"Insurmountable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are more profuse in speculation and surmise than in solid fact. The information possessed has been drawn bit by bit from the reluctant Japanese. The difficulties of investigation have been almost insurmountable,—no visitor, during two hundred years, having been allowed the slightest freedom of association with the people, or opportunity for travel. With very few exceptions, foreigners have been confined to the extremest limit of the islands, and forbidden even to leave the coast; and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... Baker and Petherick; to behold with her own eyes the vast expanse of the blue Victorian Sea; to trace to its fountain-head the course of the Nile; but the authorities threw obstacles in her way which proved to be insurmountable. Apart from these, the progress of the expedition was arrested by the malarious fever which attacked herself and most of her followers. In her own case the attack was so severe as at one time to ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... fully as large as the cells or units in one of the higher animals; yet these organisms no doubt reproduce themselves by germs of extreme minuteness, relatively to their own minute size. Hence the difficulty, which at first appears insurmountable, of believing in the existence of gemmules so numerous and so small as they must be according to our ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... selecting him to be the Catholic King than for selecting the Margrave of Baden or the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Something was said about Victor Amadeus of Savoy, and something about the King of Portugal; but to both there were insurmountable objections. It seemed, therefore, that the only choice was between a French Prince and an Austrian Prince; and William learned, with agreeable surprise, that Lewis might possibly be induced to suffer the younger Archduke to be King of Spain and the Indies. It was intimated at the same time ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... declared that by an inconceivable proposition he means, now and always, "one of which the terms can not, by any effort, be brought before consciousness in that relation which the proposition asserts between them—a proposition of which the subject and predicate offer an insurmountable resistance to union in thought." We now, therefore, know positively that Mr. Spencer always endeavors to use the word inconceivable in this, its proper, sense: but it may yet be questioned whether his endeavor is always successful; whether the other, and popular use of the word, does not ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... in that suzerainty no real infringement of the independence which the Free State has so happily enjoyed. It is premature to speculate now on the best form which a scheme for South African Confederation may take. All that need here be pointed out is that the obstacles now perceived are not insurmountable obstacles, but such as may be overcome by a close study of the conditions of the problem, and by reasonable concessions on the part of South African statesmen in the ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... princesses marry, they generally embrace the faith of their husbands; and when, lately, Queen Elizabeth was talking of marrying the Prince of Anjou, she made it one of the conditions that he should turn Protestant, and the demand was not considered to be insurmountable. It may be that the time will come when Henry of Navarre may consider the throne of France, freedom of worship, and a general peace, cheaply purchased at the cost of attending mass. If he does so, doubtless the Huguenots would ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... at her inquiringly, and Jessie regarded her with admiration and wonder, for she could not conceive what this insurmountable difficulty could be. ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... it. That this union, however, could be easily effectuated, or that difficulties, and great difficulties, might not occur in the execution, I do not pretend. I have yet heard of none, however, which appear insurmountable. The principal, perhaps, arise, not from the nature of things, but from the prejudices and opinions of the people, both on this and on the other ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... he said, "I'm afraid I must agree with you; there is no way; oneself is about the most insurmountable block of all. I might have known that you were hardly likely to make any mistake as to whether you ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... way of life, while it inures them to hardships, strengthens at the same time the bonds of their little society, and creates in them an aversion towards strangers, which is almost insurmountable. Cut off from all intercourse with civilized nations, and boasting an advantage over the Negroes, by possessing, though in a very limited degree, the knowledge of letters, they are at once the vainest and proudest, ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... made were afterwards destroyed by a flood, and remained in ruins till 1771. Some repairs were then executed, but they were inefficient; and the navigation is now given up, except at the mouth of the river; and even there the bar of Christchurch is an insurmountable obstacle except at spring tides.-(Penny Cyclopdia, art. Wiltshire.) As the Bishop dug the first spitt, or spadeful of earth, and drove the first wheelbarrow, that necessary process was no doubt made a matter of much ceremony. The laying the "first stone" of an ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... civil government, though they usually follow natural leadings, as the lines of race, language, religion, and territory, yet require wisdom and conduct in the rulers, and in their result delight the imagination. "We see insurmountable multitudes obeying, in opposition to their strongest passions, the restraints of a power which they scarcely perceive, and the crimes of a single individual marked and punished at the distance of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... here was the heartrending complication. A spectre without, a man within. A man more than any other, perhaps, since his double fate was the synopsis of all humanity. And he felt that humanity was at once present in him and absent from him. There was in his existence something insurmountable. What was he? A disinherited heir? No; for he was a lord. Was he a lord? No; for he was a rebel. He was the light-bearer; a terrible spoil-sport. He was not Satan, certainly; but he was Lucifer. His entrance, with his torch ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... until I have solved the mystery that has been torturing me for more than a month. Speak, or I will leave you. I may be a fool who destroys his own happiness, I may be demanding something that is not for me to possess, it may be that an explanation will separate us and raise before me an insurmountable barrier, that it will render our tour, on which I have set my heart, impossible; whatever it may cost you and me, you shall speak or ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... and the sound of lively talk. Presently this door opened and Mary of the Crucifix entered. In her monastic habit she looked coarse and overblown: the severe lines and sober tints of the dress did not become her. Odo felt an insurmountable repugnance at seeing her. He could not conceive why Fulvia had chosen such an intermediary, and for the first time a stealing doubt tainted ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... blinded and seared to every feeling, not only of religion, but even of humanity. Religious missionaries, filled with the spirit of the apostles, and armed with the power of God, baffled obstacles which seemed insurmountable to flesh and blood; and by their zeal, charity, patience, humility, meekness, mortification, and invincible courage, triumphantly planted the standard of the cross in a world heretofore unknown to us, and but lately discovered, not by blind chance, but for ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... me for interrupting you, but how has this been brought about? The obstacles you told me of on Saturday appeared even to me to be quite insurmountable; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in a tirtha, restraining lust and subjugating wrath, in consequence of such residence. For the purpose of repairing to all the tirthas in the world, one should mentally think of those amongst them that are almost inaccessible or sojourns to which are attended with insurmountable difficulties. Sojourns to tirthas is productive of the merits of sacrifices. They are competent to cleanse everybody of sin. Fraught with great excellence, they are capable of leading to heaven. The subject is truly a great mystery. The ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... was established an insurmountable barrier, in that the most careful inductions of science from ascertained facts must conform to the view of nature given in the myth and legends of the Bible. For 1500 years science was forced to confine itself to a system of deducing scientific truth from scriptural ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... money. To keep him alone, day and night, in the black hole, is to inflict on the Marquesan torture inexpressible. Even his robberies are carried on in the plain daylight, under the open sky, with the stimulus of enterprise, and the countenance of an accomplice; his terror of the dark is still insurmountable; conceive, then, what he endures in his solitary dungeon; conceive how he longs to confess, become a full-fledged convict, and be allowed to sleep beside his comrades. While we were in Tai-o-hae a thief was under prevention. He had entered a house about eight in the morning, forced ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shadows of the past, and Stephen was fully abreast of his own times. He understood very well, that, whatever these papers related to, they would be a constant thorn in Sandal's side; and he saw them lying between Charlotte and himself, a barrier unknown, and insurmountable because unknown. ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... disinterested kind, its object being a shade she would never behold on earth. And if destiny thus has enabled to lure her into the murderous angle that duty and death had formed, it was only because her soul, that was loftier far than the soul of the others, saw, stretching before it, the insurmountable barrier of duty—that her poor sister Ismene could not see, even when it was shown her. And, at that moment, as they both stood there on the threshold of the palace, the same voices spoke to them; Antigone listening only to the voice from above, wherefore she ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... all running the race of eminence and distinction, with that strong purpose of the will which leaves but little opportunity for the indulgence of tastes, which, though they often exist among the individuals of these classes, are for this reason seldom cultivated. In Italy, insurmountable barriers are erected across these paths, which, in England, all are invited to pursue. The jealousy of despotic governments is ever on the watch to stifle and put down the genius that would busy itself on the serious affairs of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... insigne notable, great. insignia badge, insignia. insoportable insupportable. inspirar to inspire. instante m. instant. instintivo instinctive. instruir to instruct, educate. insultante insulting. insulto insult. insuperable insuperable, insurmountable. intenso intense. intento purpose, design; de —— on purpose. interes m. interest. interesante interesting. interior interior, internal. interlocutor m. speaker. interponer to interpose. interprete ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... the monuments of the natural world under the influence of a similar infatuation, must draw a no less exaggerated picture of the energy and violence of causes, and must experience the same insurmountable difficulty in reconciling the former and present state of nature, If we could behold in one view all the volcanic cones thrown up in Iceland, Italy, Sicily, and other parts of Europe, during the last five thousand years, and could see ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... is an insurmountable reason why we should refrain from developing this brilliant theory. It would cause a digression from the main theme of our work. In the situation which we have supposed to be that of a married establishment, a man who is sufficiently unwise to sleep apart from his wife deserves ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... the pleasure which she would have tasted would not have been so complete. She would have desired to put aside the verses of the greatest poet in order to speak the dictates of her own heart; perhaps even her genius would have been confined by insurmountable timidity; she would not have dared to look at Oswald for fear of betraying herself, and truth would have destroyed the charm of art; but how sweet it was to know that he whom she loved was present when she experienced those exalted sentiments which poetry ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... this perception of a possibility of hope that there would be relief after the ordeal, was new to Rachel; and it soon gave way to that trying feature of illness, the insurmountable dread of the mere physical fatigue. The Dean of Avoncester, a kind old friend of Mrs. Curtis, had insisted on the mother and daughters coming to sleep at the Deanery, on the Tuesday night, and remaining till ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to be disinherited—that he knew well enough; but neither he nor his Nina, as he called her, would have paused for this consideration. There were other difficulties, trivial in appearance, harassing, vexatious, insurmountable in reality, that yet seemed from day to day about to vanish; so they waited, and temporised, and hesitated, till the opportunity came of escaping together, and they availed ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... this world more serious than to judge other people's problems in the light in which they appear to us. The problem which is nothing to one human being appears insurmountable to another. ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... was proposed by the captain, but as it had the air of returning home, and flattered them with the hopes of bringing them once more to their native country, this circumstance alone rendered them inattentive to all its inconveniences, and made them adhere to it with insurmountable obstinacy, so that the captain himself, though he never changed his opinion, was yet obliged to give way to the torrent, and in appearance to acquiesce in this resolution, whilst he endeavoured underhand to give it all ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... tell what latent provocation existed for perpetrating it? Of the numerous cases that could be cited, the following from a recent journal of an assistant protector, Mr. Parker, of the Lodden, will suffice to shew the insurmountable difficulty, I may add the impossibility, of bringing the guilty parties to justice, for in nine cases, I may say, out of ten, where natives are concerned, the only evidence that can be adduced is ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... came from the court to open a communication with Quebec, and even to establish a line of military posts through the intervening wilderness, but the distance and the natural difficulties of the country proved insurmountable obstacles. If communication with Quebec was difficult, that with Boston was easy; and thus Acadia became largely dependent on its New England neighbors, who, says an Acadian officer, "are mostly fugitives ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... would be an insurmountable obstacle to the success of estates. Even could managers be found to brave the danger, one season of sickness and death among the coolies would give the estate a name which would deprive it of all future ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... but he did not see, for he was watching the drifting rainbow beyond. Then a cry of rapture broke from him and he started eagerly toward the insurmountable crags that divided him ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... and encouraging, how many of the greatest men have risen from the lowest rank, and triumphed over obstacles which might well have seemed insurmountable; nay, even obscurity itself may be a source of honor. The very doubts as to Homer's birthplace have contributed to this glory, seven cities as we all know laying ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... had gradually penetrated to within ten degrees of the equator, yet the last successive discovery was always held forth by the supporters of ignorant prejudice, as that which had been placed by nature as an insurmountable barrier to farther progress in the Atlantic. In this situation, the settlement of the Acores was of considerable importance. In 1457, Don Henry procured the grant of many valuable privileges to this favourite colony, the principal of which was the exemption ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... my being I can still feel rising in me all the fever of my early years, all the enthusiasm of long ago, and that I should still be no less ardent a worker were not the weakness of my eyes and the failure of my strength to-day an insurmountable obstacle. ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... those for whom society has to provide. It is an immense addition to the infamy of this vice in man that its consequences have to be borne almost exclusively by woman. The difficulty of dealing with drunkards and harlots is almost insurmountable. Were it not that I utterly repudiate as a fundamental denial of the essential principle of the Christian religion the popular pseudo-scientific doctrine that any man or woman is past saving by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, I would ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... were willing——" she began, wondering at the great love that could thus level what she had had feared would be an insurmountable barrier. ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... insurmountable, and while Ben was left by the ivory Harry and Frank hurried down the steeps to the plateau on which they had left the Golden Eagle II. It was the work of a few minutes to tune her up. In a brief time from the moment they had left the ivory cache, considering the clamber ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... allies had been seeking to win over Denmark. But there was one insurmountable barrier in the way, the ambition of Bernadotte. As we have seen, he was desirous of signalizing his prospective succession to the Swedish throne by bringing to his adopted country a land that would amply recompense it for the loss of Finland.[302] This could only ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... themselves, or at war with the Abyssins, and enjoyed no security even in their own territories. We were now convinced that our enterprise was impracticable, and that to hazard ourselves amidst so many insurmountable difficulties would be to tempt Providence; despairing, therefore, that I should ever come this way to Abyssinia, I resolved to return back with my intelligence to my companion, whom ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... diabolical revenge. There was a time when Monte-Cristo valued life very little, when he would gladly have accepted death as a welcome avenue to endless rest and peace, but that time had passed; since then he had contracted ties that bound him to existence with insurmountable strength; he had now a family, was surrounded by beings he tenderly loved and cherished, beings for whom he must live and over whose destinies he must closely watch. He was wedded to Mercedes, who lavished upon him ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... enabling them to get mental snap-shots of picturesque events and to acquire valuable first-hand information for writing magazine articles or books, but that from a newspaper standpoint there would be insurmountable difficulties preventing them from getting their "news to market," that is to say, in getting their despatches on the wires for their respective papers. However, Mr. Herrick is doing everything he can to obtain all possible facilities for Mr. Davis ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... difficulties to daunt them. Nothing could turn them or influence them against their determination. They never lost sight of their goal. In all of us there is this silent force of wonderful power. If developed, it can overcome conditions that would seem insurmountable. It is constantly urging us on to greater achievement. The more we become acquainted with it the better strategists we become, the more courage we develop and the greater the desire within us for self-expression ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... are again quite willing to admit that, even without the presence of Persian words, the presence of Persian ideas might be detected by careful analysis. No doubt this is a much more delicate process, yet, as we can discover Jewish and Christian ideas in the Koran, there ought to be no insurmountable difficulty in pointing out any Persian ingredients in Genesis, however disguised and assimilated. Only, before we look for such ideas, it is necessary to show the channel through which they could possibly have flowed either from the Avesta into Genesis, or from Genesis into the ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... most simple explanation is, that the prophet views the thousands, or the families of Judah, no less than the town Bethlehem, as ideal existences; in which [Pg 484] case, the personification is maintained throughout. Moreover, there would not be any insurmountable difficulty in the way of supposing that the prophet had given up the personification; for these are frequently not strictly adhered to by the prophets, who constantly pass from the figure to the ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... foregoing discussion it will be clear that there are very grave, if not insurmountable, difficulties in the way of regarding the "terms of relationship" as being in reality such. In reply to those who regard them as status terms it is urged that if they are not terms of relationship, then the savages have no terms of any sort to express relationships which we regard as obvious, ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... insufficiency of his technical knowledge by a coup d'oeil of surprising accuracy. Here it may be said to me that the piercing of the great St. Gothard Tunnel was accompanied by considerable loss. That is true, but it must be recalled also that this colossal work was accomplished amid the most insurmountable difficulties which ever presented themselves. In spite of this, the cost of the tunnel per running foot was also a third less than that of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... water (perhaps carbonic dioxide), surrounding its polar regions, which increase considerably during the winter, and decrease during the summer seasons on that planet; but there are no canals! The fact that our largest and best telescopes failed to show these imaginary canals, was an insurmountable barrier to the advocates of these markings, but the "Canalites" made their contention ridiculous when they actually suggested that the reason for this failure to perceive them was that our telescopes were too large to see such small ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... how little she knew of life or the insurmountable barrier which lay between the haughty, ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... Desdemona loved the Moor, though he was black, and devoted her heart and fortunes to his valiant parts and qualities; so was her heart subdued to an implicit devotion to the man she had selected for a husband, that his very colour, which to all but this discerning lady would have proved an insurmountable objection, was by her esteemed above all the white skins and clear complexions of the young Venetian ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... starvation, to become bonnet to the thimble-man, an office, which, though profitable, is positively ungenteel. Ah! but some sticker-up for gentility will exclaim, "The hero did not refuse this office from an insurmountable dislike to its ungentility, but merely from a feeling of principle." Well! the writer is not fond of argument, and he will admit that such was the case; he admits that it was a love of principle, rather than an over-regard for gentility, which prevented the hero from accepting, when on the brink ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... altitude towards the centre of the country and becomes merely a line of low hills, connecting Gebel Ansarieh with the Lebanon proper; beyond the latter it continues without interruption, till at length, above the narrow Phoenician coast road, it rises in the form of an almost insurmountable wall. Near to the termination of Coele-Syria, but separated from it by a range of hills, there opens out on the western slopes of Hermon a valley unlike any other in the world. At this point the surface of the earth has been rent in prehistoric times by volcanic action, leaving a ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... done raving?" said she; "I have no right to question your selection of a lover or doubt your power, Angelique. But are you sure there exists no insurmountable obstacle to oppose these high aspirations? It is whispered that the Intendant has a wife, whom he keeps in the seclusion of Beaumanoir. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... was aware to some extent of the result of their labours. They had been most successful explorers. They proceeded in cheerfulness to encounter the dangers of the desert, such as in the eye of every individual unaccustomed to bush travelling seemed insurmountable. (Hear, hear.) They had all heard something of Mr. Landsborough's expedition from the statement which he had made before the Royal Society, and they knew something also of the expedition undertaken by Mr. ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... intensive use practised by the farmer, except where nature presents positive checks to the transition. The most obvious check consists in adverse conditions of climate and soil. Where agriculture meets insurmountable obstacles, like the intense cold of Arctic Siberia and Lapland, or the alkaline soils of Nevada and the Caspian Depression, or the inadequate rainfall of Mongolia and Central Arabia, the land can produce no higher economic and social groups than pastoral hordes. Hence shepherd ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... that the topic was worth his while to set to music. His dismay was accordingly all the greater when Pillet rejected our plot on the ground that the staging would be too difficult, and that the second act especially would entail insurmountable obstacles for the ballet, which had to be given each time. In place of this Dessauer wished me to compose him an oratorio on 'Mary Magdalene.' As on the day that he expressed this wish he appeared to be suffering from acute melancholia, so much so that he ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... that a born coward's make and temperament would be an absolute and insurmountable bar to his ever essaying such ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... since Patty's first visit to the print shop Corinna had felt a genuine liking for her. The girl had something deeper than charm, reflected the older woman; she had determination and endurance, the essentials of character. Of course she was crude, she was ignorant; but these are never insurmountable obstacles except to the dull. With intelligence and resourcefulness all things are possible—even the metamorphosis of a circus rider's daughter into a woman of ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... hitherto guided Mr Rawlings and Seth Allport, and which they had preached to the more faint-hearted members of their party; and, Ernest Wilton was a thorough disciple of their creed, for he was not one to be daunted by obstacles, no matter how grievous and apparently insurmountable they were;—no, not he. ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... satisfies, as we shall see, all the conditions: for it includes at once both the positive and fixed element in useful value and the variable element in exchangeable value; in the second place, it puts an end to the contradiction which seemed an insurmountable obstacle in the way of the determination of value; further, we shall show that value thus understood differs entirely from a simple juxtaposition of the two ideas of useful and exchangeable value, and that it is ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... when, I say, I viewed her disclosure in connection with all these circumstances, I could not help feeling that there was at least a fearful verisimilitude in the allegations which she had made. Still I was not satisfied, nor nearly so; young minds have a reluctance almost insurmountable to believing upon any thing short of unquestionable proof, the existence of premeditated guilt in any one whom they have ever trusted; and in support of this feeling I was assured that if the assertion of Lord Glenfallen, which nothing in this woman's ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... those of Mahomet. When the Sierra Leone Company was formed in England, not a member of the Society of Friends could be prevailed upon to engage in it, because the colony was to be supplied with cannon and other military stores. Yet the Foreign Agent of the Liberia Colony Society, to which the same insurmountable objection exists, is a member of the Society of Friends, and I understand has been recently employed in providing gunpowder, etc., for the use of the colony. There must be an awakening on this subject; other Woolmans and other Benezets must arise and speak ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... whether he should require less. His knowledge of the world might, or might not, have told him that with Mrs. Chepstow an unembarrassed friendship would be difficult. That would have been theory. Practice already taught him that the difficulty would probably prove insurmountable even by his enthusiasm and courage. Were they friends? Could they ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... would have been impossible even for a monkey to have climbed them—much less human beings, albeit one was a sailor and pretty well accustomed to saltatory feats! But, on their inspecting the apparently insurmountable breastwork a little closer, Fritz noticed, as the young Tristaner had pointed out to them, that, by the side of the gorge through which the waterfall made its erratic descent to the lower level, the face of the cliff was more strongly indented; so that, by using the tussock-grass, which grew there ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... without emotion my mother's own account of the wonderful energy and indomitable perseverance by which, in her ardent thirst for knowledge, she overcame obstacles apparently insurmountable, at a time when women were well-nigh totally debarred from education; and the almost intuitive way in which she entered upon studies of which she had scarcely heard the names, living, as she did, among persons to whom they were utterly unknown, and who disapproved of her ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... encouragement: "You knew beforehand just how it would be." Still, unpleasantness seldom arrives in exactly the manner expected, and the unexpected is always the hardest to bear. Thus it was with me in this case; my situation seemed to contain insurmountable difficulties. I sought the basis for them in imperfect culture; and the cause of the disconnected nature of the culture I had been able to attain, lay, so I perceived, in the interruptions which marred my university career. Educator and teacher, however, I had determined to become and ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... would have thought it feasible to build dormitories and laboratories, and provide working apparatus for fifty pupils as well as for a large corps of teachers, between May and July. But to Agassiz no obstacles seemed insurmountable where great aims were involved, and the opening of the school was announced for the 8th of July. He left Boston on Friday, the 4th of July, for the island. At New Bedford he was met by a warning from ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... jaws could be explained as due to the increased use made of them by the "soldiers," or the enlarged brain as due to the mental activities of the workers, the fact of the infertility of these forms is an insurmountable obstacle to accepting such an explanation. Neither jaws nor brain can have been evolved on ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... it was not at all surprising that in a document written in Iceland there should be mention of a sea of ice; but it was quite another thing to get to the end of this cryptogram with so small a clue. So I was struggling with an insurmountable difficulty; my brain got heated, my eyes watered over that sheet of paper; its hundred and thirty-two letters seemed to flutter and fly around me like those motes of mingled light and darkness which float in the air around the head when the blood is rushing upwards with undue ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... " Blue First emotions of love. Lily, Water Eloquence. May Flower Welcome. Marigold Sacred affection. Marigold and Cypress Despair. Mandrake Rarity. Mignonette Your qualities surpass your charms. Morning Glory Coquetry, Affectation. Mock Orange Counterfeit. Myrtle Love in absence. Mistletoe Insurmountable. Narcissus Egotism. Nasturtium Patriotism. Oxalis Reverie. Orange Blossom Purity. Olive Peace. Oleander Beware. Primrose Modest worth. Pink, White Pure love. " Red Devoted love. Phlox Our hearts are united. Periwinkle Sweet memories. Paeony Ostentation. Pansy You occupy my thoughts. ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan
... them come and go, opening unto them the gate of dreams? Your Dante, when he drew my likeness, forgot my attributes. When he gave me that useless tail, he did not see that I held the shepherd's staff of Osiris; that from Mercury I had inherited his caduceus. In vain have they thought to build up an insurmountable wall between the two worlds; I have wings to my heels, I have flown over. By a kindly rebellion of that slandered Spirit, of that ruthless monster, succour has been given to those who mourned; mothers, lovers, have found comfort. He has taken ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... district, where the difficulty of obtaining servants is at present insurmountable—the nearest "pictures" are twelve miles off—I have been much impressed and encouraged by two letters in recent issues of The Spectator. One describes a Bloomsbury grocer's cat that bought her own cat's-meat; another recounts the exploits of a spaniel belonging to a house painter and glazier ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... compass as the moon! And there really is some similarity in the volcanic surface of both. Here, however, the similarity ends, for while the luminary is indeed inaccessible, the island can easily be reached without any very insurmountable difficulty. ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... Life of Jesus. A complete treatise upon the compilation of the Gospels would be a work of itself. Thanks to the excellent researches of which this question has been the object during thirty years, a problem which was formerly judged insurmountable has obtained a solution which, though it leaves room for many uncertainties, fully suffices for the necessities of history. We shall have occasion to return to this in our Second Book, the composition of the Gospels having ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... and those in which the great body of the community is interested, that mode of trial will remain in its full force, as established in the State constitutions, untouched and unaffected by the plan of the convention; that it is in no case abolished3 by that plan; and that there are great if not insurmountable difficulties in the way of making any precise and proper provision for it in a Constitution for the United States. The best judges of the matter will be the least anxious for a constitutional establishment of the trial ...
— The Federalist Papers
... of a mind fertile in defense—General Grant brought to bear not only the wealth of expedient which had hitherto distinguished him, but also an imperturbable tenacity, particularly in the Wilderness and on the march to the James, without which the almost insurmountable obstacles of that campaign could not have been overcome. During it and in the siege of Petersburg he met with many disappointments—on several occasions the shortcomings of generals, when at the point of success, leading to wretched failures. But so far as he was concerned, the only ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... suggest some fairly plausible motives which might conceivably have induced Grimm to blacken Rousseau's character, the case of Diderot presents difficulties which are quite insurmountable. Mrs. Macdonald asserts that Diderot was jealous of Rousseau. Why? Because he was tired of hearing Rousseau described as 'the virtuous'; that is all. Surely Mrs. Macdonald should have been the first to recognise that such an argument is a little too 'psychological.' ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... long-expected treaty accompanies this letter. The difficulties which retarded its accomplishment frequently had the appearance of being insurmountable. They have at last yielded to modifications of the articles in which they existed, and to that mutual disposition to agreement which reconciled Lord Grenville and myself to an unusual degree of trouble and application. They who have levelled uneven ground know how little of ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... baroness's reluctance to ask for assistance has not been sufficiently explained, there is one more consideration which might alone have sufficed to account for her conduct. Between her and Greif's mother there existed a great and wholly insurmountable antipathy. She could not understand how Greifenstein could have married such a woman. There was a mystery about it which she had never fathomed. Greifenstein himself was a stern, silent man of military appearance, ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... difficulties in our way,' she said, in a colder voice. 'They are many, I know. Do you think them insurmountable?' ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... Mamcuna's time that she had none left for me, and I had leisure and opportunity to contrive a plan of escape, if I could, for, as I quickly discovered, the difficulties in the way were almost if not altogether insurmountable. I could neither go back to the eastern Cordillera by the road I had come, nor, without guides, find any other pass, either farther north or farther south. Westward was a range of barren hills bounded by a sandy desert, destitute ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... of making a treaty between this magnificent Indian confederacy and New England for the purpose of introducing civilization and religion; and for a moment he lost sight of the insurmountable obstacles in ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... ingenuity of the plan, but I also see two insurmountable obstacles to it. The first is, I cannot add the excellences of his design to mine without knowing what those excellences are, which he will of course keep a secret. Second, it will not be easy to promote a coolness between ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... air, for example—if such resistance possesses little or no inertia to be brought into play; contrariwise, the smallest inertia opposed to the explosion of a mixture subjected to instantaneous combustion is equivalent to an insurmountable obstacle. Thus a small quantity of gunpowder, or a detonating mixture of air and hydrogen, may without danger be ignited in a large closed vessel full of air, because the pressure against the sides of the vessel exerted by the explosion is not ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various
... with new interest on his resemblance to Weatherbee, and he told himself it was her constancy to David that had kept her safe. Then it came over him that if Weatherbee had married her instead of the Spanish woman, that must have been an insurmountable barrier between them to-day. As long as they lived, she must have remained sacred on her pedestal, out of reach. But how nobly partisan she was; how ready to cross swords for Weatherbee's wife. That was the incredible test; her capacity for ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... insurmountable objections to all of them. "I'll tell you what I have done," he announced one day, with the air of a man who had hit on a grand discovery; "I ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... gained for herself a husband who never deviated from a virtuous path as much as I; but the attachment formed was so strong that no misfortune seemed powerful enough to sever it. The barrier which seemed insurmountable, and which I had erected myself by early indiscretions and excesses, has given way, thanks to your superior medical knowledge and skillful treatment. Again I can hold up my head and say, "I am a man. I never fail to call the attention of my friends to your Institution as the best in the ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... Mind, I am afraid that there are insurmountable obstacles, but if it were possible it would be checkmate to our friend the Emperor, and he would have nothing left but to climb down. The trouble is that in the absence of any definite proof of an understanding between Russia and Germany, France could not break away ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... men have passed from the stage of action, who have not left in the history of their lives indelible marks of ambition or folly, which produced insurmountable reverses, and rendered the whole a mere caricature, that can be examined only with disgust and regret. Such pictures, however, are profitable, for "by others' faults ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... life, an obstacle to domestic happiness, which comes to no termination, and admits of no cure. If it were possible for reason and reflection to control the impetuous impulses of youthful hearts, such differences of religious faith would be regarded, where they exist, as an insurmountable objection to a ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... difficulties of the country were almost insurmountable. The morass which comprised the Salmon River plain was in summer a bottomless ooze, over which nothing could be transported, yet in winter it became sheathed with a steel-hard armor against which piling splintered. It could be penetrated at that season ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... westward. We passed several sandstone hills and ridges rising out of this sandy table land, and attempted to cross one of them, but our path was intercepted by precipices and chasms, forming an insurmountable barrier to our cattle. We, therefore, followed a watercourse to the southward, winding between two ranges to the westward and southward, and continued again to the north-west, which brought us to a tributary of the creek we had just left, and in which we ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... difficulty would seem quite insurmountable when I assure you, that I have written for a certain Blacking Manufacturer above two hundred different productions on the subject of his unparalleled Jet, each containing fresh incident, and very probably fresh incident must yet be found for two hundred productions more! But the misfortune is, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... a brief account of the leaders in revolutionizing the King of Instruments, the men whose genius and indomitable perseverance in the face of prejudice, discouragement and seemingly insurmountable obstacles, financial and otherwise, have made the modern organ possible. ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... brow of a hill, after a long and gradual ascent, a richly cultivated and finely wooded hollow, surrounded by mountains, opened upon our view. As the abrupt faces of these eminences form an insurmountable barrier on three sides of the basin just alluded to, we fancied that the grotto must be there. But no! we had to descend, cross it, and mount again towards the south, by a steep path that wound up the least precipitous side of this punchbowl. Hitherto the rock had been primitive ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... inquisitors, and with an open mind is going up and down the world seeking to reshape the schools in the interests of childhood. The task is Herculean, but the enthusiasm and energy which inspire his labors are sufficient to overcome even those obstacles which are apparently insurmountable. ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... since among them, as is natural in a city so great as to be the metropolis of the world, diseases attain to such an insurmountable degree of violence, that all the skill of the physician is ineffectual even to mitigate them; a certain assistance and means of safety has been devised, in the rule that no one should go to see a friend in such a condition, and to a few precautionary measures a further remedy of sufficient ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... action individuals are mere fractions without any legitimate referee to add them together. Hooker's objection from the nobility and gentry of the realm is unanswerable and within half a century afterwards proved insurmountable. Imagine a sun containing within its proper atmosphere a multitude of transparent satellites, lost in the glory, or all joining to form the visible 'phasis' or disk; and then beyond the precincts of this sun a number of opake ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... SEEM never even to look up. Then, having so begun with the dust, how do these ever come to raise their eyes to the hills? The keenest of us moral philosophers are but poor, mole-eyed creatures! One day, I trust, we shall laugh at many a difficulty that now seems insurmountable, but others will keep rising behind them. Lady Joan did not like ugly things, and so shrank from evil things. She was the less in danger from liberty, because of the disgust which certain tones and words of her father had repeatedly occasioned her. She learned self-defence early—and alone, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... themselves in other media, such as a gas at ordinary pressure, or even in an absolute vacuum. Experiment alone could answer this question, but there were difficulties in the way of this which seemed almost insurmountable. The rays are stopped by glass even of slight thickness, and how then could the almost vacuous space in which they have to come into existence be separated from the space, absolutely vacuous or filled with gas, into which it was desired to ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... I was prepared to do anything. I did not earn much in my youth, and could not expect to earn much in manhood without preparation. I then resolved to enter school again, but the expense of a thorough course was an apparently insurmountable obstacle. I had been unable to save much from my meager allowance. I had heard of the Tuskegee Institute and of the opportunities there offered to poor young men and women. I decided to enter that school. A friend helped me to purchase an excursion ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. "Surely je n'en suis pas la," she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton should n't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... sometimes ashamed of the fear with which those vermin inspired me; nevertheless, I could not fall asleep among them. Where, truly, in man, is the line that separates courage from cowardice? I will not boast of my bravery, but I am not a coward, yet the insurmountable fear with which those malevolent little creatures thrilled me, drove sleep from my eyelids, in spite ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... had been remarkable in all its particulars. The obstacles which had to be overcome seemed insurmountable. There were walled cities to be taken, fortified mountain passes to be carried by storm, and frowning castles with cannon on the battlements to be assaulted by regiments whose valor and impetuosity were their only protection and warrant ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... be supposed that such ideas do occur to young clergymen, and yet they overcome, apparently with ease, this difficulty which to us appears to be all but insurmountable. We have never been subjected in the way of ordination to the power of a bishop's hands. It may be that there is in them something that sustains the spirit and banishes the natural modesty of youth. But for ourselves we must own that the deep affection which Dominie Sampson felt for his young ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... domestication and taming he has changed the original nature and habits of life of many animals. The dog, the companion of man, is the summit of human achievement in association with animals. Nevertheless, the barriers that separate the dog and his master are insurmountable. Even if "a candidate for humanity," the dog is forever debarred from any share in ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... of note, could stand it no longer. His usually active mind was occupied with one sole thought—how he might get out of Richmond at any cost. Several times had he even made the attempt, but was stopped by some insurmountable obstacle. However, the siege continued; and if the prisoners were anxious to escape and join Grant's army, certain of the besieged were no less anxious to join the Southern forces. Among them was one Jonathan Forster, a determined Southerner. The truth was, that if the prisoners of the Secessionists ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... the highest opinion of the doctor's learning and talents, had sufficient penetration to know, that, in the ways of the world, she was herself the better skilled of the two. For a moment she thought of Edward Walcott; but he was light and wild, and, which her delicacy made an insurmountable objection, there was an untold love between them. Her thoughts finally centred on Fanshawe. In his judgment, young and inexperienced though he was, she would have placed a firm trust; and his zeal, from whatever cause it arose, she could ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... disheartened at seeing it daily growing larger through the accumulation of interest, and gives up in despair. The desire to be free from debt spurs many a man into effort. But make the difficulties in his way so large as to appear insurmountable, and he will fold his hands in helpless inactivity. Thousands of dollars are lost every year in consequence of creditors grasping after too much, and breaking down the hope and energy ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... be really a very good woman, and were it not for the insurmountable feeling of spleen the sight of her garden produces on me, I should often go to see her. She has nothing in common with the mammas of Jonquille, Campanule, or Touki she is vastly their superior; and then I can see that she has ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... the trials and failures and struggles which these men have voluntarily encountered in order to gain their experience; have no knowledge of the sacrifices they have made, of the undaunted efforts they have put forth, of the faith they have exercised, that they might overcome the apparently insurmountable, and realize the Vision of their heart. They do not know the darkness and the heartaches; they only see the light and joy, and call it "luck". They do not see the long and arduous journey, but only behold the pleasant goal, and call it ...
— As a Man Thinketh • James Allen
... objection would be insurmountable, if we could not, by reversing the experiment, prove that the milk, the chalk, and the lead, actually absorbed different quantities of caloric, and we know that if the different time they took in heating, proceeded merely from their different conducting powers, they would ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... there can be no reason why you should not try for him. It is not to be supposed that any prior attachment on your side—in short, you know as to an attachment of that kind, it is quite out of the question, the objections are insurmountable—you have too much sense not to see all that. Colonel Brandon must be the man; and no civility shall be wanting on my part to make him pleased with you and your family. It is a match that must give universal satisfaction. In ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... dogmas. I neither affirm nor deny. I stand here to try the case. I am here to consider,—to consider how it is. I will try to keep the balance true. Of what use to take the chair, and glibly rattle off theories of societies, religion, and nature, when I know that practical objections lie in the way, insurmountable by me and by my mates? Why so talkative in public, when each of my neighbors can pin me to my seat by arguments I cannot refute? Why pretend that life is so simple a game, when we know how subtle and elusive the Proteus is? Why think to shut up ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... declare one stronger than another on the basis of the immediate impression of feeling, but we cannot say how much stronger it is, nor with reason assert that it is twice or half as intense. Herbart's mathematical psychology was wrecked by this insurmountable difficulty. The demand for exactness which it raised, but which it was unable to satisfy with the means at its disposal, has recently been renewed, and has led to assured results in psycho-physics, which works on a different basis and with ingenious methods ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... still should he overstep the limit his own sense of justice imposes: for the justice that soars aloft, keeping pace with the intellect, creates new boundaries around all it throws open, while at the same time strengthening and rendering more insurmountable still the ancient barriers of instinct. The moment we cross the primitive frontier of equity all things seem to fail us; one falsehood gives birth to a hundred, and treachery returns to us through a thousand channels. If justice be in us we may ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... know you have come here with an earnest purpose, with a mind acute enough to see something of the vast work before you, and I say to you, as one who has had large experience in conducting other pilgrims over the same track, never lose heart. Difficulties which now seem insurmountable, will gradually disappear; subjects which now seem impenetrable, will soon lighten up. Did you never enter a room in the dark? At first the apartment is a universal blank. After a while, as your eyes become adjusted to the place, one article after another ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart |
