"Impossible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... impossible for him to control his voice or his words or even his thoughts just yet; he stood with his lean head turned partly from her, motionless as a rock, in the desperate grip of self-mastery, crushing the slender hands that alternately yielded and ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... 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
... be impossible to give a notion of the genial satire of the Croakers by extracts. The following, from the epistle to the Recorder, is unmatched ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... 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
... impossible at the present time to give an accurate account of American relations with Mexico during the decade preceding 1920. Mexico and Mexican affairs are but ill understood in the United States; and the purposes and acts of the chief figure in the most important events, ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... 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
... It is impossible to overestimate the value of all this work in industry. The Prime Minister, speaking last year on this subject, said, "It is a strange irony, but no small compensation, that the making of weapons of destruction should afford ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... 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 |
