"Incapable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... minds are subjectively or objectively educated to their mental limit. They cannot go beyond it. "The submerged tenth" exists because its mental limit is low—often close to the upper margins of feeble-mindedness—and because it is mentally incapable of rising to ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... its close he found himself possessed of an enviable reputation. To a certain extent, his wife was elated with his success; she was proud of his acknowledged talent; but her selfish nature was utterly incapable of the tenderness and sincere affection he demanded. Their alienation was complete. No bickerings disturbed the serene atmosphere of their home, because mutual indifference precluded the necessity. Mrs. Graham ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... called upon to speak in public he may sometimes make a very poor impression. I have known highly placed foreign officials, with deserved reputations for wisdom and ability, who were shockingly poor speakers at banquets. They would hesitate and almost stammer, and would prove quite incapable of expressing their thoughts in any sensible or intelligent manner. In this respect, personal observations have convinced me that Americans, as a rule, are better speakers than.... (I will not mention ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... all right." He fingered uncertainly a very flabby tobacco sack, grew suddenly reckless and made himself an exceedingly thin cigarette with the remaining crumbs of tobacco and what little he could glean from the pockets of the coat he was mending. Surely, the Pilgrim would remember his tobacco! Incapable as he was, he could scarcely forget that, after the extreme emphasis Charming Billy had laid upon the getting, and the penalties attached to ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... (good), for example, is, as we were saying, a compound of agastos (admirable) and thoos (swift). And probably thoos is made up of other elements, and these again of others. But if we take a word which is incapable of further resolution, then we shall be right in saying that we have at last reached a primary element, which need not ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... a law of humanity," he said, "a law of civilization that whenever a man or a race of men show themselves incapable of managing their own affairs, they must consent to be governed by those who are capable of performing the duty.... In accordance with this principle, I assert that the negro race, under all circumstances, at all times, and in all countries, ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... that we gather from this sole survivor of the Acrania are the more valuable for phylogenetic purposes, as paleontology, unfortunately, throws no light whatever on the origin of the Vertebrates. Their invertebrate ancestors were soft organisms without skeleton, and thus incapable of fossilisation, as is still the case with the lowest vertebrates—the Acrania and Cyclostoma. The same applies to the greater part of the Vermalia or worm-like animals, the various classes and orders ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... the bedroom, under various pretexts, Fanny grew utterly incapable to do more than sit and gaze stupidly at Therese, who busied herself in bringing the confusion of ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... their lives! Was it possible that they could have loved like that? No, no, they had lied, as they always did, they had lied to themselves: they had tried to idealize themselves.... Idealism! That meant that they were afraid of looking at life squarely, were incapable of seeing things like a man, as they are.—Everywhere the same timidity, the same lack of manly frankness. Everywhere the same chilly enthusiasm, the same pompous lying solemnity, in their patriotism, in their drinking, in their religion. The Trinklieder ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... and among other things the drowsy snail. Upon a log he drifted down many a day's journey, till the river, subsiding, left him and his log upon the banks of the River of Fish. He was left in the slime, and the hot sun beamed fiercely upon him till he became baked to the earth and found himself incapable of moving. Gradually he grew in size and stature, and his form experienced a new change, till at length what was once a snail creeping on the earth ripened into man, erect, tall, and stately. For a long time after his change to a human being he remained stupefied, not knowing what ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... us suppose that one of them has been released, and compelled suddenly to stand up, and turn his neck round and walk with open eyes towards the light; and let us suppose that he goes through all these actions with pain, and that the dazzling splendour renders him incapable of discerning those objects of which he used formerly to see the shadows. What answer should you expect him to make, if some one were to tell him that in those days he was watching foolish phantoms, but that now he is somewhat nearer to reality, and is turned towards things more real, and sees ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... for him it would have been wasted by the swords of the Germans. His power had afterward been absolute, but he had not abused it for party purposes. The Senate had no reason to complain of him. He had touched none of their privileges, incapable and dishonest as he knew them to be. His crime in their eyes had been his eminence. They had now shown themselves as cruel as they were worthless; and if public justice was disposed to make an end of them, he saw ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... practitioner' dared do. I've described him in another story. Some said he was a quack, and some said he wasn't. There are scores of wrecks and mysteries like him in the Bush. He drank fearfully, and 'on his own', but was seldom incapable of performing an operation. Experienced Bushmen preferred him three-quarters drunk: when perfectly sober he was apt to be a bit shaky. He was tall, gaunt, had a pointed black moustache, bushy eyebrows, and piercing black eyes. His movements were eccentric. He lived where he happened ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... Marshall plan aid have been able, through hard work, to expand their productive strength-in many cases, to levels higher than ever before in their history. Without this strength they would be completely incapable of defending themselves today. They are now ready to use this strength in helping to build a strong ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... law upon an incapable and merely real man, must ever be a vain and empty speculation. The laws of sympathy govern in this as they do in regard to men who are put at the head. We do not know, as yet, what qualifications the sheep insist on in a leader. With men who are too high intellectually, the mass have as little ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... had some difficulty in persuading Sir James to consent to ask a favour of the Archbishop. In his eyes, Cranmer was beyond the pale of decency; he had lived with two women, said the old man, whom he called his wives, although as a priest he was incapable of marriage; he had violated his consecration oath; he had blessed and annulled the frequent marriages of the King with equal readiness; he was a heretic confessed and open on numberless points ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... dependent. When it is conditioned by internal causes which are part of its own nature, it is free. No other freedom is known. An Indian would say that a man's nature is limited by Karma. Some minds are incapable of the higher forms of virtue and wisdom, just as some bodies are incapable of athletic feats. But within the limits of his own nature a human being is free. Indian theology is not much hampered by the mad doctrine that God has ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... justice to one among you who I find, much to my pain, has been an object of suspicion in connection with this same lost paper. Greenfield senior, I have no hesitation in saying, is perfectly clear of any such imputation as that you put upon him. I may say in his presence I believe him to be incapable of a fraudulent and mean act; and further than that, you boys will be interested to hear that the questions which he answered so brilliantly in that examination were not the questions which appeared on the lost paper at all, but an entirely ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... wrong: the presence of a man incapable of a falsehood, and that man devoted to her, was a little damaging to Severne, though not so much as Miss ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... finger-nails to-night; his hands are really bad, and, to my surprise, he shows signs of losing heart over it. He hasn't been cheerful since the accident."[321] "The party is not improving in condition, especially Evans, who is becoming rather dull and incapable." "Evans' nose is almost as bad as his fingers. He is ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... hind legs (including the tail) of a cold roast pig to his comrade; "and I must again express my regret that unavoidable circumstances have thrust your society upon me, and that necessity has compelled me to cultivate your acquaintance. Were it not that you are incapable of walking upon the water, I would order you, sir, out ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Those of the third class, who despise and deny the Divine precepts, not only remain natural, but also become sensual in the measure of their contempt and denial. Sensual men are the lowest natural men, who are incapable of thinking above the appearances and fallacies of the bodily senses. After death they ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... tingle to get to rubbing and smoothing out the aches there. And the reason for it is that friction makes active the nerves and blood vessels and exercises the tired or fretting muscles. Massage is exercise. If we were to cease using our arms the muscles would shrink and soon become incapable of movement. The skin outside would, of course, be affected by the general warpings of the tissues, and the result would be everything that is dreadful to the mind feminine—crow's feet, wrinkles, sallowness and lack of the tints and colors of health. You who have enjoyed the ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... and a "tip"; add to this two or three days and nights of revel in the grog-shop, which indicates the kind and quality of the recruits; in fact, very few could be obtained except among men more or less disqualified for civil and domestic life, incapable of spontaneous discipline and of steady labor, adventurers and outcasts, half-savage or half-blackguard, some of them sons of respectable parents thrown into the army in an angry fit, and others again, regular vagabonds ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... are able to take account of the physiological processes at a time when they are relatively simple—that is, before the nervous system has grown to maturity. For example, psychology used to hold that we have a "speech faculty," an inborn mental endowment which is incapable of further analysis; but support for the position is wanting when we turn to the brain of the infant. Not only do we fail to find the series of centres now known to be the "speech zone," but even those of them which we do find have not yet taken up this function, ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... the strongest links of society. It forms our manners, our opinions, our lives. Indeed, civilization is carried down from generation to generation, or handed over from a superior to an inferior, by means of imitation. A people devoid of imitation is incapable of progress or advancement, and must retrograde. If it remains stagnant, it must of necessity bring its own decay. The quality of imitation has been the grand preservative of the Negro in all lands. Indeed, the ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... actions than mortal nature could otherwise do. However, when it is freed from that weight which draws it down to the earth and is connected with it, it obtains its own proper place, and does then become a partaker of that blessed power, and those abilities, which are then every way incapable of being hindered in their operations. It continues invisible, indeed, to the eyes of men, as does God himself; for certainly it is not itself seen while it is in the body; for it is there after an invisible manner, and when it is freed from it, it is ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... Roman law, and by it helped to the conception of a higher law. But the Greek and the Roman civilisations had, each of them, corrupted its way, and yielded to the seductions of pride, sense, and material prosperity; and, as a consequence, both had become incapable of rendering full justice to much that is highest in Christianity. That which they lacked the 'Barbaric' race alone was capable of supplying. In its wanderings under darkened skies and amid pitiless climates it had preserved an innocence ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... decisive moment for clever manoeuvring. What a disaster if this big industry should fall into the hands of one so incapable as Theodore! What a misfortune if Casimir took charge! Neither side thought that a partnership could be possible, and the two cousins share alike. Each ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... before which they now stood. The skin-contracting chill of terror uplifted their hair. The mystery that enveloped the origin of the sounds gave them an unearthliness which froze the very fountains of their life, and rendered them incapable even of motion. They stared at each other with a ghastly observance, which descried no comfort, only like images of horror. 'Man's hand is not able to taste' how long they might have thus stood, nor 'his tongue to conceive' what the consequences ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... the savages. She has given us no protection whatever; and as allegiance and protection are reciprocal, we have a right on this principle to cast off her yoke. However, in my next I pledge myself to demonstrate that the Mexicans are wholly incapable of self-government, and that on that principle we are bound by the first law of nature—self-preservation—to dissolve all connexion, and take ...
— Texas • William H. Wharton
... cruelly tore his mother's heart and dashed her hopes by an unfeeling letter, in which he declared her incapable of being treated with, since she was a prisoner and deposed. The not unreasonable expectation, that his manhood might reverse the proceedings wrought in his name in his infancy, was frustrated. Mary could no longer believe ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... criminals. A number of different explanations have been offered to account for this disproportion. Thus, for instance, attention has been drawn to the fact that a girl's physical weakness renders her incapable of attempting violent assaults upon the person, and this would suffice to explain why it is that girls so rarely commit such crimes. In the case of offences for which bodily strength is less requisite, such as fraud, theft, &c., the number of youthful female offenders is proportionately larger, ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... have not hitherto been looked upon as attacks upon Revelation, but rather as corroborations of it. What the Editor believes as a Christian (if he is one is therefore another affair, nor does he reckon himself so infallible or incapable of alteration in his sentiments, as not at another time to adopt different ones upon more reflexion and better information; therefore, though he has at present little or no doubt of what he asserts (taken upon the principles laid down) he shall hold himself totally freed from any necessity ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner
... from a far country his mind, she perceived, often traveled to meet hers. "There was a door to which she found no key." But Katherine, happily, could respect the individuality even of her best beloved. Unlike the majority of her sex she was incapable of intrusion, and did not make affection an excuse for familiarity. Love, in her opinion, enjoins obligation of service, rather than confers rights of examination and direction. She had learned the condition in which his servants had found ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... never be able to walk again as perfectly as he did before, for it is the reputation of surgeons and physicians of this hospital, in dealing with cases of such extreme folly, that they so manipulate an operation as to render the patient incapable of complete recovery. ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... you ask, star voyager? Did you not also break free from the power of the disk when I led you by the underground ways, awaking in the river? Do you then rate this other one as less than your own breed that you think him incapable ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... 367. Paralytic limbs are in general only incapable of being stimulated into action by the power of the will; since the pulse continues to beat and the fluids to be absorbed in them; and it commonly happens, when paralytic people yawn and stretch themselves, (which is not a voluntary motion,) that the affected limb ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... and many Chinese, but also by Hsien-pi and Huns. These heterogeneous elements with their divergent cultures failed in the long run to hold together in this long but extremely narrow strip of territory, which was almost incapable of military defence. As early as 397 a group of Huns in the central section of the country made themselves independent, assuming the name of the "Northern Liang" (397-439). These Huns quickly conquered other parts of the "Later ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... Umfraville. I wrote you such a letter as would inevitably draw you to your death. I wished your death. For Honoria would then be freed of you. I would condole with her. She is readily comforted, impatient of sorrow, incapable of it, I dare say. She would have married me. . . . Why must I tell you this? Oh, I am Fate's buffoon! For I have won, I have won! and there is that in me which will not accept the ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... the scene, that the whole might afford a picture for romance. Indeed, if it were not for those fertile spots on the plains, and some few on the sides of the mountains, the whole country might be called a dreary waste. The mountains, and other high places, are, for the most part, incapable of cultivation, consisting chiefly of rocks, many of which are full of mundicks. The little soil that is upon them is scorched and burnt up with the sun; it is, nevertheless, coated with coarse grass and other plants, and here and there trees and shrubs. The country, in general, bore ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... harshly, as he faced the excited pair. "The Hunters don't have concerts," he said grimly. "You're deluding yourself, Dana. They laugh at our music, they scoff at our arts and twist them into obscene mockeries. They have no concept of beauty in their language. The Hunters are incapable ...
— The Link • Alan Edward Nourse
... job. Philosophy is said to console a man under disappointment, although Shakespeare asserts that it is no remedy for toothache; so Mr Easy turned philosopher, the very best profession a man can take up, when he is fit for nothing else; he must be a very incapable person indeed who cannot talk nonsense. For some time, Mr Easy could not decide upon what description his nonsense should consist of; at last he fixed upon the rights of man, equality, and all that; how every person was ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to-night on the Small Urban Holdings Bill, and point out how the wave of Continental Socialism is at last invading England with its devastating flood.' And the Duke, who was a complacent, thick-headed, obstinate old gentleman, congenitally incapable of looking at any question from any other point of view whatsoever except that of his own order, fell headlong passively into Lady Hilda's cruel little trap, and murmured to himself as he rolled down luxuriously ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... Bunker's Hill. But fighting behind earthworks is a very different matter to making long marches, and executing complicated manoeuvres under heavy fire. Without a trained staff and an efficient administration, an army is incapable of movement. Even with a well-organised commissariat it is a most difficult business to keep a marching column supplied with food and forage; and the problem of transport, unless a railway or a river be available, taxes ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... chambre du capitaine pour y prendre les fusils qui s'y trouvaient. Ceux qui seraient parvenus limer leurs fers devaient commencer l'attaque; mais, malgr le travail opinitre de plusieurs nuits, le plus grand nombre des esclaves tait encore incapable de prendre une part nergique l'action. Aussi trois noirs robustes avaient la charge de tuer l'homme qui portait dans sa poche la clef des fers, et d'aller aussitt dlivrer leurs ...
— Quatre contes de Prosper Mrime • F. C. L. Van Steenderen
... to humiliate you unnecessarily in the presence of my father," she said. "You have managed to deceive him into believing that you are what you claim to be. Mr. Bince has known from the start that you are incompetent and incapable of accomplishing the results father thinks you are accomplishing. Now that you know that I know you to be an impostor, what do you ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... purpose I have added some of it (with the necessary precautions against introducing foreign organisms) to very changeable liquids, such as veal broth, blood, and milk, and have found that there was no alteration. Such water, then, is incapable of transmitting the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... civilised societies a man may obtain the highest position and the most beautiful wife because he is rich and well-born, although he may be ugly, idle or improvident; and then it is he who will perpetuate the species. The wealthy man, ill constituted, incapable, sickly, enjoys his riches and establishes his stock under the protection of the laws." Haycraft in England and Jentsch in Germany have strongly emphasised these "anomalies," which nevertheless are the rule. That is to say that even from a Darwinian point of view all social ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... dine upon Dissertations, and go to bed supperless." The breakfast was indeed likely to prove the only substantial meal; how substantial it proved we have already noticed. No doubt Webster appeared to his friends, as half to himself, a restless, uneasy man, incapable of steady application to law, and making hazardous ventures in literature in that combined character of author and publisher which the circumstances of the time rendered almost necessary to any one who undertook to make ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... of clay that seemed utterly incapable of any expression whatever, save in the slight facial contortion consequent to the mechanical movement of his lower jaw—the skipper sat, with barometer in hand, eyeing the fatal finger that pointed to our doom: the rest of us were lashed to the legs of the centre-table, glad of any object ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... heart, and though, perhaps, he would have had no objection to try the fortune of the pistol or the sword, in any college broil or senseless riot of the populace, the circumstances under which he then stood were so new to him, that he was quite unmanned and incapable of ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... not, however, always favourable. They were sometimes the reverse. The new horse was unmanageable, the bullocks were weak and could not draw the carts, the servants were remiss or incapable, the roads were in some places shockingly bad, we were left for hours without tent and food, and, as I have said, the weather now and then was wet and stormy. We had sometimes an amount of trouble which made us half regret we had left home. Ladies are generally ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... construct for himself frightful idols of some kind, calculated to produce upon him a vague impression of their being alive; whose imaginary anger he might deprecate or avert with sacrifice, although incapable of conceiving in them any one attribute of exalted intellectual or ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... authority, put any prince under the ban of the empire; that confiscated territory should never be conferred upon any members of his own family, and that no successor to the imperial crown should be chosen during his lifetime, unless absence from Germany or the infirmities of age rendered him incapable of administering ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... unexpectedly gentle close of the sentence, 'is not wise.' How much stronger the assertion might have been! Look at the drunkard as he staggers along, scoffing at everything purer and higher than himself, and ready to fight with his own shadow, and incapable of self-control. He has made himself the ugly spectacle you see. Will ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... himself. The compliment was, I need hardly say, much appreciated by me. I was actually lifted up the steps of the house by his servants, for it was supposed that the legs of such a grand personage must indeed be incapable of bearing his body, and thus I was brought into his presence. As usual, he was most affable, and full of wit and fun. So great had been his anxiety to be down on canvas, that he had been quite unable to sleep. He could only wish for the daylight to come, which was to immortalise him, ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... thoughtfully, "Frederick is growing very old. Nothing remains of the former hero but a dotard, who is incapable of comprehending the ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... ship is ready!' so earnest were they to carry the flag of their beloved Admiral again into battle, and so sanguine in the expectation of victory, notwithstanding the disparity of force,—nearly two to one! This I could not consent to, as they would have been worn out and incapable of further exertion; but I directed that all hands should be employed during the day, and that they should work watch and watch during the night. They immediately commenced their various duties, with all the energy and zeal that could be expected from men under ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... into a design upon her, and even dared to make free with names that she ought never to mention but with reverence and gratitude; what would you say to that?—Say, sir! said she, I cannot tell what to say. But I hope Pamela incapable ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... perhaps—must come to break the monotony of that slowly unwinding chain of days, which was like a grotesquely dreary dream. To have flung himself heart and soul into his work not only demanded an effort of which he felt himself incapable, but it seemed to him that such an effort could only serve to identify him with this hideous life. So, with head bowed over interminable pages, he labored with patient indifference. On his left sat a clerk ten or fifteen years older than himself, a white-faced man, who ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... England, had left three sons, the eldest of whom, Constantine, had entered a monastery, while the two others were too young to reign. Drawn from his retirement to wear a crown, Constantine proved incapable to maintain order, so his general, Vortigern, with the aid of the Saxon leaders Hengist and Horsa, usurped his throne. Some time after, wishing to construct an impregnable fortress on Salisbury Plain, Vortigern sent for a host of masons, who were dismayed to see the work they had ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... Petrovitch, he was positively incapable of maintaining his firm demeanour any longer. 'If you could only realise what it is you are doing for your country. No; it's enough to try the patience of an angel! Force! There's force in the savage Kalmuck, in the Mongolian; but what ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... more disagreeable than a very stupid and ill-set old woman, who, quite unaware what her opinion is worth, expresses it with entire confidence upon many subjects of which she knows nothing whatever, and as to which she is wholly incapable of judging. And the self-satisfied and confident air with which she settles the most difficult questions, and pronounces unfavorable judgment upon people ten thousand times wiser and better than herself, is an insufferably irritating phenomenon. It is a singular fact, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... already a familiar knowledge of English, need help to write it with taste and exactness. Some degree of knowledge is presumed in the reader; nevertheless we do not presume that he possesses so much as to render him incapable of profiting from lessons. Our object is, if possible, not merely to interest, but to teach; to write lessons, not essays,—lessons that may perhaps prove interesting to some who have passed beyond the routine ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... answered, expected that the boy either would or could know all that he said he knew; but the world was full of compromises; and there was hardly any affirmation which would bear being interpreted literally. Human language was too gross a vehicle of thought—thought being incapable of absolute translation. He added, that as there can be no translation from one language into another which shall not scant the meaning somewhat, or enlarge upon it, so there is no language which can render thought ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... that you have not lost Montanelli. That noble mind is still spared to Italy. The Pope's heart is incapable of treason; but he has fallen short of the office ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the lion's cage is dangerous; you should not do it." Do so is the better expression, as a rule, for the word it is a pronoun, meaning a thing, or object, and therefore incapable of being done. Colloquially we may say do it, or do this, or do that, but in serious written discourse greater precision is desirable, and is better obtained, in most cases, by use ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... sufficiently acquainted with the mushroom literature of the day for all social purposes, and, partly from the authority which his wealth and position gave him, partly from his own dexterity, he contrived to turn conversation aside from those topics in the discussion of which he was incapable of mixing, and to promote that sort of half-serious, half-ludicrous talk, in which he was not only fitted to play a prominent part, but in which he exhibited a talent quite peculiar to himself. Never was there so great a master of what is called persiflage—of ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Bicker, who belonged to one of the most important among the ruling burgher-families of Amsterdam, brought to him enduring domestic happiness. It was likewise of no slight political value. Andries and Cornelis Bicker, who had headed the opposition to William II and had been declared by him in 1650 incapable of holding henceforth any municipal office, were her uncles; while her maternal uncle, Cornelis de Graeff, was a man of weight and influence both in his native town and in the Provincial Estates. ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... officers were so surprised at the suddenness of the incident and the overthrow of their companion, and for the moment so amused at the latter's appearance, covered as he was from head to foot with the sticky liquor and bleeding from a cut inflicted by the edge of the can, that they were incapable of interference. ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... are of most value when cooked, although some authors affirm to the contrary. It seems possible to prove this on philosophical principles; for it is well known that the starch contained in the potato is incapable of affording nourishment until the containing globules are broken, and one of the most efficient means of doing this seems to be ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... the recommendation of the Secretary for the extension of the homestead laws to the Indians and for some sort of Territorial government for the Indian Territory. A great majority of the Indians occupying this Territory are believed yet to be incapable of maintaining their rights against the more civilized and enlightened white man. Any Territorial form of government given them, therefore, should protect them in their homes and property for a period of at least twenty years, and before its final adoption ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant
... Spectator, Mr. Steele's papers are marked with the letter T. and in them are contained the most picturesque descriptions of low life, of which he was perfect matter. Humour was his talent, though not so much confined to that cast of writing to be incapable of painting very tender scenes; witness his Conscious Lovers, which never fails to draw tears; and in some of his Spectators he has written in so feeling a manner, that none can read ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... fair for me," he sang to himself, "what care I how fair she be?" But he did care; he could not master that passion. She had been vile to him, unfeminine, untrue, coarsely abusive; she had shown herself to be mercenary, incapable of true love, a scold, fickle, and cruel. But yet he loved her. There was a gallant feeling at his heart that no misfortune could conquer him,—but one; that misfortune had fallen upon him,—and he ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... had I landed in Liverpool, and twice had I reason to admire their conduct and liberality. They knew I was incapable of trying to introduce anything contraband, and they were aware that I never dreamed of turning to profit the specimens I had procured. They considered that I had left a comfortable home in quest of science; ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... wrath left him. What a touching and moral spectacle! Coqueville reconciled, the Mahes and the Floches sleeping together! With the last glass the deadliest enemies had embraced. Tupain and Fouasse lay there snoring, hand in hand, like brothers, incapable of coming to dispute a legacy. As to the Rouget household, it offered a still more amiable picture, Marie slept between Rouget and Brisemotte, as much as to say that henceforth they were to live ...
— The Fete At Coqueville - 1907 • Emile Zola
... social acquaintance must prejudice them in her favor, and perhaps render them incapable of unbiased judgment, should her evidence be incriminating. But in my secret heart, I confess, I felt glad of this. I was glad of anything that would keep even a shadow of suspicion away from this girl to whose fascinating charm I had already fallen ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... exception to that statement, uncharitable though it was; after all, someone whose only acquaintance with trees had been with the Terrestrial variety would naturally be incapable of appreciating the total tree ...
— The Venus Trap • Evelyn E. Smith
... the documents necessary to gain the cause which he was on the verge of losing. The author has often heard this story told by persons who had the best access to know the facts, who were not likely themselves to be deceived, and were certainly incapable of deception. He cannot therefore refuse to give it credit, however extraordinary the circumstances may appear. The circumstantial character of the information given in the dream, takes it out of the general class of impressions of the kind which are occasioned by the fortuitous ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various
... free soil, is incapable of sustaining a dense population. Slave labor calls for large spaces within which to multiply and prosper. The purchase of Louisiana and the acquisition of Florida met this agrarian necessity on the part of the South. ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... closed, and Cinq-Mars was borne in by De Thou and his people, while the Duc de Richelieu, motionless and stupefied, still regarded the spot where this scene had passed. He appeared thunder-struck, and incapable of seeing or hearing those who ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... naked and terrifying. With any other father, there might have been a chance of mercy. But there was none with this one. The malevolent old miser's nature had ever been at war with her own. From her birth, he had taunted her with being like her mother—a shallow, worthless, social creature, incapable of straight dealing and plain economy. From her childhood, she had deceived him, even in the matter of pennies. She had lied to him when she left home to elope with John Swinton; and it was only by threatening him with lawyers and a public scandal that ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... long time—perhaps even now—offerings were made to his departed spirit. An attempt was made to replace him by another American named Burgevine, who had been Ward's second in command. This man, however, was found to be incapable and was superceded; and in 1863 Major Gordon, R.E., was allowed by the British authorities to take over command of what was then an army of about five thousand men, and to act in co-operation with Tseng Kuo-fan and Li Hung-chang. Burgevine ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... of these immigrants are, therefore, incapable of understanding and appreciating our free institutions. They are not fit to vote intelligently, but are nevertheless quickly naturalized and form a very large per cent of our voting population, especially in our large cities. As a rule, they do not ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... papers," Hilda said, looking at him softly, as it were, through the film of the words. They sat down, he on the sofa, she on a chair very near it. There was another placed at a more usual distance, but she seemed incapable of taking the step or two toward it, away ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... "or else is ignorant of the fact, that the very object of the appointment of a guardian is because the law considers that a minor is incapable of acting for himself. He has no discretionary power in connection with his estate. He has no more right to go on the witness-stand and give voluntary hearsay evidence which shall be adverse to his own interests than he has to give away any part of his ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... are advanced in her effort to prove the inferior importance of form and metre in poesy. According to Mrs. Renshaw, the essence of all genuine poetry is a certain spontaneous and involuntary spiritual or psychological perception and expression; incapable of rendition in any prescribed structure, and utterly destroyed by subsequent correction or alteration of any kind. That is, the bard must respond unconsciously to the noble impulse furnished by a ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... other ancient Mystic Orders, much of which has never been printed, but which has passed down from teacher to pupil over the centuries even unto this day, among Occult Fraternities. But in order to show the student that we are not making statements incapable of proof by evidence available to him, we would refer him to any standard work of reference on the subject. For instance, if he will consult the "New International Encyclopedia" (Vol. VII, page 217) article on "Essenes," he will read the ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... thin by the numbers on either side who had yielded themselves vanquished, had been compelled to the extremity of the lists, or been otherwise rendered incapable of continuing the strife, the Templar and the Disinherited Knight at length encountered hand to hand, with all the fury that mortal animosity, joined to rivalry of honour, could inspire. Such was the address ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... upon which to act; the bewildered multitude, who are directed by nothing and have not yet learned to direct themselves, know not what guide to follow; and in the midst of so many contradictory ideas, and incapable of separating truth from falsehood, the least evil that can happen is, that they may determine to remain in their ignorance and stupidity. While information is still so sparingly disseminated, the license ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... fatalists, for I take the conception of necessity to have a logical, and not a physical foundation; not among materialists, for I am utterly incapable of conceiving the existence of matter if there is no mind in which to picture that existence; not among atheists, for the problem of the ultimate cause of existence is one which seems to me to be hopelessly out of reach of my poor powers. Of all the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... member of the royal family who may be incapable of governing, or who by his conduct may have forfeited his claim to the good-will of the nation, may be excluded from the succession by (p. 614) law. Disputes concerning rights or facts involved in the ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... truths on which it depends; there is no science of the coming and going of epidemics; no science of the breaking out and the cessation of wars; no science of popular likings and dislikings, or of the fashions. It is not that these subject-matters are themselves incapable of science, but that, under existing circumstances, we are incapable of subjecting them to it. And so, in like manner," says the philosopher in question, "without denying that in the matter of religion ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... rattled away from the station. The driver plied his whip freely, and soon left the business section of the city behind. As they sped along Washington Avenue, Edward endeavored to prepare himself for the worst, but he was incapable of calmness and reflection: his whole being rebelled against the supposition that he might ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... envisage them and he could see them only as they had stood. He groped amid a hopeless confusion of thought—at one moment bewildered, piteously hurt, at the next suffering a sense of shameful betrayal. He had grown old and dull and feeble, too, and for the time being he was incapable of feeling the full force of a strong man's resentment. This ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... Russell's Modern Europe. The late history by Miss Pardoe is one of the most interesting ever written. It may have too much gossip for what is called the "dignity of history;" but that fault, if fault it be, has been made by Macaulay also, and has been condemned, not unfrequently, by those most incapable of appreciating philosophical history. ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... to spend, From 'mongst the millions of our fallen race, Determined all such should behold his face In peace at last, in spite of Hell and sin. These would in time his Gospel Truth embrace, Or die incapable for Faith within. Thus did he view the triumphs of God's ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... you have taken, the feelings of humanity induce me to have recourse to this expedient to save you from the Destruction which hangs over you. Give me leave, Sir, to assure you that I am well acquainted with your situation. A great extent of works, in their nature incapable of defence, manned with a motley crew of sailors, the greatest part our friends; of citizens, who wish to see us within their walls, & a few of the worst troops who ever stiled themselves Soldiers. The impossibility of relief, and the certain prospect of wanting every ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... Catholicism. He lived in a state of profound indifference as to religion, and did not desire to come out of it. The rector was in despair. Not that Roubaud did any wrong; he never spoke against religion, and his duties were excuse enough for his absence from church; besides, he was incapable of trying to undermine the faith of others, and indeed behaved outwardly as the best of Catholics; he simply prohibited himself from thinking of a problem which he considered above the range of human thought. When the rector heard him say ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... has been observed, that it is degrading and untrue to describe the human species as incapable of receiving gratification only from comic scenes; that "there is a luxury in wo," independent of its purifying the bosom and suppressing the more ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... of of the Iroquois ownership of, in common severalty of Village Indians, rights in tenure of, among ancient Mexicans Languages, stock, number of great number of, among American aborigines verbal, incapable of permanence Lapham, J. A. Las Casas, B. de, cited Latin and Sabine gentes, coalescence of Lewis and Clark, cited Lintels of Pueblos of Mexico wood and stone Lolsel Long-House of the Iroquois described Onondaga described symbol ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... unerring clairvoyance that prompts devoted hearts in moments of danger, in crises demanding supernatural judgment? It is the very essence of much of our song and story, but the wise men do not grasp its origin; to them it is as elusive and incapable of isolation from its forms of manifestation as that phase of force we call electricity. An old gentleman whom I knew well, a learned man, far above all superstitions, arose from the sofa in his home one afternoon and announced to the startled family that his son was ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... replied the poet, "to suppose that one thing is not consistent with another; that the same proposition cannot be, at once, true and false; that the same number cannot be even and odd; that cogitation cannot be conferred on that which is created incapable of cogitation." ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... crazy to endure anything but the calmest sea and the most favourable winds. You have tried its sea-worthiness in one department, your military organisation, and you find that it literally falls to pieces. You are incapable of managing a line of operations extending only seven miles from its base. The next storm may attack your Colonial Administration. Will that stand any better? Altogether your machinery seems throughout out of gear. If ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... French writers estimate the total number of the Sioux at forty thousand. Mr. Riggs, in 1852, placed it at about twenty-five thousand. Lake many other Indian tribes, they seem practically incapable of civilization.] ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... speech showed, was that he was either deliberately parodying a style of scholastic reasoning with which he did not agree, or he was incapable of grasping the first conception of quantitative political thought. If the 'dogma' of universal suffrage means the assertion that all men who have votes are thereby made identical with each other in all ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... early morning disguised in an earthly fell, and the man who can resist his contagion is a sour, dour, miserable mistake, without bravery, without virtue, without music, with a cranky body and a shrivelled soul, and with eyes incapable of seeing the sunlight. ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... no other example of a genius so universal as Leonardo's, so creative, so incapable of self- contentment, so athirst for the infinite, so naturally refined, so far in advance of his own and subsequent ages. His pictures express incredible sensibility and mental power; they overflow with unexpressed ideas and emotions. Alongside of his portraits Michelangelo's personages ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... stricken, incapable of thought. Not that the event was unexpected. He had been reckoning on that; he had seen her steadily failing, and knew that she could not go on indefinitely under such privations. And yet, when it came, it was appalling. ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... Baudru. The latter was asleep on the bench, his head rolling from side to side, his mouth half-opened, and an incredible expression of stupidity on his blotched face. No, such an adversary was incapable of deceiving old Ganimard. It was a stroke ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... was part of his inheritance from that grandfather who had fought the Britishers in the wars of the Revolution. Possibly, too, he had heard as a boy, in his native Vermont village, tales of British perfidy in the recent war of 1812. At all events, he was utterly incapable of anything but bitter animosity toward Great Britain. This unreasoning prejudice blinded his judgment in matters of diplomacy, and vitiated his utterances ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... in the world by lecturing on literature at the University of Breslau, but had severed his connection with that institution because he was not allowed to branch out into history. Possibly those who opposed him were right and the two subjects are incapable of amalgamation. Freytag in this, his last great work, revels in the fulness of his knowledge of facts, but shows more of the thoroughness of the scholar than of the imagination of the poet. The novels become epitomes of the history ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... love of honor. The good man, who subordinates his own welfare to that of society, acts under the same necessity as the evil-doer; hence repentance and pangs of conscience, which increase the amount of pain in the world, but are incapable of effecting amendment, are useless and reprehensible: the criminal is an ill man, and must not be more harshly punished than the safety of society requires. Materialism humanizes and exercises a tranquilizing influence on the mind, as ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... answered Remsen. "Of course, there are boys, and men too, for that matter, who are incapable of occupying their minds with two distinct interests. That kind should leave athletics alone. And there are others who are naturally—I guess I mean-unnaturally—stupid, and who, should they attempt to sandwich football or baseball ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... morning; a request, which occasioned her so much agitation, that she was unable to answer it. She wished to see him, and to terminate her present state of suspense, yet shrunk from the interview, and, incapable of deciding for herself, she, at length, sent to beg a few moments' conversation with the Count in his library, where she delivered to him the note, and requested his advice. After reading it, he said, that, if she believed herself well enough to support the interview, his opinion ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... going to say something farther, but as if incapable of attending to her, he hastened out ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... the supreme command would have been intrusted to him. But it was decreed that, at this conjuncture, England should lose the only man who united perfect disinterestedness to eminent talents, the only man who, being capable of gaining the victory for her, was incapable of abusing ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that, although rude and ignorant, these men are not insensible to good impressions, or incapable of distinguishing between a kindly and paternal care of their well-doing, and the mercenary cold-blooded bargain which exacts the last scruple of flesh it has ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... feeling distinctly and vividly. Now I understand. These were flashes of Soul-Consciousness unfolded in a past life and struggling for "recognition" in this life. Such men face DEATH for themselves calmly. They know they can't die. Such men are incapable of sustained hatred. They too have their physiognomical signs and distinctions. They represent an advanced order of intellect. And, lastly, when the full blaze of realisation comes, your one object in life shall be to bestow your sense of ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... itself a great philosophical theory, which is every instant to be traced by its consequences in the practice of human affairs. Although man has many points of resemblance with the brute creation, one characteristic is peculiar to himself—he improves: they are incapable of improvement. Mankind could not fail to discover this difference from its earliest period. The idea of perfectibility is therefore as old as the world; equality did not give birth to it, although it has imparted to ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... do. I'll show you you are not always right, nor often right. Just because I surround myself with wrestlers and charioteers and gladiators and other good fellows, not with senile self-styled philosophers, prosy and with unkempt beards and rough cloaks, as my father did, half of you think I am incapable of being serious, or haven't intellect enough to understand government or sense enough to care ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... your house to-night! Do you think I would remain another hour beneath the roof of a man who is as blind to justice, as deaf to mercy, as incapable of human sympathy as ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... could the majority betray the traditions of American liberty? Where was its judgment, its reasoning capacity? That is just it, the majority cannot reason; it has no judgment. Lacking utterly in originality and moral courage, the majority has always placed its destiny in the hands of others. Incapable of standing responsibilities, it has followed its leaders even unto destruction. Dr. Stockman was right: "The most dangerous enemies of truth and justice in our midst are the compact majorities, the damned compact majority." Without ambition or initiative, the compact mass hates nothing ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... remember how I first came to know Gregory, but I was instrumental in once getting him a little legal work to do, since when he has shown a dangerous disposition to require similar services of me, and even to confide in me. I am quite incapable—not on principle, but from a sort of feeble courtesy—of rejecting such overtures. It does more harm than good, because I am unable to help him in any way; and the result of our talks is only to send him away disappointed ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... deliver up our whole country, and every living soul who inhabits it, to certain destruction; hath not, as I remember, been permitted by the most favourable casuists on the side of corruption. It were far better, that all who have had the misfortune to be born in this kingdom, should be rendered incapable of holding any employment whatsoever, above the degree of a constable, (according to the scheme and intention of a great minister[2] gone to his own place)than to live under the daily apprehension of a few false brethren among ourselves. Because, in the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... were acquainted with all languages, the courses of the stars, and all the rest, what is there in that to be proud of? A single demon knows more on these subjects than all the men in this world put together.[17] But there is one thing that the demon is incapable of, and which is the glory of man: to ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... the armies of the empire, whose discipline they acquired, and whose weakness they invaded: with the familiar use of the Latin tongue, they had learned to reverence the name and titles of Rome; and, though incapable of emulating, they were more inclined to admire, than to abolish, the arts and studies of a brighter period. In the transient possession of a rich and unresisting capital, the soldiers of Alaric and Genseric were stimulated by the passions of a victorious army; amidst the wanton ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... himself, showed he had a high esteem for them. The Duc de Rohan used to say that Louis XIII. was jealous of his own authority because he was ignorant of its full extent, for the Marechal d'Ancrel and M. de Luynes were mere dunces, incapable of informing him. Cardinal de Richelieu, who succeeded them, collected all the wicked designs and blunders of the two last centuries to serve his grand purpose. He laid them down as proper maxims for establishing the King's authority, and, fortune seconding ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... contrasted brothers we see what Minor[20] well enough calls the hot and cold passions. Karl is a hotspur whose emotions are always keyed up to the highest pitch; he is never calm and is incapable of sober reasoning. His boiling blood and his insensate ambition are his only oracles. We may say that his motives are lofty, but in trying to set the world right and make it conform to his perfervid dreams of justice and freedom, he becomes a madman and a criminal. Franz, on the other ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... mysterious relic of the Stone Age is disappointing and perplexing, we can only be thankful that the work of Farmer Green and Tom Robinson, the two despoilers mentioned by the earliest investigators, has been prevented in their descendants, and that though the circles are incapable of restoration, the few stones that remain will be ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... interior. The guacharo is of the size of the common fowl; its hooked bill is white, like that of the goat-sucker, and furnished at the base with stiff hairs, directed forwards. The plumage is of a sombre brownish grey, mixed with black stripes and large white spots. Their eyes are incapable of bearing the light of day, and their wings are disproportionately large, measuring no less than four and a-half feet from tip to tip. The birds quit the cavern only at nightfall, to feed on fruits. A most horrible noise is made by them in the dark recesses of ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... Hamann, himself a kind of Custom-house Clerk (at Konigsberg, in East Preussen), and on modest terms a Literary man of real merit and originality, who may be supposed to understand this subject: "And so," says Hamann, "the State has declared its own subjects incapable of managing its Finance system; and in this way has intrusted its heart, that is the purse of its subjects, to a company of Foreign Scoundrels, ignorant of everything relating to it!" ["Hamann to Jacobi" (see Preuss, iii. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... sur un petit pont et le prince aussitot le saisit et le fait culbuter a l'eau, d'ou l'abbe se tire non sans peine, et non sans colere, car il court sur le prince avec un fouet pour le corriger, declarant a qui veut l'entendre ce qu'il pense d'un prince incapable de tenir parole. Les practical jokers de ce genre n'etaient pas rares: le duc de Cumberland fit partager le meme sort a une jeune fille qui servait de dame ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... to be sold abroad. So high an act of dominion must be recognised by the law of the country where it is used. The power of a master over his slave has been extremely different in different countries. The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political.... It is so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law. Whatever inconveniences therefore may follow from a decision, I cannot ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... constitution is transmitted: an alpine plant transmits its alpine tendency to its offspring, an American plant its American-bog constitution, and animals, those peculiarities, on which{77} when placed out of their natural conditions they are incapable of breeding; and moreover they transmit every part of their constitution, their respiration, their pulse, their instinct, which are all suddenly modified, can it be wondered at that they are incapable ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... money in it; by legal matters of assignment and settlement, conveyance here and conveyance there, suspicion of unlawful preference of creditors in this direction, and of mysterious spiriting away of property in that; and as nobody on the face of the earth could be more incapable of explaining any single item in the heap of confusion than the debtor himself, nothing comprehensible could be made of his case. To question him in detail, and endeavour to reconcile his answers; to closet him with accountants and sharp practitioners, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... her shrink. Did a cruel and secret instinct in him rejoice? He was mad with rage and misery, and he was incapable of ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... clerk conducted himself so well in the service of the Cardinal, and gained such esteem, that his master had no small regret that his secretary was incapable of holding a living, for which he was exceedingly ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... all oriental races, the Affghans had best resisted the effeminacy of oriental usages, and in some respects we may say—of Mahometan institutions. Their strength lay in their manly character; their weakness in their inveterate disunion. But this, though quite incapable of permanent remedy under Mahometan ideas, could be suspended under the compression of a common warlike interest; and that had been splendidly put on record by the grandfather of Shah Soojah. It was not to be denied—that in the event of a martial prince arising, favourably ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... peace or a solid League of Nations as long as Russia continued to be a prey to anarchy. But even with the prizes and penalties before their eyes to entice and spur them, they proved unequal to the task of devising an intelligent policy. Fitful and incoherent, their efforts were either incapable of being realized or, when feasible, were mischievous. Thus, by degrees, they hardened the great ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... from the kingdom of fancy and fashion and foolery to the kingdom of reason and righteousness, then would I hope for the elevation of woman, aye, and of man too, as perhaps I have never yet hoped. What should be the parts and particulars of such dress, I am incapable of saying. Whilst the "Bloomer dress" is unspeakably better than the common dress, it nevertheless affords not half that freedom of the person which woman is entitled and bound to enjoy. I add, on this point, that however much ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... amiability of disposition; one could not imagine her behaving harshly or with conscious injustice. Her manners—within the recognised limits—were frank, spontaneous; she had for the most part a liberal tone in conversation, and was evidently quite incapable of bitter feeling on any everyday subject. Piers Otway bent before her with unfeigned reverence; she dazzled him, she delighted and confused his senses. As often as he dared look at her, his eye discovered some new elegance in her attitude, some marvel of delicate beauty in the details ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... saw-mill and grist-mill, and during the winter months picked up a meager education at the district school. He has said that it was the rude and imperfect mills of his father that first turned his attention to machinery. He was not fitted for hard work, however, as he was frail in constitution and incapable of bearing much fatigue. Moreover, he inherited a species of lameness which proved a great obstacle to any undertaking on his part, and gave him no little trouble all through life. At the age of eleven he went to live out on the farm ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr. |
