"Impossible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her then, how very uncertain was the fate of emigrants to that country, how next to impossible it might be to obtain intelligence of an obscure young man like Luke; he contented himself with giving her what he thought ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... these lines be a correct one, they were delivered by the prophet in 1469. It is not impossible. The words are obscure and the prediction so indistinct that it might quite well have been made by an ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various
... new situation, with her altered views of society in general, soon grew to love her benefactor and his family, and take that sincere pleasure in their rude ways, which, at one time, she would have considered as next to impossible. With a happy faculty, belonging only to the few, she managed to work herself into their affections, by little and little, almost imperceptibly, until, ere they were aware of the fact themselves, she was looked upon rather as a daughter and sister, than a more distant relation. In ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... been DECEIVED in that woman! She is a brazenfaced, painted daughter of Heth, and has no more right to the title of Lady Crawley than YOU have. I am told that she was at one time the paramour of Lord Steyne, and that her conduct made it impossible for her husband to live with her. And this is the woman who has come within the gates of the palace of a Christian prelate; nay, more, who has secured his signature to a cheque of very considerable value. I think my suspicions were first excited by the disappearance of the ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... greatness of his strength, with dyed garments from Bozrah, staining his raiment with blood as he trampled in the wine vat of vengeance, but the true Messiah, God's foreordained and anointed Son, despised and rejected of men, bringing good tidings, publishing peace. It must have been impossible for the Jews to receive such a Messiah without explanations. Those few who became converts apprehended his Messianic language, at least to some extent, in the sense which previously occupied their minds. He knew that often he was not understood; ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... notable note on the Bahamas, from Cat Island to Watling's Island. The former has no lake, as the latter has; and Columbus insists on a lake. He also went in one day with oars around the north end—a feat impossible in one case and easy in the other. Watling, for this and other reasons dwelt on by English surveyors, is on the new maps rebaptized San Salvador, in rectification of euphony not less than of historic truth. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... spiritual qualities. Still there would at times rise in him something like a hope. But now, from the moment when the officer's spurs jingled and then died away, there also died away his timid love.... All was at an end, hope was impossible.... "Yes, now all is finished," he thought, "I am ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... 14th James passed away, broken by his impossible task, lost in the bewildering paths from which ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... rang from the topmost twig of the thorn tree, and yet the Cardinal was not in earnest. He was beside himself with a new and delightful excitement, and he found it impossible to refrain from giving vent to his feelings. He was commanding the farmer and every furred and feathered denizen of the river bottom to see; then he fought like a wild thing if any of them ventured close, for great things were ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... boats, and this was now to be done. When they came down to the ten-oared boat, which was drawn a good way up the beach, they found both oars and thwarts reversed, and, in addition to this, it was impossible, even with their united efforts, to move it. They tried once, twice, three times without avail. And then one of them, who was known to have second sight, said that from what he saw, it was better that ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... which are ascribed to the Spirit, we shall find ourselves wandering in a maze of mystery. If we follow the word of God, which is the only source of knowledge, we shall find ourselves walking in a light that shall grow brighter as we proceed. It is impossible in a book the size of this to treat all the many passages that refer to the Holy Spirit, but we shall give those that have important bearing ...
— The Spirit and the Word - A Treatise on the Holy Spirit in the Light of a Rational - Interpretation of the Word of Truth • Zachary Taylor Sweeney
... bring the former into a conception of love and to vest the latter with the beauty of stars and flowers and the dignity of inexorable justice. There could be no finer metaphor for such a correlation than Fatherhood and Sonship. But the trouble is that it seems impossible to most people to continue to regard the relations of the Father to the Son as being simply a mystical metaphor. Presently some materialistic bias swings them in a moment of intellectual carelessness back to ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... to be anything! Why not go out to the dim and half-remembered world that he had left, the world of lights, padded floors and marble steps, leave this impossible land with its blood and wrongs? Nay, he could not leave Lost Valley. He was as much a part of it as the grim Rockface itself, the Vestal's Veil eternally shimmering in its thousand feet of beauty. Life or death, for ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... while he betook himself into the remotest wilderness to carve out a new home for them on a tract of forest land which was all that remained of his possessions. The land was fertile and carried good timber, and he had begun to prosper. But his wife's ill-health had long made it impossible for her to face the hardships and risks of a pioneer's life two days' journey from the nearest civilization. Not till the preceding spring had Dave dared to bring his family out to the wilderness home that he had so long been making ready for them. Then, however, it ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... help him now, and if those ways in which he had wished to help some fellow had seemed impossible, in this case how much more impossible were these circumstances? For to help in this way could only bring the downfall of all Reggie's hopes of promotion, and put off that day when he could tell Gertrude that his home was ready ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... "you seem unable to move or rest ungracefully. Few women are so built that an ungraceful motion is impossible for them. You are one of the few. It's all ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... hard to restrain herself when he had stood outside the door of her room gravely pleading with her. Only pride had kept her from yielding—the humiliating conviction that she was not good enough for him—or rather that her father's crimes had made it impossible for her to accept him upon a basis ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... not been to see my mother. Such a commonplace slave of convention was my aunt, that, on the evening I am now mentioning, she had scarcely spoken to me during dinner, because, having been detained at the solicitor's, I had found it quite impossible to go to my hotel to dress for her ridiculous seven ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... confer grace ex opere operato, and that, when applied on behalf of others, alive or dead, it does not merit for them ex opere operato the remission of sins, of guilt or of punishment. And of this position a clear and firm proof exists in that it is impossible to obtain the remission of our sins on account of our own work ex opere operato [even when there is not a good thought in the heart], but the terrors of sin and death must be overcome by faith when we comfort our hearts with the knowledge of Christ, and believe that ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... to be cream-colour, with a scarlet collar and cuffs, and scarlet silk facings and linings, looking as if the wearer had turned the morning one inside out. Waistcoats, and other articles of dress, were left to the choice of the wearer, experience having proved that they are articles it is impossible to legislate ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... In the House the situation was reversed, and all Biddle's energy and resolute lobbying failed to secure a favorable vote. It became clear early in the spring that the President could not be moved, and that impeachment, which had been the hope and talk of many, would be impossible. When the weight of public opinion inclined visibly to the side of Jackson at the end of spring, Clay, who had for some time doubted the loyalty of Biddle, and who was especially anxious to regain his former popularity in the West, refused ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... Cortes to the King of Spain: "Such slaughter was done that day on land and water that killed and prisoners numbered forty thousand; and such were the shrieks and weeping of women and children that there were none of us whose hearts did not break." He adds that it was impossible to contain the savage killing and torturing by their allies the Tlascalans, who practised such cruelty as had never been seen, and "out of all ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... things were all very well, but that he wished to have an English horse. I answered, that this was utterly impossible by sea, and that the Turks would not allow of any being sent by land. In reply, he said he thought it not impossible by sea; and, when I represented the dangers from storms, he said if six were ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... most attached and faithful adherent, to procure by the aid of money, by which he had already effected so much, assassins to kill Massiva; and to do it secretly if he could; but, if secrecy should be impossible, to cut him off in any way whatsoever. This commission Bomilcar soon found means to execute; and, by the agency of men versed in such service, ascertained the direction of his journeys, his hours of leaving ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... sensibility was so exquisite and his temper so sweet, that he was a delight instead of a terror, and that he was loved instead of feared. Delicacy should be commensurate to power, that each may be complete. It would seem almost impossible that a lawyer with a practice truly immense, passing a great part of his life in public and heated contests and in discussing and often severely criticizing the motives and conduct of parties and witnesses, should not make many enemies; but he was so essentially modest, simple, gentlemanly, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... Romer saunter down the High Street, arm in arm, declared that it was all up with poor Moffat; but others, in whose head the bump of veneration was strongly pronounced, whispered to each other that great shibboleth—the name of the Duke of Omnium—and mildly asserted it to be impossible that the duke's nominee ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... second book of Epistles, in which may have been included the Ars Poetica, could not have appeared before 10 B.C. It is clear that the latter poem is not complete, but whether Horace intended to finish it more thoroughly it is impossible to say. ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... his father-in-law, although living under the disadvantage of being a Standard Oil magnate, neither was, nor is, a blackguard, and his son-in-law had been treated by him generously and with patience. But for the duellist and soldier of fortune it was impossible to sympathize with a man who took no greater risk in life than to ride on one of his own railroads, and of the views the two men held of each other, that of John H. Flagler was probably the fairer and ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... dagger" was illustrated by our best scholar. Lowell had the soul of the Yankee, but in his habits of writing he continued English tradition. His literary essays are full of charm. The Commemoration Ode is the high-water mark of the attempt to do the impossible. It is a fine thing, but it is imitative and secondary. It has paid the inheritance tax. Twice, however, at a crisis of pressure, Lowell assumed his real self under the guise of a pseudonym; and with his own hand he rescued a language, a type, ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... Zarathustra and The Gay Science. He wrote seldom in the sheaf of papers which lay in his desk. One of his sentences, written two months after his last interview with Mrs. Sinico, read: Love between man and man is impossible because there must not be sexual intercourse and friendship between man and woman is impossible because there must be sexual intercourse. He kept away from concerts lest he should meet her. His father died; the junior partner of the bank retired. And still ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... of moving bodies increased. The consolidation was imperceptible in the murk, but nevertheless it took place. We ceased to find clear spaces where we could gallop; a trot became impossible. We were hemmed in. A rank animal odor mingled with the taint of smoke. Gradually the muffled beat of hoofs grew more pronounced, a shuffling monotone that filled the night. We were mere atoms in a vast wave of horn and bone and flesh that bore ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... dismantled stockade, which were said to be in his possession, but he positively denied it, saying that they had been despatched in boats across to the Irrawaddy. Whether this were true or not, it was impossible to say; but, at all events, it was necessary to make some further attempts to obtain them, so we told him, that if he did not inform us where the guns were, by the next morning his head would be taken off his shoulders. At this pleasant intelligence he opened his betel-bag and ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... was folded at an article very discreetly phrased, beneath a photograph of Senhor Teixeira Canalejas, Minister of War, who had very unfortunately been found dead that morning. He had been depressed, of late, but there were certain circumstances which made it as yet impossible to determine whether he had killed himself or was the victim ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... I failed not to express my earnest hope and wish that my father would honour me with a few lines, were it but to express his advice and commands in an affair of some difficulty, and where my knowledge of life could not be supposed adequate to my own guidance. I found it impossible to prevail on myself to urge my actual return to London as a place of residence, and I disguised my unwillingness to do so under apparent submission to my father's will, which, as I imposed it on myself as a sufficient reason for not ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... business and returning home to spend the rest of the time with the family. Along towards three o'clock, when the routine work of the shops was disposed of, the manager felt an irresistible desire to speak to the men in his employ. Those in his department numbered about eight hundred, and he knew how impossible it would be for him to speak to them individually. He thought a minute and then called Burns in and gave an order that made the foreman stare ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... of this unshaken confidence in yourself you won the steeplechase, sir—unaided and alone you won for yourself a place in the most exclusive circles in the World of Fashion—without friends or influence you achieved the impossible, because you ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... She had never attended any Frontier Days, but she imagined they were even more wonderful than the quite impossible poster. Carol's early determination to adore the Westland had become fixed habit at last. It was capable of ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... described how the French artillery swept the hinterland of the German positions in Champagne and then concentrated upon these. "The violence of the fire then reached its zenith. Hitherto it had been a raging, searching fire; now it became a mad drumming, beyond all power of imagination. It is impossible to convey any idea of the savagery of this bombardment. Never has this old planet heard such an uproar. An officer who had witnessed during the summer the horrors of Arras, of Souchez, and of the Lorette Heights, told me that those were ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... practically impossible when the brain is fagged or the bodily condition is far below the normal in ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... It was impossible to imagine a happier party than that which met day after day in those pleasant lodgings at Kilburn, wherein Georgy and Diana and Charlotte had been established with much devotion and care on the parts of Valentine and Gustave. ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... Geoffrey, with a slight huskiness. "I wish I could, but it is impossible, and I am not pleased that Tom should tell you what I was waiting to confide to you myself. Let that pass, for I want you to listen to me. The old holding will have to go, and there is little room for a ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... one or the other. The first of these systems cost me, with every assistance which my then situation gave me, pains incredible. I found an opinion common through all the offices, and general in the public at large, that it would prove impossible to reform and methodize the office of pay-master-general. I undertook it, however; and I succeeded in my undertaking. Whether the military service, or whether the general economy of our finances have profited by that act, I leave to those who are ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Highland seaman, set forth in her to make the passage south. The first morning they got from Loch Broom into Gruinard bay, where they lunched upon an island; but the wind blowing up in the afternoon, with sheets of rain, it was found impossible to beat to sea; and very much in the situation of castaways upon an unknown coast, the party landed at the mouth of Gruinard river. A shooting lodge was spied among the trees; there Fleeming went; and though ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... should bring few or none from Byzantium. Lastly, Xenophon proposed to require the Grecian cities to repair and put in order the road along the coast, for a land-march; since, perhaps, with all their efforts, it would be found impossible to get together a sufficient ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... time for slaughtering the passover-offering?" The rule is, said R. Akiba, "all work for the passover which it is possible to do on the eve of the Sabbath does not abrogate the Sabbath; slaughtering, which it is impossible to do on the eve of the passover which falls on a Sabbath, ...
— Hebrew Literature
... difficulty of meeting with adequate legislation the new problems presented by the total change in industrial conditions on this continent during the last half century. In actual practice it has proved exceedingly difficult, and in many cases impossible, to get unanimity of wise action among the various States on these subjects. From the very nature of the case this is especially true of the laws affecting the employment ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... that one had freed one's self from all other fatalities, there is still one yoke left from which it is impossible to escape—that of Time. I have succeeded in avoiding all other servitudes, but I had reckoned without the last—the servitude of age. Age comes, and its weight is equal to that of all other oppressions taken together. Man, under his mortal aspect, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... respectability’s frowns?—or was it not rather because he felt that here his exaggeration, his departure from the true in quest of the striking, did not recommend itself to his cooler judgment? For those who know anything of the gipsies would say at once that it would have been impossible for Mrs. Petulengro to make this suggestion; and that, even if she had made it, Mr. Petulengro would not have dared to broach it to any English road-girl, least of all to a girl like Isopel Berners. The passage, ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... a-going to begin Pope Julius' tomb, and again, all those blank spaces for his pictures and bare pedestals for his statues in the Baptistery of San Lorenzo—ought we to regret them quite so passionately as we do? His patrons were apt to think him an impossible person to deal with. But I suspect that there may have been a certain high cunning in what appeared to be a mere lovable fault of temperament. When Michael Angelo actually did bring a thing off, the result was not always more than magnificent. ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... there was! All about us cries and cheers, and the chanting of the choirs and groaning of the organ; and outside the clamoring of the bells and the booming of the cannon. The fantastic dream, the incredible dream, the impossible dream of the peasant-child stood fulfilled; the English power was broken, the Heir ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... corporeal nature. To cogitate the latter in regard to its internal possibility, that is, to determine the application of the categories to it, no idea is required—no representation which transcends experience. In this sphere, therefore, an idea is impossible, sensuous intuition being our only guide; while, in the sphere of psychology, we require the fundamental idea (I), which contains a priori a certain form of thought namely, the unity of the ego. Pure reason has, therefore, ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... her doughnuts rather reluctantly. Ranch life had proved full of hardships to her. The hardships had been intensified because it was almost impossible to secure competent servants, or, indeed, servants of any kind. The farmer's daughters were proud—too proud to work in a neighbor's kitchen even if they went shabby or, as often happened among the poorer ones, barefoot, for lack of the money they might easily have ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... in his usual cheerful tones. "It is impossible, at such a time, to keep from looking at Sumter, the batteries and all the other preparations. We would not be human if we didn't do it, and I've seen enough to know that the Yankees will have a hot welcome if they undertake to ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... As every body known conducts electricity, it is impossible so to insulate a surface that it will not lose its charge by leakage. An absolute vacuum might answer, and Crookes in a high vacuum has retained a charge against dissipation for years. The gradual loss is ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... majority of French vocables which he employed in his poems had never been employed before, had been hitherto unfamiliar to English ears, is to suppose that his poems must have presented to his contemporaries an absurd patchwork of two languages, and leaves it impossible to explain how he should at once have become the popular ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... upon the earth. The Shubeners, Levis, Ezekiels and Appels were generally in tailoring or secondhand furniture and clothing, while the Raffertys, O'Flanagans and McDougalls dispensed liquor. All the most desirable sites were occupied by saloons, for it was practically impossible to quench the thirst of the neighborhood, though many were engaged in a valiant effort to do so. There were also in evidence, barbers, joiners, plumbers, grocers, fruit-sellers, bakers and venders of small wares, and there was the largest and most splendidly recruited army of do-nothings ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... heroic folks, who endure many things for small reward, as we reckon reward. In nothing perhaps do they show their heroism and faith more greatly than in their persistent habit of conveying women and young children into the most impossible places of the earth, there to suffer many things, not exclusive, occasionally, of martyrdom. At least the Protestant section of their calling does this; the Roman Catholics are wiser. In renouncing marriage these ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... arrived in the port of St Lucia, the two Jesuits came to him both sick, declaring that it was impossible to live in that country, where all the men who had been left along with them had died. Andrada sent the letters with which he was intrusted to the king and prince, by the servants of Don Jerome; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... Hammond writes as follows:—"The two phrases of 'going up into Heaven,' or 'descending into the deep,' are proverbial phrases to signify the doing or attempting to do some hard, impossible thing.... These phrases had been of old used by Moses in this sense, Deut. xxx. 12." [And then, the place follows.] "Which words being used by Moses to express the easiness and readiness of the way which the Jews had to know their duty and to perform it, are here by the Apostle accommodated ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... then one of flowers.[*] Oak-leaves do the honors for Zeus; laurel for Apollo; myrtle for Aphrodite (and is not the Love-Goddess the favorite?). To have a social gathering without garlands, in short, is impossible. The flower girls of Athens are beautiful, impudent, and not at all prudish. Around their booths press bold-tongued youths, and not too discreet sires; and the girls can call everybody familiarly by name. Very possibly along with the sale of the garlands they make arrangements ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... Pip's bed as usual one morning all the bedclothes had gone. The white counterpane was spread smoothly over the mattress, but there was absolutely no trace of the blankets, sheets, and pillows. She hunted in every possible and impossible place, questioned the children, and even applied to Esther, but the missing things could not ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... not so sure even of that. If in Miss McGoun, Louetta Swanson, and Ida he had failed to find the lady kind and lovely, it did not prove that she did not exist. He was hunted by the ancient thought that somewhere must exist the not impossible she who would understand him, value ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... beside her, in silence, pushing his bicycle. Had she done it of malice prepense? No—impossible! He had only telegraphed his own movements to her late on the previous evening, much too late to make any sudden arrangement with Philip, who was coming from ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... upon itself the condition is called retroflexion. An extreme degree of anteversion or anteflexion, or retroversion or retroflexion, may interfere with impregnation, as the spermatozoa may find it difficult or impossible to reach the opening of the ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... scheme for Mr. Pericles to hear me sing. He heard me, and my scheme succeeded. If Italy knew as well as I, she would never let her voice be heard till she is sure of it:—Yes! from foot to head, I knew it was impossible to fail. If a country means to be free, the fire must run through it and make it feel that certainty. Then—away the whitecoat! I sang, and the man twisted, as if I had bent him in my hand. He rushed to me, and offered me any terms I pleased, if for three years I would go to the Conservatorio at ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... matter that Dale—splendid fellow that he was—had made the ensuing moment free of shame by taking her action as he had taken it—the fact that she had actually done it was enough. How utterly impossible for her to anticipate her impulses or to understand them, once they were acted upon! Confounding realization then was that when Dale returned with her sister, Helen knew she would do the same thing ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... heard such and such a father spoken of with enthusiasm who says the mass in twelve minutes, although it appears impossible even to read the parts composing it in less than eighteen or twenty. On the other hand, when a devout and scrupulous priest recites these offices with due deliberation, and performs the ceremonies with a becoming degree of solemnity and decorum, the ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... of their mutual love: "The partiality we conceived for each other was in that mode which I have always considered as the purest and most refined style of love. It grew with equal advances in the mind of each. It would have been impossible for the most minute observer to have said who was before and who was after. One sex did not take the priority which long-established custom has awarded it, nor the other overstep that delicacy which is so severely imposed. ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... amiable and formal, was saying in a low voice: "My dinner partner is quite impossible, you see; and I happen to be here as a filler in—commanded to the presence only a few minutes ago. It's a pardonable error; I bear no malice. But ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... household cares, (No dream entrapped in supper's snares, The foal of horrible nightmares, But broad awake, as he declares), Go bustling up and down the stairs, Or setting back last evening's chairs, Or with the poker thrusting The raked-up sea-coal's hardened crust— And—what! impossible! it must! He knew she had returned to dust, 210 And yet could scarce his senses trust, Hearing her as she poked and fussed About ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... destroy those that lead to destruction ... though, properly speaking, it is neither an art nor a science, but a system of conduct and legislature, founded on the sciences, directing the arts, and impossible, except under certain conditions of moral culture," with which last, however, the modern political economists maintain their science has nothing ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... wind had shifted from E. to S. W., and the rain had set in,—to proceed was quite impossible. The coolness of a cloudy day rendered the tent much more agreeable and convenient for finishing maps in, than one under the extremely hot sunshine which mine had been recently exposed to so long at St. George's Bridge. I had now, therefore, a good opportunity ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... work renders it impossible to do full justice to any one of the men who have been selected; and on this account the author has made his Sketches more biographical than critical, leaving the reader to reflect on facts rather ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... the time of the China Clippers. My version is that of Capt. John Runciman, who belonged to that period. I have seldom found it known to sailors who took to the sea after the early seventies. The tune was sung in very free time and with great solemnity. It is almost impossible to reproduce in print the elusive subtlety of this haunting melody. In North-country ships the shantyman used to make much of the theme of a dead lover appearing in the night. There were seldom any rhymes, and the ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry
... wounded. In the British trenches the men were assembled, ready to pour out at the whistle and repel the assault on open ground; but it was not necessary for them to do so. The German ranks, unable to withstand the fire that devoured them as they met it, a fire that it was humanly impossible for any troops to withstand, turned back and sought the shelter of their trenches, leaving their dead and wounded piled and sprawled by the hundreds on the ground they had ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... finished, it would have been impossible to guess that at that part of the lake, there existed a subterranean passage through which the overflow ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... broke in vehemently, 'would that I could make you Duchess! You are my wife by all laws of fairest nature and love! This is a more holy thing than marriage—nay, this is true marriage!' It was the eternal lie of lovers: the old futile, pathetic, impossible pleading of those whose love cannot be sanctioned by ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... the plan of co-operation was a failure, and the whole district went back to cotton, with full prospect of assisting the boll weevil in his course toward the East. The reasons for this action lie in the type of farmer who thus found it impossible to co-operate. Each of these farmers regarded above all other things the success of his own farm and his own family group. In contrast to this interest no other claim, no exhortation and not even his word given in public had any lasting ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... extricating him from his embarrassing situation. Winstone, indeed, seems to have enjoyed some fame on the score of eccentricity. He took leave of the stage in 1784, being then about eighty years of age. But he was at this time so afflicted with deafness that it was impossible for him to "catch the word" from the prompter at the side of the stage. To assist him, therefore, in the delivery of his farewell address, one of the performers, provided with a copy of the speech, was ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... public. 'Everybody,' he said, 'who plans some great exploit is bound to consider whether his enterprise serves both the public interest and his own reputation, and whether it is easily practicable or, at any rate, not impossible. He must also weigh the advice which he gets. Are those who offer it ready to run the risk themselves? And, if fortune favours, who gains the glory? I myself, Vespasian, call you to the throne. How much that may benefit the country and make you famous it ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... at least, some royal residence. Over these dark and sombre chairs were thrown splendid stuffs, dyed beneath Persia's sun, or woven by the fingers of the women of Calcutta or of Chandernagor. What these stuffs did there, it was impossible to say; they awaited, while gratifying the eyes, a destination unknown to their owner himself; in the meantime they filled the place with their golden and silky reflections. In the centre of the room was a Roller and Blanchet ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... "you saw in your former journeys, that the land was covered with mountains, among which it is very difficult to travel, and that along the coast lie numberless villages, which would render escape almost impossible. Your ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... invention of his own to screen some baser friend and royal mistress. They succeeded in reawakening doubts in Edward, who, sending for Gloucester, said to him, "Unless I could hear from Wallace's own lips (and in my case the thing is impossible), that he has been here, and that my wife is guiltless of this foul stain, I must ever remain in horrible suspense. These base Scots, ever fertile in maddening suggestions, have made me even more suspect that Bruce had other reasons for his apparently generous risk of ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... in a failure due altogether to a fortuitous accident, against which no human foresight could have possibly taken precaution. Unless in case of the occurrence of some other most improbable accident, reaching the Moon was evidently now impossible. To failure, therefore, our travellers had to make up ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... tale we doubtless have reference to the destruction of Baku, on the Caspian (though to sail from Balsora to Baku is impossible), and the driving away into India, by the Arabs under Caliph Omar, of all who refused to renounce fire-worship and adopt the creed of the Koran. The turning of the refractory inhabitants into stone is probably the Arabian storyteller's figurative manner of referring to the finding ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... in God there are two elements: a sense of need and of evil and weakness, and a confidence more or less unshaken and strong in Him, His love and power and all-sufficiency; and unless both of these two be in the heart, it is, in the nature of things, impossible, and will be impossible to all eternity, that purity and strength and peace and joy, and all the blessings which Christ delights to give to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... tempt her to give way, and no doubt she was well-advised, for she contended that there was work to be done such as was beyond her years and strength, and that if she sent her ostler off, as well might she close her inn—a thing that was impossible. ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... could be utilized with a minimum of change; and European experience having indicated the value of the machine gun, a new and improved type was invented by John M. Browning. In many cases, however, it was impossible immediately to equip both the soldiers in training here, and those who could be sent abroad. Hence surplus equipment of certain kinds was supplied by France and England. Furthermore, actual combat had emphasized the vital importance of aviation and had developed warfare ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... our vision. We said to ourselves, "Why can't these lights be obliging, and go out entirely?" The wish was gratified. As we finished the last line of our brief, and stood on the verge of rhetorical destruction, the last glimmer of light was extinguished. "It is impossible to proceed," we ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... but also that conception of order in external nature without which the growth of organized knowledge, which we call science, enabling men to carry on their exploitation of the world, would have been impossible; that our very alphabet comes from Rome, who owed it to others; that the mathematical foundation of our modern mechanical science—without which neither Newton nor Watt nor Stevenson nor Ericson nor Faraday nor Edison could ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... produced, we cannot imagine it to have been done by naturall means, but onely by the immediate hand of God. But when wee see some possible, naturall cause of it, how rarely soever the like has been done; or if the like have been often done, how impossible soever it be to imagine a naturall means thereof, we no more wonder, nor esteem it ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... of the great proprietors having in this manner gradually increased, it was impossible that the number of their retainers should not as gradually diminish, till they were at last dismissed altogether. The same cause gradually led them to dismiss the unnecessary part of their tenants. Farms were enlarged, and the occupiers of land, notwithstanding ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... condition of the States which bordered upon the French frontier. The war was primarily a war with Austria, but the Sovereign of Austria was also the head of Germany. The German Ecclesiastical Princes who ruled in the Rhenish provinces had been the most zealous protectors of the emigrants; it was impossible that they should now find shelter in neutrality. Prussia had made an alliance with the Emperor against France; other German States followed in the wake of one or other of the great Powers. If France proved ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... the sun and moon, they repeat their prayers and sacrifices, with the same clamour, under the notion that it will frighten away the monster which they suppose to obscure these planets from their view. These superstitious notions have the most powerful influence over the Negro's mind, and it is impossible to dissuade or ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... were almost as much amazed at seeing him reappear, well and strong, as we had been at first at his non-appearance; for, to the best of our judgment, he had been nearly ten minutes under water, perhaps longer, and it required no exertion of our reason to convince us that this was utterly impossible for mortal man to do and retain his strength and faculties. It was therefore with a feeling akin to superstitious awe that I held down my hand and assisted him to clamber up the steep rocks. But no such feeling affected Peterkin. No sooner did Jack gain the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... France—saw, before its close, a similar attempt, in miniature, in Hebrew and by a Slavonic Maskil. Whether the Hebrew encyclopedist was influenced by the example of Dr. Tobias Cohn's Ma'aseh Tobiah mentioned above, or was unconsciously imbued with the prevailing tendency of the times, it is impossible to tell. In any event, he resorted to the same means, and presented the Jewish world with a volume containing a little of every science known, under the innocent name The Book of the Covenant (Sefer ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... data did not fit a pattern. It was different. No two individuals showed the same reactions. In every test the results were either flatly impossible or completely the opposite ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... It is impossible to determine how much of Hints of Prefaces or of the published Preface and Postscript is Richardson's own work. All were to some extent the result of collaborative effort, and Richardson did not ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson
... distant from Sevilla, returned much fatigued to his little cottage, where he found his aged housekeeper, the Senora Margarita, watching for him. Notwithstanding that one is well accustomed to the sight of poverty in Spain, it was impossible to help being struck by the utter of destitution which appeared in the house of the good priest; the more so, as every imaginable contrivance had been restored to, to hide the nakedness of the walls, and the shabbiness of the furniture. Margarita had prepared for her master's ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... knocked at the door and the king entered, beside himself at finding his daughter cured. "Ah! my daughter," he said to the young girl who had healed her, "how much we owe you! you must remain here with me." "It is impossible; you threatened my father with war if he did not allow me to come; now my father declares war with you if you do not let me return to him." She remained there a fortnight, then departed, and the king gave her quantities of riches and jewels. ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... and rigid election laws have made wholesale frauds impossible; and the genius of Tammany is now attempting to adjust itself to the new immigration, the new political spirit, and the new communal vigilance. Its power is believed by some optimistic observers to be waning. But the evidences are not wanting that its vitality and internal ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... knew it would take some hours to get through the forest, he was so anxious to be at his journey's end that he resolved to go on; but night overtook him, and the deep snow and bitter frost made it impossible for his horse to carry him any further. Not a house was to be seen; the only shelter he could get was the hollow trunk of a great tree, and there he crouched all the night which seemed to him the longest he had ever known. In spite ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... It is impossible to pass and not pause here in grateful admiration for the true heart of Dr. Johnson, who never failed a friend or any man. He proceeded with ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... less precipitous formation of glistening quartz marked its boundary, and into a fissure of this the stream, now a small river, plunged with accelerated speed. The going became difficult. The walls of the fissure through which the river rushed were smooth and water-worn, impossible to ascend; and between the brink of the river and the base of the walls were congestions of boulders, jammed drift-wood, and tangled alder bushes. There were times when we had to crawl upon our hands and knees, under ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... sketching the cottage children, and the plow-boys, and the cattle, and all manner of animal life that came in her way. She set her face with a sulky determination against any intimacy between herself and the baronet's young wife; and amiable as that lady was, she found it quite impossible to overcome Miss Alicia's prejudices and dislike; or to convince the spoilt girl that she had not done her a cruel injury by marrying Sir Michael Audley. The truth was that Lady Audley had, in becoming the wife of Sir Michael, made one of those apparently advantageous matches which are apt to ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... a mob than yield to its demands. Yet memory of those two helpless girls—more particularly that one over whose unconsciousness there hung the possibility of slavery—urged me strongly to attempt even the apparently impossible. I had it in my mind to fight the man personally if, in no other way, I could attain my end; at least I would face him with every power and authority I could bring ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... Eureka, and Jim could not see how the men were to benefit from the simple drill in which they were being instructed with great assiduity. The site chosen was an old mining ground, and the field was broken with holes and piles of dirt, rendering proper formation impossible; and although the leaders were serious and earnest men, the bulk of the rank and file preserved a spirit of careless levity, and were like ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... by sentence a scribe wrote down her gibberish, causing her at last to make her mark to it, all of which took a very long time. At the end she begged that she might be pardoned and not burnt, but this, she was informed, was impossible. Thereon she became enraged and asked why then had she been led to tell so many lies if after all she must burn, a question at which the crowd roared with laughter. On hearing this the priest, who ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... gods that Romans bow before, 320 I here discard my sickness! Soul of Rome! Brave son, deriv'd from honourable loins! Thou, like an exorcist, hast conjur'd up My mortified spirit. Now bid me run, And I will strive with things impossible; 325 Yea, get the better of them. ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... the hardship of the condition implied in these two well nigh impossible requirements, but, seeing that they might not by their words avail to move him from his purpose, they returned to the lady and reported to her his reply; whereat she was sore afflicted and determined, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... thus shaken off the pursuit, it was impossible for them to continue in occupation of Seoul. The conditions existing there were shocking. Widespread famine menaced, with its usual concomitant, pestilence. According to Korean history, the streets of the city and the roads in the suburbs were ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... account after all!" To talk to those people about the South—if they could have guessed how little he cared to do it! He had a passionate tenderness for his own country, and a sense of intimate connexion with it which would have made it as impossible for him to take a roomful of Northern fanatics into his confidence as to read aloud his mother's or his mistress's letters. To be quiet about the Southern land, not to touch her with vulgar hands, to leave her alone with her wounds and her memories, not prating in the market-place ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... pure conversational prose-style consists. But in writing a florid and artificial style, neither the same range of invention, nor the same quick sense of propriety—nothing but learning is required. If you know the words, and their general meaning, it is sufficient: it is impossible you should know the nicer inflections of signification, depending on an endless variety of application, in expressions borrowed from a foreign or dead language. They all impose upon the ear alike, because they are not familiar to it; the only distinction left is between the pompous and the plain; ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... it is impossible that solely from the laws of nature considered as extended substance, we should be able to deduce the causes of buildings, pictures, and things of that kind, which are produced only by human art; nor would the human body, unless it were determined ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... Lord Jesus composed and distributed, with considerable difficulty, some little pamphlets, in which were taught the doctrines of salvation by Christ alone, and in a form which enabled the poor and ignorant to read and understand; for it was impossible for them at that time to procure a Bible, which was not only a scarce book, but cost a large sum of money: indeed, almost as much as a thousand Bibles would cost in the present day, and which, besides, they could not ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... is known of the marriage ceremony in old Japan. That there was a nuptial hut is attested by very early annals, and from the time of the Emperor Richu (400-405) wedding presents are recorded. But for the rest, history is silent, and it is impossible to fix the epoch when a set ceremonial began ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... Early Victorian times is no longer the mark of superiority. It is now, as it was then, the mark not only of ignorance but stupid dullness. The frame of mind which used to dismiss everything with the word "impossible" is now recognized not as science but ignorance. The researches of a Crookes, of a Sir Oliver Lodge, Myers, Gurney, Rochas, Gabriel Delanne, Lombroso, in the region of the occult command serious attention. Swedenborg communicated messages from people who had long passed ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... impossible not to protest that he had no thought of breaking his engagement, although, to tell the truth, he had wished once or twice he could find some way out of it. He walked with her down the churchyard path to her carriage, assisted her ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... helped,' continued the Bishop, 'but the examiners said they felt it a great cruelty when they saw how utterly astray distress rendered him. However, his papers and yours were both so good—his verses especially, and your arithmetic—that it was impossible to reject them, so the decision was put off ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ridiculous error which a stranger is liable to, is his endeavouring to seat himself on the little drawer inside, supposing it to be intended for that purpose. But he soon finds, after having doubled himself up, like people passing on a coach top under a low gateway, that it would be utterly impossible to remain long in that position, unless the human back were as pliable as a piece of whalebone. After all, perhaps, the bearers are compelled to rest the palanquin on the ground, and the abashed stranger, creeping hastily ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... revenge and pride of race. Her pride in her son seems to include something of both trains of feeling; and she dies with the husband she detests, simply because he is her husband. Brynhild, lastly, is a highly modern type, as independent in love as in war. It is impossible to imagine Sigrun, or Wagner's Sieglinde, taking her revenge on a faithless lover; from no lack of spirit, but simply because revenge would have given no comfort to either. To Brynhild it is not only a distinct relief, but the only endurable end; ...
— The Edda, Vol. 2 - The Heroic Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 13 • Winifred Faraday
... whispers—every one had seen Klaus Stringstriker near Twirling-stick Mike's house, playing his fiddle in the clear light of the moon. It was true, none could aver that he had heard a single note; but it was impossible to mistake his figure, and that had been seen, time after time, gliding in from the adjoining field, making the tour of Simon's house, and exhibiting all the gesticulations of a violin-player. Many affirmed, too, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... this scene of squalor arrests attention—the now disused examination hall. It is a kind of rabbit-warren of tiny cells, six feet deep, four feet broad, and six feet high; row upon row of them, opening on narrow unroofed corridors; no doors now, nor, I should suppose, at any time, for it would be impossible to breathe in these boxes if they had lids. Here, for a week or a fortnight, the candidates sat and excogitated, unable to lie down at night, sleeping, if they could, in their chairs. And no wonder ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... You come upon it on a sudden, in traversing a level plain. It seems as if you could throw a stone across from cliff to cliff; yet, the valley is near two thousand feet deep: so that the river looks like an inconsiderable stream. Basaltic rocks rise perpendicularly, so that it is impossible to get from the plain to the water, or from the river margin to the plain. The current is bright and limpid. Hot springs are found on the borders of this river. One bursts out of the cliffs forty feet above the river, in a stream sufficient to turn a mill, and sends up a cloud ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... his hand, turned the leaves and opened at these words, 'and the birds of the air lodged in the branches of it,' which seemed to have no connection with the ceremony. All that could be was done to conceal the oracles, but it was found impossible to cover up the fact. It was said that these passages condemned the consecration, but they were not the effect of chance, because there is no such thing as chance in the celebration of the divine mysteries." When Clovis was about to ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... presumptive evidences that they might have derived their origin from nations where such arms were used, and such superstition prevailed. That America might receive some of its first inhabitants from the best and boldest navigators of the east, is a thing neither impossible nor incredible; and, if this be acknowledged, they had many hundred years to multiply and increase, before the period in ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... officious. They claim that my interests are theirs, but I doubt it, by Jove, I do. They're a blood-sucking lot, these bankers. But I sha'n't bore you with trivialities. Now here is the situation in a word. It is quite impossible for me to prosecute the search for my child without financial assistance from outside sources. My funds are practically exhausted and the banks refuse to extend my credit. You have publicly declared yourself ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... commandant, whilst trying to disperse these crowds by gentle means before having resort to force, was shot down, and his assassin has till now successfully evaded the arm of the law. If such an outrage were to remain unpunished, the maintenance of good government and public order would be impossible, and Our ministers would be guilty of ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... resolved that my father should go alone, and that we should join him on the following year; but my mother's hopes were disappointed, war having rendered impossible all communication with our colonies. In despair, at a separation which placed her nearly two thousand leagues from her husband, and ignorant how long it might continue, she soon after fell into a languid condition; ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... grace and tearful eyes now riveted his gaze? Where was the foul traitor who had done to death her husband and her friend? Where was the miscreant who had sacrificed all to a guilty passion? Not there; not with that face; not with those tears: to think that was impossible—it was unholy. He might rave when he did not see her, but now that his eyes beheld her those mad ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... sure, Grace?" she asked. She could speak without fear of the men in the racing boat overhearing her, for they had thrown out their clutch, a moment later letting it slip into reverse, and the churning propeller, and the throb of the motor, made it impossible for them to hear what was said aboard the Gem. "Are you sure, Grace?" ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... survive his father, but lived to perish gloriously at Fredericksburg in 1862. Neither he nor his son Archer knew of the shunned house as other than a nuisance almost impossible to rent—perhaps on account of the mustiness and sickly odor of unkempt old age. Indeed, it never was rented after a series of deaths culminating in 1861, which the excitement of the war tended to ...
— The Shunned House • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... transformed all these Oz folks. The forest beasts, it was true, had been so frightened that they would now never consent to be transformed into men, but Kiki could transform them against their will, and once they were all in human forms, it would not be impossible to induce them to conquer the ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Antonovna," his air of reluctant concession was genuine in so far that he was really loath to part with her without testing her sincerity by a question it was impossible to bring about in any way; "well, Sophia Antonovna, if that ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... would be impossible to distinguish among the actors when all gave such fine account of themselves in difficult roles of this well-known New York stage play. Guy Pollock as the old millionaire could not have been bettered ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... of rarities. What is rarer than gold is more costly than gold. You who are in the room are the only people in the world who know the secret of the Green Rust, and I can speak frankly to you. I tell you that we must either buy from Germany or make war on Germany, and the latter course is impossible, and if it were possible would give us no certainty of relief. We shall have to pay, Britain, France, America, Italy—we shall have to pay. We shall pay in gold, we may have to pay in battleships ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... composed of hard basaltic matter, and not having been exposed to marine denudation, all distant traces of them soon became utterly lost. But I have since observed at the Galapagos Archipelago, that it is often impossible to follow even great deluges of quite recent lava across older streams, except by the size of the bushes growing on them, or by the comparative states of glossiness of their surfaces,—characters which a short lapse of time would be sufficient quite to obscure. I may remark, ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin
... to admit the likelihood of that repentance because Mr. Gorst had never stood in any close relation to her. His iniquity had not profoundly affected her. But she found it impossible to realise that Majendie's influence could count for anything in his redemption. Where her husband was concerned Anne's mind was made up, and it refused to acknowledge so fine a merit in so gross a man. She was ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... visage of sin seen at a full light, undressed and unpainted, it were impossible, while it so appeared, that any one soul could be in love with it, but would rather flee from it as hideous and abominable."—Leighton's Works, vol. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various
... speak, sir, and not listen. There is something in this affair that I do not comprehend; but tell the Leather-Stocking he has friends as well as judges in us. Do not let the old man experience unnecessary uneasiness at this rupture. It is impossible that you could increase his claims here; neither shall they be diminished by any thing you have said. Mr. Edwards, I wish ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... move had ceased, Mr. Subtle rose, and in a low but distinct tone said, "May it please your Lordship—Gentlemen of the Jury,—In this cause I have the honor to appear before you as counsel for the plaintiff; and it now becomes my duty to state as briefly as I can, the nature of his case. It is impossible, gentlemen, that we should not be aware of the unusual interest excited by this cause; and which may be accounted for by the very large estates in this county which are sought this day to be transferred to a comparative stranger, from the family who have ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... were in partnership trapping them, but Addison preferred to rely on the gun. It is next to impossible to kill a wood-chuck with shot so quickly that he will not, after being hit, succeed in running into his hole, and thus defeat the evidence that he is a dead wood-chuck. Addison, however, hit upon a stratagem for shooting them at short ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... he could be dead. It was impossible to believe that that perfect body, so filled with triumphant life, could ever cease to harbor the vital spark—as soon believe ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Renaissance architecture. Raised at once into all the magnificence of which it was capable by Michael Angelo, then taken up by men of real intellect and imagination, such as Scamozzi, Sansovino, Inigo Jones, and Wren, it is impossible to estimate the extent of its influence on the European mind; and that the more, because few persons are concerned with painting, and, of those few, the larger number regard it with slight attention; but all men are concerned with architecture, and have at some time of their lives serious ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... with the utmost care. For since the Apostle's glorious confession is the root of the world, it must not be touched by any rift of pravity, nor suffer the least spot. For if—may God avert a thing which we are sure is impossible—any such thing were to happen, how could we resist any error?—how could we correct those who err? If you declare that the people of one city cannot be composed to peace, what should we make of the whole world's universe were it deceived by our prevarication? The series of canons coming ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... before Moxton's door. There it was, as large as life, and as green as ever. Ned really found it impossible to believe that it was so long since he last saw it. He felt as if it had been yesterday. The brass knocker and the brass plate were there too, as dirty as ever—perhaps a thought dirtier—and the dirty house still retreated a little behind its fellows, and was ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... Euphrates were then passing over the rocks of Es-Geria, which were deeply covered with water. The Euphrates was safely secured; but the Tigris, being directed against the bank, struck with great violence; the wind suddenly veered round and drove her bow off; "this rendered it quite impossible to secure the vessel to the bank, along which she was blown rapidly by the heavy gusts; her head falling off into the stream as she passed close to the Euphrates, which vessel had been backed opportunely to avoid ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... brothers, Francis and Charles, were sailors during that glorious period of the British navy which comprises the close of the last and the beginning of the present century, when it was impossible for an officer to be almost always afloat, as these brothers were, without seeing service which, in these days, would be considered distinguished. Accordingly, they were continually engaged in actions of more or less ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... could well be. It was dark as a wolf's mouth; for the moon was well advanced in her last quarter—which is as good as saying that there was no moon at all—and the thickness overhead not only obliterated the stars but also rendered it impossible for any of their light to reach us; one consequence of which was that when standing at the break of the poop it taxed one's eyesight to the utmost to see as far as the bows of the ship; the wind was freshening, with ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... upon the Person who now solicits the Suffrages of the County of Westmoreland. What are his Rents—Where are his comings in? He is engaged in an undertaking of great expence—how is that expence supplied? From his own purse? Impossible! Where are the golden sinews which this Champion of Independence depends upon? If they be furnished by those who have no natural connection with the County, are we simple enough to believe that they dip their hands into their pockets out of pure good-will to us? May they not rather ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... be impossible for any man, I care not what his form of speech might be, to express more affection than the dealer in curiosities did, in these four words. I waited for him to speak again, but he rested his chin upon his hand and shaking ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... capacity of the first political journalist in the country, associated so much with gentlemen, that he had learned to be something of a gentleman himself. Accordingly he replied to Mr. Grabster, in a note more curt than courteous, that it was impossible to comply with his request. So the indignant host was obliged to content himself for the time with ordering The Sewer to abuse the incognito. Before many days, however, he obtained the desired information through another ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... singular wisdom and good sense. Therefore I feel sure that you are as heartily sick of all this absurd talk about monarchism as I am. There is not a word of truth in Mr. Hamilton's 'monarchical designs'; it is impossible that you should not know this as well as I do. You must also be as well aware that he has rendered services to this country which will be felt as long as it remains united. It is doubtful if anyone else could have rendered these same services, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... impossible! I'm engaged ever so many deep." She dropped his arm instantly at sight of a young Englishman who seemed to be looking for her. This young Englishman had a zeal for dancing that was unsparing; partners were nothing to him except as a means of dancing; his manner expressed a ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells |
