family. Greece fell to the ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... fatigue left me, my head became clearer, and more serious thoughts occupied the mind. The moon, however, I watched, wheeling her "pale course," for I knew she finished now her shadowy reign a few hours before morning. It is impossible to give any outline of the thoughts which now rapidly and in wild succession passed my mind: suffice to say, I committed my spirit to the Creator who gave it. I repeated mechanically to myself aloud, "Weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning." I now took the ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... three magical letters were the thing seriously required. The College had always gloried in a list of faculty members who bore the doctor's title, and to make a gap in the galaxy, and admit a common fox without a tail, would be a degradation impossible to be thought of. We wrote again, pointing out that a Ph.D. in philosophy would prove little anyhow as to one's ability to teach literature; we sent separate letters in which we outdid each other in eulogy of our candidate's powers, for indeed they were great; ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... latter was about 400 yards behind the outpost line, and was also occupied by the support Company, and contained the right Company Headquarters. The orders laid down were that in case of attack the platoon detailed for the task was to counter-attack either through the tunnel (quite impossible if the enemy obtained a footing in the trench at the tunnel mouth) or over ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... born and proclaimed the colleague of his parents. It then became necessary to insert the name of the imperial infant in the litany graven on the Beautiful Gate of the Great Church, and to indicate the date of his accession. To add another name to the list of names already there was, however, impossible for lack of room; nor, even had there been room, could the name of an emperor follow that of a subject, though that subject was a patriarch. The only way out of the difficulty, therefore, was to erase John's name, and to substitute the ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... tried to take Jane's future into consideration, but it was impossible to substitute anything before his own wrongs. David Cable was not the kind of man who would go on living with a faithless wife for the sake of appearances. He was not an apologist. Time and circumstance and the power of true love would adjust the affair of ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... kingdom, and here it was determined that I should lodge. Near the great gate, through which I could easily creep, they fixed ninety-one chains, like those which hang to a lady's watch, which were locked to my left leg with thirty-six padlocks; and when the workmen found it was impossible for me to break loose, they cut all the strings that bound me. Then I rose up, feeling as melancholy as ever I did in my life. But the noise and astonishment of the people on seeing me rise and walk ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... from the Indies. There is in those Seas a kind of small worms, that fasten themselves to the Timber of the ships, and so pierce them, that they take water every where; or if they do not altogether pierce them thorow, they so weaken the wood, that it is almost impossible to repair them. We have at present a Man here, that pretends to have found an admirable secret to remedy this evil. That, which would render this secret the more important, is, that hitherto very many ways have been used to effect it, but without ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... "Every possibility proved impossible helps us," Quarles answered. "This is a case for negative argument, so we next ask whether Eva Wilkinson left the terrace willingly. I ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... employed eighteen hundred workmen for twelve years, and even then it was left unfinished. It is moated and walled round, and has every appendage of the Gothic castle, innumerable towers and turrets, drawbridges and portals. If seated upon an hill, it would be impossible ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... of those early telephone exchanges in the silence of a printed page is a wholly impossible thing. Nothing but a language of noise could convey the proper impression. An editor who visited the Chicago exchange in 1879 said of it: "The racket is almost deafening. Boys are rushing madly hither and thither, while ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... malformation, deficiency, or excess, of the genital organs. These congenital deformities consisting of combined increase or deficiency, supernumerary organs, or transposition of them, which usually render generation physically impossible, have been called bisexual hermaphrodism and classed as monstrosities. We have many published accounts of them, hence, further reference to them here is unnecessary. We would especially refer those readers who may desire to make themselves further acquainted with this interesting subject, to the ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... for a larger audience than that to which publications of this character could appeal. Scholar though Page was, and lover of the finest things in literature that he had always been, yet this sympathy and interest had always lain with the masses. Perhaps it is impossible to make literature democratic, but Page believed that he would be genuinely serving the great cause that was nearest his heart if he could spread wide the facts of the modern world, especially the facts of America, and if he could clothe the expression in language which, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... information, could save from proscription a book so written. We, therefore, opened the Diary with no small anxiety, trembling lest we should light upon some of that peculiar rhetoric which deforms almost every page of the Memoirs, and which it is impossible to read without a sensation made up of mirth, shame, and loathing. We soon, however, discovered to our great delight that this Diary was kept before Madame D'Arblay became eloquent. It is, for the most ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the Highlands, both the poets returned to Glasgow to resume their academical studies: Campbell to qualify himself as a man of letters, and Paul to prepare for the ministry of the Scottish Church. "It would have been impossible, even during the last years of their college life," writes Mr Deans,[72] "to have predicted which of the two students would ultimately arrive at the greatest eminence. They were both excellent classical scholars; ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... from the nameless village to Scrapplehead, but it took all the afternoon to make the journey, for the roads were rough and hilly, and fast going was impossible. Eyebright did not care how slowly they went. Every step of the way was interesting to her, full of fresh sights and sounds and smells. She had never seen such woods as those which they passed through. They looked as if they might have been planted about the time of the Deluge, so dense ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... for what it was—a village almost barren of beauty—a good, kindly, homey place, but so little and so dull! To go back there to live was quite impossible. "If I quit Mart I must find something to do here—in the East. I can't ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... Irish, adopting the language of their English conquerors, is one of many examples of the same sort in history. What effects upon language took place, prior to recorded history, from the mingling of tribes and peoples, it is impossible to ascertain. The consequences to language, of mixture among different forms of speech, were like those which must have been produced upon the physical man from the mingling of diverse physical types in remote ages. Science, if it has no decided verdict to render, does not stand in conflict with ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... the 11th, Lieutenant-Commandant Ringgold determined, on account of the condition of the brigs, and the continuance of bad weather, it was impossible to keep their course to the northward and westward towards the coast of Japan; he, therefore, hauled to the southward, which was much to be regretted, and followed so very nearly in the same track as that pursued by the Vincennes, towards the China ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... course of an hour or two a sledge with some men arrived to remove the bodies. But Maciek's was frozen so hard that it was impossible to open his arms or straighten his legs, so they put him in the sledge as he was. He went for his last drive with the child on his knees, his head resting against the rail, and his face turned upwards, as though ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... some men whom to abuse is pleasant. Coleridge is not one of them. How gladly we would love the author of 'Christabel' if we could! But the thing is flatly impossible. His was an unlovely character. The sentence passed upon him by Mr. Matthew Arnold (parenthetically, in one of the 'Essays in Criticism')—"Coleridge had no morals"—is no less just than pitiless. As we gather information ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... ridiculous, impossible, and yet there was a curious relief at the formality of it. It was like something from a play, too unreal to affect ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... extending throughout the whole length of the branches (whence the name tetragona), giving them a square appearance resembling an ear of wheat, but much less stout (see Fig. 5); the little leaves, too, are frosted somewhat in the way of many of the saxifrages. It is next to impossible to describe this pretty shrub; fortunately, the cut will convey a proper idea at a glance. All who possess more select collections of hardy plants and shrubs should not fail to include this; it is fit for any collection ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... are first-rate. It is impossible to pay too high a tribute to the manner in which they settled down to this job of submarine hunting, and to the intelligence, resource, and courage which they have exhibited. They came on the scene ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... was Hugh Roughsedge. The young soldier had walked up to Beechcote immediately after luncheon, finding it impossible to restrain his impatience longer. Diana had not expected him so soon, and had slipped out for her daily half-hour with Betty Dyson, who had had a slight stroke, and was failing fast. So that Mrs. Colwood was at Roughsedge's discretion. But he was not ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Collier, who remarks:—"In the original MS. this dramatic dialogue in verse is written as prose, on one side of a sheet of paper, at the back of which, in a more modern hand, is the name 'Kitt Marlowe.' What connection, if any, he may have had with it, it is impossible to determine, but it was obviously worthy of preservation, as a curious stage-relic of an early date, and unlike anything else of the kind that has come down to us. In consequence of haste or ignorance on the part of ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... ministers of man's higher and nobler life. Consciously or unconsciously, they are working to raise from myriads burdens of poverty, care, ceaseless and fruitless toil, under the pressure of which all higher aspiration is wellnigh impossible. Sanitary reform in itself may mean nothing more than better drainage, fresher air, freer light, more abundant water: to the "Governor among the nations" it means lessened impossibility that men should live ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... brought her down again with another thump upon the sand. The pilot shouted out new orders to the seamen. They immediately began to pull forward with their oars. He had found that the water was yet too shallow on the bar, and that it would be impossible to pass over. So the sailors were pulling the ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott
... and apparently functionless. The insectivorous and omnivorous rollers, motmots and bee-eaters have a pair of large caeca, whilst in passerine birds of similar habit the caeca are vestigial glandular nipples. It is impossible to doubt that family history dominates in this matter. Certain families tend to retain the caeca, others to lose them, and direct adaptation to diet appears only to accelerate or retard these inherited tendencies. So also in mammals, no more ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... tremendous questions asked by life. Here the convert has one great advantage over the Catholic brought up in the Faith. Most of us hear the answers before we have asked the questions: hence intellectually we lack what G.K. calls "the soils for the seeds of doctrine." It is nearly impossible to understand an answer to a question you have not formulated. And without the sense of urgency that an insistent question brings, many people do not even try. All the years of his boyhood and early manhood Chesterton was facing the fundamental ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... moment of intense anxiety, for it was impossible to tell how far we were from the Spingawi Kotal, or whether the shots could be heard by the enemy; it was equally impossible to discover by whom the shots had been fired without delaying the advance, and this I was loath to risk. So, grieved though I was ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... stared hard at Sheard. Sheard stared back aggressively. There was that between them that cried out for open conflict. Yet open conflict was impossible! ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... seems to have been unable to make up his mind about Napoleon. "It is impossible not to be dazzled and overwhelmed by his character and career," he wrote to Moore (March 17, 1815), when his Heros de Roman, as he called him, had broken open his "captive's cage" and was making victorious progress to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... disclose the opinions or transactions of any such tribunal. This was considered as a sanction, under which any court-martial might commit the most flagrant acts of injustice and oppression, which even parliament itself could not redress, because it would be impossible to ascertain the truth, eternally sealed up by this absurd obligation. The amendment proposed was, that the member of a court-martial might reveal the transactions and opinions of it in all cases wherein the courts of justice, as the law now stands, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... "I think we were fools not to have broken a rough trail before we attempted this. It's obviously impossible to carry Milton over that ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... predestination be attributed to Christ. Wherefore Augustine says (De Praedest. Sanct. xv): "This human nature of ours was predestinated to be raised to so great, so lofty, so exalted a position, that it would be impossible to raise it higher." Now that is said to belong to anyone as man which belongs to him by reason of human nature. Consequently, we must say that "Christ, as Man, was predestinated the Son ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... It was simply impossible for him to imagine that he was pulling in fish, or having any other kind of fun, while he was sawing wood, ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... and interesting account of the Indians, says, "Different authors have brought them hither from all parts of the world. I was at first induced to join with those who derived them from the Hebrews. It seemed impossible for me to doubt that, by so doing, I should be building on an impregnable foundation." He then proceeds to prove their Asiatic origin by ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... tolerably efficient one—or am I, for the first time in my life, to hear the war-cry when it is raised, and hold back my sword from the slaughter? Methinks it will be difficult, perhaps altogether impossible, for me to do so; but if such is the pleasure of Heaven, and your advice, most reverend father, unquestionably I must do my best to be governed by your directions, as of one who has a right and title ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... detail, the hypotheses of Mr Townshend would be quite impossible in our limited space. We might, indeed, adopt method sometimes used in controversial writing, and string together a parallel column of minor contradictions. This would however, not only be totally devoid of interest to the reader, but is not the object we have in view. We seek not for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... ungracefully; but it is strong and tough, in consequence of its exposure and its trials. Its vitality increases with every collision which shakes and rends it; until, in the pathetic language of relatives unhappily burdened with such encumbrances, "it seems impossible ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... and famous fight, the particulars of which I may not enter on just now, but which culminated in victory in 1840, when the Penny Post was established throughout the kingdom. Sir Rowland still (1879) lives to witness the thorough success of his daring and beneficent innovation! It is impossible to form a just estimate of the value of cheap postage to the nation,—I may say, to the world. Trade has been increased, correspondence extended, intelligence ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... general principle, it does not appear impossible that the crests of mountains may have been incrusted in place, and in their actual position, by sedimentary deposits, since we daily see the vertical sides of vessels, in which waters charged with sulphate of lime evaporate, covered ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... many of their comrades wounded on the field, who were massacred and scalped in their sight, by the savages. The delay thus caused was fatal to the enterprise. The day was advanced; the weather became stormy; the tide began to make; at a later hour, retreat, in case of a second repulse, would be impossible, Wolfe, therefore, gave up the attack, and withdrew across the river, having lost upwards of four hundred men, through this headlong impetuosity of the grenadiers. The two vessels which had been run aground, were set on fire, lest they should fall into the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... which I directed to Portsmouth, you will perceive how much I agree with you. I am charmed with your sensible modesty. When I talked to you of defence, it was from concluding that you had all agreed that the attempt(839) was impracticable, nay, impossible; and from thence I judged that the ministry intended to cast the blame of a wild project upon the officers. That they may be a little willing to do that, I still think-but I have the joy to find that it ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... "Illustrated Pirate's Manual," a newspaper she much affected on account of the blood-thirstiness of its pictures. None of these various explanations of the word mean the same thing, you see. And the drollest part is that no one can ever be made "comfortable" in any way but his own: that is impossible. ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... the land was level, and she hoped to check him on the slope of the hill before them. She did not know it was moated like a castle, with a washout ten feet deep and twice that in width, and that what looked to her quite easy was utterly impossible. ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... born, he was hailed by the children as a welcome plaything, and, for the next two years, Bertha felt completely happy. She even believed at times that it was impossible that her fate could have taken a more favourable shape. The noise and bustle of the great city came back to her memory as something unpleasant, almost hazardous; and on one occasion when she had ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... beginning, I sat up in my bed and she helped me to put on my dressing-gown, saying a hundred things which I did not understand. I began to drink my coffee, quite amazed at her easy freedom, and struck with her beauty, to which it would have been impossible to remain indifferent. She had seated herself on my bed, giving no other apology for that liberty than the most ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... knife and peered into the girl's set face and glanced quickly about the room. Could she have called help? Was the house surrounded? It was impossible. She couldn't have ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... doing any damage, except to the crew of the boat which towed them in, who were all blown up on board. The French, also, having driven piles outside the pierheads, and sunk four ships, it was found impossible to approach nearer the town, and the undertaking was therefore abandoned. This is one of the many instances which prove that fire-ships, if resolutely met by the enemy against whom they are intended to act, are not capable of ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... down pillows; here are currant tarts, which the Italians scorn to touch, but which we are happy and delighted to pay not ten but twenty times their value for, because a currant tart is so much in the English way: and here are beans and bacon in a climate where it is impossible that bacon should be either wholesome or agreeable; and one eats infinitely worse than one did at Milan, Venice, or Bologna: and infinitely dearer too; but that makes it still more completely ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... such a thing in the whole course of my life! A bridegroom lost on the evening of his marriage! A governor lost on the morning of his inauguration! I tell you, sir, it is impossible—utterly and entirely impossible! How do you know, sir, that he has not been seen by some one or other since last night? How do you know that he cannot be found, somewhere, ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the coin she carried in her purse might not be one of those lost with the collection. That was impossible to decide at the moment. The case of the ten-dollar coin was different. That was an exceedingly rare one and in all probability nobody but a person ignorant of its value would have ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... Fort Palatinat, but he could discern nothing of the battle, and his agitation was rising to fever heat; he experienced an imperious longing for intelligence, which was constantly stimulated by the reflection that his life and fortune would be in danger should the army be defeated. He found it impossible to remain there longer, and went downstairs, leaving behind him the telescope on its tripod, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... case. If I've got anything in me, now is the chance for it to show. You see, when I made up my mind seriously to try to do worth-while things with my own hands, everybody was against me. And the sympathy that I am going to receive if I fail to make good is of a kind that's almost impossible ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... was this eminence for overlooking from its summit the whole battlefield, the reiterated discharge of cannon and musketry covered it with such a cloud of smoke that it was impossible to make out from it anything but masses lost amid a murderous fog. At last, when an hour had passed in this desperate conflict, through the skirts of this sea of smoke the fugitives were seen to emerge and disperse in all ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... an imaginary island described by Sir Thomas More, and represented as possessing a perfect political organisation, and which has given name to all schemes which aim at the like impossible perfection, though often applied to such as are not so much impossible in themselves as impracticable for want of the due individual virtue ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... thick heavy squall came on which blew the main top-sail away. When the squall cleared away a little, I saw the Revolutionnaire close to us on our lee-bow, off the wind and stemming for us, and so near it was impossible the ships could clear each other. It therefore became necessary to adopt the measure which would soften the first blow as much as possible, and I ordered the helm to be put down. When the ship came head to wind she struck the Revolutionnaire ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... Aziel feared that the poison had done its work, and that Elissa was dead, till placing his hand upon her heart he felt it beating faintly, and knew that she did but swoon. To leave her to seek water or assistance was impossible, since he dared not loose his hold of the bandage about her wrist. So, patiently as he might, he knelt at her side awaiting ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... friend for the kindness he had shown him; but the sobs of gratitude came into his throat so fast that it was impossible, and he hobbled away towards his dreary home, while Toby ran into the house to tell the astounding news of the ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... industry"—as our ancestors talked of a "new learning"—this swift, astonishing development of industrial faculty among our people, especially among our women, will bear other and rich fruit for England under a cleared sky. It is impossible that it should pass by without effect, profound effect upon our national life. But at present it has one ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... all greatest things—like Passion, Politics, Religion, and so forth—is impossible to reckon up. It belongs to another plane of existence than our ordinary workaday life, and breaks into the latter as violently and unreasonably, as a volcano into the cool pastures where cows and sheep are grazing. No arguments, protests, proofs, or explanations are of any avail; and ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... and horror, escaped every tongue but the old hunter's—as, at that moment, a tremendous herd of buffaloes, numbering thousands, was seen rushing from the brake, and bearing directly toward the spot where our party stood. Escape by flight was impossible; for the animals were scarcely four hundred yards distant, and booming forward with the speed of the frightened wild horse of the prairie. Nothing was apparent but speedy death, and in its most horrible form, that of dying unknown ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... prayer, or after copious outpourings of Divine grace, that the curse of absolute sterility is upon all our attempts to conform to the dictates of the moral law, unless God be with us in prayer, is henceforth an impossible theology. ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... Thrale is to be found in his mental and bodily condition at the time, which made it impossible for Johnson or Burke to interfere without a downright quarrel with him, nor without making matters worse. This, however, is not the only instance in which Johnson witnessed Thrale's laxity of morals without reproving it. Opposite the passage in which Boswell reports Johnson ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... trouble. Quoi?... monsieur serait ... ou plutot ne serait pas ... c'est impossible!... vous ...
— Bataille De Dames • Eugene Scribe and Ernest Legouve
... Following the invariable law of cyclic changes—the swing of the pendulum of thought—at times it has apparently died out in parts of the world, only to be again succeeded by a new birth and interest among the descendants of the same people. It is a light impossible to extinguish, and although its flickering flame may seem to die out for a moment, the shifting of the mental winds again allows it to rekindle from the hidden spark, and lo! again it bursts into new life and vigor. The reawakened interest in the subject in the Western ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... the doctor, gravely, after a moment's thought; "that is, if the worst should take place. But it is impossible to speak with certainty until, your symptoms ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... backwards, writhing in pain under the infliction of the scalding mess streaming over face, neck, and bosom. Imaizumi fled in dismay. Even Natsume Kyuzo[u] protested. Seizing the arm of Iemon—"Iemon Uji, you go too far. Don't kill her." "Kill the O'Bake? It's impossible." Iemon spoke coldly. He was the one person of collected wits ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... vast flood in all directions. At the time I speak of it was a mere stream scarcely more than a few feet in circumference. The life we led there was one of rugged isolation and of sturdy self-reliance and effort such as it is, of course, quite impossible for YOU, or any other member of this club to understand,—I may give you some idea of what I mean when I say that at that time there was no town nearer to Pittsburgh than Chicago, or to ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... discovers even the rude processes used today by the Indian. As an inventor, the aborigine has laid us under great obligation, for he discovered the first steps of mechanical progress, without which all later steps would have been impossible. ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... that she must go directly if she wishes to see her alive. The place is more than ten miles away from here, out in the country, and she says if she takes the train she should still have four miles to walk; and so weak as she is, and the baby only four weeks old, of course that would be impossible; and she wants to know if you would take her in your cab, and she promises to pay you faithfully, as she can get ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... sand, which extends from the sandy beach, or west point of the entrance, almost over to the eastern shore, and on which, from the wind having been from the southward the preceding night, the sea broke prodigiously from side to side, so that near low water it was impossible for the boats to get out; we were on that account obliged to remain there until it was more than two-thirds flood, when, in the deepest part of the channel, where the sea did not break, we pushed out, and pulled over for the south-west arm, or harbour, ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... foggy labrynth like some places, and you feel as if you could breathe freely on taking a seat in it. It is well- galleried, and will accommodate altogether about 1,500 human beings. The pews are good, and whilst it is impossible for them to hold more people than can get into them, they are charged for as if one additional person could take a seat in each after being full! This is odd but quite true. In the case of pews which will just accommodate five persons, ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... up, then another, and the bandits discovered themselves in the centre of a ring formed by twenty men, with the young captain in command. Resistance would have been foolish, flight impossible; yet, as the captain stepped toward the brigand leader, the man in the cloak attempted the foolish and impossible; he fired his pistol full at the captain's head, flung the weapon after the bullet, missing his aim each time, then started to run, upsetting ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... 'platform stage,' seen by the audience from almost all sides, not, as in our own time, a 'picture-stage,' with its scenes viewed through a single large frame. This arrangement made impossible any front curtain, though a curtain was generally hung before the rear stage, from the floor of the gallery. Hence the changes between scenes must generally be made in full view of the audience, and instead of ending the scenes with striking situations the dramatists must arrange ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... that might be assigned, must be passed over, that we may have space to deal with the chief cause. In an exhaustive statement, something would have to be said on the credulity of consumers, which leads them to believe in representations of impossible advantages; and something, too, on their greediness, which, ever prompting them to look for more than they ought to get, encourages the sellers to offer delusive bargains. The increased difficulty of living consequent on growing ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... desired? It was the belief entertained by some that they were, through ambition or restless love of innovation, the enemies of all concord, and the impression in the minds of others that their arrogance demanded impossible conditions of peace. The prejudice arising from this and other sources to which he avoided an allusion, lest he might seem to be reopening old wounds, was so strong, that the reformed would have good reason to ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... government of Massachusetts Bay as a colony was impossible, with the pretensions which it had set up, declaring all appeals to England to be "treason," and punishing complainants as "conspirators" and "traitors." The appointment by Parliament in 1643 of a Governor-General and Commissioners had produced ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... governments, each perfectly distinct from the rest, each absolutely controlled by the prerogative of a single monarch. But though the Patriarch, for we must not yet call him the Pater-familias, had rights thus extensive, it is impossible to doubt that he lay under an equal amplitude of obligations. If he governed the family, it was for its behoof. If he was lord of its possessions, he held them as trustee for his children and kindred. He had no privilege or position distinct from that conferred on him by his relation to the ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... Impossible to offer opinion as to value of coffee property, till facts as regard it are widely known, and the line is opened to ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... "Why should you refrain, my dear boy? But you are right. There is a curious unconsciousness about Cresswell—about Valentine—which seems to exclude even definite religious belief as something in a way self-conscious, and so impossible to him. There is an extraordinary strain of the child in Cresswell, such as I conceive to be in unearthly beings, who have never had the power to sin. And the best-behaved, sweetest child in the ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... suffering under a confirmed dropsy. Lord Byron's surgeon tapped him; but, by the time we arrived, the increase of his disorder required a repetition of the operation; it was performed with great success by our surgeon. But it is impossible he can survive long, and his death will be the signal of a general insurrection, which Bengham's folly will ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... direction through the Wolds it is impossible to forget the existence of Early Man, for on the sky-line just above the road will appear a row of two or three rounded projections from the regular line of turf or stubble. They are burial-mounds that the plough has never levelled—heaps of ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... old, struck with the beauty of the sleeping infant of his eldest sister, whilst watching by its cradle, he ran to seek some paper, and forthwith drew its portrait in red and black ink. The little incident revealed the artist in him, and it was found impossible to draw him from his bent. West might have been a greater painter had he not been injured by too early success: his fame, though great, was not purchased by study, trials and difficulties, and it ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... fishing at a depth of 100 to 150 fathoms for a certain species of Ruvettus (a nocturnal-feeding fish that attains a weight of over 100 lb.) a heavy wooden hook was always used by the natives in preference to a steel hook of European manufacture. I saw that it was impossible to convince him, so dropped the subject; and showed him other gear of mine—flying-fish tackle, barb-less pearl-shell hooks for bonito, etc., etc He "bosh-ed" nearly everything, and wound up by saying that he wondered why people of sense accepted the dicta ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... so noble in the eyes of another. But close behind this delicious reflection, like the green blight at the back of the apple blossom, lay a withering and cankering thought. The Manx sailor's wife—she who had so behaved that it was impossible for him to live with her—she who was a cat, a shrew, a nagger, a thankless wretch, a piece of human flint, a creature that should be put down by the law as it puts down biting dogs—she whose whole selfish body was not worth the tip of his little finger—was ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... you would,' said George. And with those words he realized that he had definitely committed himself to his hypocritical role. Till that moment explanation would have been difficult, but possible. Now it was impossible. ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... me that the two sections which we have all heard talked about so much in the past, have been gradually merging into one, and Heaven knows I hope there may never be but one again. In the nature of things it was impossible at first that there could be only one, but of late the one great wall that divided them has passed away, and, standing here facing you to-night, I feel precisely as I should if I were standing facing an audience ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... have not changed," she whispered. "They have spoken the truth. They want to tell me more, but for some reason it is impossible. They have tried to tell me where lies this place they call the Country Beyond—where you will again find Oo-Mee the Pigeon. But a cloud always comes between. And they are trying to tell me what the danger is off there—in the darkness." ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... the wand. The heat three feet away was enough to make sand melt and run like water, but I was not unpleasantly warm. This was because I stood at the focus of three tin pipes, thru which streams of cold air, fan-impelled, beat upon me. Without this cooling agent it would be impossible for men to work so close to the heat of the ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... meant to sleep forever. There is no sleep without a live body to sleep in—no such thing as everlasting sleep. Self-destruction seems a very simple thing—more often a duty than not; but it's not to be done! It is quite impossible not to be, ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... conjectured, Sir Scudamore, deeming it impossible she should survive the heat of the flames which had so sorely scorched him, persuaded the nurse to ride on with him, in hopes of encountering knights who would help him rescue ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... they had hatched below, and a miserable feeling of despondency came over him. For he knew that if he stirred and made the slightest noise, he must be heard by the man posted to guard against attack. To get on deck was next to impossible, and even if he did he would not be able to make the line fast unless—Mark shuddered and set aside the horrible thought, which was in full—unless ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... America's independence. Of the services of the little band, scattered as they were throughout the army, two or three in a company composed of whites, a squad in a regiment, a few companies with an army, made it quite impossible for their record, beyond this, to be distinct from the organizations they were attached to. However, enough has been culled from the history of that conflict, to show that they bore a brave part in the struggle which wrested the colonies ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... Bonn, the dinner they served me consisted of an unintelligible sort of soup, full of round balls of a pasty substance; beef stewed with prunes, hare dressed with preserves, wild boar with cherries; it was impossible to take more pains to spoil things which separately, would have been very commendable eating. I tasted them each in turn, and each time sent away my plate. When I sent away the wild boar, the waiter could stand it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... hard and slippery sandstone, with bulky ribs oversaling here and there, and threatening to cast the climber back. At such spots nicks for the feet had been cut, or broken with a hammer, but scarcely wider than a stirrup-iron, and far less inviting. To surmount these was quite impossible except by a process of crawling; and Mary, with her heart in her mouth, repented of her rash contempt for the crane sling. Luckily the height was not very great, or, tired as she was, she must have given way; for her bodily warmth had waned again in the strong wind buffeting ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... corners of her mouth, having read somewhere that it is impossible to despair so long as the lips are kept in that cheerful position. But the fear ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... three hundred and sixty-five saints in the calendar out of the Neapolitan almanack he held—and got a breeze, too, for his pains, as Ruggiero adds with a quiet and somewhat incredulous smile when he has finished the yarn. All these things they have seen with their eyes, and many more which it is impossible to remember, but all equally astonishing though equally familiar to everybody who has ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... tiny fire was flickering far away, and apparently on the far horizon, though it is almost impossible to judge of the distance of ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... anime) of which the best is said to come from the Mosul country up the Ambriz River: one bore the goose-skin of Zanzibar, and I was assured that it does not viscidize in the potash-wash. The other was smooth as if it had freshly fallen from the tree. It was impossible to obtain any information; no one had been up country to see the diggings, and yet all declared that the interior was open; that it would be easy to strike the Coango (Quango) before it joins the Congo River, and that 150 ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... stay with your aged mother, neglecting, for the present, every prospect of independency for yourself, and putting up with daily inconvenience, sometimes even with privations. I can well imagine, that it is next to impossible for you to decide for yourself in this matter, so I will decide it for you. At least, I will tell you what is my earnest conviction on the subject; I will show you candidly how the question strikes me. The right path ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... At such terrible moments men cannot afford to wait on indecision. Other women were ready and only too glad to go. With a sense almost of relief at the thought that separation was now impossible, the widow strained the child to her bosom and clung to ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... speculations, based upon negative evidence, have been fully justified; time after time, highly organised types have been discovered in formations of an age in which the existence of such forms of life had been confidently declared to be impossible. The western territories of the United States alone have yielded a world of extinct animal forms, undreamed of fifty years ago. And, wherever sufficiently numerous series of the remains of any given group, which has endured ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley
... when I shall bind them by an oath, that none of them, except such as shall have the plea of sickness, will, so long as they serve, take either meat or drink in any other posture than standing. This penalty you will bear with patience when you reflect that it is impossible your cowardice could be marked with a slighter stigma." He then gave the signal for packing up the baggage; and the soldiers, sporting and jesting as they drove and carried their booty, returned to Beneventum in so playful a mood, that they appeared to be returning, not from the field of ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... archaeologists. Sometimes, when public curiosity was particularly excited, the number of respectable applicants for admission to the museum exceeded the limit of the prescribed issue. In these cases, tickets were given for remote days; and thus, at times, when the lists were heavy, it must have been impossible for a passing visitor in London to get within the gateway of Montague House. In these old regulations the trustees provided also, that when any person, having obtained tickets, was prevented from making use of them at the appointed time, he was to send them back to the porter, ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... unpossible," said the wife, immediately changing her tactics, "it's not impossible, but I can ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... structure she held sacred. Astonished at its internal capacity, another asked, "Do all the clergy sit in it?" Not realising its true character and intent, a lady wished to know, "By whom was this monument erected?" As we had long since ascertained how impossible it was to please everybody, we were not surprised to find dissatisfied critics presenting themselves. One of this class said, "It looks like a tomb, and smells like a coffin." Another, with sarcastic wit, said, "Moses looks like some churchwarden who would have to be careful ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... of his hen. Jack, finding that all his arguments were useless, ceased speaking, though resolved to go at all events. He had a dress prepared which would disguise him, and something to color his skin. He thought it impossible for any one to recollect him ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... that, but, provided the chord is not decreased to an extent making it impossible to secure the best camber owing to the thickness of the surface, the higher the aspect ratio, the better the lift-drift ratio. The reason of this is rather obscure. It is sometimes advanced that it is owing to the "spill" of air from under the wing-tips. With a high aspect ratio the chord is less ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... conviction que toutes les solutions des questions philosophiques n'aient ete developpes on indiquees avant le commencement du dix-neuvieme siecle, et que par consequent il ne soit les difficile, pour ne pas dire impossible, de tomber, en pareille matiere, sur une idee neuve de quelque importance. Or si cette conviction est fondee, il s'ensuit que la science est faite.—JOUFFROY, in DAMIRON, Philosophie du XIXe Siecle, 363. Le but dernier de tous mes efforts, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... had played him false. Ignorant of the psychological fact that only when a man's head is turned can he correctly judge the direction of sound, it being impossible to distinguish between a sound coming from directly in front or behind, the foreman of the Three Stars Ranch had been deceived because he had been looking straight ahead out into the prairie. And instead of riding toward the men who had roused ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... now kept him alive,—the hope of soon receiving a letter from Henrietta, or, it might be, of finding one upon arriving at his destination; for it was by no means impossible for "The Conquest" to be outstripped by some vessel that might have left port three weeks later. "The Conquest," an old wooden frigate, and a sailing vessel, justified her bad reputation of being the worst sailor in the whole fleet. ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... friends, I can't do it! I should be very glad to, but it is quite impossible. If it were for ready money it would be a ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... When the two were alone together she scarcely took pains to conceal her knowledge, and her covert hints had driven Eleanor into more than one outburst of resentment which she bitterly regretted when it was too late. It was absolutely impossible to tell about Betty. "She treats me exactly as she did when Jim was here," reflected Eleanor, "and just as she did last year, for that matter. If she doesn't know it's no particular credit to her, and if she does—" Eleanor could ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... echoed; then to me in a lower tone: "You notice, again, the persistent delusion of wealth. I was called in when he wrote us that. You can see it is utterly impossible for the Company to continue to run their trains through the property of a man who may at any moment fancy himself divinely commissioned to stop all traffic. If he had only referred us to his lawyer—but, naturally, ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... to the distinctively evil side of French history in this critical epoch, and carries us away from light into the thick darkness of political intrigue, obscurantist faction, and a misgovernment which was at once tyrannical and decrepit. It is almost impossible for us to realise the existence in the same society of such boundless license of thought, and such unscrupulous restraint upon its expression. Not one of Rousseau's three chief works, for instance, was printed in France. The whole trade in ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... difficulties before him instead of conquering them one by one, like the lovers in fairy tales, who to win their princesses overcome ever new enchantments, the work remains incomplete; it perishes in the studio where creativeness becomes impossible, and the artist looks on at the suicide of ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... in, making it impossible for me to film any further developments, so I proceeded back to the cellar with an officer and some men. After resting awhile, I decided to go back to Furnes that night with my films and get home with them ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... ever since her Majesty came to the throne, who, after the most careful selection, was appointed governess to the Royal children, and was well qualified to discharge an office of such consequence to the Queen and the nation. It is impossible to read such portions of her letters as have been published without being struck by their wise womanliness and gentle motherliness. Beautiful Lady Canning, with her artist soul, was another star in an ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... of Almighty power; The hand of man laid on the arm of God; The grand and blessed hour In which the things impossible to me Become the possible, ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... mentioned as a people; that the sans culottes were too contemptible a race to be mentioned; he would say, he meant to ask what was to become of the whole nation of France? If he was told that it was impossible for the crowned heads, acting in concert upon this great occasion, to have any but just and honourable views, he would answer that the subject was of too much magnitude to be allowed to pass in such a manner; and in his suspicions he was ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
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