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More "Impossible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that I object to, my dear; my business is so limited that it is impossible for us to live in any other than a plain, quiet way. The cost of a party would be ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... by the thought that the end of Corsica, and this impossible Casa Perucca, was in sight. She was gay as a little grey mouse may be gay at some domestic festival. She sent the widow to the cellar, and the occasion was duly celebrated in a bottle of Mattei ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... two words should perhaps be said in this place as to conformity to common religious belief in the education of children. Where the parents differ, the one being an unbeliever, the other a believer, it is almost impossible for anybody to lay down a general rule. The present writer certainly has no ambition to attempt the thorny task of compiling a manual for mixed marriages. It is perhaps enough to say that all would depend upon the nature of the beliefs which the religious person wished ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... Mrs. Cameron; "impossible. You know not what you say; know not, guess not, how sacred are the claims of Walter Melville to all that the orphan whom he has protected from her very birth can give him in return. She has no right to a preference for another: her heart ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... products, which was prepared under the direction of Mr. John H. Gordon, showed a number of trees from 5 to 7 feet in diameter, and a variety of over 40 woods found in the State. Owing to the great expense and disadvantage under which such a collection must necessarily be made, it was impossible to reach every section of the State and secure samples of the different woods, but this was done wherever it was found to be possible, and an effort was made to secure samples of all the ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... Sainte-Croix to be quite broken off, joyfully accepted. Offemont was exactly the place for a crime of this nature. In the middle of the forest of Aigue, three or four miles from Compiegne, it would be impossible to get efficient help before the rapid action of the poison had made ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... vary tactually according to the age, the sex, and the manners of the walker. It is impossible to mistake a child's patter for the tread of a grown person. The step of the young man, strong and free, differs from the heavy, sedate tread of the middle-aged, and from the step of the old man, whose feet drag along the floor, or beat it with slow, faltering accents. On a ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... main interest of the play had become political, when the lawless love had become of no account and the renunciation everything,—then it was surely an error to introduce Carlos in such a pitiful plight of soul that faith in him is next to impossible, and the next moment require us to accept him ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... thought that it was impossible that this churl, as he deemed him, would not be overjoyed to hear of the match he had made for him, and he must needs know it soon. Yet there was that about Havelok that puzzled him, for his ways were not those of a churl, and he spoke as ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... his own, sitting near me on some occasion of a trifling but wordy debate, asked me how I could sit in silence, hearing so much false reasoning, which a word should refute? I observed to him, that to refute indeed was easy, but to silence impossible; that in measures brought forward by myself, I took the laboring oar, as was incumbent on me; but that in general, I was willing to listen; that if every sound argument or objection was used by some one or other ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... impossible she should ever be queen of these people, or ever communicate to them amusing and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... that the feeling among the people against a third term would be stimulated by other aspirants to the Presidency, it was altogether impossible that they could cause the feeling. The interesting question at issue was whether the precedents of the Government should be discredited. The National Convention was to meet in June, but as early as February State Conventions were ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... dries the wood at a uniformly rapid rate by artificially heating it in inclosed rooms, has become a part of almost every woodworking industry, as without it the construction of the finished product would often be impossible. Nevertheless much unseasoned or imperfectly seasoned wood is used, as is evidenced by the frequent shrinkage and warping of the finished articles. This is explained to a certain extent by the fact that the manufacturer ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... that I pretend to know of this expression is that it is ironical, and may relate either to the head-dress of Paris, or to his archership. To translate it is impossible; to paraphrase it, in a passage of so much emotion, would be absurd. I have endeavored to supply its place by an appellation in point ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... briskly, "but not knowing where you were, or when you were coming back, my hands were absolutely tied. Now, Barry, LISTEN!" she broke off, not reassured by his expression, "and don't jump at the conclusion that it's impossible. What would ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... librarian. The fact is, Mr Jeffreys," continued Mr Rimbolt, noticing the look of surprised pleasure in his listener's face, "with my time so much occupied in parliamentary and other duties, I find it quite impossible to attend to the care of my books as I should wish. I made up my mind most reluctantly some time ago that I should have to entrust the duty to some one else, for it was always my pride that I knew where every book I had was to be found. ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... in Elizabethan days, is a nobler language than ever Latin was; but its virtue is in colour and tone, not in what may be called metallic or crystalline condensation. And it is impossible to translate the last line of this inscription in as few English words. Note in it first that the Bishop's friends and enemies are spoken of as in word, not act; because the swelling, or mocking, or flattering, words of men are indeed what the meek of the earth must know ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... asked what Hoplites he meant, for he did not know the name. "It was there," answered the Phocian, "that the enemy killed the first of us; the rivulet by the city is called Hoplites." On hearing which the Spartan shed tears and observed, how impossible it is for any man to avoid his appointed lot; Lysander, it appears, having received ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... come in. If it hadn't been so dark you'd have recognized the Nettie not far away." Code, remembering the time of night they arrived, knew this to be impossible, for it is dark at six in September. He had barely been able to make out the lines ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... well that our lives depended upon the way he might put the matter to the old chief, began to address him slowly. Gradually he grew more energetic and warm. While he was speaking a shot came flying close by us, carrying away the greater number of the oars on one side. Escape now seemed impossible. Again we urged our advice. The chief seemed unwilling ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... are the only beginning of an agricultural population, yet apparent, in New South Wales—show a disposition to nestle in any available corner there. But on the lower portion of the Wollombi, where the valley widens, and water becomes less abundant, the soil being sandy, I found it impossible to locate some veterans on small farms, which I had marked out for them, because it was known that in dry seasons, although each farm had frontage on the Wollombi Brook, very few ponds remained in ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... forgive me!—to try to shake his faith. The honest truth is, I did not want to be a Christian myself, and had resisted all the arguments I had heard; but I was helpless when dear friends told me that nothing was impossible to me that was being accomplished by a common ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... Innocent, pretty, child-like Rachel! who was it that had set himself, in his wickedness, deliberately to destroy her? Mr. Verner now deemed it more than likely that she had been the author of her own death. It was of course impossible to tell: but he dwelt on that part of the tragedy less than on the other. The one injury was uncertain; ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... it all out again?" he asked in surprise. Then I realized that I had written fifty-six instead of six. I was too far gone to reason now. I had a feeling that it was impossible to explain the thing. All the clerks had stopped writing to ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... various countries in black and white reproductions and very small outline pictures on squares of the same size as the stamps were taken as material. The figures were so small in relation to the board that any influence on composition of the lines composing them was impossible; the outline pictures, indeed, gave to the eye which abstracted from their content an impression scarcely stronger than ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... panic seized her. What if he should start to run again? She would surely be thrown this time, for her strength was almost gone. She must get down and in some way gain possession of the bridle. With the bridle she might perhaps hope to guide his movements, and make further wild riding impossible. ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... special feature article in the narrative form is to give it a story-like character that at once arouses interest. It is impossible in many instances to know from the introduction whether what follows is to be a short story or a special article. An element of suspense may even be injected into the narrative introduction to stimulate ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... down the remainder of the hill, through another thicket of pines, along the shore and out on to the lake. The ice was several feet thick and as solid as the land itself. Time and again both Phil and Jim stepped up in order to try a shot, but it was impossible to get one in without endangering the life of the plucky ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... a place among the greatest writers, without ever having written a book or even having thought of writing one—this is what seems impossible, and yet this is what happened to Mme. de Sevigne. Her contemporaries knew her as a woman distinguished for her esprit, frank, playful and sprightly humor, irreproachable conduct, loyalty to her friends, and as an idolizer of her ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... their talk that delighted me. I loved to hear of islands where the cocoa trees grew, and where parrots of every hue under heaven squealed and screamed in the tropic heat; where girls as graceful as goddesses and as yellow as guineas wore robes of flaming feathers and sang lullabies in soft, impossible tongues; lands of coral and ivory and all the glories of the earth, where life was full of golden possibilities and a world away from the drab respectability of a mercer's ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Hilda said. "She was going to you.... And then I came and told her your father was dead.... That made it all impossible, don't you see?... Because you knew why she had married you, and you would believe she came back to you because—you owned the mills and employed all those men.... That's what you WOULD have believed, ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... Father Beaver, "and Ermine fur is more valuable than our own. All sorts of traps will be set for him, for as his coat will be the same colour as the snow, it will be almost impossible for the fur hunters to take him in any ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... by those who do not object to the general spirit of these remarks, that, as it is impossible for the poet to produce upon all occasions language as exquisitely fitted for the passion as that which the real passion itself suggests, it is proper that he should consider himself as in the situation of a translator, who deems himself justified when he substitutes excellences ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... thought it was not likely that mother would forget us. And then she bade us take hold of her gown, one on each side, and she would try to take us to mother; and the next thing was mother came in sight. When the woman told her what we had said, they both laughed; and mother told us it was impossible that she should leave us behind. I asked Agnes afterwards why it was impossible; and she did not know; and I am sure she was as glad as I was to see mother come in sight. If she really never can forget us, what makes her ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... said that nine times out of ten the fall might be ventured without harm; and he spoke from experience, having himself got out of the castle in this manner. The place is now boarded up, so as to make egress difficult or impossible. ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... late in origin. By analogy, in a nature-religion such as was that of India, the practice of demonology, witchcraft, etc., must have been an early factor. But, while this is true, it is clearly impossible to postulate therefrom that the hymns recording all this array of cursing, deviltry, and witchcraft are themselves early. The further forward one advances into the labyrinth of Hindu religions the more superstitions, the more devils, demons, magic, witchcraft, and uncanny things generally, ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... processes of the nasal bones and resting on the ethmoid bone, are much shortened and terminate in a blunt, somewhat upturned point. In those skulls in which the nasal bones approach quite close to each other or are ossified together, it would be impossible for the ascending branches of the premaxillary to reach the ethmoid and frontal bones; hence we see that even the relative connection of the bones has been changed. Apparently in consequence of the branches of the premaxillary ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... might have been of great use to him; but he slighted and neglected them and they left him. He said to one of the Indians, "These savages may indeed be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia, but upon the king's regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible that they should make any impression." In the first engagement his force was routed in panic, and two-thirds of them were killed, by no more than 400 Indians and French together. This gave us the first suspicion that our exalted ideas ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Here, impossible romances, Indefinable sweet fancies, Cluster round; But they do not mar the sweetness Of this still ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... the next dance for you." Then she distributed words here and there and everywhere, amongst the circle about her—pretty Marquise with a vengeance! "No, Mr. Swift, I shall not make a card; you must come at the beginning of a dance if you want one. I cannot promise the next; it is quite impossible. No, I did not go as far north as Mackinac. How do you do, Mr. Burlingame?—Yes, quite an age;—no, not the next, I am afraid; nor the next;—I'm not keeping a card. Good evening, Mr. Baird. No, not the next. Oh, ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... it from the gods. For since the gods by their nature are pure and free from corruption, so far as men approach them by reason, so far do they cling to purity and to a love (habit) of purity. But since it is impossible that man's nature ([Greek: ousia]) can be altogether pure, being mixed (composed) of such materials, reason is applied, as far as it is possible, and reason endeavors to make human nature ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... and perfect military system in the world, and still may suffer defeat in any given while, because of those unseen things that pertain to the soul of another people, whereby powers and forces are engendered and materialised that make defeat for them impossible; and in the matter of big guns, it is well always to remember that no nation can build them so great that another nation may not build them still greater. National safety does not necessarily lie in that direction. Nor, on the other hand, ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... when finished, although it might do a good deal for you at the time, I am not sure that it would serve any good purpose in the end either, as it is full of many passions and prejudices, of which it has been impossible for me to keep clear:—I ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... youths discussed what was the best thing to do. It seemed advisable to return to the point from which they started, that is, near Beartown landing. There was not one chance in a hundred that they would find the Deerfoot there, but such a thing was not impossible. That which made this policy seem wise was the likelihood of again meeting Detective Calvert. The news of the attempted robbery of the Beartown post office would be telegraphed far and wide, and he would be sure to hear of it at Wiscasset. It would not take him and his ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... back. I'm transferring most of the funds of the Bank of Wardshaven out here; from now on, it'll be a branch of the Bank of Tanith. This is where the business is being done. It's getting impossible to do business at all in Wardshaven. What little business there is ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... clemency may be easily accounted for. It would be almost impossible to pitch on any one with the slightest pretensions to fill the vacated path. If you except Rosecrans, and perhaps Franklin, there is hardly a Division leader who has not, at one time or another, betrayed incapacity enough to disqualify him from ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... I started to visit General Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley. My purpose was to have him attack Early, or drive him out of the valley and destroy that source of supplies for Lee's army. I knew it was impossible for me to get orders through Washington to Sheridan to make a move, because they would be stopped there and such orders as Halleck's caution (and that of the Secretary of War) would suggest would be given instead, ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... was not till let loose from the leash that he rose into the true region of his strength; and though almost in proportion to that strength was, too frequently, his abuse of it, yet so magnificent are the very excesses of such energy, that it is impossible, even while ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... personal household of Jesus, Simon saw his Master's life in all its manifold phases, hearing the words he spoke whether in public on in private conversation, and witnessing every revealing of his character, disposition, and spirit. It is impossible to estimate the influence of all this on the life of Simon. He was continually seeing new things in Jesus, hearing new words from his lips, learning new lessons from his life. One cannot live in daily companionship with ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... regarded her for a rather lengthy interval, considering meanwhile, with an immeasurable content how utterly and entirely impossible it would ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... of corporation mortgages are similar to those on real estate such as is represented by dwelling-houses, the commercial conditions make it inconvenient or impossible to foreclose and sell such properties. To stop all business of a railway or to shut down the work of a manufacturing concern would not only result in injury to the public but would reduce largely the earning value of the property. To overcome this difficulty where an active concern ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... an active faith; I love to lose myself in a mystery, to pursue my reason to an O altitudo! I can answer all the objections of Satan and my rebellious reason with that odd resolution of Tertullian: "It is certain because it is impossible." ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... gravy, and, in my opinion, better in every respect than when it is dressed any other way. Excepting the fruit, they have no sauce but salt water, nor any knives but shells, with which they carve very dexterously, always cutting from them. It is impossible to describe the astonishment they expressed when they saw the gunner, who, while he kept the market, used to dine on shore, dress his pork and poultry by boiling them in a pot. Having, as I have before observed, no vessel that would bear the fire, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... any one mortal is a calamity to the whole world—by Pandora's lifting the lid of that miserable box, and by the fault of Epimetheus, too, in not preventing her, these Troubles have obtained a foothold among us, and do not seem very likely to be driven away in a hurry. For it was impossible, as you will easily guess, that the two children should keep the ugly swarm in their own little cottage. On the contrary, the first thing that they did was to fling open the doors and windows, in hopes of getting rid of them; and, sure enough, away flew the winged Troubles ...
— The Paradise of Children - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "Can't stand this; quite impossible!" said the Brownie, tightening his belt to make his poor little inside feel less empty. He had been asleep so long—about a week, I believe, as was his habit when there was nothing to do—-that he seemed ready to eat his own head, or his boots, or anything. "What's ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... POWER: with Thee nothing is impossible; [Luke 1:37] Thou art able to do abundantly above all that we ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump
... cannot yet quite make out why I was of it at all. But at every moment I was as sensible of my good fortune as of my ill desert. They were the men whom of all men living I most honored, and it seemed to be impossible that I at my age should be so perfectly fulfilling the dream of my life in their company. Often, the nights were very cold, and as I returned home from Craigie House to the carpenter's box on Sacramento Street, a mile or two away, I was as if ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of our individuality thrust us back within our limits, on the one hand, and thus lead us, on the other, to the unlimited. Only when we try to make these limits infinite are we launched into an impossible ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... plain; with such a face as his, 'Twas quite impossible to ever greet Good Mrs. Brown; nay, any party meet, Altho' 'twas such a parti-colored phiz! As for the public, fancy Sarcy Ned, The coachman, flying, dog-like, at his head, With "Ax your pardon, Sir, but if you please— Unless it comes too high— Vere ought a feller, now, to go to buy The t'other ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... looked hard. Was it, he seemed to be turning over in his mind, that she loved him a little in the depths of her heart? That was an irritating trait of feminine stupidity. But one intelligent glance at her calm face rendered that supposition impossible. She was merely largely human, with ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... anything more where we were, so further negotiations were deferred till later in the evening; and I, wishing to be conveniently near Bismarck, resolved to take up quarters in Donchery. On our way thither we were met by the Count's nephew, who assuring us that it would be impossible to find shelter there in the village, as all the houses were filled with wounded, Forsyth and I decided to continue on to Chevenge. On the other hand, Bismarck-Bohlen bore with him one great comfort—some excellent brandy. Offering the flask to his ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... brazen couple was already there, sitting in the best place. In this world of trouble there always, always was. The fact was disappointing enough, to say the least of it, but what made matters worse was that it was impossible merely to exclaim reprovingly, as one usually does, "Oh, there's somebody here!" and step back at once. Carlisle saw in the first glance that the girl in the best place was no other than her special friend ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... of Hortense after such speech was impossible. Without more mention of the court, we entered the Company's office, where sat the councillors in session around a long table. No one rose to welcome him who had brought such wealth on the Happy Return; and the reason was not far to seek. The post-chaise had arrived with Pierre Radisson's ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... "command of the army" in 1888, I determined to profit so far as possible by the unsatisfactory experience of Generals Scott, Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan—at least so far as to avoid further attempts to accomplish the impossible, which attempts have usually the result of accomplishing little or nothing. In fact, long study of the subject, at the instance of Generals Grant and Sherman, earnest efforts to champion their views, and knowledge of the causes of their ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... probably from not having been accustomed to their dress. Red, of course, makes them furious, and, thanks to his jacket, a drummer of one of the regiments was killed by these animals. Towards evening we felt it quite impossible to wade any further; and although nightfall is considered the best time for shooting ducks, we thought it was the best time to return to the boat, which we did not regain, fatigued, hungry, and covered with mud, till ten ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... into every unit in his army. Instead of making his reconnoissance at three in the afternoon of Monday, it might have been made at ten in the morning, and the battle could have been fought before night, if, indeed, Lee had not promptly retreated when support from Jackson would thus have become impossible. Or if McClellan had pushed boldly for the bridge at the mouth of the Antietam, nothing but a precipitate retreat by Lee could have prevented the interposition of the whole National army between the separated wings of the Confederates. The opportunity was still supremely favorable for ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... all day in the day-coach to Chicago, and Kedzie loved every cinder that flew into her gorgeous eyes. Now and then she slept curled up kittenwise on a seat, and the motion of the train lulled her as with angelic pinions. She dreamed impossible glories ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... influenced by reason alone. Sharply opposed to reason was that consciousness within him which told him that the hair had been freshly cut from a woman's head. He had no argument with which to drive home the logic of this belief even with himself, and yet he found it impossible not to accept that belief fully and unequivocally. There was, or HAD been, a woman with Bram—and as he thought of the length and beauty and rare texture of the silken strand in his pocket he could not repress a shudder at the possibilities ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... favour of a connection from the remotest period, with the remainder of the work. The composition of the Catalogue, whensoever it may have taken place, necessarily presumes its author's acquaintance with a previously existing Iliad. It were impossible otherwise to account for the harmony observable in the recurrence of so vast a number of proper names, most of them historically unimportant, and not a few altogether fictitious: or of so many geographical ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... the Lady of Honor, the others for that of Mrs. ——. The Emperor and Empress, greatly amused at the dispute, professed a strong desire to know the facts of the case; and the Emperor, declaring that it was clearly impossible to get at the truth in any other way, invited Mrs. M—— to settle the controversy by letting down her hair, and giving ocular demonstration of its being her own. The lady, whereupon, drew out the comb and the hairpins that held up her hair, and shook its ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... give me what will ruin him, and I will save you. And then, perhaps, you will not believe this either, for you love nothing; but I love the king, foolish and corrupted as he is, and I wish that he should reign tranquilly—which is impossible with the Mayennes and the genealogy of Nicolas David. Therefore, give me up the genealogy, and I promise to make your name and ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... people to follow still higher ideals, that they will set aside the lower for the higher, that they will not relegate idealism to the poets only, but that it will dwell in the public as the private heart and make impossible any nations' undertaking inconsistent with the dignity and beauty of life? To me it seems that here the task of teacher and writer is above all to present images and ideals of divine manhood to the people whose ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... the people perished also many foreigners, and not a few who had accompanied Antoninus were destroyed for want of identification. As the city was large and persons were being murdered all over it by night and by day, it was impossible to distinguish anybody, no matter how much one might wish it. They simply expired as chance directed and their bodies were straightway cast into deep trenches to keep the rest from being aware of the extent of the disaster.—That was the fate of the natives. The foreigners were ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... to give up their booty in payment of the dead man's debts. The captain's order to mount at once and ride for Doctor Livesey would have left my mother alone and unprotected, which was not to be thought of. Indeed, it seemed impossible for either of us to remain much longer in the house; the fall of coals in the kitchen grate, the very ticking of the clock, filled us with alarms. The neighbourhood, to our ears, seemed haunted by approaching footsteps; ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... It is impossible to ascertain the motive which determined Bacon to give to the supposed author the name of Valerius Terminus, or to his commentator, of whose annotations we have no remains, that of Hermes Stella. It may be conjectured that by the name Terminus ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... stretched out like a map the once great and beautiful city, now, alas! given over a prey to fire and sword. I could see smoke rising from many a heap of ruins that but a few short hours before had been a palace or a monument of art. It was impossible, however, to decide what buildings were actually burning, for a thick, misty rain had set in, which prevented my seeing distinctly. In my descent I passed the place where the body of Dombrowski was lying. He ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... West Diddlesex ruined?" says I, thinking of my poor mother's annuity. "Impossible! our business ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... two hours later when Rod and Wabigoon extinguished the candles and returned to their blankets. And for another hour after that the former found it impossible to sleep. He wondered where Mukoki was—wondered what he was doing, and how in his strange madness he found his way in ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... standard definition of "Gothic" in fiction soon came to include an element of strangeness added to terror. When the taste for the extreme Gothic declined, there ensued a period of modified romanticism, which demanded the unusual and occasionally the impossible. This influence persisted in the fiction of the greatest writers, until the coming of the realistic school (p. 367). We are now better prepared to understand the work of Charles Brockden Brown, the first great American writer of romance, and to pass ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... the evils of war, had made labor profitable, had changed the nature of savages, and elevated woman. The slave-trade was of course horrible and unjust, but the great advantages of the system more than outweighed a few attendant evils. Emancipation and deportation were alike impossible. Even if practicable, they would not be expedient measures, for they meant the loss to Virginia of one-third of her property. As for morality, it was not to be expected that the Negro should have the sensibilities ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... spectators. Each of the two parties was disposed to act in a revolutionary manner towards the other. An intermediate constitutional and conciliatory party tried to prevent the struggle, and to bring about an union, which was altogether impossible. Carnot was at its head: a few members of the younger council, directed by Thibaudeau, and a tolerably large number of the Ancients, seconded his projects of moderation. Carnot, who, at that period, was the director of the constitution, with Barthelemy, who was the director ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... "Impossible!" his father answered with a sigh. "It is so tied up in the will that she cannot sign it away herself until she comes of age. There is no way of touching it except by her ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the motives of this journey has been to acquire the pronunciation of that tongue. Besides that, the chalybeate waters of England were recommended as restoratives of my daughter's health. It is impossible, under these circumstances, to regard the journey of my daughter as emigration. I feel assured that the law is not applicable in this case. But the slightest doubt is sufficient to distress a father. I beg, therefore, fellow-citizens, that you will ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... became his pride and joy. But more and more he absorbed himself in his benefactions. It is impossible to tell all of them. Beginning with his gift of Oak Hill to Georgetown in 1849, in 1850 a loan to the Roman Catholic Church there which, like all of his loans, he eventually turned into gifts; in 1851 he gave an organ to the Lunatic Asylum in Staunton, Virginia, saying he knew of nothing better ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... near relations on the council, and however strong our suspicions may be, there is really no proof against him. I fear that he will go free. I feel as certain as ever that he is the contriver of the attempt; but the precautions he has taken seem to render it impossible to bring the crime home to him. However, it is no use talking about ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... admired by many young fellows, some of whom were certainly more akin to her than he was; and I have heard from one or two reports of encouraging words, and even something more than words, which she had vouchsafed to them. A solution is impossible. The affinities, repulsions, reasons in a nature like that of Miss Leroy's are so secret and so subtle, working towards such incalculable and not-to-be-predicted results, that to attempt to make a major and minor premiss and an inevitable ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... dreaded by Karl had come to pass. The elephant, finding it impossible to reach the shikaree with its trunk—and no doubt judging by the "feel" that the rock was not immobile—had at length dropped down on all fours and, placing its broad shoulder against it, backed by the enormous weight of its bulky body, had sent the ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... advancing farther, and made a secondary base of supplies. The railroad was finished up to that point, the intrenchments completed, storehouses provided for food, and the army got in readiness for a further advance. The rains, however, were falling in such torrents that it was impossible to move the army by the side roads which they would have to move upon in order to turn Johnston out ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... not store the least of one's personal or household gear without giving a hostage to storage, a pledge of allegiance impossible to break. No matter how few things one puts in, one never takes everything out; one puts more things in. Mrs. Forsyth went to the warehouse with Tata in the fall before they sailed for another winter in Paris, and added ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... It seems impossible to misunderstand the language of Christianity on this subject. Undeniably it affirms its right to exercise universal dominion. It takes cognisance of all human action, extends its scrutiny to motives and feelings, and allows no condition, employment ...
— The Religion of Politics • Ezra S. Gannett
... disobedience bordering on mutiny. They elected spokesmen to represent their grievances, like trade-unionists. They "answered back" to their officers in such large bodies, with such threatening anger, that it was impossible to give them "Field Punishment Number One," or any other number, especially as their battalion officers sympathized mainly with their point of view. They demanded demobilization according to their terms of service, which was for "the duration of the war." They ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... But if it be true, of course it remains difficult to obtain a clear view of other parts of the column than that in which we happen to find ourselves objectively conscious at any given period, and needless to say impossible to see it ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... seaward the fog shut down on them, and one boat, manned by three men, never reached the schooners. They blew horns all night, standing off and on, and crept along the smoking beach next day, though the surf made landing impossible. Then a sudden gale drove them off the shore, and, as it was evident that their comrades must have perished, they reluctantly sailed for other fishing grounds. As one result of this, Wyllard broke with his prosperous relative when he came ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... 90 was officially condemned by the authorities at Oxford, and in the hubbub that followed, the contending parties closed their ranks; henceforward, any compromise between the friends and the enemies of the Movement was impossible. Archdeacon Manning was in too conspicuous a position to be able to remain silent; he was obliged to declare himself, and he did not hesitate. In an archidiaconal charge, delivered within a few months of his appointment, he firmly ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... in summer sometimes, but one needs a staff of servants to keep them up. Besides in winter it is impossible ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... about leaving home, and seeking my fortune; but I have not mentioned going to California, because I thought it impossible to raise ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... driven a tunnel from there right up into the castle, for you see there are fifty feet of perpendicular rock above that turret. In case of attack, of course, they would cut away the bridge, and it would be next to impossible to throw another across. They could overwhelm any force attempting it with stones from above, besides sweeping ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... and at last the apostle of a new church, which was propagated by the abilities of his disciple Eunomius. Armed with texts of Scripture, and with captious syllogisms from the logic of Aristotle, the subtle AEtius had acquired the fame of an invincible disputant, whom it was impossible either to silence or to convince. Such talents engaged the friendship of the Arian bishops, till they were forced to renounce, and even to persecute, a dangerous ally, who, by the accuracy of his reasoning, had prejudiced ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... ministerial spouse appeared between him and the book, and gently withdrew it, he saw that his reading was an offence in her eyes, and contented himself thereafter with thinking: listening to the absolutely unintelligible he found impossible. What a delight it would have been to the boy to hear Christ preached such as he showed himself, such as in no small measure he had learned him—instead of such as Mr. Sclater saw him reflected from the tenth or twentieth distorting mirror! They who speak against the Son ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... or any other maneuver calculated to diminish the confidence of the adversary. Each of these things may, in a particular case, be the cause of victory. To define the cases in which each should be preferred is simply impossible. ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... it—can you believe it? I find it hard to believe it myself. And Sara found it impossible; for the first few moments she thought something strange had happened to her eyes—to her mind—that the dream had come before she had had time to ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... while stunned. What did it mean? His thousand pounds could not be lost. It was impossible. There was some mistake. It was an evil dream. With a heavy weight on the top of his head, he went out of the Credit Lyonnais and mechanically crossed the little street separating the Bank from the cafe on the Place Carnot. There he sat stupidly and wondered. The waiter ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... and Boulogne. They reported on the French preparations, but, writes Charles on July 22, 'I am not in their secret.' He corresponded with the Duc de Choiseul and the Marechal de Belleisle, but they confined themselves to general assurances of friendship. 'It is impossible for the Duc de Choiseul to tell you the King's secret, as you would not tell him yours,' wrote an anonymous correspondent, apparently ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... sometimes asked herself in complete bewilderment. "Only so could I be completely happy; but now I have to choose, and I can't be happy without either of them. Only," she thought, "to tell Prince Andrew what has happened or to hide it from him are both equally impossible. But with that one nothing is spoiled. But am I really to abandon forever the joy of Prince Andrew's love, in which ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... out the admirable adaptation of the colours of the woodcock to its protection. The various browns and yellows and pale ash-colour that occur on fallen leaves are all reproduced in its plumage, so that when according to its habit it rests upon the ground under trees, it is almost impossible to detect it. In snipes the colours are modified so as to be equally in harmony with the prevalent forms and colours of marshy vegetation. Mr. J. M. Lester, in a paper read before the Rugby School Natural History Society observes:—"The wood-dove, when perched amongst the branches of its favourite ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... where the impossible sometimes happens," he answered, lightly, "the land where one dreams in the evening, and is never sure when one wakes in the morning that one's dreams have not ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the emphasis on the "tenderly" made it impossible for him to mistake the Dictator's meaning, which was just as he desired it. As he passed out of the presence, and from the room, his countenance was lit up, or rather darkened, by an expression of fiendish triumph. ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... history I have had to deal with a mass of confused and contradictory testimony, which it has sometimes been quite impossible to reconcile, the difficulty being greatly enhanced by the calculated mendacity of James and some others of the earlier writers, both American and British. Often I have had simply to balance probabilities, ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... it not from a kind of rough notion that God wants his assistance, and that he can give it—less on his own account than by prosecuting other—or if it is mixed up with anything of a partisan or political nature. Then it is impossible that anything can be more foreign from one's notions of what is high-minded, religious and noble. Indeed, I must say it strikes me that anyone who would do that, not for the honor of God, but for his own purposes, is entitled to the ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... said to have married M. Roland more as a theory than as a husband, for her ideas of marriage were such as to make pure, disinterested love impossible. Her husband was in many respects her intellectual superior, but she excelled him in versatility. Being her senior by twenty years, when he grew old and infirm he depended upon her for a great deal, all of which contributed to her restlessness ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... whose atrocious violation of social duty had, from every tribunal, human and divine, merited the severest vengeance." Having inquired of Godwin, the divine who attended him, whether a person who had once been in a state of grace could afterward be damned, and being assured it was impossible, he said, "Then I am safe, for I am sure that I was once in a state of grace." Richard Cromwell continued to reside in Whitehall till his resignation of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... have anything like company in August?" said Madame Strahlberg, interrupting her; "why, it would be impossible, there are not four cats in Paris. No, no, we sha'n't have anybody. A few friends possibly may drop in—people passing through Paris—in their travelling-dresses. Nothing that need alarm you. The pantomime Colette talks ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... certainly did not use to be stupid, and till you give me more substantial proof that you are so, I shall not believe it. As for your temperate diet and milk bringing about such a metamorphosis, I hold it impossible. I have such lamentable proofs every day before my eyes of the stupefying qualities of beef, ale, and wine, that I have contracted a most religious veneration for your spiritual nouriture. Only imagine that I here every day see men, who are mountains of roast beef, and only ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... his huge red hands in the intensity of his surprise, while his jaw fell in unison at so startling and almost incredible a piece of intelligence. "Nevitt knows all!" he exclaimed, half incredulous. "He means to ruin us! And he told this to Gwendoline! Gone down to Mambury! Oh no, Minnie, impossible! You must have made some mistake. What did she say exactly? Did ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... girl whom you had condemned to slavery. It did not seem possible that we should do it, but between sunset and sunrise we have done it. Who helped us then?—that we should have carried out this thing which was impossible. I will tell you; God helped us as He helped this lady when she called on Him. Cry to God, then, to do that which is still more impossible—to help you. From me you will have justice ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... some little time looking at the coffin after it was lowered, and the clergyman slipped away, unobserved even by his dog. An hour after, as he sat at dinner with his friends, his sexton requested to speak with him. He was admitted into the room, when he said it was impossible to close the grave, and that he did not know what to do. "Why?" asked the gentleman, "Because Sir, your terrier stands there, and flies so fiercely at us whenever we attempt to throw a spade full in, that we dare not go on." One of the house servants was sent ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren: for with God nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... pictorial, to ordinary mortals the strangest and the most remote, were to Hood innate and spontaneous. They came not from the outward,—they were born of the inward. They were purely subjective, the sportive pranks of Hood's own ME, when that ME was in its queerest moods. How naturally the impossible or the absurd took the semblance of consistency in the mental associations of Hood, we observe even in his private correspondence. "Jane," (Mrs. Hood,) he writes, "is now drinking porter,—at which I look ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... to go driving with Tilloughby, but it was not an actual promise, and if it were she was quite willing to get out of it, if Mr. Turner wanted her to go along, although she did not say so. Young Tilloughby was notoriously an impossible match. But possibly Mr. Tilloughby and Miss Hastings might care to join the party. ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... It was simply impossible for him to imagine that he was pulling in fish, or having any other kind of fun, while he was sawing wood, ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... fire; but more and more time he spent in his torpor, unaware of what was day-dream and what was sleep-dream in the content of his unconsciousness. And here, in the unforgetable crypts of man's unwritten history, unthinkable and unrealizable, like passages of nightmare or impossible adventures of lunacy, he encountered the monsters created of man's first morality that ever since have vexed him into the spinning of fantasies to elude them or ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... standard Cope set out from Edinburgh for Stirling and the next day commenced his march at the head of fifteen hundred infantry, leaving the dragoons behind him, as these could be of but little service among the mountains, where they would have found it next to impossible to obtain forage for their horses. He took with him a large quantity of baggage, a drove of black cattle for food, and a thousand stand of arms to distribute among the volunteers who he expected would join him. As, however, none ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... his solid-looking head, his iron-gray hair, his positive and as it were categorical stride, his slow, precise way of putting a statement, the strange union of trampling radicalism in some directions and high-stepping conservatism in others, which made it impossible to calculate on his unexpressed opinions, his testy ways and his generous impulses, his hard judgments and kindly actions, were characteristics that gave him a very ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... no more, for the shells failed to dislodge the Arabs from the ruined mill, and it was impossible to advance and leave any such indomitable fanatics, who cared not for numbers and despised death, so long as they could wreak their wrath upon an infidel, in their rear; and the immediate business was to turn them out ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... door at the end of our walk, and I had been with the angels at tea ever since.) "Now that you have embarked upon this opera, I say, you will have to dine at Willis's with us. I won't be in when Charlie arrives from Paris. A blowy day like to-day his temper is sure to be impossible." ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... in a case where the people shall ultimately approve a law; where they do not approve it, the interposition of the veto is the barrier which saves them the adoption of a law, the repeal of which might afterward be almost impossible. The qualified negative is, therefore, a beneficent power, intended as General Hamilton expressly declares in the "Federalist," to protect, first, the executive department from the encroachments of the legislative ...
— Thomas Hart Benton's Remarks to the Senate on the Expunging Resolution • Thomas Hart Benton
... is not enough that Shakespeare's characters are placed in tragic positions which are impossible, do not flow from the course of events, are inappropriate to time and space—these personages, besides this, act in a way which is out of keeping with their definite character, and is quite arbitrary. It is generally asserted that in Shakespeare's dramas the characters are ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... pink tinge—such a necklace as an empress might have worn. In the raven masses of her hair there was not the least ornament, nor did any flower enhance the rich blackness of its silken coils. It would be impossible to imagine greater simplicity than Corona showed in her dress, but it would be hard to conceive of any woman who possessed by virtue of severe beauty a more indubitable right to dispense ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... without much difficulty, a private audience on the very day after his talk with Robert Denver. In the interval between he had hurried home, got out of his evening clothes, and gone forth again at once into the dreary dawn. His fear of Ascham and the alienist made it impossible for him to remain in his rooms. And it seemed to him that the only way of averting that hideous peril was by establishing, in some sane impartial mind, the proof of his guilt. Even if he had not been so incurably sick of life, the electric chair seemed ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... waiting for the rest of the force detailed to take part in the campaign; and had also been detained by the condition of the roads, which rendered it almost impossible to move the baggage-wagons and the artillery. Friday and Saturday it rained incessantly in torrents, and raised Fishing Creek and other streams so that it was impracticable to cross them. The general had with him the Fourth Kentucky Infantry, and a portion of the ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... home. Getting on a coat was one; finding a hat was the worst of all. Since Bugsey got the nail in his foot and could not go out the hat question was easier. The hat was still hard to find, but not impossible. ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... strange gentleness in his voice. "You're hurt. It would be impossible for you to go now. Don't be afraid. ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... Jupiter, is the most important personage in the mythology of Greece. Although, chronologically, he comes after Kronos and Uranos, he was called the "father of gods and men," whose power it was impossible to resist, and which power was universal. He was supposed to be the superintending providence, whose seat was on Mount Olympus, enthroned in majesty and might, to whom the lesser deities were obedient. With his two brothers, Poseidon, or Neptune, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... positions, together with four catchers, an aggregate of 27 players to occupy but nine positions in the game. Could blundering management go further? Under such circumstances is it any wonder that team-work was impossible, while cliques of disappointed players still further weakened the nine in nearly every game, the ultimate result being ninth place in the race, with the added discredit of being beaten out in the race by their ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... opposed to strikes as I am opposed to war. As yet, however, the world with all its progress has not made war impossible; neither, I fear, considering the nature of men and their institutions, will the strike entirely disappear ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... smaller, it had the same reddish, arid look as his own home planet, while the third planet was three quarters drowned in water. But there were two factors that weighed so heavily against that choice that they rendered it impossible. In the first place, by far the greater proportion of the local inhabitants' commerce was between the asteroids and the third planet. Second, and even more important, the fourth world was at such a point in its orbit that the ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... private judgment according to the indefinite rule of Scripture, or reason, or tradition. But when his pure and proper divinity had been established on the ruins of Arianism, the faith of the Catholics trembled on the edge of a precipice where it was impossible to recede, dangerous to stand, dreadful to fall and the manifold inconveniences of their creed were aggravated by the sublime character of their theology. They hesitated to pronounce; that God himself, the second person of an equal ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... own resplendent, virile, glowing young personality, to even see the man who had stepped in between her and possible danger! The most innocent girl will have her ideal of a lover and thrill at the imagined touch, and furnish the dumb image with a dream-voice that woos her in impossible, elaborate, impassioned sentences, very unlike the real utterances of Love when he comes. The blue-eyed, ruddy-cheeked, golden-locked St. Michael portrayed in celestial-martial splendour upon one of the panels ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... jealousy which she had never felt till that time; she was surprised that she had never yet reflected how improbable it was that a man of the Duke de Nemours's turn, who had showed so much inconstancy towards women, should be capable of a lasting and sincere passion; she thought it next to impossible for her to be convinced of the truth of his love; "But though I could be convinced of it," says she, "what have I to do in it? Shall I permit it? Shall I make a return? Shall I engage in gallantry, be false to Monsieur ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... buckets of the vilest contents, and importuned for money by beggars who thrust their deformed limbs in his face. It is but natural to fear contagion of some sort from contact with such creatures, and yet the crowd is so dense that it is impossible to entirely avoid them. Under foot the streets are wet, muddy, and slippery. Why some deadly disease does not break out and sweep away the people ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... an honorable and candid God. He may have implanted in us the desire of perfect happiness. It may be—it is—impossible to gratify that desire in this life. Still, another life is not implied, for God may not have intended us to draw the inference that He is going to gratify it. If omniscient and omnipotent, God must ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... the stars become short lines of light on the plate of a fixed camera. Stormer's stars are points and therefore his exposure must have been short, yet there is detail in some of his pictures which it seems impossible could have been got with a short exposure. It is all ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... and well back on the tundra, so that any one approaching it by the planking had an unobstructed view of the premises. Escape was impossible, for the back door led out into the ankle-deep puddles of the open prairie; and it was now apparent that a sixth man had made a circuit and was ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... ain't got none o' that foolish sort o' notions in me. I wouldn't be its mother, 'n' 'f there was n't no one else to tell it so Mr. Kimball 'd rejoice to the first time I sent it down town alone. It's nigh to impossible to keep nothin' in the town with Mr. Kimball. A man f'rever talkin' like that 's bound to tell everythin' sooner or later, 'n' I never was one to set any great store o' faith on a talker. When I don't want the whole town to know 't I'm layin' in rat-poison I buy of Shores, 'n' when ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... slender stock they passed along (for there was no moving for want of room) a liberal share for ourselves and our natives. After this the pig was cut up and roasted; but, faint and hungry as I was, it was nearly impossible to eat it. And now all restraint was thrown off, and the Maoris conversed freely and pleasantly. So the night wore on, better than it had begun. At last, cold and weary, overpowered by the smoke, I fell asleep on a bundle of bullrushes; and when I awoke, I found that I had been ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... sort of frantic desperation, I began, to ply myself with impossible sums in mental arithmetic, until I nearly got a brain fever; and the cars stopped, and the dreaded station was shouted in my ears, while I was in the midst of a desperate encounter with a group ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... his neighbor's cattle, or even entered in the night his neighbor's house; but severe penalties alone will keep men from crimes where there is a low state of virtue and religion, and general prosperity and contentment become impossible where there is no efficient protection to property. Society was never more secure and happy in England than when vagabonds could be arrested, and when petty larcenies were visited with certain retribution. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... Peter and Benjamin decided to dig a tunnel. They began to burrow a yard or two lower down the bank. They hoped that they might be able to work between the large stones under the house; the kitchen floor was so dirty that it was impossible to say whether it was ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... a representative of the popular external life and aims of the nineteenth century. Its other half, its poet, is Goethe, a man quite domesticated in the century, breathing its air, enjoying its fruits, impossible at any earlier time, and taking away, by his colossal parts, the reproach of weakness, which, but for him, would lie on the intellectual works of the period. He appears at a time when a general culture has spread itself, and has smoothed down all sharp individual traits; when, in the ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... hadn't thought about that. David, I wouldn't have come to you except—except because it was the end. Anything else is impossible, you know." ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... within us as we thought of the wretchedness of the interiors, the misery of being obliged to inhabit any one of the numerous suites of apartments rising tier above tier, and from which it would be absolutely impossible to banish vermin ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... ill-managed household. Nothing is easier than to keep plate in good order, and yet many servants, from stupidity and ignorance, make it the greatest trouble of all things under their care. It should be remembered, that it is utterly impossible to make greasy silver take a polish; and that as spoons and forks in daily use are continually in contact with grease, they must require good washing in soap-and-water to remove it. Silver should be washed with a soapy flannel ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... Thus it seems impossible to imagine but that the foundations of all knowledge—secular or sacred—were laid when intelligence dawned, though the superstructure remained for long ages so slight and feeble as to be compatible with the existence of almost any general ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... which brought up the train were either lost, or carried home by their owners, the nature of the country making it impossible to avoid this fatal inconvenience, the whole being a continual forest for several hundred miles without inclosures or bounds by which horses can be secured: they must be turned into the woods for their subsistance, and feed upon leaves and young shoots of trees. Many projects, such as belts, hobles, ...
— Conestoga Wagons in Braddock's Campaign, 1755 • Don H. Berkebile
... of an hour it looked as if a novel kind of marine waltz was in progress. Nearly a score of swift vessels were executing fantastic movements at full speed, circling and interchanging positions until it seemed as if collisions were impossible ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... Shows of Gladiators may be thought barbarous and inhumane, and I know not but it is so as it is now practised; but in those Times when only Criminals were Combatants, the Ear perhaps might receive many better Instructions, but it is impossible that any thing which affects our Eyes, should fortifie us so well against Pain and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... must be the reorganisation of the moral, religious, and political systems. We can readily see what an impulse these far-reaching conceptions would give to Comte's meditations. There were conceptions of less importance than these, in which it is impossible not to feel that it was Saint Simon's wrong or imperfect idea that put his young admirer on the track to a right and perfected idea. The subject is not worthy of further discussion. That Comte would have performed some ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley
... "Humph! It is impossible; and yet it must be. This explains his being so anxious that Lord Minchampstead should approve of me. I have found favour in the poor dear thing's eyes, I suppose: and the good old fellow knows it, and won't betray her, and so shams tyrant. Just like him!" But—that Mary Armsworth should ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... 134. Supposing it were impossible to concenter in one great museum the whole of these things, where should you prefer to draw the line? Would you draw the line between what I may call the ancient Pagan world and the modern Christian ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... is impossible. There is in existence a certain amount of thought, but it all belongs to God. Lord paramount over the empire of mind as well as matter, he alone is seized, in fee simple right, of the whole domain: provinces of which men ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... devoid of all restlessness and agitation; and mine was still in need of it. His intelligence was active, but not at all anxious to appear so. For him, meditation was the great object; and, when I expressed my admiration of a modesty impossible to my own undisciplined pride, he replied, in ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... was his most frequent undoing made it impossible for him to resist adding the innuendo in his last sentence. And again he saw it was a folly. The impersonal tone of her reply simply left him where ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... neighbors, a great speculator, counting his profits on 'Change, and muttered, "There's that impertinent fellow next door beginning his music again! If this is to go on, I shall give notice to the landlord. It's impossible to work with such a noise. It tempts one to quit one's condition of poor artist and turn ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... seventies that the census authorities in 1880 made a careful study of the statistical aspects of the subject. It appeared from this search that newspapers were published in 2,073 of the 2,605 counties in the Union. Without some such means of spreading information, it would have been impossible to conduct the great presidential campaigns, in which the entire country was educated in the tariff ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... Repetition.—In connection with the repetition necessary in the second stage of the drill lesson, an important precaution should be noted. It is impossible for anybody to repeat anything attentively many times in succession unless there is some new element noted in each repetition. When there is no longer a new element, the repetition becomes mechanical, and hence comparatively useless so far as acquisition of knowledge or ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... Louis Philippe, then Duke de Chartres, and aide-de-camp to Dumouriez, who was defending the frontier from an invasion of Austrian troops. After the execution of the queen, Dumouriez refused longer to defend France from an invasion the purpose of which was to make such horrors impossible. He laid down his command, and, with his aide, Louis Philippe, joined the colony of exiles in Belgium, while the Austrian troops were in full ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... child,—there happened to be a meeting of the senate that day,—and asked him why he was late. On learning the cause he cried out: "You have begotten a master over us." [3] At that Octavius was alarmed and wished to destroy the infant, but Nigidius restrained him, saying that it was impossible for it to suffer any such fate. [-2-] This was the conversation at that time. While the boy was growing up in the country an eagle snatched from his hands a loaf of bread, and after soaring aloft flew down and gave it back to him.[4] When he was a lad and staying in Rome Cicero dreamed ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... mere sympathy of brain? A sweetness intellectually conceived In simpler creeds to me impossible? A juggle of that pity for ourselves In others, which puts on such pretty masks And snares self-love with bait of charity? 370 Something of all it might be, or of none: Yet for a moment I was snatched ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... curious fact that, though a squirrel leaps from a great height without hesitation, it is practically impossible to make him take a jump of a few feet to the ground. Probably the upward rush of air, caused by falling a long distance, is necessary to flatten the body enough to make him ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... nearest to France). At night I got to Monaco, and the bad weather obliged me to pass a whole day there, which by no means put me into good-humour. The next morning we re-embarked, and, after being tossed all day by the tempest, we arrived very late at Port Maurice. The night was dreadful; it was impossible to get to the castle, and I was obliged to put up at a little village, where my bed and supper appeared tolerable from extreme weariness. I determined to proceed by land; the perils of the road appeared less dreadful to me than those by ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... large forces of the enemy where it was desired they should remain while important Allied developments were taking place in their flank and rear. Most of these Turkish reinforcements were withdrawn from Armenia when the depth of winter appeared to make it impossible for the Russians to break through the lofty ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... business partner, as a lover of the sea. He neither knew nor cared that his partner (he would not admit that "patron" would be the better word!) was the author of undying verse. To this day it is impossible to make him understand that reminiscences of FitzGerald are of greater public interest than ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... important thing to you in life is to find your proper mate. Generations of conventional treatment will try to prevent you from doing so, by pretending it is impossible. But down in your hearts, in their depths where truth is not perverted by the veneer of convention, I know and you know that it is the simplest thing on earth. Here you are full of talent and longing; here is a woman, ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... the fetter was intolerable. I endeavoured in various ways to relieve it, and even privily to free my leg; but the more it was swelled, the more was this rendered impossible. I then resolved to bear it with patience: still, the longer it continued, the worse it grew. After two days and two nights, I entreated the turnkey to go and ask the surgeon, who usually attended the prison, to look at it, for, if it continued longer as it was, I was convinced it would ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... statements, certificates and letters, & undertakes very learnedly and elaborately to refine upon the distinction; and insists that if a man expresses his personal wish to resign, it is to all intents and purposes a resignation, and that no other was ever heard of; as if it was impossible to consult the opinions of others, and make a general resignation depend upon their consent. All that it seems necessary in that case, is for the McBain meeting to resolve to accept what they thus are pleased to call a resignation, and nominate another candidate. ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... closed, and I could only pass onward. My position was as utterly hopeless as that of the prisoner in an utter dungeon, whose only light is that of the dungeon above him; the doors were shut and escape was impossible. Experiment after experiment gave the same result, and I knew, and shrank even as the thought passed through my mind, that in the work I had to do there must be elements which no laboratory could furnish, which no scales could ever measure. In that work, from which ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... his purpose all at once. Perhaps it drove me wild, mad, frenzied. The yacht was going away from me fast—faster; good swimmer though I was, it was impossible for me to catch up to her—she was making her own length to every stroke I took, and as she drew away he stood there, one hand on the tiller, the other in his pocket (I have often wondered if it was fingering a revolver in there!), his eyes turned steadily on me. And I began ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... chacchar, which usually occupies upwards of a quarter of an hour; and after that they smoke a paper cigar, which they allege crowns the zest of the coca mastication. He who indulges for a time in the use of coca finds it difficult, indeed almost impossible, to relinquish it. This fact I saw exemplified in the cases of several persons of high respectability in Lima, who are in the habit of retiring daily to a private apartment for the purpose of masticating coca. They could not do this openly, because among the refined class of Peruvians the ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... treasure is: He hath the jewel of my life in hold, His youngest daughter, beautiful Bianca, And her withholds from me and other more, Suitors to her and rivals in my love; Supposing it a thing impossible, For those defects I have before rehears'd, That ever Katherina will be woo'd: Therefore this order hath Baptista ta'en, That none shall have access unto Bianca Till Katherine the curst ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... take the same interest in every thing upon the place, as if it were your own; indeed, the responsibility in this case is greater than if it were all your own—having been intrusted to you by another. Unless you feel thus, it is impossible that you can ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... in the window Cromwell meditated that it was possible to imagine a woman that thought so simply; yet it was impossible to imagine one that should be able to act with so great a simplicity. On the one hand, if she stayed about the King she should be his safeguard, for it was very certain that she should not tell the King that he was a traitor. And that above all was what Cromwell had to fear. He had, for his ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... I once killed an elk that jumped through a window. It was a singular incident. The hounds found three elk at the same time on the mountain at the back of the hotel at Newera Ellia. The pack divided: several hounds were lost for two days, having taken their elk to an impossible country, and the rest of the pack concentrated upon a doe, with the exception of old Smut, who had another elk all to himself. This elk, which was a large doe, he brought down from the top of the mountain to the back of the hotel, just as we had killed the other, which the pack ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... of criminals even is as impossible in practice as the exclusion of the sick and ailing is unchristian. Infinitely more important were it to keep the gates of birth free from undesirables. As for the exclusion of the able-bodied, whether illiterate or literate, that is sheer economic madness in so empty a continent, especially ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... judgments regarding the objects presented to our senses, when as yet we had not the entire use of our reason, numerous prejudices stand in the way of our arriving at the knowledge of truth; and of these it seems impossible for us to rid ourselves, unless we undertake, once in our lifetime, to doubt of all those things in which we may discover even the smallest suspicion ...
— The Principles of Philosophy • Rene Descartes
... of the biographies place it in Egypt, the best of them asserting that he was given a military command in that province.[709] Others mention Britain,[710] others the Pentapolis of Libya.[711] Amid such discrepancies it is impossible to give any certain answer. But it is certain that the actor who caused Juvenal's banishment was not Paris, who was put to death by Domitian as early as 83, and almost equally certain that Domitian is guiltless of the poet's exile. It is, however, possible ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... beneath the pinto's rhythmic hoofs. The poetry of motion swayed his soul. He was enjoying himself. At last, he reflected, he had mastered the art of sitting a horse. He had already mastered the art of mounting and of descending under various conditions and at seemingly impossible angles. As Hi Wingle had once remarked—Sundown was the most durable rider on the range. His length of limb had no apparent relation to his shortcomings ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... very best society of the country also loomed before my vision, as I considered these things. On the other hand, if I refused, I could look forward to a life of poverty, hard work, and the abuse of my fellow beings. The temptation was a trying one, and it seemed impossible for me to refuse Arletta's offering. As I raised my head and looked into her beautiful eyes, which expressed great love, and tenderness, and expectation, I felt that I could not say no to her. It seemed as if I had been ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... Doctor Levillier. "Why should you refrain, my dear boy? But you are right. There is a curious unconsciousness about Cresswell—about Valentine—which seems to exclude even definite religious belief as something in a way self-conscious, and so impossible to him. There is an extraordinary strain of the child in Cresswell, such as I conceive to be in unearthly beings, who have never had the power to sin. And the best-behaved, sweetest child in the world might catch flies or go to sleep ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... unknown to walnut groves of Oregon, thus obviating the cost of spraying; that the expense of harvesting is exceedingly light; that no nut-fruit perishes—that it does not need to be sold at once, but will keep indefinitely, making a lost crop practically impossible. ...
— Walnut Growing in Oregon • Various
... sole agency for this most useful device ever invented for the protection of catchers or umpires This body protector renders it impossible for the catcher to be injured while playing close to the batter. It is made of best rubber and inflated with air, and is very light and pliable, and does not interfere in any way with the movement of the wearer, either in turning, stooping or throwing. No catcher should be without one of these ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... Although it is impossible to deny that the natives would be better instructed and would live in more orderly ways if the small villages were to be reduced to the capital, making one or two settlements of each benefice, they consider it such an affliction to leave their little houses where they were ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... October 3, 1868, a genuine sensation was produced by the appearance of the Chicago Legal News, edited by Mrs. Myra Bradwell. At this day it is impossible to realize with what supreme astonishment this journal was received. Neither can we estimate its influence upon the subsequent legislation of the State. Looking through its files we find that no opportunity was lost ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... by a flush in her cheeks. She looked up into his honest eyes and was thrilled by an emotion that was new to her. It was impossible not to answer back to that earnest affection he was expressing. Gratitude glowed in her—and gratitude ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... Cosmological Form of Proof.—It is impossible that there should be motion, genesis, or a chain of causes, except on the assumption of a first Moving Cause, since that which exists only in capacity can not, of itself energize, and consequently without a principle of motion which is essentially active, we have only a principle ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... surface nature suffices; yet that little cannot be spared. Its first office is to guard frontiers. We must not lie quite open to the inspection or invasion of others: yet, were there no medium of unlikeness interposed between one and another, privacy would be impossible, and one's own bosom would not be sacred to himself. But Nature has secured us against these profanations; and as we have locks to our doors, curtains to our windows, and, upon occasion, a passport system on our borders, so has she cast around each spirit this veil to guard it from intruding eyes, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... mood there dropped suddenly a fragment of her neighbour, the Colonel's, conversation—"Mrs. So-and-so? Impossible woman! Oh, one doesn't mind seeing her graze occasionally at the other end of one's table—as the price of getting her ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... moods, two of which, the potential or powerful, and the subjunctive, are predicated on the same principles as Mr. Harris' optative, interrogative, etc., which they condemn. It is impossible to explain the character of these moods so as to be understood. If, it is said, is the sign of the subjunctive, and may and can of the potential; and yet they are often found together; as, "I will go if I can." No scholar can determine in what mood to put this last verb. It of right belongs ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... that drive men to the ever serene, pure regions of humor for balm and healing. Fun and comedy men have at all times understood—the history of Samson contains the germs of a mock-heroic poem—while it was impossible for humor, genuine humor, to find appreciation ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... once the philosophical Miss Drew felt a little irritation. So certain was she of his object in coming that his tardiness was a trifle ruffling. He apologized for being late, and succeeded in banishing the pique that possessed her. It was naturally impossible for him to share all his secrets with her, that is why he did not tell her that Grant & Ripley had called him up to report the receipt of a telegram from Swearengen Jones, in which the gentleman laconically said he could feed the whole ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... addition to the personal charms and that is where nature has denied the grace of luxuriant locks. This lack can be so cunningly supplied by the hairdresser's art that detection is impossible, and as it ever has been, and ever will be, that a woman's hair is a glory unto her, there can be no reason against her hiding from view any lack of it when it is done in ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... Sovereigns a voyage of his own to that Southern Continent that never had the Admiral chance to return to! The Sovereigns now were giving such consent to this one and to that one, breaking their pact with Christopherus Columbus. In our world it was now impossible that that pact should be letter-kept, but the Genoese did not see it so. Ojeda sailed from Cadiz for Paria with four ships and a concourse of adventurers. With him went the pilot Juan de la Cosa, and a geographer of Florence, ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... grief could be intended. All our other passions, within proper bounds, have an useful object. And the perfection of the moral character is, not in a stoical apathy, so hypocritically vaunted, and so untruly too, because impossible, but in a just equilibrium of all the passions. I wish the pathologists then would tell us what is the use of grief in the economy, and of what good it is the cause, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Mongols lay in fancied security, not dreaming that there was in all China the resolution to strike another blow, and probably unsuspicious that a fleet was bearing down upon one of their captured ports. What would have been the result had Chang Chikie been able to deliver his attack it is impossible to say. He might have taken Canton by surprise and captured it from the enemy, but in any event he could not have gained more than ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... nearest fulfilment is to be found in the Return from Babylon, and the narrative in Ezra may be taken as a remarkable parallel to the prophecy here. But the restriction to Babylon must seem impossible to any reader who interprets aright the significance of the context, and observes that our text follows the grand words of verse 10, and precedes the Messianic prophecy of verse 13 and of ch. liii. To such a reader the principle will ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... the signs of the times, nor to see farther than we are necessarily led by the course of events; but it is impossible not to be struck with the aspect of that grandest of all moral phenomena which is suspended upon the history and actual condition of the sons of Jacob. At this moment they are nearly as numerous as when David swayed the sceptre of the Twelve Tribes; their expectations ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... he declared, addressing Miss Mallowcoid, "that it is almost impossible in this country to arrange matches. I don't see why you can't, but ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... as from the grave the very voice of my old friend the younger editor in that unfaltering pronouncement. But on the whole I rather incline to accept the cautious surmise of Professor W. P. Ker that 'a reasonable view of the merit of Beowulf is not impossible, though rash enthusiasm may have made too much of it; while a correct and sober taste may have too contemptuously refused to attend to Grendel and the Firedrake,' and to leave it at that. I speak very cautiously because the manner of the late Professor Freeman, in especial, had a knack ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... intercourse with lewd women. The physical dangers refer to the great possibility of infection with one or both of the common diseases—syphilis and gonorrhea—acquired by sexual contact with one suffering from these terrible disorders (p. 199). It is usually quite impossible for a layman to detect the presence of these diseases in others, or rather, to be sure of their absence, and the permanent damage which may be wrought to the sufferer and to others with whom he may have sexual relations ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... to papa about nurse's proposal," said Margaret presently to Flora, "and he quite agrees to it. Indeed it is impossible that Anne should attend properly to all the children while nurse is so ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... explain this absence on the assumption that the rabbit is unsuited to the conditions obtaining in the country named, for when the species was introduced into Australia by man, it developed and spread with marvelous rapidity and destructive effect. It may seem impossible that facts like these could possess an evolutionary significance, but they are actual examples of the great mass of data brought together by the naturalists who have seen in them something to be interpreted, ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... bounty, to yield, saying that her admiration of the lovely singer made her excuse his fault in being unfaithful to herself, and that the children should be always treated as her own. Such a scene as this would be impossible out of the France of the ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... have gone fast, for when the clock began to strike, it went on up to ten; and I was thinking it was impossible that it could be so late, when I happened to glance across at little Mrs Dean, whose work had dropped into her lap, and she was as fast asleep then as her son had been at ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... Vows to all alike we see, And even the best of Men, the Prince, Is not to be credited in an affair of Love. —Oh Curtius, thy advice was very kind; Had it arriv'd before I'ad been undone! —Can Frederick too be false! A Prince, and be unjust to her that loves him too? —Surely it is impossible— Perhaps thou lov'st me too, and this may be [Pointing to the Letter. Some Plot of thine to try my Constancy: —Howe'er it be, since he could fail last night Of seeing me, I have at least a cause to justify This shameful change; and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... of immortality, and so strong in the link between God and man, that, without any affected stoicism, without being insensible to pain,—rather, perhaps, from a nervous temperament, acutely feeling it,—he yet has a happiness wholly independent of it. It is impossible not to be thrilled with an admiration that elevates while it awes you, in reading that solemn 'Dedication of himself to God.' This offering of 'soul and body, time, health, reputation, talents,' to the divine and invisible Principle of Good, calls us suddenly to contemplate the selfishness ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ended, the thing which the first generals of France had called impossible was accomplished; in spite of all that the King's ministers and war-councils could do to prevent it, this little country-maid at seventeen had carried her immortal task through, and had done it ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... single question, or wishing me to explain its details; and I observed a kind of insolent contempt in his manner, which no doubt arose from the late success of Kanaris. This interview with the admiral disgusted me. They place you in a position in which it is impossible to render any service, and then they boast of their own superiority, and of the uselessness of the Franks (as they call us) in Turkish warfare." It must be recollected, in justification of Miaoulis, that he had not then had time to avail himself ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... sacredness in Work. Significance of the Potter's Wheel. Blessed is he who has found his Work; let him ask no other blessedness. (p. 244.)—A brave Sir Christopher, and his Paul's Cathedral: Every noble work at first 'impossible.' Columbus royalest Sea-king of all: A depth of Silence, deeper than the Sea; a Silence unsoundable; known ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... that the vacuum cleaner must not be used in her room—that it exhausted the air or something, and she could hardly breathe after it—he only looked bewildered and then drew a diagram to show her it was impossible that it could exhaust the air. The old doctor knew how: he'd have ordered an oxygen tank opened in the room after the cleaner was used and she'd ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... who was now a very forward youth of eighteen, fancied himself to be smitten with the charms of the little beauty of fifteen. Whether he really was so or not it is impossible to say; but it is extremely probable that he was more alive to the fortune of the heiress than to the beauty of the girl. Avarice is not exclusively the passion of the aged, nor is it a whit less powerful than the passion of love. Thus young ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... with his property into another state, where the property could not be taken on execution without a new trial and judgment; which, at so great a distance from the residence of the creditor and his witnesses, would be very difficult and expensive, and perhaps impossible. Now, the proceedings of the court in which a judgment is obtained, if sent to the place where the debtor resides, have the same effect as in the state in ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... geographers, an object so conspicuous as to attract attention in all ages. It is a mass of granite rising from the sands, covering about twenty-five acres, and the top of the church which crowns it is elevated two hundred and thirty-eight feet. It is impossible by either pen or pencil to give an adequate idea of St. Michael's Mount—of the shattered masses of the rock itself, its watch-turrets and batteries, the turf and sea-plants niched in its recesses, and the gray, lichen-covered towers that rise from the summit. Cornish ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go. Now, how did the Lord do that? He did not wish and mean to make Pharaoh more hard-hearted, more wicked. That is impossible. God, who is all goodness and love, never can wish to make any human being one atom worse than he is. He who so loved the world that He came down on earth to die for sinners, and take away the sins of the world, would ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... social atmosphere in which Knox and his women friends met, and loved and trusted each other. To the man who had been their priest and was now their minister, women would be able to speak with a confidence quite impossible in these latter days; the women would be able to speak, and the man to hear. It was a beaten road just then; and I daresay we should be no less scandalised at their plain speech than they, if they could come back to earth, would be offended at our ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... into whatever best she was capable of; it had come into her face, her face was to be read—for the first time since I had known it—and, strangely enough, I couldn't read John's at all. It seemed happy, which was impossible. ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... editors of Park's Travels have passed it over, printing only the last page or two, wherein Amady Fatouma relates the explorer's end. One thing I know has been against its adoption, to wit, an insufferably dull style. Seeing that it is difficult to be dull in the Arabic tongue, and that it was impossible for Isaaco to be so in any of the tongues he used, I suspect the English translator (no doubt a mere clerk in Governor Maxwell's Office) of pruning away the flowers of speech, and making all as prim and exact as an affidavit. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... Where were Racey's questions leading him? Was it a trap? Knowing Racey as he did, he feared the worst. He would have liked to leave the questioned unanswered. But this was impossible. As it was, he was delaying his answer longer than good sense warranted. Both Jake Rule and Kansas Casey were staring at him fixedly. Racey regarded him steadily, a slight and sinister smile lurking at the ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... not have committed the murder physically. How could a man who was confined to a wheelchair go up that flight of stairs? I submit to you that it would have been physically impossible. ...
— The Eyes Have It • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Wren! Impossible!" cried Cora. "Oh, this is all a mistake! I must go back. I cannot go on and let Clip be blamed ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... It was now impossible to stand without holding fast to something that would not give. Harriet had never seen a boat roll so fast. From side to side it lurched, plunging at the same time, both with almost incredible speed. Her own head was beginning to ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... Nice—a medley of dancing waves, azure sky, palms, gold-laden orange trees and white green-shuttered houses—flowers, CONFETTI, masks, grotesque pageantry, the merry music of the South. And though he had never been with her at Nice, Willoughby Maule came into her dream. They were doing impossible things—dancing together in the Carnival crowd, flinging confetti, bobbing and grimacing before the comic masks. Then the carnival scene seemed to turn flat, and to become a painted picture on the drop curtain of a stage, and she started up at the sound of knocks ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... generation later, honour, wealth, applause, success in Europe and at home, would all have been yours. Within thirty years so great a change has passed over the profession of letters in America; and it is impossible to estimate the rewards which would have fallen to Edgar Poe, had chance made him the contemporary of Mark Twain and of "Called Back." It may be that your criticisms helped to bring in the new era, and to lift letters out of the reach of quite unlettered scribblers. Though ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... origin of impressions of sensation, Hume is not quite consistent with himself. In one place (I. p. 117) he says, that it is impossible to decide "whether they arise immediately from the object, or are produced by the creative power of the mind, or are derived from the Author of our being," thereby implying that realism and idealism are equally probable hypotheses. But, in fact, after the demonstration ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... That it was impossible for you to pay the bill, you having no money, and receiving no greater income than 22 shillings per week, all of which was necessary to the maintenance of yourself and family. We regret again to call to your notice the Statute of 16 Eliz., entitled, "Concerning the Imprisonment ...
— Shakespeare's Insomnia, And the Causes Thereof • Franklin H. Head
... and knowledge of human nature was put to practical use in the busy days of plant construction. It was found impossible to keep mechanics on account of indifferent residential accommodations afforded by the tiny village, remote from civilization, among the central mountains of New Jersey. This puzzling question was much discussed between him and his associate, Mr. W. S. Mallory, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... now at last approved of her rejecting Lovelace. Desires her to be comforted as to her. Promises that she will not run away from life. Hopes she has already got above the shock given her by the ill treatment she has met with from Lovelace. Has had an escape, rather than a loss. Impossible, were it not for the outrage, that she could have been happy with him; and why. Sets in the most affecting, the most dutiful and generous lights, the grief of her father, mother, and other relations, on her account. Had begun the particulars of her tragical story; but ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... said, pressing his hand, her face very grave and sweet, "you have come quickly. I am glad, for we are anxious. Your grandfather has dropped into a strange, drowsy state, from which it seems impossible to rouse him. But I hope you may be able to do so. He has wanted you from ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... really his. 'If I pass the Bill, whatever mischief ensues may possibly be repaired, if the worst comes to the worst, by the sacrifice of me. Whereas {123} if the case be referred to England, it is not impossible that Her Majesty may have before her the alternative of provoking a rebellion in Lower Canada ... or of wounding the susceptibilities of some of the best subjects she has in the province.' From the first Elgin had firmly made up his mind to fill the role of constitutional governor; he ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... infidelity which had embittered and darkened the gentle harmless life of the victim? Or could we, on the other hand, encourage the ruthless deceit, the hateful treachery, which had put the wicked Helena—with no exposure to dread if she married—into her wronged sister's place? Impossible! In the one case ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... In his usual resolute way, he had at once decided to forestall the enemy's action, and, taking advantage of its surprise, to execute such a coup de main with the feeble means at his disposal, as would make it impossible for the city and forts of Vera Cruz to harm us for some time to come at all events. Our night was therefore spent in preparation. The boats of the squadron came in one after the other without any mishap, ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... lumpy from the violence of the squall. None of the boats were provided with bomb-guns, the use of which would have killed the whales in a very short time; and the wind having again died away it was impossible for the ship to work up to them. Nothing, it was evident, could be done to assist the three boats, but it was decided to send the one remaining on board the barque to help the mate to tow his whale to the ship before the hordes of sharks, ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... said John, with newer dignity. "And then," he went on,—"after informing you that it is impossible for the best friend I have in the world to be with me at this hour, as intended, I want you to do me the very great honor of dining with me. ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... attentive pupil observe that this method does not give any set of rules for thinking in the same manner in regard to different sets or example of numbers. That would be impossible. Thinking or finding relations amongst the objects of thought must be differently worked out in each case, since the ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... there is an accompanying elimination of waste products and a development of heat. But this does not appear to be demonstrable for the actions of the nervous system. Although very careful experiments have been made, it has as yet been found impossible to detect any rise in temperature when a nerve impulse is passing through a nerve, nor is there any demonstrable excretion of waste products. This would be a serious objection to the conception of the nerve as a machine were it not for the fact that the nerve is so small that the ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn
... inch above the left nipple, 3 1/4 inches to the left of the median line, the incision being 2 1/4 inches in length and its direction parallel with the 3d rib. The man's general condition was fairly good, and the wound was examined. It was impossible to trace its depth further than the 3d rib, although probing was resorted to; it was therefore considered a simple wound, and dressed accordingly. Twelve hours later symptoms of internal hemorrhage were noticed, and at 8 A.M., February 6th, the man died after surviving his ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... their faces, like a fog creeping up from the marshes to hide the hills. They glanced at each other with looks of wonder and pity, as those who have listened to incredible sayings, the story of a wild vision, or the proposal of an impossible enterprise. ...
— The Story of the Other Wise Man • Henry Van Dyke
... mountains large enough for canoes if we judge from the portion of them through which we have passed. however I still hope for the best, and intend taking a tramp myself in a few days to find these yellow gentlemen if possible. my two principal consolations are that from our present position it is impossible that the S.W. fork can head with the waters of any other river but the Columbia, and that if any Indians can subsist in the form of a nation in these mountains with the means they have of acquiring food we can ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... though we had met for the first time that day. His whole face was scowling now, as he answered me brusquely—indeed, almost curtly; and yet there was something attractive about him, something that aroused both trust and respect and which made it impossible for me to resent ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... like a ghost that makes a noise indeed, but is not visible and really effects nothing. Even where there were points of contact between it and them, differences also made themselves felt, and I found it impossible to give a candid decision in favour of the priority of the Law. Dimly I began to perceive that throughout there was between them all the difference that separates two wholly distinct worlds. Yet, so far from attaining clear conceptions, ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... collective love which we must call humanitarianism, the eldest son of deceased philanthropy, and which is to the divine catholic charity what system is to art, or reasoning to deed. This conscientious puritan of freedom, this apostle of an impossible equality, regretted keenly that his poverty forced him to serve the government, and he made various efforts to find a place elsewhere. Tall, lean, lanky, and solemn in appearance, like a man who expects to be called some day to lay down his life for a cause, he lived on a page of Volney, studied ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... to say that nothing is impossible in these days of ceaseless and energetic progress. Certainly it is possible for the brains of marine designers to find a better way for rescue work. Lewis Nixon, ship-builder and designer for years, ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... warriors and nobles of mediaeval days were seen strolling with mythological goddesses and out-of-date peasants of Italy and Spain; then audacious "toreadors" were perceived whispering in the ears of crowned queens, and clowns were caught lingering amorously by the side of impossible flower-girls of all nations. Then it was that Sir Chetwynd Lyle, with his paunch discreetly restrained within the limits of a Windsor uniform which had been made for him some two or three years since, paced up and down complacently in the moonlight, ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... and Calathumpians, fair play. Our object will be to present a picture of things as they are, and to avoid all meddling with creeds. People may believe what they like, so far as we are concerned, if they behave themselves, and pay their debts. It is utterly impossible to get all to be of the same opinion; creeds, like faces, must differ, have differed, always will differ; and the best plan is to let people have their own way so long as it is consistent with the general ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... even so. There was an expression on the face of the officers impossible to be misunderstood; frowningly, darkly, they obeyed their sovereign's mandate, simply because they dared not disobey; but there was not one among them who would not rather have sought the most ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... wall—that nearest to the passage—and exactly facing the safe. So small were they that it seemed almost as if not even a mouse could get through one of them, should a mouse be so minded. These holes were placed so low down that it was physically impossible to see through them, and though Cleek's eyes noted their appearance there in the vault, he said nothing and seemed ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... something: a proposal is always an excitement. But the present man is married; so that makes it impossible for this present year. There was positively nothing to which to look forward. So you may fancy with what rapture ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... overland passage to China! Of forty-four men and nine women absent, the greater part perished on this curious enterprise.[181] Some, after the absence of several weeks, re-appeared, exhausted with fatigue and hunger. The Governor, finding it impossible to prevent elopement by punishment, attempted to convince them by experience. He furnished some of the strongest with provisions, and appointed them conductors, that they might proceed as far as possible towards the desired land: they returned, only partially ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... made an effort to go away; but Amalia held him, while she said, "Alas! I seek not thy death: live, but forget me from this fatal moment." "To forget thee is impossible; to love thee is death: thy compassion would sweeten the last moments of my existence!" "Alvise!" exclaimed Amalia, weeping, "live, if only for my sake!" "Do you comprehend the force of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... suspicion was that one of his men had been using it. But he knew that that was impossible. He would have seen it, and moreover one man does not take another man's saddle without ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... having taken three days to consult, returned an answer consisting of many civilities and excuses. He said, "that as for sending me bound, his brother knew it was impossible; that, although I had deprived him of his fleet, yet he owed great obligations to me for many good offices I had done him in making the peace. That, however, both their majesties would soon be made easy; for I had found a prodigious vessel on the shore, able to carry me on the sea, which ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... blue-eyed and fair, while Jurgis had great black eyes with beetling brows, and thick black hair that curled in waves about his ears—in short, they were one of those incongruous and impossible married couples with which Mother Nature so often wills to confound all prophets, before and after. Jurgis could take up a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound quarter of beef and carry it into a car without a stagger, or even a thought; and now he stood in a far ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... may remember that he had absolutely refused to make any promise, and that there had consequently been some sharp words spoken between the two friends. There might, he had then said, arise an occasion on which he should find it impossible not to endeavour to see the girl he loved. But hitherto, though he had refused to submit himself to the demand made upon him, he had complied with its spirit. At this moment, as it seemed to him, ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... for by this time they have reached a place where even you may not follow. Refuse and naught can save you; for, though the way to the last stronghold of the Holy Therns was made easy for you, the way hence hath been made impossible. What ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Such is the explanation given in verse 13, which is the divine declaration of its meaning. This is the centre of the rite; from it the name was derived. Whether readers accept the doctrines of substitution and expiation or not, it ought to be impossible for an honest reader of these verses to deny that these doctrines or thoughts are there. They may be only the barbarous notions of a half-savage age and people. But, whatever they are, there they are. The lamb without ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... But when I got into bed, it was impossible to sleep. My eyes smarted from the tobacco smoke; and the events of the day, in disorderly manner, kept running through my head. The tide of my exhilaration had ebbed, and I found myself struggling against a revulsion caused, apparently, by the contemplation ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in the main, yet wild-flowers, though yellow as the gold, and though wrapped in rhymes, are light ware when weighed against the solid material. He, in personal appearance, manners, and generosity of heart, was one with whom it was impossible to be acquainted and not to esteem; and another feature of this affair was, that we were friends, and almost constant companions for some years. When in the country I had to be with him as continually as possible; and when I went to the city, it was his wont to follow me. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... knowledge of arts and sciences presupposed; I there were two things in human literature, a comprehension of which would be of very great use, to enable a man to be a rational and able casuist, which otherwise was very difficult, if not impossible: I. A convenient knowledge of moral philosophy; especially that part of it which treats of the nature of human actions: To know, 'quid sit actus humanus (spontaneus, invitus, mixtus), unde habet bonitatem et malitiam moralem? an ex genere et objecto, ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... coterminous with our own through the whole extent across the North American continent, from ocean to ocean. Both politically and commercially we have the deepest interest in her regeneration and prosperity. Indeed, it is impossible that, with any just regard to our own safety, we can ever become ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Polk • James Polk
... possibly slept—the road was hot. Then something awakes me; I rub my eyes—behold me awake!—staring dumfounded at what? Parbleu!—at two ugly Uhlans sitting on their yellow horses on a hill! 'No! no!' I cry to myself; 'it is impossible!' It is a bad dream! Dieu de Dieu! It is no dream! My Uhlans come galloping down the hill; I hear them bawling 'Halt! Wer da!' It is terrible! 'Passerat!' I shriek, 'it is the ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... this day there was an increase of inflammation. From this circumstance, and from the neglect of the eschars for two or three days already mentioned, I suspected the formation of a scab under them. It was impossible to pierce the eschars by the penknife without breaking them, as they had become too hard and thick by delay and the addition of ...
— An Essay on the Application of the Lunar Caustic in the Cure of Certain Wounds and Ulcers • John Higginbottom
... jerking. The neuralgic pains often become very distressing; there is often a sense of constriction around the limbs or body, as if they were encircled with tight cords. In extreme cases locomotion becomes impossible, the patient is unable to bring the hand to the mouth, and the speech may become impaired, articulation being difficult and imperfect. In all cases there is more or less loss of sensation in the lower limbs, the patient generally being usable to distinguish between two points and one, even when the ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... picturesque, and have given themselves but little trouble to investigate. The historian has had his mind full of prepossessions derived from ancient reading, and has, generally, been seated three thousand miles across the water, where the work of personal comparison was impossible. Left to the repose of himself, mentally and physically, without being placed in the crucible of war, without being made the tool of selfishness, or driven to a state of half idiocy by the use of liquor, the Indian ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... physical and moral fiber of your country! Blackmail! Come out of your trance. There are some things that can't be done, Ern! Life's full of forbidden trails. My temper was one of them and poor old Dick's drinking was another. And the one most impossible of all for a real man to take is the one you're headed toward—a real man can't be ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... he is gone!" replied the baronet, drawing his breath freely, as if relieved from a painful oppression. "Introduced as he was, it was impossible not to treat him with respect, but he strangely disturbed me. Did you not think him ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... Estella had given his feelings. Uncle Pumblechook, being very curious to know all about his trip, bullied and questioned him so (beginning as usual with the multiplication table) that Pip, perfectly frantic, told him the most impossible tales. He said Miss Havisham was in a black coach inside the house, and had cake and wine handed to her through the coach window on a golden plate, and that he and she played with flags and swords, while four dogs fought for veal cutlets out of a ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... it?" she said, simply. "Because one day that Calabressa was talking to me it occurred to me that the locket might have belonged to my mother, and that some one had wished to give it to me. He did not say it was impossible. It was his talk of Natalie and Natalushka that put it in my head; perhaps ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... by the Nat Turner insurrection in Virginia and the other states of the South it would be impossible to exaggerate. When the news of what was happening at Cross Keys spread, two companies, on horse and foot, came from Murfreesboro as quickly as possible. On the Wednesday after the memorable Sunday night there came from Fortress Monroe ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... publication. It is a great advance in certain respects over the first novel, but wants the peculiar interest which belonged to that as a partially autobiographical memoir. The story is no longer disjointed and impossible. It is carefully studied in regard to its main facts. It has less to remind us of "Vivian Grey" and "Pelham," and more that recalls "Woodstock" and "Kenilworth." The personages were many of them historical, though idealized; the occurrences ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... are easier ways of terminating one's life; in the second place a man can jump into the river with perfect ease without going to the trouble of sewing himself in a sack; and in the third place it is exceedingly difficult for a man to sew himself into a sack. It is almost impossible. ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... internal standard, not an objective or external one, and condemns its victim by that. The question is whether such a standard is still accepted either in this primitive form, or in some more refined development, as is commonly supposed, and as seems not impossible, considering the relative slowness with which ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... resolved that my father should go alone, and that we should join him on the following year; but my mother's hopes were disappointed, war having rendered impossible all communication with our colonies. In despair, at a separation which placed her nearly two thousand leagues from her husband, and ignorant how long it might continue, she soon after fell into a languid condition; and death deprived us of her, ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... miles from San Francisco, I find we are already in amongst the hills of a range, and winding in and out through pretty valleys, where all available land is used for farming purposes. We round some curves that look almost impossible, and I begin to feel the oscillation of the carriages, by no means unlike the rolling of a ship at sea. I often wished that it had been summer instead of winter, that I might better have enjoyed the beauty of the scenery as we sped along. ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... made from top-milk, much confusion arises from the notion that top-milk is a single definite thing, whereas its composition depends upon a great variety of conditions and, unless all these are known, it is impossible to tell how strong it is. Directions for the removal of top-milk should be explicitly followed (see page 63), or the results will be ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... said Roger, "but I think it's just plain dumb luck that we were able to get out!" He eyed the mound of sand. Unless one knew there was a spaceship beneath it, it would have been impossible to distinguish it from the ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... drew near he proved to be Weekes, the armorer. There was a burst of joy, for it was hoped his comrades were near at hand. His story, however, was one of disaster. He and his companions had found it impossible to govern their boat, having no rudder, and being beset by rapid and whirling currents and boisterous surges. After long struggling they had let her go at the mercy of the waves, tossing about, sometimes with her bow, sometimes with her broadside ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... The applause had hardly died away at the end of the symphony when a singer appeared on the stage. Who he was, or what music he sang, I am utterly unable to say; but if he is still alive it is impossible that he should have forgotten what I relate. If I do not remember him, it is because all else is swallowed up for me ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... drives alone with Mr. Callamay; and of old Lord Moleyn one wondered why he wasn't living in gilded exile on the island of Capri among the other distinguished persons who, for one reason or another, find it impossible to live in England. They were talking to Anne, laughing, the one profoundly, the ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... tower and the sturdy walls. The place was restored, though, soon after, and the Sir Ralph Darley of Elizabeth's time made an expedition one night to give tit-for-tat, but only to find out that it was impossible to get across the stoutly-defended natural bridge at Black Tor, and that it was waste of time to keep on shooting arrows, bearing burning rags soaked in pitch, on to the roofs of the towers and in at the loopholes. So he retreated, with a very sore head, caused ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... Lauraguais's bounty, to yield, saying that her admiration of the lovely singer made her excuse his fault in being unfaithful to herself, and that the children should be always treated as her own. Such a scene as this would be impossible out of the France of ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... therefore impossible to say what might not he done in the improvement of indigenous productions were the attention of science bestowed upon them. But all this entails expense, and upon whom is this to fall? Out of a hundred experiments ninety-nine might fail. In Ceylon we have no wealthy experimentalists, no ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... last he drove away to his hotel, sure at least that for the present he had done his duty to Marishka. But this was no boy-and-girl matter. The lives of nations, perhaps, hung upon his decision. In a weak moment he had promised Marishka an impossible thing. He did not know what danger hung over him. If anything happened to him England might never know until it was too late. The vision of Marishka's pale face haunted him, but he decided to take no further chances, and locking himself in his own rooms, he wrote a long statement, ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... which arises from the Unmanifest, it becomes fit for immortality. They who are conversant with Goodness applaud it highly, saying that there is nothing higher than Goodness. By inference we know that Purusha is dependent on Goodness. Ye best of regenerate ones, it is impossible to attain to Purusha by any other means. Forgiveness, courage, abstention from harm, equability, truth, sincerity, knowledge, gift, and renunciation, are said to be the characteristics of that course of conduct ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... no longer of service to the company. There is no doubt he was turned over to Uncle Alek, which must have been during the year 1832. I was in the Swamp during that year and saw the cymling vine above alluded to, and no one could tell how it came to grow there. It will be impossible for me to tell how old Uncle Alek's mule was or what became of him. I have never heard that he died or was killed. He was no doubt the most remarkable mule that ever lived. The last that I heard from ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... table-moving seances. We got connected messages. I am afraid the only result that they had on my mind was that I regarded these friends with some suspicion. They were long messages very often, spelled out by tilts, and it was quite impossible that they came by chance. Someone then, was moving the table. I thought it was they. They probably thought that I did it. I was puzzled and worried over it, for they were not people whom I could imagine as cheating—and ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... manuscript):"..."many were the wrecks of most interesting plants, and especially those of soft herbaceous duration, which had some time since fallen a sacrifice to the apparent long-protracted drought of the season; but it was impossible, amidst the sad languor of vegetation, not to admire the luxuriant and healthy habit of an undescribed species of pittosporum (oleifolium, Cunningham manuscript) which formed a small robust tree, ten feet ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... be fading away. Sebastian shook his head. "Lethodyne is a failure," he said, with a mournful regret. "One cannot trust it. The case might have recovered from the operation, or recovered from the drug; but she could not recover from both together. Yet the operation would have been impossible without the drug, and the drug is useless except for ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... seem absurd to you, but I assure you that you can do so. Try at once! Just come and get on my back, and see if it is as impossible ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... It was impossible to be more safe from drowning than Corrie was at that time. He was in fact on land as dry as the weather permitted, engaged in operating a small ciderpress for the benefit of himself and Gerard, at a certain old-fashioned farm where he was—as he ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... close up to her neck, and never showed the bareness of her arms. Though she was the only woman so clad now present in the room, this singularity did not specially strike one, because in other respects her apparel was so rich and quaint as to make inattention to it impossible. The observer who did not observe very closely would perceive that Madame Max Goesler's dress was unlike the dress of other women, but seeing that it was unlike in make, unlike in colour, and unlike in material, the ordinary observer would not see also that it was unlike ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... scarcely draw his breath in any but the purest air. Cruel headaches frequently tortured him. Exertion soon fatigued him. The physicians constantly kept up the hopes of his enemies by fixing some date beyond which, if there were anything certain in medical science, it was impossible that his broken constitution could hold out. Yet, through a life which was one long disease, the force of his mind never failed, on any great occasion, to bear up his suffering and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... in a high shrill key, a prolonged and monotonous sound, resembling that of the syllable wah or yah. This was immediately followed by a responsive but protracted tone, the syllable whe or swe, and this concluded grace. It was impossible not to be somewhat mirthfully affected at the first hearing of grace said in this novel manner. It is, however, pleasurable to reflect that the Indians recognize the duty of rendering thanks to the Divine Being ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... there, one liked to think, if one wanted him—but if there was any one more exciting, then Bobby vanished. Lately—for quite a long time now—there had been Cardillac—and somehow Cards and Bobby did not get on together and it was impossible to have them both at the same time. But now Peter turned to Bobby with the eagerness of a return to some comfortable old arm-chair after the brilliant new furniture of a friend's palace. Bobby was there ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... goes flat he'll have had his chance. That's all any of us can have. By the way, again. I'm sorry to miss Mrs. Randall's dinner-party. I'm not often honored in that way. Anyway, though, perhaps it's as well. I'm impossible socially; and, fortunately, I know just enough to realize it. Yes; that's ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... they had to sit down to supper without him. By-and-by the magician went out into the wood again for some more hunting, and on his return he tried afresh to waken the youth. But finding it quite impossible, he went back for the third time to ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... methods than those dictated to him beforehand. Thus we shall merely indicate the manner by which expropriation might be accomplished without the intervention of Government. We do not propose to go out of our way to answer those who declare that the thing is impossible. We confine ourselves to replying that we are not the upholders of any particular method of organization. We are only concerned to demonstrate that expropriation could be effected by popular initiative, and could not be effected ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... said: "Percival, I well knew who you were from the first, but I thought I would see of what mettle you are, and I have found that you are of very good mettle indeed. But you are to know that it is impossible for a young knight such as you, who knoweth naught of the use of knightly weapons, to have to do with a knight well-seasoned in arms as I am, and to have any hope of success in such an encounter. Wherefore you need to be taught the craft ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... hill, the sheriff close on his heels, alert, tingling, and watchful of every movement. For a few moments this strain upon his faculties seemed to invigorate him, and his gloom relaxed, but presently it became too evident that the prisoner's pinioned arms made it impossible for him to balance or help himself on that steep trail, and once or twice he stumbled and reeled dangerously to one side. With an oath the sheriff caught him, and tore from his arms the only remaining bonds that fettered him. "There!" he said savagely; ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Lanstron recommended him. Except for his deafness he is a perfect gardener. Of course he had to have some drawback, for complete perfection is impossible," Mrs. Galland agreed. ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... bright as Bullaces," in one of his poems. In Lincolnshire the blossom is known as "Bully bloom," and the fruit are "Bullies." After harvest the women and children go out gathering them for Bullace-wine. Boys in France call Slot's "Sibarelles," because it is impossible to whistle immediately after eating them. Some writers say the signification of "Sloe" is "that which ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... this sacrifice, too, and he stepped back a pace from the parapet when the fitful blast caught his hat from his head, and whirled it along the bridge. The whole current of his purpose changed, and as if it had been impossible to drown himself in his bare head, he set out in chase of his hat, which rolled and gamboled away, and escaped from his clutch whenever he stooped for it, till a final whiff of wind flung it up and tossed ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... that will be impossible. The duty of a soldier is clear and stern; his punishment if he fails in it, swift and sure. At the word of command he must march into the very jaws of death, as is right. He must die or madden ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... I cannot take you with me. That is impossible. I couldn't see you suffer hunger and thirst and the privations ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... "It's impossible to stay here, not knowing whether Mrs. Rook is going to live or die," she said. "I shall go to Belford—and you will go ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... Mallett had written the letter on the day of her husband's funeral, and Caroline's tears for her brother were stemmed by her indignation with his wife. She had purposely made it impossible for his relatives to attend ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... household of Jesus, Simon saw his Master's life in all its manifold phases, hearing the words he spoke whether in public on in private conversation, and witnessing every revealing of his character, disposition, and spirit. It is impossible to estimate the influence of all this on the life of Simon. He was continually seeing new things in Jesus, hearing new words from his lips, learning new lessons from his life. One cannot live in ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... the English immediately occupied. At the same time colonel Carlton, with another detachment, took possession of the western point of the island of Orleans: and both these posts were fortified, in order to anticipate the enemy; who, had they kept possession of either, might have rendered it impossible for any ship to lie at anchor within two miles of Quebec. Besides, the Point of Levi was within cannon shot of the city, against which a battery of mortars and artillery was immediately erected. Montcalm, foreseeing the effect of this manoeuvre, detached a body of sixteen hundred men across ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... must however be confessed, that a Person at the head of a publick School has sometimes so many Boys under his Direction, that it is impossible he should extend a due proportion of his Care to each of them. This is, however, in reality, the Fault of the Age, in which we often see twenty Parents, who tho each expects his Son should be made a Scholar, are not contented altogether to make it worth while for any Man of a liberal Education to ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... of obstinate heretics, and later on, of the relapsed, permitted no exercise of clemency. How many heretics were abandoned to the secular arm, and thus sent to the stake, is impossible to determine. However, we have some interesting statistics of the more important tribunals on this point. The portion of the register of Bernard de Caux which relates to impenitent heretics has been lost, but we have the sentences of the Inquisition of Pamiers (1318-1324), and of ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... at once. He found it difficult to devise an answer. To tell her brutally that he was come to bear her away, willing or unwilling, on behalf of another, was not easy. Indeed, it was impossible, and he was glad that inclinations in her which he had little dreamt of, put ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... in this mood the work of reparation did not go on very steadily. His two companions tried to attend to business, but soon found it impossible. They were alone in the forest with unlimited whitewash; and with Scotty inciting them to deeds of daring, how could they resist? They started by enduring their leader's pranks, and ended by embracing ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... For in Baptista's keep my treasure is: He hath the jewel of my life in hold, His youngest daughter, beautiful Bianca, And her withholds from me and other more, Suitors to her and rivals in my love; Supposing it a thing impossible, For those defects I have before rehears'd, That ever Katherina will be woo'd: Therefore this order hath Baptista ta'en, That none shall have access unto Bianca Till Katherine the curst have ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... to reduce the consumption of bread in their homes by one-third, and recommended others to a similar reduction. It was a period of terrible distress for the agricultural labourer. His wages were about 9s. a week, and it was impossible for him to live on them, so that what is known as 'the allowance system' came in. At Speenhamland in Berkshire, in this year, the magistrates agreed that it was not expedient to help the labourer ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... reported that there lay ahead of her a great inner bay or gulf consisting of almost entirely fresh water. Provisions, moreover, were running short, and were, as usual, turning bad; the Admiral's health made vigorous action of any kind impossible for him; he was anxious about the condition of Espanola—anxious also, as we have seen, to send this great news home; and he therefore turned back and decided to risk the passage of the Dragon's Mouth. He anchored in the neighbouring harbour until the wind was in the right quarter, and with ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... an eloquent pause after the story had been told. "I suppose you think I've spun you rather an impossible yarn," said the young man presently, with a suggestion of ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... re-establishing the digestive functions and that now it was necessary to attack the neurosis which was by no means cured and which would necessitate years of diet and care. He added that before attempting a cure, before commencing any hydrotherapic treatment, impossible of execution at Fontenay, Des Esseintes must quit that solitude, return to Paris, and live an ordinary mode of existence by amusing ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... loan of the old house in perfect faith, and it was not his fault that it had been refused. He could not make a house to live in, nor could he coin a fortune. He had L800 a-year of his own, but of course he owed a little money. Men with such incomes always do owe a little money. It was almost impossible that he should marry quite at once. It was not his fault that Adelaide had no fortune of her own. When he fell in love with her he had been a great deal too generous to think of fortune, and that ought ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... difficulty, or indeed, as it seemed to me, the impossibility of fulfilling them. The inherent contradiction which I seemed to perceive herein threw me into great depression; but at last I arrived at the blessed conviction that human nature is such that it is not impossible for man to live the life of Jesus in its purity, and to show it forth to the world, if he will only take ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... symbolic and portrait figures; the other an iron suspension-bridge, built and finished in three years, a half century since, and singularly contrasting, in its lightness and grace, the sombre solidity of the first. It is impossible to look upon the two without feeling how distinctly the different ages to which they belong are indicated by them, and how the ceremonial and military character of the centuries that are past has been superseded by the rapid ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... "It is impossible to slip beside it for it is too close there; so it will be necessary that we turn back a little, get on top, and ride around the obstruction; but it is yet two hours to night; therefore we have plenty of time. Let us rest the horses a little. ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... after losing three games one after the other, I took his measure and began to lay against him without his knowledge. After playing for three hours and losing all the time, he stopped play and came to condole with me on my heavy loss. It is impossible to describe his amazed expression when I shewed him a handful of ducats, and assured him that I had spent a very profitable evening in laying against him. Everybody in the room began to laugh at him, but he was the sort of young man who doesn't understand a joke, and he went out in a rage. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... popular make of motor-car highly spoken of, he entered the depot with the idea of purchasing one. The selection was soon made, and the customer expressed himself ready to buy if he could have a trial trip. That, the salesman explained, was impossible; the cars were sold on their reputation only. The customer declined to buy without a trial, and was leaving the store when the chairman of the company entered, and the ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... apologetically, "you can't have the faintest idea how sorry I am that my instructions are what they are I feel wicked as I look at your distress, but it is simply wholly impossible for me to ask you below. I can have food served ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... to open with Miss Garnet, or My Dear Miss Garnet, or Dear Miss Garnet, or My Dear Miss Barbara, or My Dear Miss Barb, or Dear Miss Barb, or just Dear Friend as you would to an ordinary acquaintance. He tried every form, but each in turn looked simply and dreadfully impossible, and at length he went on with the letter, leaving the terms of his salutation to the inspiration of the last moment. It was long after midnight when he finished. The night sky was inviting, and the post-office near by; he mailed ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... then, a life to lose, A wife and child at home as well as he? See how the breakers foam, and toss, and whirl, And the lake eddies up from all its depths! Right gladly would I save the worthy man, But 'tis impossible, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... (raayta) by permutation of liquids and argues that the contraction is ancient (p. 42). But the Herr is no Arabist: "Layta" means "would to Heaven," or, simply "I wish," "I pray" (for something possible or impossible); whilst "La'alla" (perhaps, it may be) prays only for the possible: and both are simply particles governing the noun in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... crisis had come, Thomas Dudley had been recalled by the Earl of Lincoln, who found it impossible to dispense with his services, and the busy life began again. Whether Anne missed the constant excitement the strenuous spiritual life enforced on all who made part of John Cotton's congregation, there is no record, but one may infer from a passage in her diary that a reaction had set ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... the interview which he obtained with the king show that he had begun to see more clearly the nature and extent of the offences with which he was charged, that he now felt it impossible altogether to exculpate himself, and that his hopes were directed towards obtaining some mitigation of his sentence. The long roll of charges made upon the 19th of April finally decided him; he gave up all idea of defence, and wrote to the king begging him to show him favour ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... Mr. Hoopdriver turned his machine about, struggled upon it, and resumed the road southward. And when he learnt that he was not on the Portsmouth road, it was impossible to turn and go back, for that would be to face his shame again, and so he had to ride on by Brook Street up the hill to Haslemere. And away to the right the Portsmouth road mocked at him and made off to its fastnesses amid the sunlit green and purple ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... about thirty-four pages were in type, but no sheet had been printed. Before the type was broken up, on Dec. 24, 1896, 32 copies of sixteen of these pages were printed and given as a memento to personal friends of the poet and printer whose death now made the completion of the book impossible. This suggested the idea of printing two pages for wider distribution. The half-border had been engraved in April, 1894, by W. Spielmeyer, but the large border only existed as a drawing. It was engraved with ...
— The Art and Craft of Printing • William Morris
... that in a given contingency, the nature of which it is unnecessary and, perhaps, undesirable to specify further, circumstances at present unforeseen might conceivably pave the way for developments of which it might be impossible to ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... appetite is twofold. There is the natural appetite, which belongs to the powers of the vegetal soul. In these powers virtue and vice are impossible, since they cannot be subject to reason; wherefore the appetitive power is differentiated from the powers of secretion, digestion, and excretion, and to it hunger and thirst are to be referred. Besides ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... would have been astonished and incredulous if any one had told them that some day a girl born of their blood would wed a Zilah, one of the chiefs of that Hungary whose obscure and unknown minstrels they were! Ah! what an impossible dream it seemed, and yet it was ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... with Dr. Rendall. The more I saw of him, the more favourably on the whole the man impressed me. He was a gentleman and seemed a good fellow. Being a bachelor with outdoor tastes and an easygoing disposition, it was not at all impossible to understand his choosing the estate of his family to settle down on, isolated though it was. Certainly one could not honestly charge it against him as ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... engaged in stopping the shot-holes—through which the water was rushing with a rapidity sufficient in a short time to carry the prize to the bottom—it was impossible to attempt repairing ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... R. Wilson, Thomas N. Miller, William Cowley—members of our circle—shared with me the invaluable privilege of the use of Colonel Anderson's library. Books which it would have been impossible for me to obtain elsewhere were, by his wise generosity, placed within my reach; and to him I owe a taste for literature which I would not exchange for all the millions that were ever amassed by man. Life would be ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... a period of travel, was settled as deacon in the little parish of Backnang, when the comet of 1577 gave him an occasion to apply his astronomical studies. His minute and accurate observation of it is to this day one of the wonders of science. It seems almost impossible that so much could be accomplished by the naked eye. His observations agreed with those of Tycho Brahe, and won for Maestlin the professorship of astronomy in the University of Heidelberg. No man had so clearly proved the supralunar ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... "It is impossible to quote all the hideous provisions of these statutes under whose operation the Negro would have been relapsed gradually and surely into actual and admitted slavery. Kindred legislation was attempted in a large majority of the Confederate States, and it is not uncharitable or illogical to assume ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... telling himself at the moment how quick may be the resolves of the eager mind,—for he was convinced that the idea of attacking Mr. Bonteen had occurred to Phineas Finn after he had displayed the life-preserver at the club door; and he was telling himself also how impossible it is for a dull conscientious man to give accurate evidence as to what he had himself seen,—for he was convinced that Lord Fawn had seen Phineas Finn in the street. But to no human being had he expressed ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... investigation by his own friends; they declared that the young heir had committed suicide in a fit of insanity, and that the people of Ouglitch had put innocent (p. 131) men to death. The assassination of Dmitri's relatives, and the depopulation of Ouglitch made further inquiry impossible. ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... July, 1785, she writes again to Mr. Cadell:—"I am favoured with your answer and pleased with the advertisement, but it will be impossible to print the verses till my return to England, as they are all locked up with other papers in the Bank, nor should I choose to put the key (which is now at Milan) in any ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... other fifteen provinces of the Netherlands, known in history as the Pacification of Ghent (1576). The resistance to the Spanish crown had thus far been carried on without concerted action among the several states, the Prince of Orange having hitherto found it impossible to bring the different provinces to agree to any plan of general defence. But the awful experiences of the Spanish Fury taught the necessity of union, and led all the seventeen provinces solemnly to agree to unite in driving the Spaniards from the Netherlands, and ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... upon the wind before him, and impregnable Sicilian castles fall into his power by impossible feats of arms, or incredible stratagems. A Greek empress, "the mature Zoe," as Gibbon calls her, falls in love with him, and her husband, Constantine Monomachus, puts him in prison; but Saint Olaf still protects his mauvais sujet of a brother, and inspires ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... not seem to notice the remark, but started a subject of conversation that it was almost impossible to dismiss for the next ten minutes. Then he stepped down from the portico, and was moving leisurely toward the arbor when he perceived that Irene had already left it and was returning by another path. So he came back and seated himself ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... hard as a diamond, a belief which led them to submit all the green gems they found to the test of hammering—with disastrous results to the stones. The loss occasioned by this procedure was intensified by the fact that for a long while it was found impossible to discover the mine from which the Incas had procured their emeralds. It was not until the discovery of New Granada that the source was revealed from which the stones had been obtained. The wealth of the land did not ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... security to that body and secures likewise the benefits of discipline. If time allowed us to give a full description of our Church work here it would be seen that the doctrine of the parity of all who hold the ministerial office so thoroughly permeates the whole, that it would seem impossible for mistake ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... there, the spark coil and the arc lamp were the only known means for setting up oscillations at the sending end, while the electrolytic and crystal detectors were the only available means for the amateur to receive them. As it was next to impossible for a boy to get a current having a high enough voltage for operating an oscillation arc lamp, wireless telephony was out of the question for him, so he had to stick to the spark coil transmitter which needed only a battery current to energize it, and this, of course, ...
— The Radio Amateur's Hand Book • A. Frederick Collins
... Impossible! Have evil spirits power over my subjects, even in nay private apartments? Well, well;— Daily I seem, less able to avert Misfortune from myself, and o'er my actions Less competent to exercise control; How can I then ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... friends. Only of Heliodore and Martina he could or would tell me nothing, nor of when we were to set out on our journey to Baghdad. I asked to be allowed to speak with the Patriarch Politian, but he answered that this was impossible, as he had been called away from Alexandria for a little while. Nor could I have audience with the Emir Obaidallah, for he ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... from any pontifical airs of the mystery of authorship. "I could have written longer notes," he says in the great Preface to his Shakespeare, "for the art of writing notes is not of difficult attainment." "It is impossible for an expositor not to write too little for some, and too much for others." "I have indeed disappointed no opinion more than my own; yet I have endeavoured to perform my task with no slight solicitude. ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... she allowed people to believe it. Did she ever say so? Stella is the daughter of Terence Comerford and Bridyeen Sweeney, whom you know as Mrs. Wade. Don't you see now how impossible it is? I wish to Heaven Grace ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... his aunt gave Warrington a longing for action—swift mental and physical action. To sit in that dark, empty house, to read or to write, was utterly impossible; nor had he any desire to take long rides into the country. His mind was never clearer than when he rode alone, and what he wanted was confusion, noise, excitement, struggle. So he made an appointment with Senator ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... to the dressing station and the station itself were under so severe a fire for some hours afterwards that it was impossible for any ambulance to be brought near it. Such casualties as could walk back walked, others were carried slowly and painfully to a point which the ambulances had a fair sporting chance of reaching intact. One way and another a good many hours passed before Ruthven's ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... the carpenter's mate to use his utmost endeavours I went up, leaving the boatswain and some others there. About 5 o'clock the boatswain came to me and told me the leak was increased, and that it was impossible to keep the ship above water; when on the contrary I expected to have had the news of the leak's being stopped. I presently went down and found the timber cut away, but nothing in readiness to stop the force of the water from coming in. I asked them why ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... that would say, The devil take this usury, it keeps us from forfeitures, of mortgages and bonds. The third and last is, that it is a vanity to conceive, that there would be ordinary borrowing without profit; and it is impossible to conceive, the number of inconveniences that will ensue, if borrowing be cramped. Therefore to speak of the abolishing of usury is idle. All states have ever had it, in one kind or rate, or other. So as that opinion must be sent ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... dominating influence in the economy and has so far failed to bring about much-needed structural changes. The IMF suspended Uzbekistan's $185 million standby arrangement in late 1996 because of governmental steps that made impossible fulfillment of Fund conditions. Uzbekistan has responded to the negative external conditions generated by the Asian and Russian financial crises by tightening export and currency controls within its already largely closed economy. ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... impossibility, or, under natural conditions, occurs only exceptionally. On the other hand these plants present a series of extraordinarily beautiful and remarkable adaptations which ensure the transference of pollen by insects from one flower to another. It is impossible to describe adequately in a few words the wealth of facts contained in the Orchid book. A few examples may, however, be quoted in illustration of the delicacy of the observations and of the perspicuity employed in interpreting ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... him into a sidewalk, leaving me to stand in the sun, bursting with anger and spleen. The gutter-bred rascal! That such a man should insult me, and with impunity! In Paris, I might have made him fight, but here it was impossible. ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... note, begging her to leave the closet. She did so, but she went into another back room, and consented to take coffee for her breakfast. Wishing to make her dine and sup with me, I was dressing myself, and preparing to proffer my request in such a way as to make a refusal impossible, when young Cornelis was announced. I received him smilingly, and thanked him for the first visit he had paid me in ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... it into their heads to make a domiciliary visitation in this house. And then think of what a fearful weapon it puts into the hands of your enemies, if, hearing that I know so much, they put pressure upon me that I cannot withstand! Of course, that is impossible. I ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... however, soon cleared. It was impossible for him to frown for long on any subject. He was very sorry for 'old Pam.' His father's opinions and behaviour were too queer for words. He would be jolly worried if he had to stay long at home, like Pamela. But then he wasn't going to be long at home. He was going off to his artillery camp ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... insist on the elimination of all honorific or wasteful elements from his consumption, would be unable to supply his most trivial wants in the modern market. Indeed, even if he resorted to supplying his wants directly by his own efforts, he would find it difficult if not impossible to divest himself of the current habits of thought on this head; so that he could scarcely compass a supply of the necessaries of life for a day's consumption without instinctively and by oversight incorporating in his home-made ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... had succeeded Schurz in the Interior Department, and our information was that he would at least approve of any lease secured. We were urged at the earliest opportunity to visit the Cheyenne and Arapahoe agency, and open negotiations with the ruling chiefs of those tribes. This was impossible just at present, for with forty herds, numbering one hundred and twenty-six thousand cattle, on the trail and for our beef ranch, a busy summer lay before us. Edwards was dispatched to meet and turn off the herds intended for our range in the Outlet, Major Hunter proceeded on to ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... illustrate the remarkable mental qualities of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to select those which presented the minimum of sensationalism, while offering a fair field for his talents. It is, however, unfortunately, impossible to entirely separate the sensational from the criminal, and a chronicler is left in the dilemma that he must either sacrifice details which are essential to his statement, and so give a false impression of the problem, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... and the host calls upon the mothers to express thanks for the pleasure of the daughter's attendance. The men invited must each call within three days upon the especial lady to whom they devoted their time during the evening, or if this is impossible, ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... a strange mysterious impulse to speak to her about Annie Hogg. The thought of his mother and Annie Hogg together showed him at once how impossible that was. They were in separate worlds. He was suddenly angry at the difficulties that life was making for him without his own wish. "Oh, I'll be here some time yet, mother," he said. "Well, I must get along now. I've got ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... his room where he was reading, and saw, instantly, that the house was in great danger of being burned down. The boys heard the noise, and came flying back to the play-room, to save what they could; but it was impossible to enter. The room was black with smoke, and they looked on dismayed, as they heard the popping and banging of their precious fireworks, while "Who did it?" "Who did it?" was asked on ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown
... all heard tell of the "Clerk of the Weather." What a poor, ill-used, roundly-rated, over-worked individual he must be! His whole life must be spent in an impossible endeavour to please everybody. We may imagine the poor man going of a morning towards his office with languid steps and weary, wondering all the while to himself what sort of weather he ought ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... me slightly. She ought to have seen, without being told, that it was impossible for people like us to continue to know people ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... took it, and was conscious that, though it was too cold, it had the same quality that Miss Vesta's hand had, a touch like rose-leaves, smooth and light and dry. She shook hands as if she meant it, too, instead of giving a limp flap, as some girls did. It was impossible to tell the colour of her eyes; ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... fact which should have no weight against a conclusive argument on the other side, but which might, perhaps, be allowed to turn the scale nicely balanced. The W sound is not only unfamiliar but nearly, if not quite, impossible, to the lips of any European people except the English, and would therefore of necessity have to be left out of any universally adopted scheme of Latin pronunciation. Professor Ellis pertinently says: "As a matter of practical convenience English speakers should abstain from W in Latin, because ...
— The Roman Pronunciation of Latin • Frances E. Lord
... Sidney's language in the passages written for effect, a degree of pretension and bad taste that Cyrano himself, in spite of his natural disposition, could never have equalled. When both kinds of Sidney's favourite embellishments are combined in the same sentence, it becomes impossible to keep serious, and it is difficult to recognize the author of the "Apologie." Sidney thus describes wreckage floating on the water after a sea-fight: "Amidst the precious things were a number of dead bodies, which likewise did not onely testifie both elements violence, but ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... correspondence it is impossible not to be struck with the satisfaction expressed by Park, and the confidence with which he appears to have looked forward to a favourable termination of his journey. Yet in reality nothing could be much less promising ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... tried to keep away as best they could. Miela and Anina flew up over our heads, and, side by side, Mercer and I started off. The people struggled back before our advance, striving to make a path for us. At times the press of those behind made it impossible for them to give us room. We did not hesitate, but shoved our way forward, ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... one end! And when at last Talavera assembled the wise men of the commission: to announce the result of their long deliberation, they had come to this wise conclusion: that the whole thing was foolish and impossible, unworthy of a ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... was making herself quite at home with these Blakes. But surely there was no need to hurry home; Gage was with her mother. She might indulge herself a little longer. She longed to talk more to Kester and Mollie, but she found it impossible to draw them into the conversation. They sat quite silent, only every now and then Audrey's quick eyes saw an intelligent look flash between them—a sort of ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... for the deed. As he sat there in the corner of his carriage, he was thinking of the punishment rather than of the glory. And the punishment must certainly come now. It would be a punishment lasting for the remainder of his life, and so bitter in its kind as to make any further living almost impossible to him. It was not that he would kill himself. He did not meditate any such step as that. He was a man who considered that by doing an outrage to God's work an offence would be committed against God which admitted of no repentance. He must live through it to the last. But he must live ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... country; it is universal. Each year the difficulty of obtaining women to do housework seems to increase and the demand is so much greater than the supply, that ignorant and inefficient employees are retained simply because it is impossible to find others more competent ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker
... government of Massachusetts Bay as a colony was impossible, with the pretensions which it had set up, declaring all appeals to England to be "treason," and punishing complainants as "conspirators" and "traitors." The appointment by Parliament in 1643 of a Governor-General and Commissioners had produced no effect in Massachusetts Bay Colony; ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... years that followed produced no new species of tax. The five forms which we have mentioned, however, were diligently cultivated. In the nine years which immediately followed the accession of William and Mary, about forty distinct acts of taxation were passed by Parliament. Still it was impossible for a nation counting less than six million inhabitants to pay the expenses of a vast and protracted war by immediate taxation. In 1697 a debt existed of about one hundred million dollars. This is the foundation of that national debt which, with trifling exceptions, ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... forced to fly. At last, Carbo sent a large body of cavalry against Pompey, near the river Arsis. He gave them so warm a reception, that they were soon broken, and in the pursuit drove them upon impracticable ground; so that finding it impossible to escape, they surrendered themselves ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... therefore, mean imprisonment in the north for an entire year, or a return around the coast by dog train in winter. The former of these alternatives was out of the question; the latter would be impossible with an encumbrance of four men, for dog teams and drivers in the early winter are usually all away to the hunting grounds and hard to engage. I therefore concluded that but one course was open to me. Three of ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... the table. There were judges and generals and senators and legislators of various ranks all about him. Crude, rough, wholesome fellows, most of them, with big, brawny hands like his own, and loud, hearty voices. It was impossible to stand in awe of a judge who handled his knife more deftly than his fork, and spooned the potato out of the big, earthen-ware dish with a resounding slap. He began to see that these men were exactly like the people he had been with all his life. He ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... he—say, forty-five. That of itself would make little difference, and why shouldn't I find a motherly friend delightfully entertaining? Miss Trippelli was nearly thirty, and I got along with her quite well. But Mrs. Crampas, who by the way was not a von, is impossible. She is always out of sorts, almost melancholy, much like our Mrs. Kruse, of whom she reminds me not a little, and it all comes from jealousy. Crampas himself is said to be a man of many 'relations,' a ladies' man, which always sounds ridiculous to me and would in this case, if he had not had a ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... United States by some unknown accident made its appearance in one of the Southern States. It spread spontaneously in various directions, and in a few years was widely diffused. It grows upon poor and exhausted soils, where the formation of a turf or sward by the ordinary grasses would be impossible, and where consequently no regular pastures or meadows can exist. It makes excellent fodder for stock, and though its value is contested, it is nevertheless generally thought a very important addition ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... pause was impossible. Though the French horses were forced with marvelous dexterity through a bristling forest of steel, though the remnant of the once-glittering squadron was cast against them in as headlong a daring as if it had half the regiments of the Empire at its back, the charge availed little ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... the kind, however, but remained solemn and silent. They were all solemn and silent. Eleanor knew in her heart that they had been talking about her, and her heart misgave her as she thought of Mr Slope and his letter. At any rate she felt it to be quite impossible to speak to her father alone while matters ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... business, and they made it out without much difficulty. The melodies were sentimental, and of a burlesque humor, with strongly accented rhythms, punctuated, as it were, with bursts of laughter. It was impossible to resist their impetuous fun: nobody's feet could help dancing. Anna rushed into the throng; she gripped the first pair of hands held out to her and whirled about like a mad thing; a tortoise-shell pin dropped out of her hair and a few locks of it fell down and hung about her ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... this is a question of discipline; and higher considerations than those of merely personal comfort and security should be brought to bear upon it. It would be impossible for me to impart to my pupils a knowledge of that noblest language of the historic past, if they are to be permitted to leave the class when they choose to do so. I shall refer this matter to Mr. Lowington for ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... Curtis coldly, "Tania is quite impossible. I knew the child would get you into difficulties, and it is just as I feared. She must be sent away ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... French, or Italian; and though so easy, familiar, and elegant, to an Englishman, as to give the intellect no trouble; yet he would find the transfusion into another language extremely difficult, if not impossible. But a Rambler, Adventurer, or Idler, of Johnson, would fall into any classical or European language, as easily as if it had been originally conceived in it. BURNEY. Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 125) recounts how Johnson recommended Addison's works as a model for imitation to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... will even continue to grow, and to develope other organs convenient for individual existence. But most animals, especially the more perfect, do not constitute an aggregate of similar parts united by one trunk, and therefore propagation by division is in them impossible. The ovum, when separated from the parent, is an entire animal only potentially; during its development, the essential parts which constitute the actual whole are produced. In the case of the polyps, we have only to suppose that the ovum remains connected with the parent being, till all, ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen
... is. But it's impossible to do any serious work here. Lady Gertrude fairly radiates disapproval whenever I spend an hour or two at the piano. Oh!"—her sense of humour rising uppermost for a moment—"she asked me to play to them one evening, so I gave them some Debussy—out of sheer devilment, I think"—smiling ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... after her own affairs herself, in all weathers. The late Mr. Trimble had left her a good farm, but not much ready money, and it was often said that she was better off in the end than if he had lived. She regretted his loss deeply, however; it was impossible for her to speak of him, even to intimate friends, without emotion, and nobody had ever hinted that this emotion was insincere. She was most warm-hearted and generous, and in her limited way played the part of Lady Bountiful in the ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... have changed my mind. I realize now that the demand was impossible, that it was—oh, well, you know what ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... that trade was never in a more alarming state than at present. A general strike for wages has taken place amongst the smiths. The carpenters have been dreadfully cut up; and the shoemakers find, at the last, that it is impossible to make both ends meet. The bakers complain that the pressure of the times is so great, that they cannot get the bread to rise. The bricklayers swear that the monopolists ought to be brought to the scaffold. The glaziers, having taken some pains to discover the cause ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... clothing can be worn all the day long, for though the sun is bright and warm, the shade temperature does not rise above 65 degrees, and exercise is easy and pleasant. At night, even at a considerable height, the lowest temperature is 40 degrees. It is impossible to praise the climate too highly, with its bright sky, cool dry air, and five months of rainlessness; but I should write very differently if I came here four months later, when the mercury ranges from 80 ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... de Houppeville and the new habitues, Onfroy, the chemist, Monsieur Varin and Captain Mathieu, dropped in for their game of cards, he struck the window-panes with his wings and made such a racket that it was impossible to talk. ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... arranged that the armistice shall last until the terms of peace are decided upon. If it is found impossible to come to terms, either party must give twenty-four hours' notice before commencing to ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 33, June 24, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... plastered, keep this in mind: the trowel finishes them as far as use is concerned. Whatever is added is purely in the nature of ornament, and must be tried by the laws of decoration. If you enjoy seeing "a parrot, a poppy, and a shepherdess," bunches of blue roses, and impossible landscapes, spotted, at regular intervals, over the inner walls of the rooms, you will choose some large-figured paper. Perhaps, if the pattern is sufficiently distinct and gorgeous, you will think you need no other pictures; and the pictures themselves will be ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... certainly follows that the latter books were written in Absalon's life; but the Preface, written after them, refers to events in 1208. Therefore, unless we suppose that the issue was for some reason delayed, or that Saxo spent seven years in polishing—which is not impossible—there is some reason to surmise that he began with that portion of his work which was nearest to his own time, and added the previous (especially the first nine, or mythical) books, as a completion, and possibly as an afterthought. But this is ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... feature in case is that it was BROTHER BOB who brought matters to a head by tabling a Resolution making impossible in future the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 22, 1914 • Various
... control over governments. What do they expect to do when they have obtained that power? I have given little attention to the steps they will probably take at that time because the question belongs to the future, and has not yet been practically confronted. It is impossible to tell how any body of men will answer any question until it is before them and they know their answer must be at once translated into acts. Yet a few concrete statements as to what Socialists expect and intend for the future—especially ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... the first day of January Dr. Johnston spent a long time at the cabin, striving against the impossible to solve the problem which confronted him like an appalling mystery, far too deep to be pierced by the feeble ray of science ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... therefore was kind, she seemed to avoid him; and he found it almost impossible to be alone with her. She had always dwelt in his mind, more as a cherished ideal, a revered saint, than as an ordinary flesh-and-blood girl with whom he was fit to associate, and for a time after her return her manner increased this impression. He explained the recognized ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... whole Orient in fact—bear witness to the importance of the forestry messages which Gifford Pinchot and Theodore Roosevelt have been drumming into our more or less uncaring ears for a decade past. When I reached Yokohama I found it impossible to get into the northern part of the island of Hondo because of the {264} flood damage to the railroads, and the lives of several friends of mine had been endangered in the same disaster. The dams of bamboo-bound rocks that I found men building near Nikko and Miyanoshita ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... the lesse contentacion should be in them, or so moche the lesse profite thei shal bring thee. Therfore, those that reason of makyng an ordinaunce, and whilest thei tary at home to paie them, thei reason of a thing either impossible, or unprofitable, but it is necessarie to paie them, when thei are taken up to be led to the warre: albeit, though soche order should somewhat disease those, in time of peace, that are appoincted in thesame, which I se not how, there is for recompence all ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... and, all things considered, had done rather well with an impossible job. The clearing of the throat and a glare to go with it were not for the startled girl but for that part of the room where the bar and card tables ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... papa, that he has everything his own way. All the evidence, the false but damning evidence, is in his favor and against me. It seems to me, reflecting coolly upon the circumstances, to be quite impossible that he should be punished or I should be vindicated—in this ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... the savour from a sensation could rapidly habituate himself, and for the rest of that night it was far from making of our hero the happy man that a lover just coming to self-consciousness is supposed to be. It was wrong—it was dishonorable—it was impossible—and yet it was; it was, as nothing in his own personal experience had ever been. He seemed hitherto to have been living by proxy, in a vision, in reflection—to have been an echo, a shadow, a futile attempt; but this at last was life itself, this was a fact, this was ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... in his usual cheerful tones. "It is impossible, at such a time, to keep from looking at Sumter, the batteries and all the other preparations. We would not be human if we didn't do it, and I've seen enough to know that the Yankees will have a hot welcome if they ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... with which his hearers at first listened to him, gradually melted away before the convincing simplicity of his distress: it was impossible for the neighbours to doubt that Marner was telling the truth, not because they were capable of arguing at once from the nature of his statements to the absence of any motive for making them falsely, but because, as Mr. Macey observed, "Folks as had the devil to back 'em were not ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... face an enraged ghost, when he was alone in his room again, demanding an explanation of his cowardly indecision. It was better, on the whole, to risk present discomfiture than to waste an evening bandying excuses and constructing impossible scenes with this uncompromising section of himself. For ever since he had visited the Hilberys he had been much at the mercy of a phantom Katharine, who came to him when he sat alone, and answered him as he would have her answer, and was ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... which they could realize only a small part because they had been city-dwellers back on Earth. There was one place where trees grew like banyans, and it was utterly impossible to penetrate them. They swerved aside. There was another spot where giant trees like sequoias made a cathedral-like atmosphere, and it seemed an impiety to speak. But Holden reported tonelessly in the ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... "rig" was that while it was a tongued wagon with whiffletrees for two horses, there was only one horse. The driver, a bearded farmer, was urging the patient animal on, although it was impossible for it to do more than plod in its ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... seemingly preposterous proposition to establish a daily paper on a retired country farm did not strike the old gentleman as utterly impossible, and anything within the bounds of possibility was sure to meet his earnest consideration, especially when it was proposed by one ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... should be able to judge of his innocence, if he should be wrongly accused. I wrote and dispatched my letter at once, and under an assumed name, to prevent its being stolen. When that was done I tried to rest unconcerned; but, of course, that was impossible. My mind ran on this subject day ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... According to Perrot and Chipiez, "it is not impossible that these altars were older than the great buildings of Persepolis, and that they were erected for the old Persian town which Darius raised ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... already cut off. The lake was rising under their eyes, and that in spite of the fact that the waters had already reached the trench cut for them, and now tumbled in a torrent back to the parent stream. Escape in this direction was clearly impossible. It only remained to wade through the head of the lake, and that without a moment's delay. Mary herself, holding a torch, went first through water above her knees and the men hastily followed, Uncle Chirgwin coming last and being ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... that on looking back over one's travels through Holland it is almost impossible to disentangle in the memory one whitewashed church from another. They have a common monotony of internal aridity: one distinguishes them, if at all, by some accidental possession—Gouda, for example, by its stained glass; Haarlem by its organ, and the swinging ships; Delft by the tomb of William ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... in adventure and the wiles of desperate men. All at once he came upon the wall. He ran along it, and presently his fingers felt the passage. An instant and he was outside and making for the shore, in the sure knowledge that the ruffians would take to the water. He thought of Bucklaw, and by some impossible instinct divined the presence of his hand. Suddenly he saw something flash on the ground. He stooped and picked it up. It was a shoe with a silver buckle. He thrilled to the finger-tips as he thrust it in his bosom and pushed on. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... boulevards, with Verlaine and Bibi la Puree, he might have enjoyed a distinct artistic individuality. Expeditions conducted by Mr. Arthur Symons might have been organized in order to view him at some popular cafe. Mr. George Moore might have written about him. But in respectable London he was quite impossible. In the temple of Art, which is less Calvinistic than artists would have us suppose, he will always have his niche. To the future English Vasari he will be ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... It would be impossible to describe Jane's way of saying "chowder." It had no "r," and she clipped it off at the end. But it is the only way in the world, and the people who so pronounce it are usually the only people in the world ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... least likely to arise. It was impossible to suspect the gentle islanders of wishing any harm to their new queen. There were no wild animals, no animals at all, except a dog or two and ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... from Givet seemed to me impossible. The yard of the fortress was surrounded by a high wall; the buildings appropriated for the prisoners were built with lean-to roofs on one side, and at each side of the square was a sentry looking down upon us. We had no parole, and but ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... scratches on these ruddy surfaces been doctored by the house painter when—whisk! Away with that sombre stuff! And in minced a whole troupe of near-French furnishings; cream enamel beds, cane-backed; spindle-legged dressing tables before which it was impossible to dress; perilous chairs with raspberry complexions. Through all these changes Martha Foote, in her big, bright twelfth floor room, had clung to her old black ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... are, to shorten the duration of Parliaments; and to disqualify all, or a great number of placemen, from a seat in the House of Commons. Whatever efficacy there may be in those remedies, I am sure in the present state of things it is impossible to apply them. A restoration of the right of free election is a preliminary indispensable to every other reformation. What alterations ought afterwards to be made in the constitution, is a matter of deep ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... valiant wrestling with the dreaded entrance examinations, but she had managed, nevertheless, to drop into the girls' rooms at least once a day. In spite of the almost unfavorable impression she had at first created, it was impossible not to acknowledge that the newspaper girl possessed a vividly interesting personality. As she sat wrapped in the folds of her gray kimono, arms folded over her chest, she looked not unlike a feminine Napoleon. Elfreda's quick eyes ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... expressed with the bony part of the knee, yet in after life we came to know and like each other better. I drifted into journalism, while he for years had been an unsuccessful barrister and dramatist; but one spring, to the astonishment of us all, he brought out the play of the season, a somewhat impossible little comedy, but full of homely sentiment and belief in human nature. It was about a couple of months after its production that he first introduced me to ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... colors, thrown into a pit by his brethren; Noah's ark on an ocean of waters; Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea; Rebecca at the well, and Moses in the bulrushes. All these distinguished personages were familiar to us, and to see them here for the first time in living colors, made silence and eating impossible. We dashed around the room, calling to each other: "Oh, Kate, look here!" "Oh, Madge, look there!" "See little Moses!" "See the angels on Jacob's ladder!" Our exclamations could not be kept within bounds. The guests were amused beyond description, while my mother and ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... condition of their poor neighbour was so critical that they found it to be impossible to leave Gorse Hall on the next day, as they had intended. He had become intimate with them, and had breakfasted at Gorse Hall on that very morning. In one way Hampstead felt that he was responsible, as, had he not been in the way, poor Walker's horse would have been next to the ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... and coachman he ought to be assassinated and all his goods given to the poor. He now hires a coachman himself, having succeeded in New York city as a policeman; but the man who comes to assassinate him will find it almost impossible to obtain an audience ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... the path running occasionally between patches of wood, the descent being gradual; the path then struck off into wood, and the descent became rapid. I continued onward, until it was quite dark, and finding it impossible to proceed, and meeting with no signs of B. and P., I determined on returning. I reached the coolies about eight, covered with mud, the path in the wood being very difficult and excessively slippery. I had nothing ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... running right into the woods, as it seemed to Bessie, and more than once, as she heard sounds of pursuit behind, she was frightened. It seemed to her impossible that little Jack, mean he never so well, could possibly enable them to escape from angry Farmer Weeks, who, for an old man, seemed to be keeping up astonishingly well in the race. But soon the noises behind them grew fainter, ...
— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart
... again and again, on the chance of his being within hearing. Before six o'clock next morning I was seeking the truant. Plenty of wild birds were about, the bright sun glancing on their sleek coats—all looking so like my pet it was impossible to distinguish him. I little knew that he was then starving and miserable under a bush in the upper part of the garden. I continued calling and seeking him until breakfast-time, and fast losing all hope of ever ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... the hole more with our bombs," shrieked old Gurlone. "The dead bodies attract the other creatures, more and more of them are coming. It is impossible; we cannot deal with ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... good! good!' cried Sir Lukin, clapping to it, while the long-hit-off ran spinning his legs into one for an impossible catch; and the batsmen were running and stretching bats, and the ball flying away, flying back, and others after it, and still the batsmen running, till it seemed that the ball had escaped control and was leading the fielders on a coltish innings ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a very prudent exercise of discretion in those who had the conduct of the case of that defendant at the trial, not to attempt to call servants at the house for the purpose of disproving a fact which had been proved by so many witnesses; and it is impossible to conceive that any change of dress could have taken place during that short interval, from the time at which he had got out of the coach, to the period when he had appeared before Lord Cochrane; or what could be the ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... minutes over the man, trying to discover whether he had killed him or not. And the prosecutor refuses to believe the prisoner's statement that he ran to old Grigory out of pity. 'No,' he says, 'such sensibility is impossible at such a moment, that's unnatural; he ran to find out whether the only witness of his crime was dead or alive, and so showed that he had committed the murder, since he would not have run back for ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... face looked hard. Was it, he seemed to be turning over in his mind, that she loved him a little in the depths of her heart? That was an irritating trait of feminine stupidity. But one intelligent glance at her calm face rendered that supposition impossible. She was merely largely human, with a sense ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... himself. He is dead, totally undone. Whether that alone was the cause, or whether he had not done something worse, I doubt. I cannot conceive that, with his resources, he should have been hopeless—and, to suspect him of delicacy, impossible! ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... however, often disturbed in his operations by the approach of travellers on the adjacent road, when he had to crouch among the bushes, until the footsteps died away and he could again pursue his solitary task. After some time it seemed impossible to avoid discovery; and lest any one should forestall him in making known the district, he entered Maryborough, not far away, announced his discovery, and received the reward. A rush took place to the Gympie, which was found to be exceedingly rich, and it ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... It is practically impossible to classify the fish an angler catches according to the methods which he employs, as most fish can be taken by at least two of these methods, while many of those most highly esteemed can be caught by all three. Sporting ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... at least a generation before Whitney. One of the earliest of these English pioneers was John Wilkinson, inventor and maker of the boring machine which enabled Boulton and Watt in 1776 to bring their steam engine to the point of practicability. Without this machine Watt found it impossible to bore his cylinders with the necessary degree of accuracy.* From this one fact, that the success of the steam engine depended upon the invention of a new tool, we may judge of what a great part the inventors of machine tools, of whom thousands are unnamed and unknown, ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... 1: The evil of nature sometimes is not an effect of nature, as stated above. But in so far as it is an effect of nature, although it may be impossible to avoid it entirely, yet it may be possible to delay it. And with this hope one may ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... separates. I had determined to return to the Sault by way of Lake Superior, through Chippewa River. But, owing to the murder of Finley and his men at its mouth in 1824, I found it impossible to engage men at Prairie du Chien, to take that route. I determined therefore to go up the Wisconsin, and by the way of Green Bay. For this purpose, I purchased a light canoe, engaged men to paddle it, and laid in provisions and stores to last to Green Bay. Having ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... days, necessary for the concentration of the Austrian armies. Whether the negotiations were consistent with good faith on the part of Austria is another matter; but, one thing seems clear—the Austrian marriage ruined Napoleon. He found it impossible to believe that the monarch who had given him his daughter would strike the decisive blow against him. Without this belief there can be no doubt that he would have attacked Austria before she could have collected her forces, and Metternich ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... toward the mirror again. "You know," he said, "it's only now, mother, that I realize that Hilda is really gone. I can't explain it very well, but before this evening it seemed—well, it seemed idiotic to think that my wife was dead. It felt impossible, somehow." ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... of the Polar Regions are more nearly connected with North America than with Europe or Asia, we propose to leave them to be fully described in another work. It is impossible, in the present volume, to embrace more than the continental parts of ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... indeed is earth of woes, and full the sea; and in the day as well as night diseases unbidden haunt mankind, silently bearing ills to men, for all-wise Zeus hath taken from them their voice. So utterly impossible is it to ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... some one. He told me afterwards he wanted to say, "I don't know; but stick to it whatever happens!" Concentration on the game in this match was terribly difficult, as the crowd was so huge and seemed so excited; it was almost impossible to forget the people and lose yourself in the game. I can quite well remember a dispute going on in the open stand for quite a long time during the first set. I think a lady would not put down her sunshade; ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... hunger itself, devoured all that was set before him, but Logi was, in reality, nothing else than ardent fire, and therefore consumed not only the meat but the trough which held it. Hugi, with whom Thjalfi contended in running, was Thought, and it was impossible for Thjalfi to keep pace with that. When thou, in thy turn, didst try to empty the horn, thou didst perform, by my troth, a deed so marvellous, that had I not seen it myself I should never have believed it. For one end of that horn reached the sea, which thou wast not ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... up all her strength, 'nay, sir, do not swear what is impossible to perform. Not even to save those I love from penury will ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... As it is impossible to frame any but a purely arbitrary definition of teratology or to trace the limits between variation and malformation, it may suffice to say that vegetable teratology comprises the history of the irregularities of growth and development in plants, and of the causes ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... saw at once it would be difficult to have access to Hamilton. He was lying on a stretcher within talking range of the table and had one arm in a sling. Now, I hold it is harder for the unpractised man to play the spy with everything in his favor, than for the adept to act that role against the impossible. One is without the art that foils detection. The other can defy detection. So I stood inside with my hand on the door lest the click of the closing latch should rouse attention, but had no thought of prying ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... the Shenandoah Valley to execute the apparently impossible task of holding in check the armies of Fremont, Milroy, Banks and Shields, and at the same time prevent the force of forty thousand men under McDowell from reaching McClellan. The combined forces ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... (comfort—uncomfort, short—diminiature); (2) distortions of actual words, apparently of pathological origin and not due to ignorance (hungry—foodation, thief—dissteal); and (3) those which seem to be without any meaning whatever (scack, gehimper, hanrow, dicut). It is, however, impossible to draw clear-cut distinctions between these types, and for this reason we have made no provision in our classification for ...
— A Study of Association in Insanity • Grace Helen Kent
... may say the thing is impossible—no man could fall so rapidly from a high and honorable position, as to become in a few short weeks the degraded creature Sinclair is now represented to be. But we maintain that there is nothing exaggerated in the picture we have drawn. ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... What difference would that make? The subtle suggestion of the senator's daughter came back to her mind! Was it possible—that the Watson family were—what she had once read of in an English story—'socially impossible.' Pearl remembered the phrase. The thought struck her with such an impact that she pulled her horse up with a jerk, and stood on the road ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... fire alarm was touched, the bells set to ringing, and the observers leaped up the terraced stairways and arrived at the top just as the whole house burst into flames. The fire company had not arrived in time to do anything, as it was impossible to climb the hill with their heavy trucks, and their hose was not long enough to reach the flames, so the house was gone. Many people had gathered from all quarters in the fashion peculiar to fire crowds, but now they had seen ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... it seemed wrong and impossible to fulfil her promise and remain; while to all outward appearance it seemed equally wrong and impossible to go. She could not see clearly. She could only feel intensely; and her paramount feeling at the moment was that God asked of her more ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... precedents, of which no generation has had any previous experience—a world still being made and enlarged daily. It creates and settles its own problems as it goes along, and if it cannot help itself no one else can. So the Trade lives in the dark and thinks out inconceivable and impossible things which it afterwards ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... truth. If any man ask me, Why our differences cannot be ended on earth? I answer, Were we all thoroughly convinced, that then they would be reconciled, we would put an end to them before; but this is impossible to be done: for as men's certain convictions of truth are not equal to one another, or the weight or significancy of such veracity: so neither can a general effect of this affair be expected on ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... I would, there was no excuse left for me, after the promise given. Dear Annie had not only cheated the Doones, but also had gotten the best of me, by a pledge to a thing impossible. And I bitterly said, "I am not like Lorna: a pledge once ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... It's not!" And the desperation in his voice betrayed him. In the depths of his heart he knew that, for this woman, at all events, it was impossible. But he would not ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... objective regard. Introspection is confined to feelings which want this intimate connection with the external region, and includes sensation only so far as it is viewed apart from external objects and on its mental side as a feeling, a process which is next to impossible where the sensation has little emotional colour, as in the case of an ordinary sensation of sight or ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... pollen from his back (B). Thus he continues until the third segment is reached, from which he carries away a fresh load of pollen to another flower. It will be seen that only the outer side of this appendage is stigmatic, and that it is thus naturally impossible for the blue-flag to self-fertilize—only one instance of thousands in which the anther and stigma, though placed in the closest proximity, and apparently even in contact—seemingly with the design of self-fertilization—are ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... verification if the transition from the real to the merely ideal image were not in the waking state so instantaneous and easy; whereas in a dream the state of illusion is uninterrupted, and it is physiologically impossible for the mind to pass immediately from the image, which is believed to be real, to the simply representative ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... familiar with the Aztec, Toltec and Pueblo ruins, and here I find no similarity. Besides, we are out of their latitude. An ancient race of people—very ancient indeed lived in this canyon. How long ago, it is impossible ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... the machinery, of which he might by some care have known. By the fellow-servant doctrine the employer was freed from responsibility for accidents due to the negligence of other employees, "fellow servants," even when it was impossible for him to know their character and reputation as in the case of a large factory or of ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... every day a portion of the Old and a portion of the New Testament, going on where we previously left off. This is important—1, because it throws light upon the connexion, and a different course, according to which one habitually selects particular chapters, will make it utterly impossible ever to understand much of the Scriptures. 2, Whilst we are in the body, we need a change even in spiritual things, and this change the Lord has graciously provided in the great variety which is to be found in His word. 3, It tends to the glory of God; for the leaving out some chapters ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... do not put down your rod save when actually necessary, if you would do a friend's duty to it and your winch; keep on examining the point of your hook; do not be afraid of sliding down a rock that cannot be otherwise travelled over, for in these days of science the reseating of breeks is not impossible, and any casual personal disfigurement that may ensue is not likely to be obtruded upon the notice of even ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... up, then another, and the bandits discovered themselves in the centre of a ring formed by twenty men, with the young captain in command. Resistance would have been foolish, flight impossible; yet, as the captain stepped toward the brigand leader, the man in the cloak attempted the foolish and impossible; he fired his pistol full at the captain's head, flung the weapon after the bullet, missing his aim each time, then ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... rose to Patty's cheeks, for it was impossible to mistake the earnestness in Bill's voice. She smiled at him, gently for a moment, and then roguishly, and her dimples flashed into view, as she danced lightly away from him, calling back over ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... Goethe and Schiller, who discarded all models, the Scandinavian countries did not reach until a much later period; and Tegner was one of those who stimulated that national self-respect without which independence is impossible. ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... to cool her glowing cheeks, and repeat to herself, "A mistake, an error. It must be a blunder! That boy that went to the theatre may have cheated them! Mrs. Rawlins may have deceived Mr. Mauleverer. Anything must be true rather than—No, no! such a tissue of deception is impossible in a man of such sentiments! Persecuted as he has been, shall appearances make me—me, his only friend—turn against him? Oh, me! here come the whole posse purring upstairs to take off their things! I shall ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... negation, its function and value with reference to diverse logical problems, have many diverse aspects, and it is impossible to do them justice in a small ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... done by him was more meritorious or more useful. Near its expiration St. Vincent wrote to him, "The employment you have conducted is the most important of this war." He there demonstrated that what before had apparently been thought impossible could be done, though involving a degree of anxiety and peril far exceeding that of battle, while accompanied by none of the distinction, nor even recognition, which battle bestows. "None but professional men who ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... Meriwether Lewis that the lady did indeed remind me of one I knew, but as she was at that moment (I had every reason to believe) safe with Mrs. O'Fallon at Mulberry Hill, it was impossible that it could be she. Then, though much disturbed by this chance resemblance and the thronging memories it awakened, I addressed myself once ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... make sure that all my readers understand the process of frying in deep fat. I have used the word saute too, and although no doubt both these processes are familiar to most readers who would be likely to practise "Choice Cookery," for those who are not adepts many of the recipes would be impossible to execute. Frying, once understood, is so easy a process one wonders that so few should excel in it. To those who are not sure of themselves I recommend practice. A couple of hours' practice and careful observance of rules will enable a ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... still think that some readers might have understood me rightly even without the aid of this explanation, which, however, it is as well for me to give, as I wish to be intelligible to all. A writer should endeavor to make it impossible for any one to misapprehend his meaning, though there are some writers of high name both in England and America who seem to delight ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... atheistic, deistic, or anthropomorphic. This is of course very easy; as the same arguments which demonstrated the inability of human reason to affirm the existence of a Supreme Being must be alike sufficient to prove the invalidity of its denial. For it is impossible to gain from the pure speculation of reason demonstration that there exists no Supreme Being, as the ground of all that exists, or that this being possesses none of those properties which we regard as analogical with the dynamical qualities of a thinking being, or that, as ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... hit upon some utterly exceptional patient who was both foolish enough to consult us and sharp enough to know he had been swindled. When such a fellow made a fuss, it was occasionally necessary to return his money if it was found impossible to bully him into silence. In one or two instances, where I had promised a cure upon prepayment of two or three hundred dollars, I was either sued or threatened with suit, and had to refund a part or the whole of the amount; ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... deference to Mrs Trumbler's experience in this particular department, but professing to be fortified in her own view by the opinion of an undertaker with a wide connection. She reflected, as she got into her pony carriage, that it is impossible even to die without affording a good deal of pleasure to other people—surely a fortunate ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... they have been compared to the sublime dogma of the Christian Incarnation. This is one of the grossest errors that ignorance of the ideas and beliefs of a people has produced. Between the avatars of India and the Christian Incarnation there is such an immensity of difference that it is impossible to find any reasonable analogy that can approximate them. The idea of the avatars is intimately united with that of the Trimurti; the bond of connection between these two ideas is an essential notion common ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... felt somehow that for my development I wanted to get as close to nature as ever I could—that my mind seemed to be reaching out for a great emptiness. But I looked over all the hotel and steamship folders I could find and it seemed impossible to get good accommodation, so we came to New York. I had a great deal of shopping to do for our new house, so I could not be much with John, but I felt it was not right to neglect him, so I drove him somewhere in a taxi each morning and called for him again in the evening. One day I took him ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... nothing moving but his eyes. They rolled to and fro, up and down, from the high red pulpit to the worn hymn-books in the rack, recognizing two little faces under blue-ribboned hats in a distant pew, and finding it impossible to restrain a momentary twinkle in return for the solemn wink Billy Barton bestowed upon him across the aisle. Ten minutes of this decorous demeanor made it absolutely necessary for him to stir; so he unfolded his arms and crossed ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... waves up higher and higher, until they looked like an endless succession of undulating, constantly advancing hills and valleys. From the ragged crests the spray was torn and blown in solid sheets before the raging wind so that at times it was impossible to see the heaving waters beneath. As the breakers came up against the lighthouse ledge, their tops would curve over and come crashing down with mighty blows that it seemed must pulverize the solid granite. The rebounding ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... it was impossible that this churl, as he deemed him, would not be overjoyed to hear of the match he had made for him, and he must needs know it soon. Yet there was that about Havelok that puzzled him, for his ways were not those of a churl, and he spoke as a freeman ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... fifteen thousand inhabitants, exclusive of several thousand foreign auxiliaries, within its gates at the time of surrender. One cannot, at this day, read the melancholy details of its story, without feelings of horror and indignation. It is impossible to vindicate the dreadful sentence passed on this unfortunate people for a display of heroism, which should have excited admiration in every generous bosom. It was obviously most repugnant to Isabella's natural disposition, and must be admitted to leave ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... growth of a party hostile to Episcopalian government, the necessity for purchasing the aid of the Scots by a union in religion as in politics, and above all the urgent need of constructing some new ecclesiastical organization in the place of the older organization which had become impossible from the political attitude of the bishops, that forced on the two Houses the adoption of the Covenant. But the change to a Presbyterian system of Church government seemed at that time of little import to the bulk of Englishmen. The dogma of the necessity of bishops was held by few; and the ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... such individuality in non-living things. In a mass of sugar grains each grain shows just the same characteristics and reacts in exactly the same way as all the other grains of the mass. Individuality, however expressed, is due to structural variation. It is almost impossible to conceive in the enormous complexity of living things that any two individuals, whether they be single cells or whether they be formed of cell masses, can be exactly the same. It is not necessary to assume in such individual differences that there be any variation in the amount and ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... Scotsman would express it, with which its detached masses are grouped. The castle of Mornas is not so remarkable, but the rocks on which it stands are very striking; for if they have any inclination out of the perpendicular, it is rather towards than from the road. It is indeed impossible, when you stand under the shade of this lofty barrier, and look up to the clouds drifting over it, to fancy that it is not in the act of toppling down upon your head. We had not as yet emerged from the land of castles, for, as in yesterday's route, almost every little town possessed some vestige ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... wild things, still giving his life to digging up dreams and living for hopes that will never be realized. It's a strange disease, this gold fever. I've never had it, but I've heard Old Ben at the Inn tell how it's nearly impossible for a man to go back to his work in the city after he has once seen the golden glitter and dug the ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... says she, as never to forbear weeping till you have satisfied my curiosity. But I tell you very seriously, replied he, that it will cost me my life, if I yield to your indiscretion. Let what will happen, says she, I do insist upon it. I perceive, says the merchant, that it is impossible to bring you to reason; and since I foresee that you will occasion your own death by your obstinacy, I will call in your children, that they may see you before you die. Accordingly he called for them, and sent for her ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... that unexplored and dread land where there were neither poles nor equator, and whence no mariner was ever known to return. It was necessary, therefore, to make arrangements for the surplus population of the colony—whether for a time or for ever, it was then impossible to say. At first sight, it might appear easy enough to provide accommodation for the eleven individuals that constituted the colony of New Switzerland. It is true that land might have been marked off, and each person made sovereign over a territory as large as some European kingdoms; ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... England, I should leave a loved but empty land—Mr. Rochester is not there; and if he were, what is, what can that ever be to me? My business is to live without him now: nothing so absurd, so weak as to drag on from day to day, as if I were waiting some impossible change in circumstances, which might reunite me to him. Of course (as St. John once said) I must seek another interest in life to replace the one lost: is not the occupation he now offers me truly the most glorious ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... the cedars and magnolias and sprinkling it to the ground among the lower growths and between their green-black shadows. When in a certain impotence of rapture we cast about in our minds for an adequate comparison—where description in words seemed impossible—the only parallel we could find was the art of Corot and such masters from the lands where the wonderful pictorial value of trees trimmed high has been known for centuries and is still cherished. For without those trees so disciplined ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... Elsie," I answered. "Old Simpson has written me a long letter—he always had a fancy for symptoms, you know—but I can make nothing of it. The symptoms he describes are quite impossible. They are ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... the old monk had been intellectual enough to detect their fallacy; the only misfortune was that nobody in the modern world was intellectual enough even to understand their argument. The old monk, one of whose names was Michael, and the other a name quite impossible to remember or repeat in our Western civilization, had, however, as I have said, made himself quite happy while he was in a mountain hermitage in the society of wild animals. And now that his luck had lifted him above all the mountains ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... roots are embarked, and the business is so expeditiously performed that the speed of the canoe amply compensates for every delay. The Sturgeon River is justly called by the Canadians La Riviere Maligne from its numerous and dangerous rapids. Against the strength of a rapid it is impossible to effect any progress by paddling and the canoes are tracked or, if the bank will not admit of it, propelled with poles, in the management of which the Canadians show great dexterity. Their simultaneous motions were ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... a boy any sort of an education in a region so wild and so inhospitable would have seemed impossible. Yet devoted Sisters—refined and aristocratic American women—were already in this mountain country devoting their lives to the Indian Missions. Under such women little Jim learned his Catechism and his reading and from ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... might deceive us, and does indeed deceive us, and the appearances of our understanding are often as deceptive as those of the senses: but here it is a question of the linking together of truths and of objections in due form, and in this sense it is impossible for ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... motoring coat. Was it because she was not garbed as the others that they rebuffed her friendly overtures, she wondered. At the next stop, she passed out to go up and ride on the driver's seat, manifestly an impossible feat for ladies in lavender and undertaker's plumes. A fat hand reached forward to shove the door open. It was Bat Brydges'. She nodded her thanks, and the handy man bowed with a sweep of his hat naming her aloud for the whole stage to hear. If a look could ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... people were always denouncing him because he was too extreme; but as a matter of fact he never went to extremes, he worked step by step; and because of this the extremists hated and denounced him with a fervor which now seems to us fantastic in its deification of the unreal and the impossible. At the very time when one side was holding him up as the apostle of social revolution because he was against slavery, the leading abolitionist denounced him as the "slave hound of Illinois." When he was the second time candidate for President, ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... it avail to hurl a few thousand troops against those impregnable works? The men were not iron, and were they, it would have been impossible for them to have kept erect, where trees three feet in diameter were crashed down upon them by the enemy's shot; they would have been but as so many ten-pins set up before skillful players to ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... in the Old Testament language, "cunning women,"—that is, gifted with an infinite diversity of practical "faculty," which made them an essential requisite in every family for miles and miles around. It was impossible to say what they could not do: they could make dresses, and make shirts and vests and pantaloons, and cut out boys' jackets, and braid straw, and bleach and trim bonnets, and cook and wash, and iron and mend, could upholster and quilt, could nurse all kinds of sicknesses, and in default of ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... few moments and Foster felt his heart beat. He meant to finish the interview as it had begun, without doing anything unusual, but if this was impossible, he had another plan. His muscles were stiffened ready for a spring; he would pin the fellow to his desk while he seized the letters. Though he meant to look calm, his face got very grim; but Graham carelessly ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... danger, with reference to his ambitious views, of not at least so far cultivating the intellect and taste of so attractive a maiden as his daughter, that sympathy on her part with the rude, unlettered clowns, with whom she necessarily came so much in contact, should be impossible. He laughed my hints to scorn. 'It is idleness—idleness alone,' he said, 'that puts love-fancies into girls' heads. Novel-reading, jingling at a pianoforte—merely other names for idleness—these are the parents of such follies. Anne Dutton, as mistress of this establishment, has her time ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... find Lory and give him that odd, inexplicable message from the abbe. She had not undertaken much in her narrow life; but she had usually accomplished, in a quiet, mouse-like way, that to which she set her hand. And now, as she drove through the smiling country, with which it was almost impossible to associate the idea of war, she was planning how she could get to the front and work there under the Baron de Melide, and find ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... insignificant mishap—the tailor refuses to make me a uniform by that time, and in citizen's clothes, as a fashionable dandy, I really cannot appear among the brave men who will proudly walk about in their litefkaes. The tailor says it is impossible for him to make a uniform at so short a notice; he pretends to be overwhelmed with work, and does not know where to find hands. Now you, the helping, advising, and protecting genius of the volunteers, are my last consolation and resort. If you send for the cruel tailor, ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... done this very night! We must improve the moment, for only the moment is ours. Every hour of delay but brings us nearer to our destruction. Yet one night of hesitation, and they will already have rendered our success impossible. Ah, the Regent Anna has sworn to believe only you, and never to doubt you, and yet she has ordered three battalions of the guards to march early in the morning to join the army in Viborg. Our friends and confidants are in these three battalions. ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... relish, more especially as she knew that Mrs. Ralston would not be present. To be received with icy ceremony by Lady Harriet and sent in to dinner with Major Burton was a state of affairs that must have dashed the highest spirits. She tried to make the best of it, but it was impossible to be entirely unaffected by the depressing chill of the atmosphere. Conversation turned upon Mrs. Ermsted, regarding whom the report had gone forth that she was very seriously ill. Lady Harriet sought ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... remotest border, Where into the empty spaces Sinks the sun, as a flamingo Drops into her nest at nightfall, In the melancholy marshes. "Hold!" at length cried Mudjekeewis, "Hold, my son, my Hiawatha! 'T is impossible to kill me, For you cannot kill the immortal. I have put you to this trial, But to know and prove your courage; Now receive the prize of valor! "Go back to your home and people, Live among them, toil among them, Cleanse the earth from all that harms it, Clear the fishing-grounds ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... instead of Harrisburg. The boy telegraphed this fact to Governor Curtin. A special engine was sent for the boy. "I would give my right hand," said the governor, "to know if this boy tells the truth." A corporal replied, "Governor, I know that boy; it is impossible for him to lie; there is not a drop of false blood in his veins." In fifteen minutes the Union troops were marching to Gettysburg, where they gained a victory. Character is power. The great thing is to be a man, to have a high purpose, a noble aim, to be dead in earnest, to yearn for the ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... going to say, dear. From a worldly point of view, you are quite right. Seemingly, without volition on our part, we have evolved a distressing, an impossible situation—" ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... Cupid; but he made fools of them still, for he is astonishingly cunning. When the university students come from the lectures, he runs beside them in a black coat, and with a book under his arm. It is quite impossible for them to know him, and they walk along with him arm in arm, as if he, too, were a student like themselves; and then, unperceived, he thrusts an arrow to their bosom. When the young maidens come from being examined by the clergyman, or go to church to be confirmed, there he is again close ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... insincere and untruthful, say his enemies. Granted. I never found a man in power to be otherwise in personal questions or relations. It is almost impossible for the power-holders to be ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... obliged to stop in its adventurous course amid these fields of ice. In spite of our efforts, in spite of the powerful means employed to break up the ice, the Nautilus remained immovable. Generally, when we can proceed no further, we have return still open to us; but here return was as impossible as advance, for every pass had closed behind us; and for the few moments when we were stationary, we were likely to be entirely blocked, which did indeed happen about two o'clock in the afternoon, the fresh ice forming around its sides with astonishing ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... Indies. There is in those Seas a kind of small worms, that fasten themselves to the Timber of the ships, and so pierce them, that they take water every where; or if they do not altogether pierce them thorow, they so weaken the wood, that it is almost impossible to repair them. We have at present a Man here, that pretends to have found an admirable secret to remedy this evil. That, which would render this secret the more important, is, that hitherto very many ways have been used to effect it, but without success. Some have imployed ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... that there is in the heart of man no equal place for another woman who holds him by no legal and moral tie. But a man, having a double nature, can worship his wife, yet love with passion another woman—even though he hates and despises himself for so doing. But it is rare, if not impossible, for one woman to completely satisfy the man whose nature is made up of good and bad, of high ideals and low cravings, of steadfast fidelity, yet with a yearning for the wild, untrammelled existence of the mountain ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
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