"Insurmountable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Tyrol and the lovely district known as the "Bavarian Highlands," there is a quaint little village called "Mittenwald," which at first sight appears shut in by lofty mountains as by some great and insurmountable barrier. The villagers are a simple, industrious people, chiefly occupied in the manufacture of stringed musical instruments, the drying of which, on fine days, presents a very droll appearance. The gardens seem ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... exceeded the total world supply of certain commodities, such as nitrate and tin, international commissions were formed in order to make an equitable distribution of these minerals and prevent favored strong nations from taking too large a proportion of the total. This procedure presented no insurmountable difficulties. A canvass of the total supplies available and of the demands of the various countries ordinarily led to voluntary compromise in the allocation of supplies. Most of the regulations of these commissions ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... surprise. The letter to Bagger, in which Miss Brandt, contrary to her better knowledge, spoke of him as married, may have been a sincere attempt to end the whole in a way which repentance and anxiety quickly seized upon to put an insurmountable hindrance before herself; but it may surely enough have had also the aim to see how far Bagger had gone and how much spirit and fancy he had to carry the intrigue out. The more one thinks upon it, the less one feels able to give either of the two interpretations absolute preference. Yet one will ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... he stood was the last of the ridges, for the elevation that lay directly across was a noble range of foothills, timbered, canyoned, apparently insurmountable for horses. Gray cliffs stood out of the green, crags of yellow rock mounted ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... the ingenuity of the plan, but I also see two insurmountable obstacles to it. The first is, I cannot add the excellences of his design to mine without knowing what those excellences are, which he will of course keep a secret. Second, it will not be easy to promote a coolness between such hot ones ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... but cheerfulness, nor was his gaiety clouded, even by this disappointment, though he was, in a short time, reduced to the lowest degree of distress, and often wanted both lodging and food. At this time he gave another instance of the insurmountable obstinacy of his spirit. His cloaths were worn out, and he received notice, that at a coffee-house some cloaths and linen were left for him. The person who sent them did not, we believe, inform him to whom he was to be obliged, that he might spare the perplexity of acknowledging ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... which they had preached to the more faint-hearted members of their party; and, Ernest Wilton was a thorough disciple of their creed, for he was not one to be daunted by obstacles, no matter how grievous and apparently insurmountable they were;—no, ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... suzerainty no real infringement of the independence which the Free State has so happily enjoyed. It is premature to speculate now on the best form which a scheme for South African Confederation may take. All that need here be pointed out is that the obstacles now perceived are not insurmountable obstacles, but such as may be overcome by a close study of the conditions of the problem, and by reasonable concessions on the part of South African statesmen in the different ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... insurmountable, and such as I knew not what to do in. I had such strong impressions on my mind about discovering myself to my brother, formerly my husband, that I could not withstand them; and the rather, because it ran constantly in my thoughts, ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... of his from Herat both agree that the difficulties and dangers of Afghanistan will be likely to prove insurmountable; at the same time promising any assistance they can render me in getting to India, consistent, of course, with Abbas Khan's duties as British Agent. It seems to be a pretty general opinion that Afghanistan will prove a stumbling-block in my path; ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... to become the rupture of the Union, and not the reorganization of the same has depended on more and more insurmountable oppositions in opinions concerning the manner and the aim for ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... rough ground to traverse, and considerable work to be done with ropes and tools, for the slippery edges of the highland path afforded scarce any foothold, and in some parts the difficulties appeared well-nigh insurmountable. But every fresh obstacle overcome added a new zest to our resolution, and, cheered by the reiterated cry of the two seers, "Courage, messieurs! Avanfons! The worst will soon be passed!" We pushed forward with right good will, and at length found ourselves on a broad rocky plateau. ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... question, not even of adjournment, till the House should be formed. But there was a general cry to adjourn, and the clerk declared the House adjourned. Mr. Adams went home and wrote in his Diary that (p. 292) the clerk's "two decisions form together an insurmountable objection to the transaction of any business, and an impossibility of organizing the House.... The most curious part of the case is, that his own election as clerk depends upon the exclusion of the New Jersey members." The next day was consumed in a fierce debate as ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... yell such as a Milton might imagine to rise from a conclave of the damned. "She asked to plead the cause of her sex; to demand the enfranchisement of the women of America—the only class of citizens not represented in the government, the only class without a vote, and their only disability, the insurmountable one of sex." As these last significant words, with more than significant accent and modulation, came from the lips of the knightly, the courtly Horatio, a bestial roar of laughter, swelling now into an almost Niagara chorus, now subsiding ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... mission. This confidence developed almost into sheer recklessness. There were some difficulties ahead, to be sure. I remained sane enough to recognize these, yet I had already conquered easily, what at first had appeared insurmountable, and, in consequence of this good luck, these others yet to be met, seemed far less serious. The same happy fortune which had opened the way for me to board the Namur must also intervene to aid me in solving future problems. Mine was the philosophy of a sailor, to whom peril ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... shifted the entire trend of the conversation from his parishioner to himself and found nothing insurmountable in his own problem, the good bishop would chuckle mischievously at finding his eminent self quite human after all, and would suggest their going in to find Mrs. Bishop, and having a cup of tea. These women, always restless and dissatisfied, were ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... on earth. And if destiny thus has enabled to lure her into the murderous angle that duty and death had formed, it was only because her soul, that was loftier far than the soul of the others, saw, stretching before it, the insurmountable barrier of duty—that her poor sister Ismene could not see, even when it was shown her. And, at that moment, as they both stood there on the threshold of the palace, the same voices spoke to them; Antigone listening only to the voice from above, wherefore ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... the one whose glance had awakened it in its might, she dared not even think. She knew not, as yet, in what light he would regard her. Notwithstanding the friendship and esteem manifested by the younger brother, she fully understood the insurmountable barrier which his pride had placed between himself and her. Would it exist in the mind of the elder brother also? Or would his keener insight, his superior perception discern her true position? Time ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... advance towards the river, but were still at least five miles from it when we became involved in low marshy ground, traversed by deep sluggish streams, the banks of which were encumbered by a dense vegetation. Such a country, though admirably adapted both for commerce and agriculture, offered almost insurmountable difficulties to first explorers, at least to such as were compelled to move rapidly. We at last became so completely entangled in a marsh that further progress was hopeless, and we halted to prepare breakfast whilst ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... colony commence its workings, and it is easy to comprehend how such intensely Protestant doctrines, remaining implanted in the breasts of the people who came to make Ireland their home, could not fail to oppose an insurmountable barrier to the fusion of the new and the old inhabitants, and impart a fearful reality to the theory of "Protestant ascendancy" and "Protestant liberty and right "—the liberty and right to oppress those of ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... as irregular a shape as the ingenuity of man could devise, and as well calculated to bid defiance to every attempt at applying machinery to the work of fashioning it. The difficulties, however, insurmountable as they would seem, have all been overcome, and every part of the stock is formed, and every perforation, groove, cavity, and socket is cut in it, by machines that do their work with such perfection as to awaken in all who witness ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... belligerent aspect and character of the country, may at first sight appear somewhat discouraging to the beneficent views and labors of the friends of peace; but these I am inclined to think are by no means to be considered as insurmountable barriers against the benevolent exertions of those Christian philanthropists whose sincere and hearty desire it is ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... in all its particulars. The obstacles which had to be overcome seemed insurmountable. There were walled cities to be taken, fortified mountain passes to be carried by storm, and frowning castles with cannon on the battlements to be assaulted by regiments whose valor and impetuosity were their ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... naturally fertile soil. Yet must it not be supposed that indifference to its possession prompts this contempt for the cultivation of land. There is probably no province so much enclosed, and where the mania for litigation in connection therewith is so rife as Servia. An insurmountable obstacle is thus thrown in the way of foreign enterprise, by the narrow-mindedness of ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... men have passed from the stage of action, who have not left in the history of their lives indelible marks of ambition or folly, which produced insurmountable reverses, and rendered the whole a mere caricature, that can be examined only with disgust and regret. Such pictures, however, are profitable, for "by others' faults wise men ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... was in the hands of those brutes, whom he, Armand, had regarded yesterday with insurmountable loathing! Jeanne was in prison—she was arrested—she would be tried, condemned, and ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... with the highest opinion of the doctor's learning and talents, had sufficient penetration to know, that, in the ways of the world, she was herself the better skilled of the two. For a moment she thought of Edward Walcott; but he was light and wild, and, which her delicacy made an insurmountable objection, there was an untold love between them. Her thoughts finally centred on Fanshawe. In his judgment, young and inexperienced though he was, she would have placed a firm trust; and his zeal, from whatever cause it arose, she ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... pensive; he uttered no complaints, made no petitions. He had come to the conclusion that both were useless; but his opinions and wishes were no longer frankly, boldly, iterated. He and his father stood upon different platforms, with an invisible, but an insurmountable barrier looming up between them. Count Tristan, albeit irritated, galled, grieved, could discover no mode of reestablishing the olden footing. After spending a month in Paris, he returned to Brittany, his mind filled with discomforting forebodings, to which ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... exercises of such a nature that no deviation from the established routine could be thought of was pernicious. But he showed that if any teacher had the temerity to turn from the traditional paths, the daring pioneer was likely to find insurmountable obstacles placed in the way of his advancement. The studies were "imprisoned" within the limits of a certain set of authors, and originality in thought or teaching was to be neither contemplated ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... the restoration of the true readings. On the contrary, instances of defective grammar, harsh elisions, strained metaphors, and incomplete expressions are multiplied. The difficulty of comprehending the sense is rather increased than diminished, and the obstacles to a translator become still more insurmountable than Wordsworth found them.[413] This being undoubtedly the case, the value of Guasti's edition for students of Michael Angelo is nevertheless inestimable. We read now for the first time what the greatest man of the sixteenth century actually wrote, and are able to enter, without ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... that a false step might be fatal in the brutal whirl of waters, which came rushing in from afar with dizzy speed and broke against the insurmountable obstacle, and in receding dashed against other waves which followed them. From this cause proceeded the perpetual fusillade of waters which rushed into the crevasse without ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... reach of European shipping, as they at one time thought. Some difficulty is experienced, I believe, in approaching Foo Chow, owing to the strength of the currents in the neighbourhood; but, as a seventy-four-gun ship has got over that difficulty, it is proved to be not an insurmountable one. ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... the dervish, who spoke like an honest man. My insurmountable desire of seeing at my will all the treasures in the world and perhaps of enjoying those treasures to the extent I coveted, had such an effect upon me, that I could not hearken to his remonstrances, nor be persuaded of what was however but too true, as to my ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... individuals in this world who seem bereft of all common sense. These are the people who set their eyes upon an objective and immediately all intelligence, logic, good advice, unsolvable problems, and insurmountable obstacles go completely by the boards. The characters we refer to are obviously just plain stupid. What they want to do, just can't be done. The objectives they have in mind are unachievable and anyone with an ounce of brains can tell them so and give them good reasons. They are usually pretty sad ...
— The Big Tomorrow • Paul Lohrman
... had operated by slow degrees, and softened the bodies of rocks at the same time that it bended them into shapes and positions inconsistent with their original formation, and often almost diametrically opposite to it; although there appeared to our author an insurmountable difficulty in ascribing those changes to the operation of subterranean fire, according to the idea ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... driven by the wind, for want of trees which might arrest them and so obtain their nourishment. Merely to plant trees in such a region would be carrying a gospel to it. Separated from the nearest town or city by a distance as insurmountable to poor folk as though a desert lay between them, with no means of reaching a market for their products (if they produced anything), close to an unexplored forest which supplied them with wood and the uncertain livelihood of poaching, the inhabitants often suffered ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... you have addressed me with candor, I will answer you in the same manner. I do love you; and, were I guided by my own heart in the matter, my reply to your honorable proposal would have been different. But there are insurmountable barriers to ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... there are, however, no insurmountable obstacles. Instead of a line of ordinary locks, a single structure was erected sufficient for the needs of the entire region. This lock is situated at Henrichenburg, near Dortmund, and our illustration pictures it with its lock-chamber ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... would have to write the mortuary poetry as well as to engrave it upon stone; and the notion was so pleasing that he made a desperate effort to get initiated into the art and mysteries of stone-cutting. But the obstacles were insurmountable, for Bill Manton wanted a premium of four pounds, which Clare's parents had no more means of raising than so many millions. There was another chance for learning a trade in the offer of one Jim Farrow, a hunchback, who proposed to teach John the art of cobbling gratis, the sole ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... in flight by this insurmountable break in the ledge, stood the object of the creature's attack—a girl cowering upon the narrow platform, her face buried in her arms, as though to shut out the sight of the frightful death ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... wanted was that we two should go forward together on the road towards freedom—always forward, and further forward! But there was that gloomy, insurmountable barrier between you ...
— Rosmerholm • Henrik Ibsen
... have endeavoured to repress, some of their insulting peals of laughter. He suffered no complaint or tear to escape him in public; but his book was sometimes blistered with the tears that fell when nobody saw them: what was worse than all the rest he found insurmountable difficulties, at every step, in his grammar. He was unwilling to apply to any of his more learned companions for explanations or assistance. He began to sink into despair of his own abilities, and to imagine that he must for ever remain, what indeed he was ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... day and night, in the black hole, is to inflict on the Marquesan torture inexpressible. Even his robberies are carried on in the plain daylight, under the open sky, with the stimulus of enterprise, and the countenance of an accomplice; his terror of the dark is still insurmountable; conceive, then, what he endures in his solitary dungeon; conceive how he longs to confess, become a full-fledged convict, and be allowed to sleep beside his comrades. While we were in Tai-o-hae a thief was under prevention. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... premises Saurin saw how this might be managed. There was a small back-yard into which the boys had access at any time; this was surrounded by a high wall with a chevaux de frise at the top, which might be considered insurmountable unless one were Jack Sheppard or the Count of Monte Christo. But there was a door at the bottom, seldom used, hardly ever, indeed, except when coals came in. Outside there was a cart track, and then open field. It was the simplest thing, a mere question of obtaining a key to this door, and he could ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... viewed her disclosure in connection with all these circumstances, I could not help feeling that there was at least a fearful verisimilitude in the allegations which she had made. Still I was not satisfied, nor nearly so; young minds have a reluctance almost insurmountable to believing upon any thing short of unquestionable proof, the existence of premeditated guilt in any one whom they have ever trusted; and in support of this feeling I was assured that if the assertion of Lord Glenfallen, which nothing in this woman's manner ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... then, as inconsistent as vice? and can the same character be thus high-souled, thus nobly disinterested with regard to riches, whose pride is so narrow and so insurmountable, with respect to ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... encouraging, how many of the greatest men have risen from the lowest rank, and triumphed over obstacles which might well have seemed insurmountable; nay, even obscurity itself may be a source of honor. The very doubts as to Homer's birthplace have contributed to this glory, seven cities as we all know laying ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... was in delirium, and I was never told what I said during my ravings. Nor can I express the feelings I was saturated with when at last I regained my mind again. Between my old emotions and any attempt to put them into words, or even to remember them, lies always that insurmountable wall of my Change. I cannot understand what I must have ...
— The Coming of the Ice • G. Peyton Wertenbaker
... that are more foreign and indifferent to him than the variations of temperature in Sirius or Aldebaran are to us. It really seems, when we consider our preconceived ideas, that there is not in the animal an organic and insurmountable inability to do what man's brain does, a total and irremediable absence of intellectual faculties, but rather a profound lethargy and torpor of those faculties. It lives in a sort of undisturbed stolidity, of nebulous slumber. As Dr. Ochorowicz very justly remarks, "its waking ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... insuperable by all who approved the secession of Kentucky, was her isolated position. Not only did the long hesitation of Virginia and Tennessee effectually abate the ardor and resolution of the Kentuckians who desired to unite their State to the Southern Confederacy, but while it lasted it was an insurmountable, physical barrier in the way of such an undertaking. With those States antagonistic to the Southern movement, it would have been madness for Kentucky to have attempted to join it. When at length, ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... the community is interested, that mode of trial will remain in its full force, as established in the State constitutions, untouched and unaffected by the plan of the convention; that it is in no case abolished3 by that plan; and that there are great if not insurmountable difficulties in the way of making any precise and proper provision for it in a Constitution for the United States. The best judges of the matter will be the least anxious for a constitutional establishment of the trial by jury in ...
— The Federalist Papers
... in the fields, more than a year before, but the memory of that meeting remained with him. At the back of all his plans for the future was the thought of her, and although he did not know it, he had made up his mind to win her as his wife. The difficulties seemed almost insurmountable. She belonged to a class far removed from his own, and he knew by the look on her face that she regarded him with anger, if not with contempt. To her he was an agitator of the worst kind, one who had broken the laws of his country, ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... in great uneasiness. All day the weather had threatened to turn to rain, and we have already said how rapidly the Taro could swell; the river, fordable to-day, might from tomorrow onwards prove an insurmountable obstacle; and possibly the delay had only been asked for with a view to putting the French army in a worse position. As a fact the night had scarcely come when a terrible storm arose, and so long as darkness lasted, great rumblings were heard in ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... accomplished successes as seen at the World's Fair give impulse to her efforts in every line. Assured of sympathy, encouragement is imparted to other women to take up science, teaching, the professions. Formerly almost insurmountable obstacles were encountered by women. To-day the open door to triumph, according to her ability, along almost every line is hers. In primary education, in all university training, in economic arts, in all sanitary studies, in philanthropic ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... when he had had indications of a confined locality, he had looked upon his work as well-nigh accomplished, and had come here with a heart full of high hopes. And now he was confronted by difficulties that appeared almost as insurmountable as before; for he plainly saw the hopelessness of attempting single-handed to delve the whole dell over. Robin would return before the task was more than begun. He would guess the import, would ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... few yards from the grotto. It was there she resolved to go for shelter. But to reach this path she must walk through the raging flood. She did not hesitate. Each moment of delay aggravated her peril, and might place some insurmountable barrier between her and her only chance of salvation. She lifted her skirts, fastened her child upon her back and bravely waded into ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... by a recent flood on top of the principal barrier. All this was found about fifty yards below the beginning of the most violent descent in Lodore Canyon. It would have been difficult enough without this last complication; the barrier seemed next to insurmountable, tired and handicapped with heavy boats as ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... for anything, and not to take it if it could be taken, was the part of a boy and not of a strong man. Moreover, although the social difficulties which lay in his way were an obstacle which would have seemed insurmountable to many, there were two considerations which gave Anastase some hope of ultimate success. In the first place Donna Faustina herself was not indifferent; and, secondly, Anastase was no longer the humble ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... very best consequences that could follow such a measure, even that both classes should generally exercise Christian feelings towards each other, which is very improbable, if not morally impossible, the peculiarly marked difference of features and color, will be always an insurmountable barrier to general amalgamation." Again, "Were they of the same color and features that we are, in an elective republican government like this, where talents and merit are the common footsteps to esteem and preferment, there would be no difficulty in universal emancipation, ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... June, the memorable day of his death, are not very full of interest. By this it is meant that the state of war in Virginia, together with the hopeless condition of the Confederacy and the demoralizing tendency of that condition upon the soldiery of the land, raised insurmountable barriers in the way of activity on his part. We find him mostly at home, save that he was much called to see the sick and preach ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... in the Italian species, Colobopsis truncata. Beautifully as the size of the jaws could be explained as due to the increased use made of them by the "soldiers," or the enlarged brain as due to the mental activities of the workers, the fact of the infertility of these forms is an insurmountable obstacle to accepting such an explanation. Neither jaws nor brain can have been evolved on ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... they passed along the vast prairies, the mountains lining the horizon, and the creeks, with their frothy, foaming streams. Sometimes a great herd of buffaloes, massing together in the distance, seemed like a moveable dam. These innumerable multitudes of ruminating beasts often form an insurmountable obstacle to the passage of the trains; thousands of them have been seen passing over the track for hours together, in compact ranks. The locomotive is then forced to stop and wait till the road is once ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... repetitions of the same or similar words. Another plan is to exhibit in chronological order, the entire text of the four gospels arranged in parallel columns, so far as two or more of them cover the same ground. The idea is very imposing, but the realization of it is beset with formidable if not insurmountable difficulties. It is certain that the evangelists do not always follow the exact order of time, and it is sometimes impossible to decide between the different arrangements of events in their records. In the four narratives ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... meant possible motherhood for her again. The tragedy of giving birth to a child—ah, she could not go through that a second time, at least under the same conditions. She could not bring herself to tell him about Vesta, but she must voice this insurmountable objection. ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... accompanied me to the National Assembly, there to exculpate myself from an imputation at which my nature revolts; and, from the manner in which it was received, I flatter myself that every honest Frenchman was fully satisfied that my religion will ever be an insurmountable barrier against my harbouring sentiments allied in the slightest degree to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... bare expanse save at a considerable loss. The infantry clung in a long fringe to the edge of the position, but for two hours no guns could be brought up to their support, as the steepness of the slope was insurmountable. It was all that the stormers could do to hold their ground, as they were enfiladed by a Vickers-Maxim, and exposed to showers of shrapnel as well as to an incessant rifle fire. Never were guns so welcome as those of the 82nd battery, brought by Major Connolly into the firing ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... first stone at him who have seen the right way gaping before their feet with a hundred pitfalls and barriers, apparently insurmountable, and have resolutely taken that road. For the devious path of Compromise has this merit—that the obstacles are round ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... we contend, is not the insurmountable obstacle to new ideas that many superficially ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... went away altogether, expressing by signs that they suspected the strangers of eating human flesh. Our officer endeavoured to free himself and his shipmates from this suspicion; but the want of language was an insurmountable obstacle to his undertaking, even supposing it possible to persuade a set of people, who had never seen a quadruped ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... was impossible to consult with the first of the King's servants respecting the object nearest to the King's heart. It was lamentable to think that religious prejudices should, at such a conjuncture, deprive the government of such valuable assistance. Perhaps those prejudices might not prove insurmountable. Then the deceiver whispered that, to his knowledge, Rochester had of late had some misgivings about the points in dispute between the Protestants and Catholics. [193] This was enough. The King eagerly caught at the hint. He began to flatter himself that he might at once escape from the disagreeable ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the comforter, readily. "Didn't we conquer one battery of cliffs that were said to be insurmountable, when we sailed in our dandy little monoplane up to the crown of Old Thunder Top, and snatched that silver cup for a prize? Make up your mind, my boy, that that was just meant to get us in practice for better things. The time's come ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... really a very nice woman, and were it not for the insurmountable feeling of spleen the sight of her garden produces on me, I would often go and see her. She has nothing in common with the mammas of Jonquille, Campanule or Touki: she is vastly their superior; and then I can see that she has been very good-looking and stylish. Her past life ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... same point. He was still before them, but his race was nearly run. Steep, slippery rocks, shelving down to the edges of a small, deep pool of water, the source of the stream, formed an apparently insurmountable barrier in that direction. Rooted—Heaven knows how!—in some reft or fissure of the rock, grew a wild ash, throwing out a few boughs over the solitary pool; this was all the support Luke could hope for, should he attempt to scale the ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... difficulties which beset the new plan. But it was possible that these difficulties might not prove insurmountable, whilst, if they pursued any other course, they must abandon all hopes of success. Besides, they did not hesitate to agree with Erik that it would be more glorious, in any case, to make the attempt, than to return to Stockholm and ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... my dear. But that is only the more reason for rising above all that. From the way some people speak of physical difficulties—I don't mean you, wife—you would think that they were not merely the inevitable which they are, but the insurmountable which they are not. That they are physical and not spiritual is not only a great consolation, but a strong argument for overcoming them. For all that is physical is put, or is in the process of being put, under the ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... that they were not in the place of vantage. The service she did to them was a greater service done to her country, by giving these quivering creatures of the baked land proof that a Christian Englishwoman could be companionable, tender, beneficently motherly with them, despite the reputed insurmountable barriers of alien race and religion. Sympathy was quick in her breast for all the diverse victims of mischance; a shade of it, that was not indulgence, but knowledge of the roots of evil, for malefactors and for the fool. Against the cruelty ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... this world more serious than to judge other people's problems in the light in which they appear to us. The problem which is nothing to one human being appears insurmountable to another. ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... negotiation was as speedy and satisfactory, as it has been and will be important in its consequences. M. Marbois truly observes, "the cession of Louisiana was a certain guarantee of the future greatness of the United States; and opposed an insurmountable obstacle to any design formed by the English of becoming predominant in America." In relation to the stipulations in the treaty, that the inhabitants should be incorporated in the Union, and, in due time, be admitted as a state, &c. ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... it was necessary to secure the consent of both the Burmese and Chinese governments—a task of almost insurmountable difficulty because of the natural dislike of these two powers to share with another the trade monopoly they had heretofore exclusively enjoyed. Then again there lies between the civilizations of India and China a broad tract of wild and mountainous ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... conditions the antagonism of economic and social interests results in relentless war among the social units, and creates an insurmountable obstacle in the way of ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... Dorset, there would probably have been little difficulty in his remaining poet-laureate, if he had recanted the errors of Popery. But the Catholic religion, and the consequent disqualifications, was an insurmountable obstacle to his holding that or any other office under government; and Dryden's adherence to it, with all the poverty, reproach, and even persecution which followed the profession, argued a deep and substantial conviction ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... opening unto them the gate of dreams? Your Dante, when he drew my likeness, forgot my attributes. When he gave me that useless tail, he did not see that I held the shepherd's staff of Osiris; that from Mercury I had inherited his caduceus. In vain have they thought to build up an insurmountable wall between the two worlds; I have wings to my heels, I have flown over. By a kindly rebellion of that slandered Spirit, of that ruthless monster, succour has been given to those who mourned; mothers, lovers, have found ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... conclusion that a thing must be done, and it is half finished already. You have only to make up your mind that you will accomplish a design in spite of obstacles, and what you once thought to be insurmountable difficulties will prove mere straws in your path. But we are wasting time; I've determined you shall do it, and I hope you now know me well enough to be convinced that it is your best policy to be as obliging ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... of getting proper testimonials, which I had looked upon as insurmountable, vanishes at once; the three clergymen that had opposed me with the most bitterness signed them; the Bishop of Lichfield countersigns them without the least objection; the lord of the manor, my great opposer, leaves the parish; and the Vicar, who ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen
... seems to me an insurmountable objection to the idea of absolute coalescence;—and that is the very slight resistance experienced by the heavenly bodies in their revolutions through space—a resistance now ascertained, it is true, to exist in some degree, but which is, nevertheless, so slight as to have ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... fate was certain. I was almost exhausted, and my heart sank as I searched in vain for a way up. The distance was not great now, a bare fifty feet separating me from the topmost pinnacle, but though I walked along the bottom of this barrier for some distance it still presented the same insurmountable difficulties. ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... soliloquized, as I wended my way homeward under the classic umbrage of venerable elms. "But surely this is no fault of mine.—Hold there! Are you quite sure it's no fault of yours? Are we not responsible to a much greater extent than we imagine for our physical condition? After making all abatement for insurmountable hereditary influences upon organization,—after granting to that remorseless law of genealogical transmission its proper weight,—after admitting the seemingly capricious facts of what the modern French physiologists call atavism, under which we are made drunkards or consumptives, lunatics ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... natural effect of their solitary and insulated state. From the North they were oppressed by nameless tribes of Barbarians, to whom they scarcely imparted the appellation of men. The language and religion of the more polished Arabs were an insurmountable bar to all social intercourse. The conquerors of Europe were their brethren in the Christian faith; but the speech of the Franks or Latins was unknown, their manners were rude, and they were rarely connected, in peace or war, with the successors of Heraclius. Alone in the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... acquires the habit of thinking, and even of speaking, while knitting a stocking, or sewing a seam. This habit is confirmed by constant practice; and then, the difficulty of getting off the habit is all but insurmountable. This difficulty will be best understood by the experience of those who have been during some time of their life compelled to abandon a habit after it was thoroughly confirmed;—or by those who will but try the difficulty of persevering ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... brought full before Zillah's mind one galling yet undeniable truth, which showed her an insurmountable obstacle in the way of her plan. To one utterly unaccustomed to control of any kind, the thought added fresh rage, and she now sought refuge in thinking how she could best encounter her new enemy, Lord Chetwynde, and what she might say to show how ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... even to look up. Then, having so begun with the dust, how do these ever come to raise their eyes to the hills? The keenest of us moral philosophers are but poor, mole-eyed creatures! One day, I trust, we shall laugh at many a difficulty that now seems insurmountable, but others will keep rising behind them. Lady Joan did not like ugly things, and so shrank from evil things. She was the less in danger from liberty, because of the disgust which certain tones and words of her father had ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... and learned book were put before you and you were set to read it through, you would perhaps, have no insurmountable difficulty, with patience and perseverance, in mastering ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... forget the adventure, probably because I thought, rightly or wrongly, that I had put an insurmountable barrier between the nun and myself, when, ten days after I had sent my letter, as I was coming out of the opera, I met my messenger, lantern in hand. I called him, and without taking off my mask I asked him whether he knew me. He looked at me, eyed me from head to foot, and finally ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... every man an insurmountable need to fall on his knees before no matter what idol, if it remains standing and allows itself to be adored. At certain hours, a prayerbell rings in the depth of the heart, the sound of which throws him upon his knees as it ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... on one bank with a tow-line over the shoulders stumbling over the rocks, forcing a way through the underbrush, slipping at times and falling into the water, wading often up to the knees and waist; and then, when an insurmountable bluff was encountered, it was into the canoe, out paddles, and a wild and losing dash across the current to the other bank, in paddles, over the side, and out tow-line again. It was exhausting work. Antonsen toiled like the giant he was, uncomplaining, persistent, but driven to his ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... a worthy woman, who should have gained for herself a husband who never deviated from a virtuous path as much as I; but the attachment formed was so strong that no misfortune seemed powerful enough to sever it. The barrier which seemed insurmountable, and which I had erected myself by early indiscretions and excesses, has given way, thanks to your superior medical knowledge and skillful treatment. Again I can hold up my head and say, "I am a man. I never fail to call the attention of my friends to your Institution as the best in the world, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... the Marquis de La Fayette in this city. This has been attended with a considerable, but a necessary delay. The principle that the King is the sole fountain of honor in this country opposed a barrier to our desires, which threatened to be insurmountable. No instance of a similar proposition from a foreign power, had occurred in their history. The admitting it in this case, is a singular proof of the King's friendly disposition towards the States of America, ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... dropped suddenly into a shallow trough; mounted to another field of crumbled stones; and rose unevenly to a barrier that he remembered with a pang of chagrin. This was what at the first glance would have appeared to be a solid and insurmountable wall of rock, perhaps fifteen feet in height, and stretching away to the very edge of the plateau at his right, and to a wilderness of granite on the left. But directly ahead of him the wall was cleft, and there ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... humble aid, was sent to the ladies, accompanied with an invitation to dinner. This invitation was accepted, but a difficulty arose, as we were without the walls, and the ladies were within, which appeared at first view to be an insurmountable obstacle to their visiting us; for, although we could pass into the prison, yet no prisoner within the walls could pass out, unless by a day-rule in term time, or the special permission of the marshal, which no one expected to obtain without giving sufficient security. I, nevertheless, determined ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... balancing the powers of the Federal and State authorities difficulties nearly insurmountable arose at the outset and subsequent collisions were deemed inevitable. Amid these it was scarcely believed possible that a scheme of government so complex in construction could remain uninjured. From time ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... to be believed—but to judge for yourselves of these truths from facts within the view and scrutiny of you all. Whatever may have been the origin of this war, which the United States was forced to undertake by insurmountable causes, we regard it as an evil. War is ever such to both belligerents, and the reason and justice of the case, if not known on both sides, are in dispute and claimed by each. You have proof of this truth as well as ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... largely due to the preponderance of rhymes on a or o which have proved an insurmountable obstacle for every translator. Even Longfellow failed. His rhymes of light, night, ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... amazement of all those who will one day consider them in cold blood, events are suddenly ascending the irresistible current and, for the first time since we have been in a position to observe it, the adverse will is encountering an unexpected and insurmountable resistance. If this resistance, as we can now no longer doubt, maintains itself victoriously to the end, there will never perhaps have been such a sudden change in the history of mankind; for man will have gained, over the will of earth or nature ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... was not only impossible for her to share his suffering; she realized, while she watched him, that she could not so much as comprehend it. Her limitations, of which she had never been acutely conscious until to-day, appeared suddenly insurmountable. Love, which had seemed to her to solve all problems and to smooth all difficulties, was helpless to enlighten her. It was not love—it was something else that she needed now, and of this something else she knew not even so much ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... you, poor fool." If she could but get that conviction firmly fixed in her mind, what mattered about the rest? She felt she had been childish and unwise the night before in giving herself over to despondency. She recapitulated the motives which no doubt explained Robert's reserve. They were not insurmountable; they would not hold if he really loved her; they could not hold against her own passion, which he must come to realize in time. She pictured him going to his business that morning. She even saw how he was dressed; how he walked down one ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... with the teaching of doctrine, and others with the reproof of prevailing sins; but when on the basis of these and other subordinate distinctions, you proceed to arrange them into separate classes, you are met and repelled by insurmountable difficulties. When Bauer, for example, has arranged them in three divisions, dogmatic, moral, and historic, he is compelled immediately to add another class called the mixed, as dogmatic-moral and dogmatic-historic, thereby proving that his ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... smooth and perpendicular that it would have been impossible even for a monkey to have climbed them—much less human beings, albeit one was a sailor and pretty well accustomed to saltatory feats! But, on their inspecting the apparently insurmountable breastwork a little closer, Fritz noticed, as the young Tristaner had pointed out to them, that, by the side of the gorge through which the waterfall made its erratic descent to the lower level, the face of the cliff was more strongly indented; so that, by using the tussock-grass, ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... recovery, and embarking on the same cycle over again without assistance at any point on the part of the observer. Great difficulties were encountered in realising these ideal requirements. They appeared, at first, to be insurmountable. But, with continuous toil and persistence, Dr. Bose succeeded in designing a long battery of supersensitive instruments and apparatus, which made the seeming impossible possible. His ingenious "Resonant and Oscillating ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... education. This does not prevent the introduction of social teaching or a proper attention to culture, but courses in manual training and domestic science usually cost more than most school boards are willing to meet. This is not an insurmountable obstacle, for cheap appliances are in the market and better school boards can be elected ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... particularly attentive to the dainty, sweet-faced girl whose charming manner and fresh beauty attracted them. But Gabrielle's heart was with Walter always. She loved him. Yes, she told herself so a dozen times each day. And yet was not the barrier between them insurmountable? Ah, if he only ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... difference of parts nor diversity of functions. No doubt, it is hard to decide, even in the organized world, what is individual and what is not. The difficulty is great, even in the animal kingdom; with plants it is almost insurmountable. This difficulty is, moreover, due to profound causes, on which we shall dwell later. We shall see that individuality admits of any number of degrees, and that it is not fully realized anywhere, ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... that even the natives of Vera Cruz, who are not attacked with typhus in their own town, sometimes sink under it during the epidemics of the Havannah and the United States. As the black vomit finds an insurmountable barrier at the Encero (four hundred and seventy-six toises high), on the declivity of the mountains of Mexico, in the direction of Xalapa, where oaks begin to appear, and the climate begins to be cool and pleasant, so the yellow fever scarcely ever passes ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... was that despite several attempts to institute a Register of Teachers and to organise a profession the difficulties seemed to be insurmountable. Between the years 1869 and 1899 several bills were introduced in Parliament with the object of setting up a Register of Teachers but all met with opposition and were abandoned. The Board of Education Act of 1899 gave powers for constituting by Order ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... by several bolts and a lock. The bolts were easily withdrawn, but the key was removed. I knew not where it was deposited. I thought I had reached the threshold of liberty, but here was an impediment that threatened to be insurmountable. ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... readily accessible, and only grow wild and savage towards the interior, the Armenian mountains repel by presenting their greatest difficulties and most barren aspect at once, seeming, with their rocky sides and snow-clad summits, to form an almost insurmountable obstacle to an invading host. Assyrian history bears traces of this difference; for while the mountain region to the east is gradually subdued and occupied by the people of the plain, that on the north continues to the last in a state of ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... privation for their country and their faith. The public dangers were great; for Russia was at the height of her power and prestige, and the Czar was known to have a determined will, not to be bent by difficulties which were not insurmountable. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... the insurmountable height before them, and hastened with Dante to inquire the way of a troop of souls coming towards them. As they talked, Dante recognized one, blond and smiling, with a gash over one eyebrow and another over his heart. It was Manfredi, King of Apulia and Sicily, who was ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... Allies (1712), The Barrier Treaty (1713), and The Public Spirit of the Whigs (1714). In 1713 he was made Dean of St. Patrick's, the last piece of patronage which he received. The steady dislike of Queen Anne had proved an insurmountable obstacle to his further advancement, and her death proved the ruin of the Tories. On the destruction of his hopes S. retired to Ireland, where he remained for the rest of his life a thoroughly embittered man. In 1713 he had begun his Journal to Stella, which sheds so strange a light upon ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... mouth, sometimes the shapely head. It was wrong; but this little sin was so sweet. She had never expected to see him again. He had come and gone, and she had thought that the beginning and the end. Ah, if only she were not a princess! If only some hand would sweep aside those insurmountable barriers called birth and policy! To be free, to be the mistress of one's heart, ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... changes, that we fear, be thus irresistible, what remains but to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... before the first interview in the following May. Mr. Browning's love for Miss Barrett found almost immediate expression and she was soon conscious of an equally strong love for him, but for a considerable time she persistently refused to marry him. To her mind the obstacles were almost insurmountable. Of these her ill-health was chief. She could not consent, she said, to dim the prosperities of his career by a union with her future, which she characterized as a precarious thing, a thing for making burdens out of—but not for his carrying. ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... many measures, contrary to my views, to my principles, and to my character!—while the best intentions were incapable of overcoming difficulties which a most powerful and decided will rendered almost insurmountable. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... be until all forms of slavery are banished from the earth. Philosophers, historians, poets, novelists, alike paint woman the victim ever of man's power and selfishness. And now all writers on Eastern civilization tell us, the one insurmountable obstacle to the improvement of society in those countries, is the ignorance and superstition of the women. Stronger than the trammels of custom and law, is her religion, which teaches that her condition is Heaven-ordained. As the most ignorant minds ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... this abuse or to remedy that defect; but not one has gone to the root of the evil, and has boldly stated that the whole system of education is based upon totally erroneous principles—designed, not to encourage progress and generate ideas, but to stifle development, and to place an insurmountable obstacle in the path ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... him, but he did not see, for he was watching the drifting rainbow beyond. Then a cry of rapture broke from him and he started eagerly toward the insurmountable crags that divided him from ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... has been planted, its divine origin is shown by its power of growth and expansion; and in a noble soul, apparently insurmountable difficulties and obstacles cannot arrest its development. The life and career of Jasmin amply illustrates this truth. Here was a young man born in the depths of poverty. In his early life he suffered the most cruel needs of existence. When he became a barber's ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... impossible wherever the flour came in competition with winter wheat flours. At Minneapolis, where the millers had an almost unlimited water power, and wheat at the lowest price, merchant milling was almost given up as impracticable. It was certainly unprofitable. To the apparently insurmountable obstacles in the way of milling spring wheat successfully, we may ascribe the progress of modern milling. Had it been as easy to raise good winter wheat in Wisconsin and Minnesota as in Pennsylvania and Ohio, or as easy to make white flour from spring ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... hero of one proclaims himself to be the son of the hero of the other. Wagner cast a loving glance at the older child of his brain when he quoted some of the "swan music" of "Lohengrin "in "Parsifal"; but he built an insurmountable wall between them when he forsook the sane and simple ideas which inspired him in writing "Lohengrin" for the complicated fabric of mediaeval Christianity and Buddhism which he strove to set forth in "Parsifal." In 1847 Wagner was ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... to ask for assistance has not been sufficiently explained, there is one more consideration which might alone have sufficed to account for her conduct. Between her and Greif's mother there existed a great and wholly insurmountable antipathy. She could not understand how Greifenstein could have married such a woman. There was a mystery about it which she had never fathomed. Greifenstein himself was a stern, silent man of military appearance, a mighty hunter ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... and waited. He counted again. There must be thousands of them. Peters began to edge his way through the reeds in the direction of the sound. After a while he came to a wall of rocks perpendicular and almost insurmountable. He paused and considered, licking his lips greedily as the thud, thud continued, now, apparently, directly in front of him. All at once his eyes, curiously sensitive to external impressions, discovered a little, secret trail between two boulders. ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... a sufficient examination of its evidence for a divine origin. He had terminated an examination of the controversy with the Deists to his own satisfaction, i.e. he felt convinced that their objections were not insurmountable, when he turned his attention to the consideration of the ancient, and obscure controversy between the Christians and the Jews. His curiosity was deeply interested to examine a subject in truth so little known, and to ascertain the causes, and the reasons, which had prevented ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... then usually prevailed, for the dark cloth tunic and surcoat of Hastings made a costume even simpler than the bright-coloured garb of the trader, with its broad trimmings of fur, and its aiglettes of elaborate lace. Between man and man, then, where was the visible, the mighty, the insurmountable difference in all that can charm the fancy and captivate the eye, which, as he gazed, Alwyn confessed to himself there existed between the two? Alas! how the distinctions least to be analyzed are ever the sternest! What lofty ease in that high-bred air; what histories of triumph seemed to speak ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a letter addressed to him by the traveling medical attendant of Lady Berrick. After resting in Paris, the patient had continued her homeward journey as far as Boulogne. In her suffering condition, she was liable to sudden fits of caprice. An insurmountable horror of the Channel passage had got possession of her; she positively refused to be taken on board the steamboat. In this difficulty, the lady who held the post of her "companion" had ventured on a suggestion. ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... Mind, I am afraid that there are insurmountable obstacles, but if it were possible it would be checkmate to our friend the Emperor, and he would have nothing left but to climb down. The trouble is that in the absence of any definite proof of an understanding between Russia and Germany, France could not break away ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... example for us, when He chooses some lives, and laying upon them, what seems to be a heavy burthen of sickness and infirmity, or filling them with a great modesty and retiringness of spirit, or shutting them up within very narrow and insurmountable barriers of circumstance, says to them, in a voice which it is impossible to misinterpret, "Serve Me in darkness and in silence; and let it be enough that I accept the faithfulness which is unknown of men." ...
— Beside the Still Waters - A Sermon • Charles Beard
... of treatises on poetry say upon this subject, concerning which, under the head of licentia poetica, they give some rather minute directions. But we think Mr. White's expression "radical changes" a little strong. The insurmountable difficulty, however, in the way of forming a decided judgment, is plain at the first glance. You have not, as Dr. Kitchener would say, caught your hare; you have no standard. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? How ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... a system of canals, partially in use, and the rest in building, which would open up a route to the Ohio River at Pittsburgh. But engineers had looked the ground over, and given it as their opinion that Baltimore was hedged in by insurmountable difficulties. Prophecies were made that soon ships would cease to come to Baltimore at all. And under this lowering commercial sky, Peter Cooper saw his Baltimore investments ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... was as little doubt as to his creed. Old Landgrave Philip of Hesse, grandfather of the young lady, was bitterly opposed to the match. "'Tis a papist," said he, "who goes to mass, and eats no meat on fast days." He had no great objection to his character, but insurmountable ones to his religion. "Old Count William," said he, "was an evangelical lord to his dying day. This man is a papist!" The marriage, then, was to be a mixed marriage. It is necessary, however, to beware of anachronisms ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... large and very natural group. The family distinctions or features are quite pronounced and unmistakable, and it is the determination of the genera which presents obstacles—serious, indeed, but not insurmountable. "By their fruits shall ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... nomads tends, under the growing pressure of population, to pass into the systematic, continuous, intensive use practised by the farmer, except where nature presents positive checks to the transition. The most obvious check consists in adverse conditions of climate and soil. Where agriculture meets insurmountable obstacles, like the intense cold of Arctic Siberia and Lapland, or the alkaline soils of Nevada and the Caspian Depression, or the inadequate rainfall of Mongolia and Central Arabia, the land can produce no ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... ready for receiving the attack. There was a doubt as to the direction the tree would take in falling. Should it topple over into the water, their labour would be lost, and the way would be open for the Matabili to reach them by a rush. Should it fall across the isthmus, it would form an insurmountable barrier to their enemies. In silence and with intense interest did the Makololo stand watching for the result. At length the tree began to move; slowly at first, but as they gazed upon its trembling top, they could see that it was going to come down in the ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... Church was really insurmountable at that time. Since those days most of the Protestant Churches have learnt that evangelistic work is just as essential as ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... been young once, and almost as popular a preacher as Mark, and he did not underrate the difficulties. But it was his firm persuasion that, with tact and common-sense they were by no means insurmountable. What really distressed the old man was that perhaps Mark had been right in thinking that he personally could not surmount them. And it was Canon Nicholls's doing that he was not by this time a novice in a Carthusian Monastery! Therefore the Canon's soul was heavy with anxiety as to whether he ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... talking to Norman, and judged favourably. He was much pleased at the prospect of the journey, and of seeing a ship, so as to have a clearer notion of the scene where Harry's life was to be spent, and though the charge of the arm was a drawback, he did not treat it as insurmountable. ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... summit of the wall showed capriciously irregular, rising in rude towers and jagged needles. At one point the outline appeared to be an enormous eagle silhouetted against the sky, just ready to take flight. Upon this side, at least, the precipice was insurmountable. ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... least twenty miles to the westward, and every foot of the ground apparently as good as that on which they were now at work; but we found here, that although the land was tolerable, there would be great, and I think an insurmountable difficulty, in attempting an extensive farm, chiefly for ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... air, exercise, rest,—so far as these are not taken simply and in obedience to the natural instinct, there arise physical stones in the way, stones that form themselves into an apparently insurmountable wall. There is a stile over that wall, however, if we will but open our eyes to see it. This stile, carefully climbed, will enable us to step over the few stones on the other side, and follow the physical ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... insect. insensato mad, senseless. insigne notable, great. insignia badge, insignia. insoportable insupportable. inspirar to inspire. instante m. instant. instintivo instinctive. instruir to instruct, educate. insultante insulting. insulto insult. insuperable insuperable, insurmountable. intenso intense. intento purpose, design; de —— on purpose. interes m. interest. interesante interesting. interior interior, internal. interlocutor m. speaker. interponer to interpose. interprete m. interpreter. interrogar to question. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon |
