"Powerless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... away his consciousness by drugging or bludgeoning, but it would be racial suicide to attempt it. In the split moment of realization he would kill every human being on Earth. There would be nobody left to operate on his brain, to make him a mindless, powerless idiot for the rest of time. For any period of time, he corrected himself. His brain would ...
— The Mightiest Man • Patrick Fahy
... of his wife, the doom pronouncer, and Lonner the genius of revenge, he staggered back towards the door, and had not his legs refused their office he would have sought safety in flight; but at two stern glances, one from Lonner, the other from his wife, he sank powerless to the floor. ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... to be powerless to contain himself, "think you that if it only concerned me—this man who inspires us all with such aversion and disgust—I should not hesitate to throw him overboard! But when it concerns my father, I fear lest in giving way to my impressions I may be injuring my object! ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... her words was stealing into Penelope's soul and defiling it, yet I was powerless ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... ineffectual, for their thirst was quenchless. Water, wine and water, and brandy, all were powerless. We suffered from thirst even while we drank, and were ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... had he made so long a speech. His arms moved in fierce, uncertain gestures, his face flushed, his enormous jaws shut together with a sharp click at every pause. It was like some colossal brute trapped in a delicate, invisible mesh, raging, exasperated, powerless to extricate himself. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... good purely accidental, the result of fortuitous circumstances. He knew that until the war broke out he had lived in a backwater of life, himself and Myra, contented, happy, untried by adversity. Once swung out of that backwater they had been swept away, powerless to know where they went, to ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... saw his cold dead face, in the midst of crowns and crosses, very pale then, very powerless then. One might stare at him, then, as at a serf's corpse; for he who had scared Europe during thirty years lay before us that day as a poor lump of chilled brain and withered muscle. And we stood by, when, amid chanting and flare of torches ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... surely get hold of some minor scoundrel who will talk for fear or money. Bribe him to the point where he cannot refuse to speak. Wong Li Fu is the only man I fear. Put him where he can accomplish no mischief, and the rest of his crew will be powerless!" ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... but the Japanese infantry, intoxicated with their success in the face of stupendous difficulties, would take no denial: they had conquered wire entanglements, braved machine-gun-fire, and now mere flesh and blood was as powerless to stop them as a thread is to stop a battleship. The Russians simply had to fly or die; and they chose the former alternative, retreating in disorder upon Nankwang-ling, while the Japanese, whose turn it was now to take revenge for ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... no bread baked in anticipation of their return. The messenger was called before the head-chief at once and questioned as to the directions he had given the women. He explained that he had told the chief of the women what they were expected to do, but she refused to listen to him, and he was powerless to do more. Then the head-chief went to his wife and demanded to know why she had refused to issue his orders to the women. She curtly replied that that was her business and not his; as it was, the women did more ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... satyr, of something oddly malevolent, that boded ill. Ishmael tried to break himself of the feeling, life-old with him, though for so many years forgotten, but he found that, though he could force himself not to dwell on it, beyond that he was powerless. There was no actual harm Archelaus could do him, and he told himself repeatedly that there must be something rather hateful in himself that he could still feel ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... should come; but I made the best provision I could in the circumstances, and concluded that by letting go the weather-braces of the topsails and the topsail halyards at the same time, I should thereby render these sails almost powerless. Besides this, I proposed to myself to keep a sharp lookout on the barometer in the cabin; and if I observed at any time a sudden fall in it, I resolved that I would instantly set about my multiform appliances for reducing sail, so as to avoid being taken unawares. Thus I sailed prosperously for ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... thought, Richer, far wilder, far diviner visions Than even the seraph harper, Israfel, (Who has "the sweetest voice of all God's creatures,") Could hope to utter. And I! my spells are broken. The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand. With thy dear name as text, though hidden by thee, I cannot write—I cannot speak or think— Alas, I cannot feel; for 'tis not feeling, This standing motionless upon the golden Threshold of the wide-open ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... built, determined to avenge their wounded feelings by hurling Him from the rocky cliffs. Thus early in His ministry did the forces of opposition attain murderous intensity. But our Lord's time to die had not yet come. The infuriated mob was powerless to go one step farther than their supposed victim would permit. "But he passing through the midst of them went his way." Whether they were overawed by the grace of His presence, silenced by the power of His words, or stayed by some more appalling intervention, we are not informed. ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... war-wheel in Europe had left America with only one antagonist in place of two. Trafalgar had destroyed, once and for all, the power of France on the sea, and she was now powerless to injure American interests, did she wish to do so. England, on the other hand, was stronger for that purpose than ever, and was less restrained than ever in the exercise of her strength. A new dispute, especially provocative to the feelings of Americans, had arisen over the question of the impressment ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... morning for the distressed and powerless Miss Bailey. She thought remorsefully of the trusty armour of timidity which she had, plate by plate, stripped from her favourite, and of the bravery and loving kindness which she had so carefully substituted and which had led ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... face. It was pale and set—the face of a man gazing upon an awful tragedy with which he is absolutely powerless to interfere. His breath came quick, but he did not utter a word. Then came the reaction, and, staggering, he leaned on my shoulder, and I led him to the bench from which he had risen. For a moment I thought he had fainted, but when I put a flask to his lips he swallowed a mouthful ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... of what and by whom he is accused," said Mabel. "He will have the opportunity you speak of. I should not be content with my brother's action, were this not so. I have been over the whole ground again and again, since sunset. We—you and I—are powerless. This story is either true or false. If what we have read really happened, what could arise from our correspondence with the offender against honor and virtue? It would but complicate difficulties. If he is unjustly accused, he can prove it, and put his slanderers to shame without our promptings. ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... has let the Mark Brandenburg go to destruction!" cried the Elector, with flashing eyes. "Catholic and Imperialist he would have it. And I can not reach him, he knows very well that I must spare him, and that he, the powerful, opposes me, the powerless. To him have the commandants of the fortresses and the soldiers sworn allegiance; the Emperor protects him, and would esteem it an act of rebellion against imperial majesty itself if I were to depose Schwarzenberg ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... superior to that of the Peruvians, and by the time they reached the Great Inca himself, none of the Peruvians believed that the invaders were demons or gods. But in the face of the Spaniards' determined onslaught, they were powerless. ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... ignorant of his terrible torment, and that another would marry her! At this thought constantly recurring, impossible to drive away, he was seized with an animal-like desire to howl like chained dogs, for like them he felt powerless, enslaved, imprisoned. Becoming more and more nervous, the longer he thought, he walked with long strides through the vast room, lighted up as if for a celebration. At last, unable to tolerate longer the pain of that reopened wound, he wished to try to calm it with the recollection of ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... complaining pest, The insects carried to her nest— Nest pitiless to suffering flies— Mouths gaping aye, to gormandize, Of young ones clamouring, And stammering, With unintelligible cries. The spider, with but head and feet. And powerless to compete With wings so fleet, Soon saw herself a prey. The swallow, passing swiftly by, Bore web and all away, The spinster dangling in ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... hereditary morbid tendencies, but we do say that the proportion of such cases is exceedingly small. All the seeming efficiency of the so-called "causes of insanity" requires that preparation which is produced by the deteriorating influences of progenitors, and without which they would be utterly powerless. Let us consider this matter a little more closely by the light which modern inquiry sheds ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... and position, is needed in the lower than in the upper limb. For a leg hanging like a flail, or shortened by some inches, is not so good for purposes of locomotion as a wooden leg is, while an arm, even though powerless at the elbow, and perhaps much shortened, can be so strengthened and supported by slings and bandages as to give a most useful hand, the complex movements and uses of the fingers of which no mechanism can ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... normal functions of mind and body, to try fantastic tricks with that mysterious agent through which the healthy will commands the organism. And when the mental disorder, mocked at and preached against in happier years, at length ran through Foxden, the morbid condition of his system was powerless to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... great ministers had scarcely been equal to the task imposed upon them by war and peace, by armies, buildments, and royal extravagance; their successors gave way thereunder and illusions vanished; the king's hand was powerless to sustain the weight of affairs becoming more and more disastrous; the gloom that pervaded the later years of Louis XIV.'s reign veiled from his people's eyes the splendor of that reign which had so long been brilliant and prosperous, though always lying heavy on the nation, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... delicate attentions in the form of gifts were far from satisfying him. He wanted to see her, to talk with her, to put into speech shades of feeling so delicate that the written word was powerless to reproduce them. And presently chance aided and abetted him. Mme. Hanska left Wierzchnownia for a summer vacation in Switzerland, and Balzac, on the trail of one of those business opportunities for which he was ever on the watch, was obliged to go to Besancon ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... when he took off his overshoes, however, that Mr. Opp and Nick exchanged looks of despair. They had a signal code which they habitually employed when storms swept the office, but in a calm like this they were powerless. ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... as every critic of insight must see, that the artist is conditioned on the man; that whenever a man does anything which has greatness in it he does it with his whole nature. Into his verse the poet puts his body, his mind, and his soul; he is as powerless to detach his work from his past as he is to detach himself from it; and one of the saddest penalties of his misdoings is their survival in his work. The dulness of the poet's ear shows itself in the defective melody of his verse; for both metre and ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... you will return," replied the sheriff tentatively. The sheriff meant what he said and for the moment had forgotten that he was powerless and was not the one ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... hedged in by the numberless small barriers of a girl's sphere, so guided and managed for by those about her, that it had been hardly possible for any sore temptation to come near her. But now suddenly cut adrift from her quiet moorings, she found herself powerless to keep out of the rapid current which must plunge her into deep misery and vice. There had not been a doubt in her mind that she was not a real Christian, for she had freely given a sentimental faith ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... compared to the course of a steamer across an unquiet ocean. The waves raised by a fresh gale on the starboard bow were cleft by the stem, only to reunite behind the churn of the propeller. They were powerless to abridge the day's run by many miles, but they could still swing forwards to the shore. On one occasion the ship was slowed down to a standstill ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... of the chronicles there is a minute description of how the Polish garrisons fled from the freed cities; how the unscrupulous Jewish tavern-keepers were hung; how powerless was the royal hetman, Nikolai Pototzky, with his numerous army, against this invincible force; how, routed and pursued, he lost the best of his troops by drowning in a small stream; how the fierce Cossack regiments besieged him in the little town of Polon; and how, reduced ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... was always boldest where there was a cause that needed fighting for, or fellow citizens who were powerless to right their own wrongs, and who required someone to voice them—spoke out his views on this subject, unhesitatingly. "That a man should be able to buy up large tracts of land, and make himself the owner of them—to keep them in or out of culture as he pleases—to ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... now present. Dr. Jones was introduced to them, and such courtesies as were possible under the circumstances were extended by each. They gave such information as possible through the Count, and declared that the Princess must die within a few hours. They now stood powerless by, very curious and observant of ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... silent—and there you are! 'Sludge the Medium' all over again, in a small way. Probably the girl didn't intend to deceive anybody at first, but she was tolled along from one fakery to another, till at last she found herself powerless in the grasp of her self-induced coma. She is anxious to escape her slavery; she revolts, and is most unhappy, but sees no way out. That's my present understanding of the case. Now, what is your advice? What can ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... in the corner of the carriage, but he put his strong arm round her and drew her to his breast. She tried to resist, but was powerless. Then came the torturing thought, "If I repel him—if I act differently—he will guess the reason," and she was passive; but he felt her slight ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... power. Such faith is a gift; as, for instance, the gift of tongues, the gift of knowledge, of prophecy, and the like. There is reason to believe Judas performed miracles in spite of the absence of Christian faith, according to John 6, 70: "One of you is a devil." This general faith, powerless to justify or to cleanse, permits the old man with his vices to remain, just as do the gifts ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... spirit" of the wild, 'Twixt you and Progress' pale-faced child Fated vendetta rages, And Pity's self stands powerless To help you counter with success The ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various
... who had driven me thus far was speechless. He thought of his carriage and horses, and visions of their being immediately possessed by Morgan or Forrest had rendered him powerless. After a few questions as to where we left the train, and as to the number of passengers on board, the citizen cavalry, or Union guards, as they proved to be, told us we might proceed, that we were all right, but to be very careful, as Forrest was reported near ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... votaries have been subject, above the people of all other creeds, to this form of madness. In a moment the fruits of patient toil, the prospects of material prosperity, the fear of death itself, are flung aside. The more emotional Pathans are powerless to resist. All rational considerations are forgotten. Seizing their weapons, they become Ghazis—as dangerous and as sensible as mad dogs: fit only to be treated as such. While the more generous spirits among the tribesmen ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... so Florence. She is entirely resolved, in these years of victory, to do justice to all men so far she understands it; and in this case it will give her some trouble to do it, and worse,—cost her some of her fine new florins. For her counter-mandate is quite powerless with Guido Guerra. He has taken Arezzo mainly with his own men, and means to stay there, thinking that the Florentines, if even they do not abet him, will take no practical steps against him. But he does not know this newly risen clan of military merchants, ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... and rage and fright, Grace was very nearly frantic For the moment she was powerless—her uncle in the smoking-room, her aunt locked up with her Emersonian meditations, the porter in the lobby; the only available person upon whom she could call for aid a horrible drunken murderer and ...
— A Border Ruffian - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... Hamilton, on account of her former dissolute life. "She wished to go to Court," says Mrs. St. George, "on which a pretext was made to avoid receiving company last Sunday, and I understand there will be no Court while she stays." Nelson felt resentment at this exclusion, though powerless, of course, to express it; but he declined an invitation to a private house which had not been extended to her. This incident naturally raised the question, what prospect there was of the lady being accepted at the Court of her own sovereign. "She talked to me a great deal of her ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... the results obtained with such great speeds, not when the boat is towed, but when its propulsion is effected through its own helix actuated by its own engine, which, up to the present, unfortunately, has through its defects been powerless to furnish the necessary amount of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... friends asserted that his retirement arose from his hatred of the intrigues of a public life, and represented him as panting in the midst of the toils of his office for literary and rural retirement. His own reason, as expressed to a friend, was, that he found himself powerless in his own cabinet. "Single in a cabinet of my own forming," he observed, "no aid in the house of lords to support me, except two peers, [Denbigh and Pomfret]; both the secretaries of state silent, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... were preparing to carry upstairs. Poor Gouache was hardly recognisable for the smart soldier who had crossed the bridge of Sant' Angelo half an hour earlier. His uniform was all stained with mud, there was blood upon his pale face, and his limbs hung down, powerless and limp. But as the young girl looked at him, consciousness returned, and with it came the sense of acute suffering. He opened his eyes suddenly, as men often do when they revive after being stunned, and a short ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... silence began to fall between them. Daphne felt that the time had come for her to speak. But, powerless to begin, she feigned to busy herself all the more devotedly with braiding the deep-green circlet. Suddenly he drew himself through the grass to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... beneath the floor of the cell of a friar of the order and the same size as his cell. The only aperture was in the floor of the cell above and closed by a heavy grating, the key to which, kept by the head of the order, was never entrusted to the friar, who was as powerless to open the grating ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... hundred feet below. Beyond it at the foot of the small hill on which stood the Fort was a group of trees, to two of which a transport elephant was shackled by a fore and a hind leg in such a way as to render it powerless. Its mahout, or driver, keeping out of reach of its trunk, was beating it savagely on the head with a bamboo. Mad with rage, the man, a grey-bearded old Mohammedan, swung the long stick with both hands and brought it down again and again with all his force. From ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... and by means of her alone, that the doctor can influence the conduct of the child. Without her co-operation, or if she fails to appreciate the whole situation, with the best will in the world, we are powerless to help. Fortunately with the majority of educated mothers there is no difficulty. Their powers of observation in all matters concerning their children are usually very great. It is their interpretation of what they have observed that is often faulty. Thus, in the example given above, ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... this juncture it is only the intense refinement of the DUCHESS which prevents her from falling into the unbecoming posture of powerless invective. PHEDRO, who has listened to the foregoing, presumes ...
— Clair de Lune - A Play in Two Acts and Six Scenes • Michael Strange
... was disappointing to say, he said it by degrees. Bates ordered a glass of cooling summer drink, and had his pipe filled while they discussed. The one tasted to him like gall, and the fumes of the other were powerless to allay his growing trepidation, and yet, in desperate adventure, he ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... his fingers together with a thread, and immediately he became powerless. Then the sister called up the Drakos, who, when he had come forth, tore out Janni's eyes, gave them to his dogs to eat, and threw him into ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... I'll look over them letters!" Anderson's big hand shot out to clutch Nash, holding him powerless, and with the other hand he searched Nash's inside coat pockets, to tear forth a packet of letters. Then Anderson released him and stepped back. "Get out ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... would be to bring about such a quarrel with your family as might ruin half your life, and she has the rare courage to tell you so and to refuse your offer. You think that I can do something to help you and you are incensed because I am powerless, and furious because I object to your leaving Rome in the same train with her, against her will. You are more furious still to-day because you have adopted her belief that I am a monster of iniquity. Observe—that, ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... level his rifle; his arm collapsed and dangled broken and powerless; his rifle clattered ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... who has watched the rapid decline of a darling child, and marked with a bursting heart the approaching footsteps of the spoiler, can imagine how powerless we felt at that time. The wealth of the Indias, had we possessed it, would have been freely given, although it would have been unavailing, to shield that loved and gentle form from pain, and we were obliged to look ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... furniture into the adjoining fields. When any of them had effected this as far as it could be attempted with safety, they were unable to conceive any further remedy, but stood wringing their hands, and contemplating the ravages of the fire in an agony of powerless despair. The water that could be procured, in any mode practised in that place, was but as a drop contending with an element in arms. The wind in the mean time was rising, and the flames spread with more ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... have made the common mistake of confounding barbarism with strength. Because the Southern masses are as ignorant of letters and of arts as the Scottish Highlanders, they infer themselves to be as warlike. But even the brave and hardy Highlanders proved powerless against the imperfect military resources of England, a century ago, and it is not easy to see why those who now parody them should fare better. The absence of the alphabet does not necessarily prove the presence of strength, nor is the ignorance of all useful arts the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... vainer than we are. Their indifference to the little arts we practise shows it. A woman whose head is bald covers it with a wig. Without a wig she would feel that she was an outcast totally powerless to attract. But a bald-headed man has no idea of diffidence. He does not bother about a wig because he expects to be ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... sunlight," as of old, The wise ghost-mother of Odysseus said, Here am I half content, and scarce a-cold, But one light fits the living, one the dead; Good-bye, be glad, forget! thou canst not hold In thy kind arms, alas! this powerless head. ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang
... "Here goes; who bids cash?" Think of it—a man and wife to be sold! The woman was placed on the auctioneer's block; her limbs, as is customary, were brutally exposed to the purchasers, who examined her with all the freedom with which they would examine a horse. There stood the husband, powerless; no right to his wife; the master's right preeminent. She was sold. He was next{322} brought to the auctioneer's block. His eyes followed his wife in the distance; and he looked beseechingly, imploringly, to the man that had bought his wife, to buy him also. But ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... some Aztecs, as they are called, sitting bowlegged, they couldn't straighten their legs if you paid them because the muscles here, you see, he proceeded, indicating on his companion the brief outline of the sinews or whatever you like to call them behind the right knee, were utterly powerless from sitting that way so long cramped up, being adored as gods. There's an example again ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... and then, powerless to speak another word, she laid her head upon a chair, while Mr. Carrollton, preferring to be alone, sought the solitude of his own room, where unobserved he could wrestle with his sorrow and conquer his inborn pride, which whispered ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... of the Kentuckians almost amounted to mania. They denounced the treaty with frantic intemperance, and even threatened violence to those of their own number, headed by Humphrey Marshall, who supported it; yet they benefited much by it, for it got them what they would have been absolutely powerless to obtain for themselves, that is, the possession of the British posts on the Lakes. In 1796 the Americans took formal possession of these posts, and the boundary line in the Northwest as nominally established by the treaty of Versailles became in fact the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... who with their insidious propaganda, menace America through her industrial troubles, will be powerless, indeed, when American employers and employees can think in terms of ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... an agony of shame and rage. His attack now was that of a frenzied animal, quite careless of defense and desirous only of murder. Twice the Duke wounded him, but it was Alessandro who drew backward, composedly hindering the brutal onslaught he was powerless to check. Then Eglamore ran him through the chest and gave vent to a strangled, growling cry as Alessandro fell. Eglamore wrenched his sword free and grasped it by the blade so that he might stab the Duke again and again. He meant to hack the ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... justify the inscription on the base of the statue erected to him in 1877, at Wantage (Berkshire), his birth-place: "lfred found Learning dead, and he restored it; Education neglected, and he revived it; the laws powerless, and he gave them force; the Church debased, and he raised it; the Land ravaged by a fearful Enemy, from which he delivered it. lfred's name will live as long as mankind ...
— Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book - with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary • C. Alphonso Smith
... Seth was powerless against such odds. There was no hope. His revolver cracked and more than one man fell, but they closed with him, and, as his last barrel was emptied, he felt the flesh of his left shoulder rip under the slashing blow of ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... Princess; and if this be the end of our service, forgive what in the past has been done amiss. Farewell, O cavalier, and be happy to protect her in perils wherein we were powerless." ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... bliss in their eyes! Lydia would have liked to tear out their eyes, his as well as hers, and to trample them beneath her heel. A fresh flood of hatred filled her heart. God! how she hated them, and with what a powerless hatred! But her time would come; another need pressed sorely—to prevent the meeting of the following day, to save her brother. To whom should she turn, however? To Dorsenne? To Montfanon? To Baron Hafner? To Peppino Ardea? She thought by turns of ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... action, which was certainly justified by the letter but never by the spirit of the military code, had caused the military world a quiver of apprehension. They looked on, aghast, at proceedings which they were powerless to stop. But it is safe to say that there was not a man in the court-martial who did not blush as he admitted the justice of the sentence finally passed upon the luckless prisoner. The proceedings lasted, altogether, a fortnight; during which time ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... roused its hearers to fury. The whole city broke into tumult, as the woful tale passed from lip to lip. Many debtors escaped from their prisons and begged protection from the incensed multitude. The consuls found themselves powerless to restore order; and in the midst of the uproar horsemen came riding hotly through the gates, crying out that a hostile army was near at hand, marching to besiege ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the floor—asked God, silently, for help before she spoke again. She felt suddenly powerless, futile. ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... Gatinais said; "grant me some little credit for what I do. You are alone; the man is powerless. My fellows are within call. A word secures the Prince's death; a word gets me you and Sicily. And I do not speak that word, for you are my lady as well as his, and your will is ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... presence of the one incommunicable gulf—the gulf of all gulfs—that gulf which Mr. Huxley's protoplasm is as powerless to efface as any other material expedient that has ever been suggested since the eyes of men first looked into it—the mighty gulf between death and life."—"As Regards Protoplasm." By J. Hutchinson Stirling, ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... per cent by the installation of such an up-to-date contrivance, even if it did cut their speed down more or less—when they had good need of swift wings it could be done away with, since racket was powerless to ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... horror, and a painful blending of both, crowd upon the heart with every breath you draw. Nothing but the air seems free; nothing but the blue sky above seems pure, as you walk from one scene of distress to another. You feel the more oppressed because human effort seems so powerless to alleviate the misery you witness; for who can minister to a mind diseased? What can take away the deformity and sting of guilt? Where lies the power to lift poverty from the degradation that the haughty and evil spirit of man has flung around it? The very heart grows faint as it beats ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... away in the current. I just managed to grab him as he was about to be drawn into the vortex, where most certainly he would have lost his life. I lost my footing too, and we were both thrown against a rock, which I grabbed with one hand while still holding on to Alcides. There we remained powerless for several minutes, swallowing a good deal of water, which went right over our heads with the resistance we made against the current, until Filippe the negro—with wonderful courage, since he was no swimmer—came to ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... heading, that feeling of protectorship which the sailorman has for his passengers would be lost. If Leith knew the island, and it was evident that he had visited it before, any villainy that he contemplated would be held in check till he was ashore and in command of the expedition and I would be powerless. ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... reserve of power after great exhaustion. It is a kind of second life, available only in emergencies like this; and, having proved its existence, I had no great fear that either of us would fail, though one of my arms was already benumbed and hung powerless. ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... in asserted laws; Secluded now would pass his life, And leave to time the sequel of the strife. But missives from the Senators ran; Not that they now would gaze upon a swordless foe, And power made powerless and brought low: Reasons of state, 'tis claimed, require the man. Demurring not, promptly he comes By ways which show the blackened homes, And—last—the seat no more his own, But Honor's; patriot grave-yards fill The forfeit slopes of that patrician hill, And fling a shroud ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... Rebu fell at the first discharge, and as the storm of arrows continued, they, finding themselves powerless to damage the Egyptians at that distance, retired halfway up the side of the slope. Now from behind the lines of the Egyptian archers a column of men advanced a hundred abreast, each carrying a great fagot. Their object was evident: they were about to prepare ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... back, don't you speak to me for a year. Now, I'm going home." And, feeling that words were powerless to express his emotions, Ben walked away, looking as grim ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... a period of two years, there was not the slightest tendency towards a difference in body or mind; external influences seemed powerless ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... to Joshua, thrice repeated, can wisely or securely be rested. It is mockery to say to a man conscious of weakness, and knowing that there are evils which must surely come, and evils which may possibly come, against which he is powerless, 'Don't be afraid' unless you can show him good reason why he need not be. And there is only one reason which can still reasonable dread in a human heart that has to front 'all the ills that flesh is heir to,' and sees behind them all the grim form of death. He ought to be afraid, unless—unless ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... unable to cover the usual distance of her nightly rambles. As the first cold glimmer of the dawn appeared in the south-eastern sky, she started back, in alarm at her fatigue, to complete the remaining mile of her journey home. Her weakness soon became apparent. Then, finding herself powerless to proceed, she turned reluctantly aside, and crouched, with Nature's mimicry for her protection, on the brown ploughland where the winter wheat was thrusting up its first green sprouts above the soil. But after a few days she was well and strong again. She suffered far ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... was not till long afterwards that we learnt the exact substance of what had passed, and how hardly our lives had been wrung out of the cruel grip of the Zu-Vendi priesthood, in the face of which even the Queens were practically powerless. Had it not been for their strenuous efforts to protect us we should have been slain even before we set foot in the Temple of the Sun. The attempt to drop us bodily into the fiery pit as an offering was a last artifice to attain this end when several others ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... seems to me that we have the power of government outside to shape and control circumstances, but that the inside power, the government housekeeping, is powerless, and is compelled to accept whatever conditions or ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... of the manner of its happening, few people were able to render a coherent account. All that they remembered was a most amazing spectacle,—the spectacle of Wingate walking quietly to the door with Dredlinton in his arms, kicking and shouting smothered profanities, but absolutely powerless to free himself. The door was opened by a waiter, and Wingate passed into the corridor. A maitre d'hotel, with presence of mind, hurried up ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... been in the Christian idea the mysterious self-sowing quality so constantly claimed for it, how came it that in the Eastern part of the Empire it was as powerless for spiritual or moral regeneration as it was for political health and vitality, while in the Western part it became the organ of the most important of all the past transformations of the civilised world? Is not the difference to be explained by the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... night and day of peril involved his whole future. Merefleet recognised this and resolved to act forthwith, in defiance of Seton or any other obstacle. He did not realise till later that there was opposed to him a strength which even his will was powerless to overcome. He did not even take the possibility of this ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... the fire. There were many documents and writings belonging to the property he had gathered together, and it was some time before she could find the will. The master tried to take it from her, but in vain; his right hand was powerless. ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... last began to resign myself to the fact that no further aid was to be expected from man, and knowing that I was utterly powerless to do anything for my own salvation, I kneeled with earnest fervor and asked assistance from Heaven. The remembrance of my innocent childhood, the memory of my mother, known only in my infancy, came welling forth from my heart. ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... "how can I move thee? Were the means at hand, I would resist to the death; being powerless, I entreat. Do with me as thou wilt, but ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... who have but little sense of right and wrong, might well exult in their achievement. Without the loss of a single man, and even without receiving a wound, they had taken from beneath the very walls of the fort, its whole herd, leaving the garrison powerless to pursue. The loss was very severe to the trappers. Without their horses and mules, they could do nothing. It only remained for them to wait for the return of Mr. McCoy and his party, who had promised, after visiting Fort Walla Walla, to rendezvous ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... but as he was about to spring Jerry flashed past him, and, hurling himself upon the Indian's back, gripped him by the throat and bore him choking to earth, knocking the wind out of him and rendering him powerless. Jerry's knife descended once bright, once red, and the Indian with a horrible gasping ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... has gone too. He is bereft of all that holds existence and soul together, and sees nought before him, even if he do live, but ceaseless struggle and ceaseless misery. Can such a being aid himself? No more can he, than the invalid, weakened and powerless from sickness. Aid must be given him by those who have strength and knowledge, or he will sink, if not into death, to that which will be worse,—hopeless, ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers
... slipped to earth and strove together on the ling. But Roger had Giles in a cruel wrestling-hold, wrenched him, bent him, and bearing him to earth, wrested away the dagger and raised it above the archer's naked throat. And Giles, lying powerless beneath, looked up into Roger's fierce scowling face and seeing no pity there, his pale cheek grew paler and in his eyes came an agony of broken hopes; but his gaze quailed not and when he spake, his ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... offensive to them. Hence he is said to have instructed his friends and disciples not to transliterate the Hebrew characters, which he in accordance with general Jewish usage employed in writing Arabic, into Arabic characters. But he was powerless to enforce his desire and there is no doubt that such transcriptions were in use. Samuel Tibbon himself, the Hebrew translator of the "Guide," made use of manuscript copies written in Arabic letters. We are told that in the Mohammedan schools in the city of Fez in Morocco, Jews were appointed to ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... in an instant from his face, leaving it gray and ashen as the twilight itself. Icy horror, groping and ghastly, flooded his veins as he saw that he was powerless to aid her. Yet his mind worked clear and sure, fast as lightning itself. Even yet it was safer for her to turn back than attempt to make the crossing. He knew that Buster's strength was not that of Mulvaney, and he couldn't live in the deepest, swiftest part of the ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... be done for Sonya, it was horrible to think of her being carried off to a Russian prison, concerning which one had read such dreadful stories. She was too ill and she seemed so utterly without friends or relatives. Yet Nona herself was utterly powerless, knowing no one with any influence in Russia. Nevertheless she felt a strange bond, which had come to her out of the past, between herself ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... great need of such an effort until now, but your friend Brandon presents it. I wish he were at the other side of the world. I think she feels that she ought to keep away from him before it is too late, both for his sake and her own, but she is powerless to deny herself the pleasure of being with him, and I do not know what is to come of it all. That incident of the loose girth is an illustration. Did you ever know anything so bold and transparent? Any one could see through it, and the worst of all is she seems not to care if every ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... from the central office ceases, the spring 1 resumes its normal position, thus breaking the bridge circuit through the bell at that station. It is apparent now that the action of coil 6 at Station A has made the relay powerless to perform any further action, and at the same time the line has been extended on to the second station. A second similar impulse from the central office will cause the relay at Station B to extend the line on to Station ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... the wild buffalo a direr foe than the wild pig. And one can well understand how the peasant, winning a scanty subsistence from his poor fields near the forest, and seeing his harvest destroyed in a night by the trampling of a herd of these great brutes against whom his puny weapons were powerless, looked on them as terrible and malignant deities. The sacrifice of a buffalo would be beyond the means of a single man, and the animal is now more or less sacred as one of the cow tribe. But the annual joint sacrifice of one or more buffaloes ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... it all; the grandeur of the head and eyes, the delicate symmetry of the features, the unsought grace of every movement—in a word, the unconquerable beauty which suffering cannot destroy, and which time itself is powerless to wear out. Lady Janet advanced, and took her with hearty kindness ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... fissurata).—It is rare, but it is believed to be even more powerful than waname and is used in the same way as the latter; the drink produced from it is also strongly intoxicating. Robbers are powerless to steal anything where Sunami calls ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... for Rhun; alas! the damp earth lies Heavy and chill on those unconscious eyes; Around those cold and powerless fingers, The earthworm coils her slimy rings; Above his grave the wild bird lingers, And many a ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... lack a basis. It has need of a subject, of a sentient being; and it is powerless to furnish us with the great fundamental truths: God, merit and demerit, the Just, the Beautiful—ideas which are all innate, that is to say, anterior to facts, ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... continued Stanislaus, "my soul bleeds at this parting. I know the treasure which your family has always been to this nation; I know your own individual merit. I know the wealth which you have sacrificed for me and my subjects, and I am powerless to ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... his sorrows and his desires . . . do I count for nothing, then? Have I not suffered as he has suffered? did I not live in exile as he did? Have I not made sacrifices for my king and for my ideals? Why should I suffer in the future as well as in the past? Why, because my king is powerless or supine in giving me back what was filched from my father, should that be taken from me which alone gives me incentive to live . . . you, Crystal," he added as once again he knelt beside her. He encircled her shoulders with his arms, then he seized her two hands ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... when it sprouted they overwhelmed him and he was driven into war against his will. Kruger would not have displaced diplomacy with the sword, but his burghers felt that peaceful methods of securing their independence were of no avail, and he was powerless to resist their wishes. He did not lead the Boers into war; they insisted that only war would give to them the relief they desired, and he followed under their leadership. When the meetings of the Volksraad immediately ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... evil, concerns only the local sovereignties or people with whom it exists or may exist. The Federal government not having been ordained or established to form or control the domestic institutions of the people of the confederated States, is equally powerless to destroy or to extend slavery. Its destruction or extension must be the work of local law, not of the Federal constitution, nor of ...
— The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery - Delivered at Fort Wayne, Ind., October 30th 1860 • Joseph Ketchum Edgerton
... But notwithstanding these trials, the outrages in Ireland lost little of their horrors. The refusal to pay tithes became general; and many frightful collisions occurred between the peasantry and the authorities which endeavoured to repress their lawless proceedings, The law was, in fact, powerless; and whenever the officers of the law interfered, open ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... aunt's room, and sank powerless into a chair. Marfa Timofyevna gazed long at her in silence, slowly she knelt down before her—and began still in the same silence to kiss her hands alternately. Lisa bent forward, crimsoning—and began to weep, but she did ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... was that of intense cold. He endeavored to rise, but was powerless to move hand or foot. He lay quiet for a few minutes; and then made another effort, but with a similar want of success. This time, however, he felt that his limbs would have moved, had they not been fastened ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... those childish hands over her face, Miss Parrott broke utterly down, all her aristocratic traditions falling away in a second of time, to reveal her lonely, hopeless life. And she sobbed in a way very hard for any onlooker to hear. To Rachel, powerless to stop her, it seemed the most terrible thing in all this world, and she burst out ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... produced a sort of paralysis of my whole system without quite losing consciousness. I could feel my circulation become slower and finally stop; my nerves and energies became suspended, and my hands grew numb and powerless. Even my heart ceased to beat, and the little cry of alarm which I gave just before my powers left me failed to bring me any help. I was ill, very ill indeed; to me it seemed as if my last moment had come, and I could not bear the thought of thus early being taken from my young master, ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... write to Mr. Roscoe?" pleaded Larry, who, of course, did not understand why Hector was powerless. ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... completely formed of tin, I had no more fear of the Wicked Witch, for she was powerless to injure me. Nimmie Amee said we must be married at once, for then she could come to my cottage and live with me and ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... reproduction, since its product is dead. Fine art shapes inert matter and peoples the mind with impotent ghosts. What influence it has—for every event has consequences—is not pertinent to its inspiration. The art of the past is powerless even to create similar art in the present, unless similar conditions recur independently. The moments snatched for art have been generally interludes in life and its products parasites in nature, the body of them being materially functionless and the soul merely represented. To exalt fine art into ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... ourselves plunged amidst the hopes and fears of the hour, to feel the conflicting emotions and to sympathize in the struggles which again seem to live: and here philosophy is at fault. Philosophy, when we are face to face with real men, is as powerless as over the Iliad or King Lear. The overmastering human interest transcends explanation. We do not sit in judgment on the right or the wrong; we do not seek out causes to account for what takes place, feeling too conscious of the inadequacy ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... the flood was rising meanwhile, and the dikes were breaking one after, another. The religious belief of the Savoyard vicar, imperfect and inconsistent, such as it is set forth in Emile, and that sincere love of nature which was recovered by Rousseau in his solitude, remained powerless to guide the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... and etiquette, bound by a hundred ceremonious rules, forbidden to do this and that, taught to think that his one duty was to be magnificently attired, to acquire graceful arts of posture and courtesy, subtly and gently prevented from obeying natural and simple impulses, made powerless—a crowned slave; so that, instead of being the freest and sincerest thing in the world, it became the prisoner of respectability and convention, just a part of the ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... religious settlement that had been accomplished by Henry VIII. But his protest fell on deaf ears. The war against images was carried on vigorously, though legally only those images that had been abused were forbidden, and even in Bishop Gardiner's own diocese he was powerless to resist those who knew they could count on the support of ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... of living as they please when they are bachelors, and then having their word of honour believed in when they choose to enter the married state. As long as women are powerless to put an end to that horrible privilege or to make themselves independent of it, so long will one half of the world continue to be sacrificed on account of the other half—on account of the other half's lack of self-control. That one privilege turns out to be more powerful than all the ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson |
