"Impracticable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not suspecting its having belonged to Douglas, they thought not of it, till they overheard Sir John Monteith, as he passed through one of the galleries, muttering something about gold and a box. To intercept the robber amongst his native glens, the soldiers deemed impracticable, and therefore their captain came immediately to lay the information before the Governor of Lanark. As the scabbard found in the affray with young Arthur had betrayed the victor to have been Sir William Wallace, this intimation of his having been also the instrument of wrestling from ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... numbers was with the former. But Yoshitsune himself had foreseen this and had determined that the best, if not the only, hope of victory lay in delivering an assault by descending the northern rampart of mountains at Hiyodori Pass. Access from that side being counted impracticable, no dispositions had been made by the Taira to guard the defile. Yoshitsune selected for the venture seventy-five men, among them being Benkei, Hatakeyama Shigetada, and others of his most trusted comrades. They ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... Isaacson summed up eventually Nigel's exact feeling towards him at this moment. It was hardly worth while undertaking the journey from England to gratify such a desire of the happy egoist. Better put the idea away. It was impracticable, and— ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... Epistles, wears a strange and suspicious aspect. If Ignatius and the Philippians wished their letters to be carried to Antioch, why did they not say so? Syria was an extensive province,—much larger than all Ireland,—and many a traveller might have been going there who would have found it quite impracticable to deliver letters in its metropolis. When there was no penny postage, and when letters of friendship were often carried by private hands, if an individual residing in the north or south of the Emerald Isle had requested a correspondent in Bristol to send his letters ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen
... be too much alarmed; this is laid down to caution, not to terrify him: it is fit he should know his danger, and attend to it; for the prevention is easy; and the cure, even of the most advanced stages, when undertaken by gentle means, is not at all impracticable: to assist the physician, let him look into himself, and recollect the source of his complaint. This he may judge of from the ...
— Hypochondriasis - A Practical Treatise (1766) • John Hill
... the world in the French newspaper, La Presse, of yesterday's date (Nov. 7th), relating, in terms of exultation, a successful experiment made in Paris by Messrs. Julien and Arnault to steer a machine against the wind, in which hitherto impracticable attempt they are said to have completely succeeded at repeated times, and the mechanical {470} means by which they attained their ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 58, December 7, 1850 • Various
... word) if it could have been set down in that cabin at that particular moment. He studied the small cuts of the chairs, holding Lovin Child off the page by main strength the while. Wishing one out of the catalogue and into the room being impracticable, he went after the essential features, thinking to make one that would answer ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... sometimes escape, don't they? I hope they escape sometimes. I'll go any day you'll make up a party,—if Lady Monogram will join us." Sir Damask said that he would arrange it, making up his mind, however, at the same time, that this last stipulation, if insisted on, would make the thing impracticable. ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... interval; and, by breaking off a few projecting corners by which the climber had held, and by effacing a few notches into which he had thrust his toe-points, they had rendered what had been merely difficult impracticable. I remarked that the huge kitchen chimney of the building,—a deep hollow recess which stretches across the entire gable, and in which, it is said, two thrashers once plied the flail for a whole winter,—bore less of the stain of recent smoke than it used to exhibit twenty years before; and ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... General French's plan to push the battle too strongly now. It was merely his intention to deliver such a blow as would make the coup planned by the Germans impracticable. ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... the year the surface is soft, but in part dries out in Summer. Deep trenches usually impossible, and even shallow trenches likely to be filled with water; defensive works will be principally parapets revetted on both sides. Cave shelter construction usually impracticable, unless means be provided for sinking through saturated surface zone into the dry ground underneath. Cut and cover usually the most practical type of shelter in ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... shot from David King, a private in captain Davidson's company, from Lincoln county, Kentucky. In this state of the case, even had the fact of Tecumseh's death been fully ascertained, at the date of general Harrison's letter, it would have been manifestly unjust, not to say impracticable, for the commander-in-chief to have expressed an opinion as to the particular individual to whose personal prowess his death ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... for he could not have carried off the necessary small talk. As it was, he felt that his excitement must be patent to those around him. His mind was filled with tormenting doubts, his chance for success seemed so infinitely small, his plan so extravagantly impracticable, now ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... the erosions have burrowed so deeply or in such a direction that the opening of a drainage passage becomes impracticable. In other cases the bones may be attacked in some inaccessible location, or the joints may be affected, and in these cases it is often best to destroy the ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... glad to hear of my safe arrival here. The time of my return will depend upon the weather, which is so impracticable, that this letter has to advance through more snows than ever opposed the Emperor's retreat. The roads are impassable, and return impossible for the present; which I do not regret, as I am much at my ease, and six-and-twenty complete this day—a very pretty age, if it would always last. Our ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... of the voyage, by the clerk of the California, vol. ii. p. 273. Mr Dobbs himself says, "That he thought the passage would be impracticable, or, at least, very difficult, in case there was one farther north than 67 deg.."—Account of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... charge. She would have willingly assumed the support of the child, but if it had been possible would have greatly preferred providing for him elsewhere to bringing him home with her. This, however, was impracticable, and so there came to be a baby in ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... almost doubting if he could have heard aright, his eyes searching the girl's face which was glowing with excitement. Of course he could not permit of her exposure to such a risk; the scheme was impracticable, absurd. But was it? Did it not offer a fair chance of success? And was not the possible result worthy the risk assumed? He choked back the earlier words of protest unuttered, puzzled as to what he had best say. A quick-witted ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... mean," said Jonah, "that throughout the argument you confined yourself to destructive criticism, deliberate confusion of the issues, and the recommendation of solutions which you knew to be impracticable, I ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... lord of the manor of the transaction, and he immediately resolved to send the cross first to Canterbury, and afterwards to Reading; but on attempting to draw it to these places, although with the force of twelve red oxen, and as many white kine, it was found impracticable, and he was obliged to desist. He then determined to fix it at Waltham, and immediately the wain began to move thither of itself. In the way many persons were healed of disorders, and the relick soon became much ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... Faith be overworked, Reason kicks; and, of course, when Owen found the Holt was not the world; that thinking was not the exclusive privilege of demons; that habits he considered as imperative duties were inconvenient, not to say impracticable; that his articles of faith included much of the apocryphal,—why, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... scarcely a day passes in which the European resident in India may not recognise, in his intercourse with the natives, many familiar words in all those languages, clothed in an oriental dress. I am inclined also to think that new light may be thrown upon some of the impracticable Greek particles by a reference to the languages of the East; and without wishing to be understood as laying down anything dogmatically in the present communication, I hope, through the medium of your valuable publication, to attract attention to this ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 56, November 23, 1850 • Various
... Austrian armies, traversing them at their will. With no natural boundaries to defend her, she was surrounded by the three most powerful states in Eastern Europe who were steadily working for her destruction. In part through her own impracticable constitution, but in greater measure from the deliberate machinations of her foreign enemies, whether carried on by secret intrigues or by the armed violence of superior force, Poland's political life was at a standstill, her ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... at the conclusion that he was in a somewhat false position. Any appearance of lack of confidence in Lord John, Lord Aberdeen remarked, was 'entirely the effect of accident and never of intention.' He hints that he sometimes thought Lord John over-sensitive and even rash or impracticable. He adds: 'But these are trifles. We parted with expressions of mutual regard, which on my side were perfectly sincere, as I have no doubt they were on his. These expressions I am happy in having this opportunity to renew; as well as with my admiration of his great powers ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... time been consumed and all hands placed on short allowance, it being impossible to go out hunting again as yet, or to penetrate up the valley to the rabbit warren, on account of the snow blocking the way and rendering the ascent of the hills impracticable. ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... the Dead Man, would return in an hour from that time. At first it occurred to him to await the miscreant's coming, and endeavor to capture him—but then he reflected that the Dead Man might return accompanied by other villains, in which case the plan would not only be impracticable, but his own life ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... overlooked the tideless ocean; black caverns yawned; and for ever, among the sea-worn recesses, murmured and dashed the unfruitful waters. Now my way was almost barred by an abrupt promontory, now rendered nearly impracticable by fragments fallen from the cliff. Evening was at hand, when, seaward, arose, as if on the waving of a wizard's wand, a murky web of clouds, blotting the late azure sky, and darkening and disturbing the till now placid deep. The clouds ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... sexes, the same men and women intoxicated to stupidity, and the same terror, submission and guilt on all faces; and again I was overwhelmed with shame and pain, as in the Lyapinsky house, and I understood that what I had undertaken was abominable and foolish and therefore impracticable. And I no longer took notes of anybody, and I asked no questions, knowing that ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... impracticable, and Job went forward to hunt out the trail. The sandhills at this point stood back a little from the river. The low-lying land between was thickly wooded, but up on the hills the walking was good. So the trail was cut straight up the bank which ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... selecting hats assumed to be representative of American production, it was found impracticable to determine the respective percentages of production of cheap, medium-priced, and high-priced hats. In consequence there is some reason to believe that the limited figures secured with respect to cheap American hats has tended to ...
— Men's Sewed Straw Hats - Report of the United Stated Tariff Commission to the - President of the United States (1926) • United States Tariff Commission
... perpendicularly into the air, so that only a few feet of the end of the keel touched the water. Still she struggled on, although so long was she in getting through the surf that those on board the ship thought several times that she must give it up as impracticable. At last, however, she got through; the paddlers waited for a minute to recover from their exertions, and then made out to the Decoy. None of the officers had ever landed here, and several of them obtained leave to accompany the captain on shore. Frank was one of the party. After what ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... mysteries began to haunt the house, and Jo frequently convulsed the family by proposing utterly impossible or magnificently absurd ceremonies, in honor of this unusually merry Christmas. Laurie was equally impracticable, and would have had bonfires, skyrockets, and triumphal arches, if he had had his own way. After many skirmishes and snubbings, the ambitious pair were considered effectually quenched and went about with forlorn faces, which were rather belied by ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... imprint upon my memory that at such a period the Argives ceased to be called Pelasgi, and were henceforward called Danai, I felt how impracticable (and doubtless in their degree injurious, for though an infinitesimal injury only as regards any single act doubtless, yet, per se, by tendency doubtless all blank efforts of the memory unsupported by the understanding are bad), ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... tolerably understood, would then be brought to the greatest perfection. It is no inconsiderable part of wisdom, to know how much of an evil ought to be tolerated; lest, by attempting a degree of purity impracticable in degenerate times and manners, instead of cutting off the subsisting ill practices, new corruptions might be produced for the concealment and security of the old. It were better, undoubtedly, ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... ridicule. A Conservative Government then enjoyed a short tenure of office, but committed suicide by bringing in an impracticable Reform Bill. A second Berry Ministry came into office, but not into power. It also lived a few months, but with its dying kick it passed a measure which, though it placed the Upper Chamber on a more liberal basis than any other in Australia, and effected most important changes in its constitution, ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... lost. In vain we searched for a way by which we might reach the bottom of the gorge; we were soon convinced that the cliff was utterly impracticable. ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... 7.35 a.m. in a west-north-west course, at 8.45 passed several small dry salt lagoons; at 9.0 ascended a granite hill, from the summit of which it was discovered that further progress in this direction was impracticable, and that we were on a peninsula, as the lake still trended south to the horizon. We therefore turned east, and at 11.35 came on the southern extension of the eastern branch of the lake; followed it nearly ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... Bay," or Fulton's "Clermont," or even the ships of the Collins line—floating palaces as they were called at the time! Time has made commonplace the proportions of the "Great Eastern," the marine marvel not only of her age, but of the forty years that succeeded her breaking-up as impracticable on account of size. She was 19,000 tons, 690 feet long, and built with both paddle-wheels and a screw. The "Celtic" is 700 feet long, 20,000 tons, with twin screws. The one was too big to be commercially valuable, the other has held the record ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... cross it. It seemed doubtful if even a boat could live in such a turmoil of waters. If the flood ran up thus strong, what might be the effects of the ebb? It would not be low water again till past midnight, and it would then be very dangerous, if not altogether impracticable, to get on shore. They must, therefore, make up their minds to remain on board ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... separate their country from their party, or their religion from their sect. But, nevertheless, the welfare of the country is dearer than the mere victory of party, as truth is more precious than the interest of any sect. You will hear this patriotism scorned as an impracticable theory, as the dream of a cloister, as the whim of a fool. But such was the folly of the Spartan Leonidas, staying with his three hundred the Persian horde, and teaching Greece the self-reliance that saved her. Such was the folly of the Swiss Arnold von Winkelried, gathering into his ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... in reeling is to ensure that the correct number of threads is in each cut, i.e. to obtain a "correct tell"; this ideal condition may be impracticable in actual work, but it is wise to approach it as closely as possible. Careless workers allow the reel to run on after one or more spinning bobbins are empty, and this yields what is known as "short tell." It is not uncommon to introduce a bell wheel with, say, 123 or 124 teeth, ...
— The Jute Industry: From Seed to Finished Cloth • T. Woodhouse and P. Kilgour
... therefore, "suspects." We deprive them of their electoral rights, we withdraw their pensions, we impose on them special taxation, we confine them to their dwellings, we imprison them by thousands, and guillotine them by hundreds; the rest will gradually become discouraged and abandon an impracticable cult.[2131]—The lukewarm remain, the sheep-like crowd which holds on to its rites: the Constituent Assembly will seize them wherever it finds them, and, as they are the same in the authorized as in the refractory church, instead of seeking them with the priest who does not ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... vicissitudes of a religion which commands respect from neighbors who see in it a powerful inspiration, while the Jew himself, especially the Jew more fortunately placed in the general community, endeavors so often to cast it off as outworn and impracticable. It is the Jew himself who has misled the rest of the world into a delusion. He has seemed to consider himself, and the faith with which he is bound up, inferior. In his endeavor to take on the color of his environment, he has sought to lay aside all that was old, and ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... men were such as Charles O'Conor and John Van Buren; the former learned and generous, but impracticable; the latter brilliant beyond belief, but not considered as representing any permanent ideas ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... Adams remarked that he would accompany him. Gen. Porter and the other gentlemen present remonstrated, and told him it was a very severe undertaking for a young and hearty man, and that he would find it, in such a hot day, quite impracticable. He seemed, however, to know his capacities; and this old man, verging on four score years, not only made the descent, but clambered over almost impracticable rocks along the margin of the river, to obtain the various ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... at the mouth of the Pelly during the next day taking magnetic and astronomical observations, and making some measurements of the river. On the 19th I resumed the survey and reached White River on the 25th. Here I spent most of a day trying to ascend this river, but found it impracticable, on account of the swift current and shallow and very muddy water. The water is so muddy that it is impossible to see through one-eighth of an inch of it. The current is very strong, probably eight miles or more per hour, and the numerous bars in the bed are constantly changing ...
— Klondyke Nuggets - A Brief Description of the Great Gold Regions in the Northwest • Joseph Ladue
... Vulturnus. This country is full of mountains, except one valley that runs towards the sea-coast, where the river at the end of its course overflows into extensive marshes, with deep beds of sand. The beach itself is rough and impracticable for shipping. ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... the expedition. In the present case, the army being without provisions before they left the Indian towns, their only sustenance consisted of weeds, an ear of corn each day, and occasionally, a small quantity of venison: it being impracticable to hunt game in small parties, because of the vigilance and success of the Indians, in watching and cutting off detachments of this kind, before they could accomplish their purpose ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... a semicircular bay, terminating at 'Ain Jidi, (Engeddi,) where we arrived at two o'clock. There we were at a considerable elevation above the shore, which we now abandoned, not only because all further advance in that direction is impracticable, but because our route towards Jerusalem lay in a ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... though good, was impracticable. The evening was approaching. I could scarcely drag one foot after another. We yet had some distance to go before we could reach a valley which lay below us, with a stream in summer flowing through it, and a grove ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... dollars, which, with the expense of an officer to accompany the prisoner, and the price of a ball and chain, would have amounted to a much larger sum than the prosecution could afford; so it was clearly impracticable to think of sending him to San Francisco. Nor is it at all likely that the people would have consented to his removal. Under these circumstances there was but one course to pursue, and, however repugnant it was to my ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... process, commonly described as the transfer of capital from one employment to another, is not necessarily the onerous, slow, and almost impracticable operation which it is very often represented to be. In the first place, it does not always imply the actual removal of capital already embarked in an employment. In a rapidly progressive state of capital, the adjustment often takes place by means of the new accumulations of ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... least utility to man, till a foreigner, who had been conducted into their wild recesses in the pursuit of the chamois, directed the attention of several Swiss gentlemen to the extent and superiority of the timber. The most skilful individuals, however, considered it quite impracticable to avail themselves of such inaccessible stores. It was not till the end of 1816, that M. Rupp, and three Swiss gentlemen, entertaining more sanguine hopes, purchased a certain extent of the forests, and ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... Isabel, that is precisely what I complain of! Dick's solitary suggestion has been that we should send Larry to Winchester, which is perfectly impracticable! I entirely agree with him, but, unfortunately, I know that it is our duty to send him to one of those—" Miss Coppinger hesitated, swallowed several adjectives, and ended with Christian tameness—"one of those special ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... other information of a similar nature, it appears that the attempts to form establishments for trade at Banda and the Molucca islands were found to be difficult or impracticable, owing to the opposition of the Dutch, who were much stronger in that part of India, and had not only conceived the plan of monopolizing the spice trade, but even avowed their determination to exclude the English and all other European nations ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... impracticable to give to the study of mythology and biography a place of its own in an already overcrowded curriculum usually prefer to correlate history with reading and for this purpose the volumes of this series ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren
... sail was hoisted on the felucca in order to get up to him, which was done after much trouble and anxiety. The master and crew of the boat then advised him to give up the attempt to cross, as from their long experience of the straits, they believed it to be impracticable under existing circumstances; but Boyton positively refused to give up the undertaking, and forged ahead, undismayed and in the most hopeful spirits. As it was found impossible to keep up with him with the aid of the oars alone, the boat's sails were reefed and hoisted and by steering close hauled, ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... thought impracticable to cure the flesh of animals by salting in tropical climates, the progress of putrefaction being so rapid, as not to allow time for the salt to take (as they express it) before the meat gets a taint, which prevents the effect of the pickle. We do not find that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... the carriage door, and immediately recognized the fact that it was impracticable outside ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... do in two or three hours a distance which her coaches had scarcely covered in the day; but on the third evening, intending to make a short cut by a ford on the Vaucouleurs, I found, to my chagrin, the advantage on the other side, the ford, when I reached it at sunset, proving impracticable. As there was every prospect, however, that the water would fall within a few hours, I determined not to retrace my steps; but to wait where I was until morning, and complete my journey to Houdan in the ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... interrupted Ardan with lighting eye; "the ray, being a tangent, of course makes right angles with the radius, which is known: consequently we have two sides and one angle—quite enough to find the other parts of the triangle. Very ingenious—but now, that I think of it—is not this method absolutely impracticable for every mountain except those in the immediate neighborhood of the light and ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... the power lies. On conquered territory there can be but one authority, and no conceivable ingenuity can construct any other system. If authority is apparently divided, then either the military commander does not understand his business, or he is hampered by impracticable orders and should ask to be relieved. This is what has paralyzed the action of every military governor, a title which implies a perfectly anomalous function, certain to lead to trouble. Almost all the great good effected by General ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... of the customs of early Roman society. Nowadays it has a revolutionary savour, and is so apparently impracticable that it would be hardly necessary to do more than touch upon it here, but for the fact that its most recent and most distinguished advocate in modern times is Mr George Meredith. Any suggestion from such a source must necessarily receive careful consideration. ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... Burns was expected; and happened to drop a silly expression (in my South British way), that I wished it were the father instead of the son—when four of them started up at once to inform me, that "that was impossible, because he was dead." An impracticable wish, it seems, was more than they could conceive. Swift has hit off this part of their character, namely their love of truth, in his biting way, but with an illiberality that necessarily confines the passage to the margin.[2] The tediousness of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... and the identification were now complete. Nothing remained but to break the news to Alfred, and to get permission to remove the remains in the outhouse. I began almost to doubt the evidence of my own senses when I reflected that the apparently impracticable object with which we had left Naples was already, by the ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... primitively pursued by the human understanding, while undirected by science. When mankind first formed the idea of studying phenomena according to a stricter and surer method than that which they had in the first instance spontaneously adopted, they did not, conformably to the well-meant but impracticable precept of Descartes, set out from the supposition that nothing had been already ascertained. Many of the uniformities existing among phenomena are so constant, and so open to observation, as to force themselves upon involuntary recognition. Some facts are so perpetually and familiarly accompanied ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... up the banks of Gun Creek, a stream which flows into Snake River from the west; but were assured by the natives that the route in that direction was impracticable. The latter advised them to keep along Snake River, where they would not be impeded by the snow. Taking one of the Diggers for a guide, they set off along the river, and to their joy soon found the country ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... of the evening seemed like a dream. Would that they had been one! Only he would not have missed, at any cost, the sweet memories associated with Eva. But could she really become his own? He feared not; for the higher the sun rose the more impracticable his intentions of the night before appeared. At last he even thought of the religious conversation in the dancing hall with a superior smile, as if it had been carried on by some one else. The resolve to ask from ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... failure of its application for a clearance, Rotch was directed to enter a protest at the Custom House, and to apply to the governor for a pass to proceed on this day with his vessel on his voyage for London. He replied that it was impracticable to comply with this requirement. He was then reminded of his promise, and on being asked if he would now direct the "Dartmouth" to sail, replied that he would not. The meeting, after directing him to use all possible ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... the Prince-President of that poor, poetic, impracticable thing, the French Republic, much notice had been taken of him by the English Government;—but "Emperor" was a more respectable title, even worn in this way, snatched in the twinkling of an eye by a political prestidigitateur, and it was of greater ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... not an impracticable scheme, is capable of being easily proved. The practice of co-operation has long been adopted by workpeople throughout England. A large proportion of the fishery industry has been conducted on that principle for hundreds of years. Fishermen join in building, rigging, and manning a ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... undertake some grand experiment worthy of the nineteenth century, and if the progress of ballistics would not allow us to execute it with success. I have therefore sought, worked, calculated, and the conviction has resulted from my studies that we must succeed in an enterprise that would seem impracticable in any other country. This project, elaborated at length, will form the subject of my communication; it is worthy of you, worthy of the Gun Club's past history, and cannot fail to make a noise in ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... the river on a farm. We had one more arrow in our quiver: a Vicksburg packet, the 'Gold Dust,' was to leave at 5 P.M. We took passage in her for Memphis, and gave up the idea of stopping off here and there, as being impracticable. She was neat, clean, and comfortable. We camped on the boiler deck, and bought some cheap literature to kill time with. The vender was a venerable Irishman with a benevolent face and a tongue that worked easily in the socket, and from him we learned that he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... friends and winning admirers everywhere, and employing his enforced leisure in attempting great feats of literary enterprise. A scheme for a Constitutional History of England was succeeded by a no less difficult and, as it proved, no less impracticable scheme. During Wilkes's exile he lost the most famous of his enemies and the most famous of his friends. On October 26, 1764, Hogarth died. It was commonly said, and generally credited, that he died ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... was very seldom, except when taking his meals, that Robespierre was alone while in the house; and as his sister was in and out of the room all day, the idea of compelling him by force to sign the order, as they had originally intended to do with Marat, was clearly impracticable. ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... ideal lines. At this Watts continued to work till the year of his death, though he parted with the first version in response to Lord Grey's appeal when it was wanted to adorn the monument to Cecil Rhodes. Its original destination was the tomb in the Matoppo hills; but it was proved impracticable to convey such a colossal work, without injury, over the rough country surrounding them; and it was set up at Cape Town. The statue has become better known to the English public since a second version has been set up in Kensington Gardens. The rider, bestriding ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... not proved successful. In a few private military schools situated in the country some target practice is conducted, but the difficulty of carrying on anything of the kind in the public schools has rendered it impracticable. ...
— A report on the feasibility and advisability of some policy to inaugurate a system of rifle practice throughout the public schools of the country • George W. Wingate
... took up the telegraphic message and read, "Scheme impracticable. Cannot compromise with Mortimer. Harper and the Syndicate ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... a branch of the revenue, the name of them not having even been changed. The same thing has happened with respect to the annual tax for keeping up the highways and thoroughfares of the kingdom. The majority of the bridges were broken, and the high roads had become impracticable. Trade, which suffered by this, awakened attention. The Intendant of Champagne determined to mend the roads by parties of men, whom he compelled to work for nothing, not even giving them bread. He was imitated everywhere, and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... ford of the Cconi was passed just outside the town, at a point where the right bank of the river, growing steeper and steeper, became impracticable, and necessitated a crossing to the left. The ford allowed the peons to stagger through at mid-leg on the uneven pavement afforded by the large pebbles of the bed. At this point the valley of the Cconi was seen stretching indefinitely outward ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... down to the bears. If the snow should be found light and dry quite a distance down it would be impossible to dig a well-like hole down to them. If the wind had packed the snow hard as it filled up the ravine it would be an easy matter. If it were found impracticable to get to them that way, then they would have to tunnel in from below, in the valley, until they reached them. A tunnel can always be dug in deep snow, as the pressure of the mass above sufficiently hardens the snow near the ground to make it quite possible to accomplish the work. Thus they ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... authorities. Their leading statesman, Thiers, contended that railroads could be nothing more than toys. We remember that a committee of the New York Legislature was equally stupid, and endeavored to prove in their report that railways were entirely impracticable. English opposition was still more stupidly absurd. Both Lords and Commons in Parliament were entirely opposed. "The engineers and surveyors as they went about their work were molested by mobs. George ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... the war, spent themselves in the discussion of schemes which could only become operative, if at all, after the war was over; that a popular excitement has been slowly intensified into an earnest national will; that a somewhat impracticable moral sentiment has been made the unconscious instrument of a practical moral end; that the treason of covert enemies, the jealousy of rivals, the unwise zeal of friends, have been made not only useless for mischief, but even useful for ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... you are repining over what is beyond recall, events are moving on. If you do not help shape them, others, without your high principle and purity of motive, may. Can you wonder if, while you are harassing the Administration with impracticable demands for an abandonment of territory which the American people will not let go, less unselfish influences are busy presenting candidates for all the offices in its organization? If the friends of a proper ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... thickness. This choice is certainly to be avoided, and yet it is the less dangerous of the two. In addition there are a number of other obstacles of which I will say nothing. The other bridge is still more impracticable and much more perilous, never having been crossed by man. It is just like a sharp sword, and therefore all the people call it 'the sword-bridge'. Now I have told you all the truth I know." But they ask of her once again: "Damsel, deign to ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... to make one. And so he offered himself if they could not find a better candidate, without waiting for the ceremony of a requisition. He was exactly the man they wanted; and though he had 'no handle to his name,' and was somewhat impracticable about pledges, his fortune was so great, and his character so high, that it might be hoped that the people would be almost as content as if they were appealed to by some obscure scion of factitious nobility, subscribing to political engagements which he could not comprehend, and which, ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... curacy, I might have been my own master in serving it. I had hoped an exception might have been made in my favour, under the circumstances; but I did not gain my request. Perhaps I was asking what was impracticable, and it is well for ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... though resolutely defending the landing-place, hard pressed, had called to their aid the 49th light company from the Height's summit, the key of the position. The enemy, profiting by this step, moved unperceived about 150 men—and over a precipitous steep it was deemed impracticable for a human being to ascend—who suddenly appeared to the astonished General just on the mountain summit, and the next instant in possession of the redoubt, putting its defenders to the sword. The gallant spirit of Brock, ill brooking ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... as it stood in that day. This excellent and surpassingly wise community of New York had not then reached the pass of exceeding liberality towards which it is now so rapidly tending. In that day, the debtor was not yet thought of, as the creditor's next heir, and that plausible and impracticable desire of a false philanthropy, which is termed the Homestead Exemption Law —impracticable as to anything like a just and equitable exemption of equal amount in all cases of indebtedness—was not yet dreamed of. New York was then a sound ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... be otherwise than unsatisfactory. I resolved, however, to do all I could to relieve the poor suffering brute. As a matter of course, jugular phlebotomy was utterly impracticable; so, to relieve the pressure in the feet, I had him (after, with extreme difficulty, removing the shoes) bled, or rather opened, at all four toes, and hot poultices applied. On opening the off-side toe, in both hind and fore feet, I found an escape of very dark-coloured ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... high spirits, and in his turn laughs at those infidels who ridiculed his scheme as visionary and impracticable. Mr. Tytler is the first person in Great Britain who has navigated ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... of joining the rebels by sea impracticable, and as to go by land was perilous in the extreme, I made up my mind to send Nunn back to Havana and to make the venture alone. I did not care to chance his life, and I also felt that it was safer for ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... the Shackleton boot, a boot designed by Sir Ernest Shackleton of Antarctic fame, and who was one of the advisory staff in Archangel. This boot, which was warm and comfortable for one remaining stationary as when on sentry duty, was very impracticable and well nigh useless for marching, as the soles were of leather with the smooth side outermost, which added further to the difficulties of that awful night. Some of the men unable to longer continue the march cast ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... successful operation, with order prevailing and the Union reestablished, BEFORE CONGRESS CAME TOGETHER IN DECEMBER. This he thought important. We could do better, accomplish more without than with them. There were men in Congress who, if their motives were good, were nevertheless impracticable, and who possessed feelings of hate and vindictiveness in which he did not sympathize and could not participate. Each House of Congress, he said, had the undoubted right to receive or reject members, ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... particular account of the ravages of the troops, as they retreated from Concord to Charlestown, would be very difficult, if not impracticable. Let it suffice to say, that a great number of the houses on the road were plundered, and rendered unfit for use; several were burnt; women in childbed were driven, by the soldiery, naked into the streets; old men peaceably in their houses were shot dead; and such scenes exhibited as would disgrace ...
— The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775 - With Numerous Illustrative Notes • Abraham Tomlinson
... securing season tickets for the boys, in order that they might not only see the pageant of the opening on the 1st of May, but also have frequent opportunities to attend the building and study its contents before the reduced prices should so crowd the palace as to render examination and study nearly impracticable. However, there came a report through all the daily papers that the queen had abandoned the idea of going in person to inaugurate the exhibition, and the sale of tickets flagged, and it was thought ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... Seneca Falls to lecture on temperance. As he stayed with us, we invited Mr. S., among others, to dinner. The chief topic at the table was the idiosyncrasies of women. Mr. Greeley told many amusing things about his wife, of her erratic movements and sudden decisions to do and dare what seemed most impracticable. Perhaps, on rising some morning, she would say: "I think I'll go to Europe by the next steamer, Horace. Will you get tickets to-day for me, the nurse, and children?" "Well," said Mr. S., "she must be something like our hostess. ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... Mr. Grant. "The Great Northern once surveyed two miles into the section, but abandoned the route as impracticable. There are only about twenty houses in the district, and the difficulties of ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... is now carefully guarded and kept in repair. The restoration of the inlay of precious stones is so enormously expensive that much progress in that branch of the work is impracticable. ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... written petition a very long apostil, to the effect, that consultation must be had with the Director, and his instructions followed, with many other things which did not agree with out object, and were impracticable, as we think. For various reasons which we set down in writing, we thought it was not advisable to consult with him, but we represented to his Honor that he should proceed; we would not send anything to the Fatherland without ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... this improvident and impracticable race; an old man; a man grown grey; can look a New Year in the face, with his affairs in this condition; how he can lie down on his bed at night, and get up again in the morning, and—There!' he said, turning his back on Trotty. 'Take ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... survived in any good degree of strength, it has been due either to government support or to an alliance with other religions. The history of Taouism has shown a still worse deterioration. Laotze, though impracticable as a reformer, was a profound philosopher. His teachings set forth a lofty moral code. Superstition he abominated. His ideas of deity were cold and rationalistic, but they were pure and lofty. But the modern Taouism is a medley of wild and degrading superstitions. According to its theodicy ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... is settled, where men are suspicious, and where fortunes are slow in the making. He wondered now if hard, fast living had robbed him of the punch to make a new beginning; he wondered, too, if the vague plans at the back of his mind had anything to them or if they were entirely impracticable. Here was opportunity, definite, concrete, and spelled with a capital O, here was a deliberate invitation to avail himself of a short cut out of his embarrassment. A mere scratch of a pen and he would have money enough to move on to some other Dallas, and there ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... to be done? While several absurd and impracticable plans were passing through his brain, the school bell began to ring, and he must start immediately to ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... mounted. It was about four miles' ride to the point where the road divided, one branch going towards the river, some seventy or eighty yards away. Here stood a square building of some size, used as a refuge by travellers who arrived when the Liddel was swollen, and the ford impracticable. ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... the Greeks recognised Clearchus as their leader. They fell back to join Ariaeus, who declined the proposal to seat him on the Persian throne; and it was agreed to follow a new route in retreat to Ionia, the way by which the force had advanced being now impracticable. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... narrow stream, full of rocks and rapids and not practicable for navigation by steamers. When the steamer Tambo could ascend no higher, Tucker fitted out a small boat and pulled some twenty miles farther up the river, but everywhere found such obstructions as rendered it an impracticable route to the interior. It is, perhaps, to be regretted that time did not allow of an examination of the other affluents of the Usayali trending ...
— Life of Rear Admiral John Randolph Tucker • James Henry Rochelle
... the indisposition of Lower Canada to the policy of westward expansion, is understood to have convinced Sir E.B. Lytton that annexation of the Winnipeg basin to Canada was impracticable, and that the exclusive occupation by the Hudson's Bay Company could be removed only by the organization of a separate colony. The founder of British Columbia devoted the latter portion of his administration of the Colonial Office to measures for the satisfactory ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... church-yards were filled, twelve thousand corpses were thrown into eleven great pits; and the like might be stated with respect to all the larger cities. Funeral ceremonies, the last consolation of the survivors, were everywhere impracticable. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... line between Alaska and British Columbia, as defined by the treaty of cession with Russia, follows the demarcation assigned in a prior treaty between Great Britain and Russia. Modern exploration discloses that this ancient boundary is impracticable as a geographical fact. In the unsettled condition of that region the question has lacked importance, but the discovery of mineral wealth in the territory the line is supposed to traverse admonishes that the time has come when an accurate ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... give much the greater welcome and heed to him who tells them that their desires and schemes are righteous and can be realized, than to him who tells them that their desires are selfish or that their schemes are impracticable. It has always been the few who have sought the truth, resolute to find it and declare it, whether pleasant or unpleasant, in accord with the wishes of mankind or otherwise. Such men have sometimes suffered martyrdom in the past, and often incur hostility ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... is simply the application of the principle of co-operation to communal life. It is not chimerical; if it seem so, it is simply because we are so ill-trained in morals that we are unwilling to act together in practical brotherhood. It is not impracticable; it might be achieved to-morrow if we were in earnest over it. There are hundreds of thoughtful men who have perceived its attractions, outlined its system, vaguely desired its benefits; are there not a thousand bold adventurers in London ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... which might break through his every-day habits, and he will assure you that the thing is not to be accomplished. Urge him to increased exertions, or accelerated speed, and he will tell you that to do more, or move faster, is impracticable. And as to learning any new method of performing a given task, be it even the dressing of a dish for dinner, I question whether you could prevail upon him to attempt that by any influence short of positive compulsion. Yet in war ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... this occasion. The text described the islands we were near as being separated by narrow channels of deep water, in which the danger was principally owing to sunken rocks. It was these rocks that had induced the fishermen to pronounce the passages impracticable; and my coasting directions cautioned all navigators to be wary in approaching them. The Dawn, however, was in precisely the situation which might render these rocks of the last service to her; and, preferring shipwreck to seeing my vessel in either English ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... known as a sea-level canal across the very narrow part of the Isthmus (see map). "Sea level" means that it was to be merely a cut in which the water would be all the way at the same level—an open clear waterway from one ocean to the other. This proved impracticable on account of engineering difficulties and the crossing of the Chagres River, and in 1887 it was decided that it could ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 10, March 10, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... is superficial and pleasant, who grant that working for a state of being is the most profound and worthy and strenuous work a teacher can do,—that it is what education is for,—will feel that it is impracticable. It is thus that it has come to pass in the average institution of learning, that if a teacher does not know what education is, he regards education as superficial, and if he does know what education is, ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... the indignity of having been sued for the borrowed money. The strong passions of pride and avarice were silently at work during all that interval, hatching schemes of revenge, but dismissing them one after the other as impracticable, until, at last, a notable one suggested itself. About the beginning of the year 1762, the alarm was spread over all the neighbourhood of Cock Lane, that the house of Parsons was haunted by the ghost of poor Fanny, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... machine-tools for the manufacture of locks, Maudslay was of further service to Bramah in applying the expedient to his famous Hydraulic Press, without which it would probably have remained an impracticable though a highly ingenious machine. As in other instances of great inventions, the practical success of the whole is often found to depend upon the action of some apparently trifling detail. This was especially ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... people had similar aims and similar (if not higher) ideals. Consequently he now and then ran his head against a wall, and was laughed at by commonplace persons; but those who knew him well loved him all the better for his impracticable ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... comfortable mosquito-proof houses, had blamed the men for drinking unboiled water and for discarding their mosquito nets. But even doctors sometimes live and learn, and those of us who went right forward with the troops came to know how impracticable it was to carry out the Army Order that bade a man drink only boiled water and sleep beneath a net. Late in the night the infantryman staggers to the camp that lies among thorn bushes, hungry and tired and full of fever. How ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... troupe of "Scarlet Mr. E's," and Bert rather clung to the idea of a uniform of bright blue serge, with a lot of gold lace and cord and ornamentation, rather like a naval officer's, but more so. But that had to be abandoned as impracticable, it would have taken too much time and money to prepare. They perceived they must wear some cheaper and more readily prepared costume, and Grubb fell back on white dominoes. They entertained the notion for a time of selecting the two worst machines from the hiring-stock, painting them ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... "I ain't 'Enry, dammit! You're bashing me—me—Simon!" He swore rather finely; but the fog, the general confusion, and, above all, the enthusiasm of bashing rendered identification by voice impracticable. Indeed, if any heard it, it had no effect; for, so they had some one to bash, they would bash. It didn't matter to them, just so it was a bash. Flanagan heard it quite clearly, but he knew the madness of attempting to stop eleven burly Hoxton yobs once they ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... his self admiration! Men who salute a neighbour as a man of the world, paying him the greatest compliment they know in acknowledging him of their kind, recoil with a sort of fear from the man alien to their thoughts, and impracticable for their purposes. They say "He is beyond me," and despise him. So is there a great world beyond them with which they hold a frightful relationship—that of unrecognized, unattempted duty! Lord Mergwain regarded the odd-looking ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... afflicted like myself shall receive their rightful inheritance of thought, knowledge and love. Still I could not shut my eyes to the force and weight of their arguments, and I saw plainly that I must abandon —'s scheme as impracticable. They also said that I ought to appoint an advisory committee to control my affairs while I am at Radcliffe. I considered this suggestion carefully, then I told Mr. Rhoades that I should be proud and glad to have wise friends to whom ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... the signification of the word TRIANGLE. It is one thing for to keep a name constantly to the same definition, and another to make it stand everywhere for the same idea; the one is necessary, the other useless and impracticable. ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley
... no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the Government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating and so nearly impracticable withal that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... Progressistas, on whom Lord Palmerston, Lord Clarendon, and others always placed their hopes, Mr Bulwer says now: "The fact is, that though they are the party least servile to France, they are the most impracticable party, and belonging to a lower class of society, who have not the same feelings of honourable and gentlemanlike conduct which sometimes guide a portion, though a very small ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... not allow myself to believe for a moment that the representatives of the people can ever so far forget their duty to the French nation, to humanity, and their own fame, as to suffer any inordinate and impracticable views—any visionary or theoretic systems—... to turn aside their exertions from that security which is in their hands, to place on the chance and hazard of public commotion and civil war the invaluable blessings which are certainly in their power. I will ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... been suggested for bleaching rosin; in some instances the constitution of the rosin is altered, and in others the cost is too great or the process impracticable. ...
— The Handbook of Soap Manufacture • W. H. Simmons
... surrounding plain to a height of between three and four thousand feet, as nearly as could be measured without the aid of instruments. Their idea had of course been not only to reach this enormous rock, but also to ascend to its summit, but this they found to be quite impracticable, a journey round it demonstrating the fact that on all sides its cliffs rose perpendicularly and without a single break from the base to the flat summit. For that time at least they were defeated; but when they finally turned their backs upon "Mount Mildmay," as they determined ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Tory and a wise Whig, I believe, will agree[380]. Their principles are the same, though their modes of thinking are different. A high Tory makes government unintelligible: it is lost in the clouds. A violent Whig makes it impracticable: he is for allowing so much liberty to every man, that there is not power enough to govern any man. The prejudice of the Tory is for establishment; the prejudice of the Whig is for innovation. A Tory does not wish ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... enlarged the boundaries of science. With that my future is secured, and I shall return content and disposed to do all that you wish. Even then, if medicine had gained greater attraction for me, there would still be time to begin the practice of it. It seems to me there is nothing impracticable in this plan. I beg you to think of it, and to talk it over with papa and with my uncle at Lausanne . . .I am perfectly well and as happy as possible, for I feed in clover here on my favorite studies, ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... doctrine of a State veto upon the laws of the Union carries with it internal evidence of its impracticable absurdity, our constitutional history will also afford abundant proof that it would have been repudiated with indignation had it been proposed to form ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... have replaced by a strong iron bridge. Leaving the west end of that bridge, we look out of the rear car and send our final message to the Atlantic by the last stream which we shall find going thither. A stupendous, but not impracticable, system of grades next carries us over the axial water-shed of the continent, by the way of Bridger's Pass. One hundred and fifty miles of tortuous descent brings us to Green River,—the stream which farther down becomes the mysterious Colorado, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... be introduced. Those who are to be companions for life cannot as yet be allowed to see each other, as disorders might result from excess of freedom. Such liberty [Page 216] in social relations is impracticable "except in a highly refined and well-ordered state of society." The same or another writer proposes, by way of enlarging woman's world, that she shall not be confined to the house, but be allowed to circulate as freely as Western women but she must hide ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... It was impracticable to discuss anything seriously in the presence of Frau von Greifenstein, for her inopportune interruptions rendered ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... its former glory. The overthrow of the power of the rebellion, the utter exhaustion of all its resources, and the frightful derangement of its entire social economy, will leave the people of the South in a condition of helplessness which will render further resistance impracticable. An immediate resumption of hostilities will be effectually prevented by the military force which will necessarily be maintained for some time after the close of the final campaign of the war; and before the strength of the rebellious States can ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to discuss the morality of the subject, my good friend, neither do I question the truth of your argument, simply as you put it. I only say, that what you ask, is impracticable. You probably know not Dick o' the Grange, for you say you are a stranger—if you did, you would not put yourself to the trouble of getting even a petition for ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... every vessel can lie in perfect safety, be the sea outside the bar as stormy as it may; the only drawback is, that the entering of this harbour, a task of some difficulty in calm weather, becomes totally impracticable during a storm. A round tower stands as a protection on either side of the entrance to the harbour. The venerable church of St. John and the palace of the Komthur can be distinguished towering high above the ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... Academy at Woolich, and it had been decided to invite him to the chair of mathematics at the new university. It was considered desirable to have men of similar world-wide eminence in charge of the other departments in science. But this was found to be impracticable, and the policy adopted was to find young men whose reputation was yet to be made, and who would be the leading men of the future, instead of belonging ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... too! who have supposed that the excellencies of the Heroine are carried to an improbable, and even to an impracticable height, in this History. But the education of Clarissa from early childhood ought to be considered, as one of her very great advantages; as, indeed, the foundation of all her excellencies: And it is hoped, for the sake of the doctrine designed ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson
... heightened their complexions considerably. Not to be behind-hand in the bustle, Mr Quilp went to work with surprising vigour; hustling and driving the people about, like an evil spirit; setting Mrs Quilp upon all kinds of arduous and impracticable tasks; carrying great weights up and down, with no apparent effort; kicking the boy from the wharf, whenever he could get near him; and inflicting, with his loads, a great many sly bumps and blows on the shoulders of Mr Brass, as he stood upon the door-steps to answer all ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... are allowed freely to profess their opinions, the means of information, with respect to opinions, must, in a great measure, be wanting; and just inquiries into their truth be almost impracticable; and, by consequence, our natural right and duty to think and judge for ourselves, must be rendered almost nugatory, or be subverted, for want of materials whereon to employ our minds. A man by himself, without communication with other minds, can make no great progress ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... was impracticable simply to retire, the alternative course was to demonstrate; and Henry spent the greater part of 1492 in making the greatest possible display of preparation for war on a great scale—with a view to obtaining satisfying terms of peace. The one real piece of military ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... you really take a wrong, an impracticable view of affairs. Lord Montfort must be the best judge of what will ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... the customary chocolate we started blithely, in a light basket-carriage with a pair of fast-trotting ponies, that whisked us in less than two hours to the foot of the Pyrenees. Here we had to alight, the road up the mountain being impracticable for vehicles. A boy guide was in waiting to show us over the border by the smuggler's path—a wild short-cut through a labyrinth of brushwood. The guide was a remarkable youth in his way; he understood not a syllable ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... watered by his wells. This was the famous track from Beersheba to Hebron, where Hagar was abandoned with her baby Ishmael, and if the experiences of Hagar do not prove that the wilderness of Shur was altogether impracticable for women and children it does at least show that for a mixed multitude without trustworthy guides or reliable sources of supply, the country was not one to be ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... mental road pointed out by this finger-post of thought, I sat down and allowed my fancy to carry me into all manner of worthless and impracticable plans of rescue in which I could dispense with Brunow's aid. I was engaged in this unprofitable exercise, when I suddenly discerned a carriage near the hill-top. It came on with difficulty, and the two horses that drew it were dead blown when they reached the level, and stood trembling ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... of exceeding great value, but since his time twenty-five folios have been lost. When Planta compiled his catalogue he affixed a note to the effect that the manuscript was so burnt and contracted as to render the binding of it impracticable, and that it was preserved in a case. Later on it passed through the restoring hands ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... would daily continue to live in insolent impunity, was enough to give him convulsions of rage; he would foam at the mouth, gnash his teeth and, in that obtuse brain of his, concoct scheme upon scheme of vengeance, almost all of them impracticable, for he was chained to the spot ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... saw, would render our expedition impracticable, as Dacoma's band alone outnumbered us; and should we meet them in their mountain fastnesses, we should ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... changing his tone on the questions on which he had made himself offensive. To force the matter, the Pelhams had to resign expressly on the question whether he should be admitted or not, and it was only after all other arrangements had proved impracticable, that they were reinstated with the obnoxious politician as vice-treasurer of Ireland. This was in February 1746. In May of the same year he was promoted to the more important and lucrative office ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... and plasterers to put a room in the attic, but we lacked the money necessary for such a venture. And so we puzzled. At first we thought of curtains, but the high winds which visit us made curtains impracticable. Then we thought of tacking the curtains top and bottom, and from this the idea evolved. The carpenter whom we consulted proved to be amenable to suggestion and agreed to put us up a framework in a day. ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... Clemens's enthusiasm for the process, and his heavy losses in paying its way to ultimate failure. He was simultaneously absorbed in the perfection of a type-setting machine, which he was paying the inventor a salary to bring to a perfection so expensive that it was practically impracticable. We were both printers by trade, and I could take the same interest in this wonderful piece of mechanism that he could; and it was so truly wonderful that it did everything but walk and talk. Its ingenious creator was so bent upon realizing the highest ideal ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells |
