"Incapable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their own struggles, and are thus insensibly led to overlook the confusion and difficulty which must ever arise in the infant mind, where similar combinations produce similar sounds. An infant mind is incapable of grasping differences, but understands readily simple facts; if what meets the eye represent a certain fixed sound, the infant readily acquires that sound; but if the eye rest on o, u, g, h, as a combination, and the endeavour is made to teach him the endless varieties of sound produced ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... "you have sought to make an art of impertinence by mistaking preferences for principles. In 'taste' you have invented a word incapable of definition, to denote an idea impossible of expression; and by employing in connection therewith the words 'good' and 'bad,' you indicate a merely subjective process in terms of an objective quality. Such ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... Lady Florimel, incapable either of setting forth the advantages of growing old, or of enforcing the duty, which is the necessity, of forgiveness, answered with some commonplace; and as, to fortify his powers of narration, a sailor would cut himself ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... copious measure of milk, besides being very quiet and very fond of us. The mills she yields is very sweet. She is regarded as worthy of every praise in my house. She is nourishing, besides, a weak child of mine that has just been weaned. She is incapable of being given up by me.' Having said these words, the Brahmana went away. I then solicited the other Brahmana offering him an exchange, and saying, 'Do thou take a hundred thousand kine for this one cow.' The Brahmana, however, replied ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... knowledge, has ever seen the bees house-hunting in the woods. Yet there can be no doubt that they look up new quarters either before or on the day the swarm issues. For all bees are wild bees and incapable of domestication; that is, the instinct to go back to nature and take up again their wild abodes in the trees is never eradicated. Years upon years of life in the apiary seem to have no appreciable effect towards their final, permanent domestication. ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... retreating from Gundamuk, reached Jellalabad on the 12th November 1841. An investigation into the state of the fortifications of that place showed them, in their existing condition, to be incapable of resisting a vigorous assault. But it was resolved to occupy the place, and to Captain George Broadfoot, as garrison engineer, was committed the duty of making it defensible. This assuredly was no light task. The enciente ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... notice, has a more exquisite delicacy than yours. You desire music, but it is the simpler operas that delight you most. Those fine and delicate harmonies that we so intensely enjoy, you appear incapable of appreciating." ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... enough, he would warn her that his friend was not the marrying kind of man. Of course, Stafford would do the honorable thing, go through a marriage ceremony, make a handsome settlement and all that sort of thing; but when it came to leading a quiet, regular, domesticated life, he simply was incapable of it—that's all. He had enjoyed liberty too long to wear the harness now. He was too much of the viveur, too fond of his club, his poker parties and little midnight suppers with fair ladies. Once the novelty of marriage had worn off, he would return to the old life and then there ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... Turnbull, a South Carolina slaveholder, already quoted, speaking of the harvesting of cotton, says: "All the pregnant women even, on the plantation, and weak and sickly negroes incapable of other labor, are then in requisition." * * * See "Refutation of the Calumnies circulated against the Southern and Western States," by ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... to be done. Trampy was as incapable of anger as of love. All those years of a low life had degraded him to that point. And Trampy had even lost the right to bear Jimmy a grudge, made as though he had forgotten everything, said that, after all, it ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... them from the sun lay a score of wretches slowly wasting away with the diseases contracted at St. Domingo. Of the soldiers enlisted for the expedition by La Salle's agents, many are affirmed to have spent their lives in begging at the church doors of Rochefort, and were consequently incapable of discipline. It was impossible to prevent either them or the sailors from devouring persimmons and other wild fruits to a destructive excess. [Footnote: Ibid.] Nearly all fell ill; and, before the summer had passed, the graveyard had more than ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... up stairs to get Uncle Zebedee—now utterly incapable of any thought for himself—safely placed in a secret closet which was hollowed in the wall behind the bed. Turning to Jerrem as he came down, he said, "You can manage to stow yourself away; only mind, do it at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... cases; so that it assumes more than twenty different forms, and becomes susceptible of six and thirty different ways of agreement. But this article in English is perfectly simple, being entirely destitute of grammatical modifications, and consequently incapable of any form of grammatical agreement or disagreement—a circumstance of which many of our grammarians seem to be ignorant; since they prescribe a rule, wherein they say, it "agrees," "may agree," or "must agree," with ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the same thing. It is none the less certain that after the lapse of a year she retained but an indistinct recollection of some of the important acts of her life. Finally, her constant hallucinations generally rendered her incapable of distinguishing between ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... more disgusting expression than the repulsive features of Tag-rag wore at that moment, while he gazed in ominous and agitated silence at Titmouse. His lips quivered, and he seemed incapable of speaking. ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... was immensely strong only as long as that obsession remained unshaken. With its destruction by a series of defeats which were incapable of being explained as "strategic retreats," their morale crumbled and finally collapsed, because it was not sustained, as that of the Allies was sustained in the darkest days of the war, by the faith that they were fighting for all that men ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... experienced by the coqueros. After a long and attentive observation of the effects of coca, I am fully convinced that its use, in moderation, is no way detrimental to health; and that without it the Peruvian Indian, with his spare diet, would be incapable of going through the labor which he now performs. The coca plant must be considered as a great blessing to Peru. It is an essential means of preserving the nationality of the Indians, and in some measure mitigating the melancholy ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... that will be felt for Lady Ida is the sympathy which is commonly felt for the spendthrift—for the person who, no matter what his income, is congenitally incapable of making ends meet. The miser has no friends; but the spendthrift has generally too many. We avoid Harpagon as though he were a leper; but Falstaff, who, like Lady Ida, could "find no cure for this intolerable consumption of the ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... become suddenly conscious of the background. Fielding, on the other hand, although he had recognised that the novel was nothing else than an epic in prose, wrote in the spirit not of the epic, but of the drama. This is not, of course, to say that the drama was in any way incapable of a regeneration similar in kind to that of which I am now speaking with regard to the novel. The notorious contrary fact is sufficient to guard the reader against such a misconstruction. All that is meant is, that Fielding remained ignorant ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and accomplished person, simple, and yet distinguished in her manners, has entered into all my little plans with an enthusiasm and intelligence which I can not too highly praise. Mr. Yatman is so cast down by his loss that he is quite incapable of affording me any assistance. Mrs. Yatman, who is evidently most tenderly attached to him, feels her husband's sad condition of mind even more acutely than she feels the loss of the money, and is mainly stimulated to exertion by her desire to assist ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... the whole case. Let me reinforce my weaker appeal by a passage from the wisest pen in contemporary English letters, that of Mr Chesterton. There is in his mere sanity a touch of magic so potent that, although incapable of dullness, he has achieved authority, and although convinced that faith is more romantic than doubt, or even sin, he has got himself published and read. Summarising the "drift" of Matthew Arnold, ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... who accompanied him, and it rests upon Mr. Butler's own word, as we shall see. And let me add here and now that however wild and irresponsible a rascal he may have been, yet by his own lights he was a man of honour, incapable of falsehood, even though it were calculated to save his skin. I do not deny that Sir Thomas Picton has described him as a "thieving blackguard." But I am sure that this was merely the downright, rather extravagant manner, of censure peculiar to that ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... "Eclipse," is first and the rest nowhere. In this connection it is interesting to recall that early in the season several of Mr. Freedman's young men haughtily refused to sign the Brush hoodlum agreement upon the ground that they were "gentlemen" and incapable of using vile language. The Brush rule is valid nevertheless, and the patrons of base-ball will watch with interest to see whether it will be enforced against the umpire baiters and vulgarians lately led by Mr. "Scrappy" Joyce. If Anson is ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... them. Whatever had been done to them—or perhaps the absence of a true soul, whatever that was—left them rigidly bound to their past ideas and totally incapable of doing more than following orders by routine now. Even Sersa Garm was ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... "has dislodged two finger-nails to-night; his hands are really bad, and, to my surprise, he shows signs of losing heart over it. He hasn't been cheerful since the accident."[321] "The party is not improving in condition, especially Evans, who is becoming rather dull and incapable." "Evans' nose is almost as bad as his fingers. He is a good deal ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... The decanter had thrice been replenished, and the flushed faces and thickened utterance of the guests evinced that from the cold properties of the claret there was but little to dread. As for Mr. Bodkin, his manner was incapable of any higher flight, when under the influence of whiskey, than what it evinced on common occasions; and as he sat at the end of the table fronting Mr. Blake, he assumed all the dignity of the ruler of the feast, with an energy no one seemed disposed ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... stricken both with the microbes of death, obscenely alive with the maggots of place-hunters. It is powerless to dissolve the solid South and to restore to that section bi-party in place of one-party governments. It is wholly incapable of attracting Southern whites in sufficient numbers to raise it to the rank of a party of opposition, or to give to it the barest chance of achieving success at the polls. Its very name is a political bugaboo and makes it ...
— The Ballotless Victim of One-Party Governments - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 16 • Archibald H. Grimke
... Father. A fine equal to two thousand dollars was imposed on every person who should receive or promote an Arian ordination. The Arians were forbidden to assemble together in their churches, and by a sort of civil excommunication they were branded with infamy by the magistrates, and rendered incapable of civil offices of trust and emolument. Capital punishment even was inflicted ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... conjectures of all around her, but not even to her mother did she hint what had passed. She pitied Ronald profoundly. She knew the shock Dora had inflicted on his sensitive, honorable disposition. For Dora herself she felt nothing but compassion. Her calm, serene nature was incapable of such jealousies. Valentine could never be jealous or mean, but she could understand the torture that had made shy, ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... to get the public lands into private hands by the quickest route. In the region where the laws had to be enforced, opinion prevented it, while the National Administration, before the adoption of civil service reform, was incapable of directing with accuracy and uniform policy any administrative scheme which must be so highly technical as a land office. The Preemption, Homestead, and Timber Culture Laws were all framed in the interest of the small holder, but ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... was that he was incapable of moving, of helping himself, at any rate until assistance came. And the water was rising, of course. Would rescue or the ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... just as surely as American women persist in disregarding this subtle yet unmistakable truth, just so surely will they lay themselves open to these soul-bruises from foreign husbands which American men, as a race, are incapable of inflicting. I say they are incapable of inflicting them, because American men, in the face of everything said and written to the contrary, are, in regard to women, the finest-grained race of men ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... ravages amongst the adventurers. More than half the crew were incapable of service. Two only of the helmsmen were in a fit condition for duty. How could anything else be expected in a vessel which was not provided with either wine or brandy, but was provisioned only with foetid water, biscuits infested with maggots, and ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... to have grown accustomed to being alone, and to have been incapable of letting myself be made miserable by a snub, even from my father. But I was not; I was wretched. I do not think that even on the first night after Kahwa was caught, or on that morning when I saw her dead, that I felt as completely ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... although more than annoyed that she should have so committed herself, yet was willing to give such scope to a lover, that if she had but confessed she had liberated him, he would have pardoned her heartily. He did not yet know how incapable Dorothy was of ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... death, Nebuchadnezzar thus addressed the other Jews, those who had yielded obedience to his command concerning the worship of the idol: "You know that your God can help and save, nevertheless you paid worship to an idol which is incapable of doing anything. This proves that, as you have destroyed your own land by your wicked deeds, so you are now trying to destroy my land with your iniquity." Forthwith he commanded that they all be executed, sixty thousand in number. Twenty years passed, ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... you begin, I have to tell you, as Miss Verinder's mother, that she is ABSOLUTELY INCAPABLE of doing what you suppose her to have done. Your knowledge of her character dates from a day or two since. My knowledge of her character dates from the beginning of her life. State your suspicion of her as strongly as you please—it is impossible that you can offend me by doing so. I am sure, beforehand, ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... of Arundel as long as the latter should remain outside of the charmed circle of the Church—a full communion with which was necessary, even to the exercise of the rights of a citizen. But the young man was incapable of deception. His ingenuous mind turned, displeased, away from the bait the wily Governor had presented; and, dearly as he loved his mistress, he would have preferred to renounce her rather than play the hypocrite to obtain the prize. He was not much cast down, for, ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... 'You don't care for anything in the wide world but to amuse yourself, from the beginning of the year to the end. No more does she—and perhaps it's even worse in a woman. You are both as selfish as you can live, with nothing in your head or your heart but your vulgar pleasure, incapable of a concession, incapable of a sacrifice!' She at least spoke with passion; something that had been pent up in her soul broke out and it gave her relief, almost a ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... increases the difficulty of repressing crime. The band of thieves and robbers in the cave of Adullam doubtless found their powers of preying vastly increased through the acquisition of such a leader as David. The problem of mediaeval vagabondage was rendered well-nigh incapable of solution by the fact that any beggar's rags might conceal a ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... the Senora's view and interpretation of the situation. The Senora looking at it from above, and Margarita looking at it from below, each was sure, and they were both equally sure, that it could be nothing more nor less than a disgraceful intrigue. Mistress and maid were alike incapable either of conjecturing ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... discussion and possible danger a question liable to become more acutely accentuated with each passing year. Finally, it has furnished a signal proof of the fairness and good will with which two friendly nations can approach and determine issues involving national sovereignty and by their nature incapable of submission to ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... I should respect Lady Geraldine's position—that I should be incapable of forgetting her claims upon Mr. Fairfax. Whatever he may have said to me has been, the merest folly. He knows that I consider it in that light, and I have refused ever to see him again if I can ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... makes no pretensions to any thing of the kind. It were strange if it did; for as the sceptic doubts if any truth can be certainly attained by man on those subjects on which the 'rational' or the 'spiritual' deist dogmatizes, it of course professes to be incapable ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... may be the reason, after all, why Hilda, like so many other maidens, lingered on the hither side of passion; her finer instinct and keener sensibility made her enjoy those pale delights in a degree of which men are incapable. She hesitated to grasp a richer happiness, as possessing already such measure of it as her heart could hold, and of a quality most agreeable to ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... interest and patriotism, which is the strongest security of a country; a contempt for the Constitution, the concentration of power in the hands of Congress, small regard for State rights, while the controlling power in the South has passed into the hands of an ignorant, incapable, irresponsible class; and, worse than all, the people have become accustomed to the strange spectacle, so fraught with danger in a republic, of seeing the legislatures and executives of sovereign States ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... misery of the voyage across the Bay of Biscay in a ship lit for nothing but wine, was excessive, and creatures reared in the lovely climate and refined luxury of the land of the palm and orange, exhausted too already by the toils of the mountain journey, were incapable of enduring it, and Abenali's brave wife and one of her children were left beneath the waves of the Atlantic. With the one little girl left to him, he arrived in London, and the recommendation of his Cadiz friend obtained for him work from ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... (Remember that the last third of my road, about a mile, is all made out of a bridle-track by my boys—and my dollars.) It was supposed a white man had been found—an ex-German artilleryman—to drive this last; he proved incapable and drunken; the gallant Henry, who had never driven before, and knew nothing about horses—except the rats and weeds that flourish on the islands—volunteered; Moors accepted, proposing to follow and supervise: despatched his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in the pearl buttons raised his head to answer for the two pugilists, who by this time were totally incapable of answering for themselves. He showed pluck, too; for his face shone with the ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a firmer internal combination, a wish that will accompany me to the grave: the division of our national strength may be gratifying to others, it never can be so to me." This truly German policy mainly distinguished Stein from Hardenberg, who, thoroughly Prussian in his ideas, was incapable of perceiving that Prussia's best-understood policy ever will be to identify herself ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... their Government. And hereupon he quotes the Examples of Philip de Valois, of King John, Charles the Fifth, and Charles the Sixth, and Lewis the Eleventh: But what he principally insists on, is to show, That as from Times Immemorial, the French judg'd Women incapable of Governing; So likewise ought they to be debarr'd from all Administration of ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... Austrian Emperor on account of his amiable character. The Slavs have ample reason to distrust the Habsburgs who have proved to be treacherous autocrats in the past, and whose records show them as an incapable and degenerate family. As a political power Kaiser Karl is the same menace to his subject Slavs as his predecessors. Above all, however, he is of necessity a blind tool in the hands of Germany, and he cannot possibly extricate himself from her firm grip. The Habsburgs have had their chance, but ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... distiller seemed so overwhelmed with surprise as to be incapable of movement, and before he could pull himself together there was a click, and handcuffs gleamed on his wrists. Then his eyes blazed, and with the inarticulate roar of a wild beast he flung himself wildly on Willis, and, manacled ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... far from making a gentle use of the advantages he possessed, fiercely attacked him, while he was incapable of making resistance, and, aiming at a fleshy part, ran him through the arm and outside of the shoulder at the very first pass. The chevalier, already stupefied with the horror of expectation, no sooner felt his adversary's point in his body than he fell to the ground, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... army then at first made Gaish Abu'l-Asakir (one of Khumarawaih's sons) emir; but, when this fourteen-year-old boy seemed incapable of anything but stupid jokes, they put his brother Harun on the throne. Every commanding officer, however, did as he liked. Rajib, the commander of the army of defence, declared himself on the side of the caliph, and the Syrian emirs ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... the first to be convinced, sat with her little hands clenched against her cheek bones; Ann Prentiss, unshakenly cool quick and precise; the more brilliant Mrs. Tolby flashing her beacon light into recesses darkened these three years by systematic lies, but incapable of the ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... ago, before the true character of infective disease was understood, it was observed that an individual who was attacked by the smallpox and recovered became incapable of receiving the infection again. He was "protected" or "immune." The practice of "inoculation" was introduced from the East by Lady Montague. The infectious matter was introduced from a smallpox patient into the person to be protected ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... like that about you, Mark, your callousness and malice towards everyone except yourself. My cousin made no parade of what he had done; he did not even mention it to me. You are incapable of appreciating ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... improbability of our overtaking ships which must have been driven very far to the south by the gale, as also the danger of being swamped should the slightest sea get up; while, should we not succeed in our attempt, we should be worn out, and, incapable of providing for the future, must inevitably ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... along the top of the cliffs alone— restless, aimless, and miserable—"mooning," as the boys would have called it—unable even to analyse his own thoughts, conscious only that it was folly in him to nurse this long-continued and hopeless melancholy, yet quite incapable of making the one strong effort which would have enabled him to throw it off. And in this mood he sat down near the cliff, thinking of nothing, but watching, with idle guesses as to their destination and history, the few vessels that passed by on the horizon. The evening was ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... softness. "I presume it is natural you should love your home. But I am afraid you think I don't love mine much; I have been here—for so long—so little. Miss Chancellor has absorbed me—there is no doubt about that. But it's a pity I wasn't with her to-day." Ransom made no answer to this; he was incapable of telling Miss Tarrant that if she had been he would not have called upon her. It was not, indeed, that he was not incapable of hypocrisy, for when she had asked him if he had seen his cousin the night before, and he had replied that he hadn't seen her at all, and she ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... colonies varied according to circumstances. In some instances the younger men and women were bound out to service for periods varying from three to twelve weeks. In others they were left free to maintain themselves by their own efforts, the state to provide for such as were incapable, through age or infirmity, of performing manual labour. Hundreds of those who were placed under control escaped and wandered, footsore and half clad, from town to town in the hope of meeting their relatives or of finding ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty
... to say that he never dreamed of any real injury done to him by his wife, and, in truth, the Major was incapable of doing him any. He was gay, unorthodox, a man who went about in the world, romantic, republican, but he never would have condescended to seduce a woman, and least of all a woman belonging to a friend. He paid women whom he admired ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... golden solidi of love into Geta's lap in lavish abundance. And her sister and her nieces, who often lived with us, treated me exactly as she did. They were distantly civil, or they shunned me; but my brother was their spoiled plaything. I was as incapable as Geta was master of the art of stealing hearts; but in my childhood I needed none of them: for, if I wished for a kind word, a sweet kiss, or the love of a woman, my nurse's arms were open to me. Nor was she an ordinary woman. As the widow of a tribune who had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... if the Sultan intended to give up Thessaly. It is indeed reported that he has taken a hint from the Greek occupation of Crete, and, having seen how incapable the Powers then were to dislodge the Greek army, he means to stay where he is and see whether they will be any more successful ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 32, June 17, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... appearance began to deteriorate. Deeper lines became visible near her eyes, and the light of those eyes was feverish. Her nerves began to go to pieces. Restlessness increased upon her. She was scarcely able to keep still for a moment. The more she needed repose the more incapable of repose she became. The effort to seem younger, gayer, stronger than she was became at last almost convulsive. Her social art was tarnished. The mechanism ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... popular education. That is as rational as it would be to change your lawyer because you have had to discharge your cook. Fitzjames, however, was under no illusions. He fully admits that parliamentary government is inevitable, and that foreign systems are in some respects worse, and, in any case, incapable of being introduced. He confines himself to suggesting that some departments of administration and legislation might be withdrawn from the influence of our ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... to Mr. Stuart would invariably accompany the papers in the case. Lincoln had the reputation of being very moderate in his charges. He was never grasping, and seemed incapable of believing that his services could be worth ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... answering of feeling to feeling, which is one of the great principles, perhaps the greatest principle, at the root of literature. M. Scherer naturally was the first among the recognized guides of opinion to attempt the placing of his friend's Journal. "The man who, during his lifetime, was incapable of giving us any deliberate or conscious work worthy of his powers, has now left us, after his death, a book which will not die. For the secret of Amiel's malady is sublime, and the expression of it wonderful." So ran one of ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... father durst dishonour the bed of his firstborn, Folk all swear, and the house hapless with incest bewray; Or that his impious mind was blunt with fiery passion 25 Or that his impotent son sprang from incapable seed. And to be sought was one with nerve more nervous endowed, Who could better avail zone of the virgin ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... flood—not against him, but against the country in which he lived, and the society which had contaminated him, and the ways and habits that seemed to create a barrier between herself and him, so that she was a stranger to him, and incapable of becoming anything else. It was a crime that she should interest herself in the unfortunate creatures round about her—that she should talk to them as if they were human beings like herself, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... caresses? Think, prince, to what torments I shall be exposed when I can see you no more! Her tears and sighs hindered her to go on, and the prince of Persia would have replied to her; but his own grief, and that of his mistress, made him incapable. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... the enemy. Born in April, 1838, he was at this time in his thirty-third year, and full of vigour, as the sequel showed. The delegates whom he was going to join were, as I previously mentioned, very old men, well meaning, no doubt, but incapable of making the great effort which was made by Gambetta in conjunction with Charles de Freycinet, who was just in his prime, being the young Dictator's senior by ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... him to come into sudden contact with the respectable; they were always so much surprised. He had rather liked this man. Some people had good-temperedly despised him for a molly-coddle; he had been a delicate boy, and had cherished himself rather. Peter, delicate himself, incapable of despising anyone, and with a heart that went out to all unfortunates, had been, in a mild and casual way, his friend. Looking into his face now, Peter was struck to sorrow and compassion, because it was the face of a man who had accepted death, and to whom life gave ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... adjacent seas—Dr. Jordan, president of Stanford University, probably the highest authority in the United States—and, perhaps, in the world—regarding the questions at issue: a pupil and friend of Agassiz, a man utterly incapable of making a statement regarding any point in science which he did not fully believe, no matter what ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... to this question is not far to seek. Women so occupied have, as a rule, made themselves incapable of maternity. They are outcasts from society, unfortunately exerting a most harmful influence on all those who come into relation with them. Furthermore, they are centers for the dissemination of venereal diseases which wreck the health of all those who become infected. But for the uncontrolled ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... Mexico, is interrupted by the Continental Divide; covers a large part of w. and s. Ariz., s. w. Nev., s. w. Calif., a portion of central Calif., and most of Lower Calif. These areas are irregular and incapable of brief definition. ...
— Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology • John. B. Smith
... a man who was incapable of reading the signs of the times. He saw that he was drifting towards an irreparable breach with an element that had previously furnished his staunchest supporters. As a politician of great native shrewdness, as well as the head of the Government, he could not afford ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... prospect of getting it from those, who were then actually deriving their livelihood from the trade: and yet I was determined to persevere; for I thought that some might be found in it who were not yet so hardened as to be incapable of being awakened on this subject. I thought that others might be found in it who wished to leave it upon principle, and that these would unbosom themselves to me: and I thought it not improbable that ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... more they are less favorable. Generally such proceedings are brought before a court of special jurisdiction, constituted both for this purpose and for the settlement of the estates of deceased persons and of those who are incapable of managing their own affairs. In the older States it is often made a condition of a discharge that the creditors shall have received a certain percentage ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... moment had come for the deed of violence. In less time that it takes to tell, six men came leaping across from under the trees, two onto Uncle Prudent, two onto Phil Evans, two onto Frycollin—there was no need for the last two, for the Negro was incapable of defending himself. The president and secretary of the Weldon Institute, although taken ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... leading representative of the colony of Penguins revealed the interesting fact that they were incapable of appreciating our Parliamentary procedure owing to their hereditary inability ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... in sufficient quantity to form a saturated solution with the water contained in the juice, and the meat then absorbs the saturated brine in place of the juice extracted by the salt. In this way, matter incapable of putrefaction takes the places of that portion in the meat which is most perishable. Such, however, is not the only office of salt as a means of preserving meat; it acts also by its astringency in contracting the fibres of the muscles, and so excludes the ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... horse. On the other hand, no Russian drama has been established, because the conditions are wanting among the people. That is a vast empire, but poor in beauty; mighty in many things, but weak in artistic talents; powerful and prompt in destruction, but incapable spontaneously and ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... great Henry all its importance and all its weight in the political balance of Europe. A turbulent minority had destroyed all the benefits of the able administration of Henry. Incapable ministers, the creatures of court intrigue, squandered in a few years the treasures which Sully's economy and Henry's frugality had amassed. Scarce able to maintain their ground against internal ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... I were anything more than a plain every-day necessity! And not such an incapable after all, ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... throw upon unerring wisdom; and all the quibbles in the world cannot clear it of the same. Again: let God speak like thunder, "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people that forget God!" yet if the sinner is incapable of taking the warning, what empty bombast does it make of the awful threatening! But let God be true, and every man a liar who can cast such vile reflections upon his ...
— A Solemn Caution Against the Ten Horns of Calvinism • Thomas Taylor
... did not listen. "You taunted me with being a woman," she said through a fresh burst of tears. "A woman was incapable of friendship and sacrifices. She was intended to be a man's plaything. Do you think I want to be my husband's mistress? I want to be his wife, to share his fate, whatever it may be, for good or bad, for better ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... recklessly agreed to share his poverty must surely have had faith in him—or are very young people who marry incapable of either faith or reason? Never mind; she did not hold the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... the one case the proficient was the master, in the other the slave, of the demons. (3) The position of the female sex in the Western world has been always very opposite to their status in the East, where women are believed to be an inferior order of beings, and therefore incapable of an art reserved for the superior endowments of the male sex. The modern witchcraft may be traced to that perhaps oldest form of religious conception, Fetishism, which still prevails in its utmost horrors amongst the savage peoples in different parts of the world. The early practice ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... not a work of humor but of ridicule (a very different matter), which jeers at travelers who profess admiration for the scenery or institutions of Europe,—an admiration that was a sham to Mark Twain because he was incapable of understanding it. So with the grotesque capers of A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court, with the sneering spirit of The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg, with the labored attempts to be funny of Adam's Diary and with other alleged ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... an ensign in the Queen's 64th. We formed part of Havelock's column of relief." The placid, unassertive, incapable face told the rest of ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... utterly incapable of being lionized. Time and again, under the trees in the court of the hotel, did I hear him enter upon some pleasant story, lighted up with that rare turn of his eye, and by his deft expressions, when, ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... two he was done for. Between the drunkenness of the peasant incapable of action and the dream-intoxication of the idealist incapable of perceiving the reason of things, and the true character of men. It was a sort of terrible childishness. But children had their masters. "Ah! the stick, the stick, the stern hand," thought Razumov, longing for power ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... directed their course. Trusting to the fleetness of their steeds, they had reason to hope that they should keep ahead of their pursuers; for the Indians' horses, though strong and possessed of great endurance, were incapable, they knew, of going at any ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston
... going to use them with great severity. The consequence might have been fatal, had I not immediately interposed, and with some difficulty rescued the officers from the hands of the enraged multitude. My children, who looked upon my delivery now as certain, appeared transported with joy, and were incapable of containing their raptures. But they were soon undeceived, upon hearing me address the poor deluded people, who came, as they imagined, to ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... grounds for suspecting my veracity on a point in which I can have no possible interest in deceiving them; and those who know me will do me the justice to acknowledge, that I have a mind superior to the arts of deception, and that I am incapable of sanctioning an imposition, for any purpose, or from any motives whatever. Thus much I deemed it necessary to say, as well from a regard for my own character, and from a due attention to the public, as from a wish to prevent the ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... and the enclitic -ne, which is used to introduce a question, and is incapable of translation. Num (line 21) introduces a question to which a negative answer is expected, and is likewise not to be translated, except in so far as its effect is reproduced by the form of the question or the tone of incredulity with which the ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.
... conclusions to which science had, up to that time, been led in its investigations of matter. Throughout the natural universe it had been shewn, by Spectrum Analysis, that matter is built up of {69} molecules. These molecules, according to the most competent judgment, were incapable of sub-division without change of substance, and were absolutely fixed for each substance. "A molecule of hydrogen, for example, whether in Sirius, or in Arcturus, executes its vibrations in precisely the same time." The relations of the parts and movements of the planetary systems may and ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... and not unfrequently followed by a parcel of children, wondering who the stately man could be. A few years before his death, a fire happened in the neighbourhood where he lived; and it became necessary to remove part of his household furniture and books. He was incapable of assisting himself; but he stood in the street lamenting and deploring the loss of his Caxtons, when a sailor, who lived within a few doors of him attempted to console him: "Bless you, Sir, I have got them perfectly safe!" While Ratcliffe was expressing ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... with a halo of extravagant admiration. Alexander Knox, a personal friend of Wesley's, thus writes of him: "How was he competent to form a religious polity so compact, effective and permanent? I can only express my firm conviction that he was totally incapable of preconceiving such a scheme. * * * * That he had uncommon acuteness in fitting expedients to conjunctures is most certain; this, in fact, was his great talent." (Letter appended to Southey's Third Edition, 2, p. 428.) Methodism, at the first, sprang ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 9. September, 1880 • Various
... another man's house, not to strike a man unjustly, not to commit adultery, not to disobey the magistrate, and so forth; and on the transgressor they impose a penalty. [3] But the Persian laws try, as it were, to steal a march on time, to make their citizens from the beginning incapable of setting their hearts on any wickedness or shameful conduct whatsoever. And this is how they set ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... inartificall buildings." The King's commissioners in 1677, testified that the forts were made of "mudd and dirt", and could be of little service against the enemy.[457] At the beginning of the Dutch war of 1672 the Assembly found them in poor condition and incapable of offering resistance to the enemy. "For as much," it was declared, "as the materials ... were not substantial or lasting, some have suffered an utter demolition, some very ruinous and some capable of repair." It was thereupon ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... inclined to be useful in the smallest degree, are peaceful in their habits; and when in want of a little flour will exert themselves to earn it, by carrying letters, shooting wild ducks with a gun lent to them, driving home cattle, or any other easy pursuit; but they appear to be incapable of elevation above their original condition. Considerable pains have been bestowed (especially by the Wesleyans) upon the native children, many of whom are educated in schools at Perth, Fremantle, and other ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... and the master of the vice-admiral to stand upon a scaffold with a halter about his neck under the gallows, while the others were executed, and he was afterwards sent into perpetual banishment. Two more were degraded and rendered incapable of serving ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... of Property from Savagery to Civilization, 18, 19. "If the savage is incapable of conceiving the idea of individual possession of objects not incorporated with his person, it is because he has no conception of his individuality as distinct from the consanguine group in which he lives.... Savages, even though individually ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... incapable of invention, are tempted at once by their indolence, and by the hope of not being discovered or minded in their borrowing from others, to give stale or hackneyed compositions, which having seen in one country, they flatter themselves they may palm ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... the Hutted Knoll, in its general features resembles The Pathfinder and The Deerslayer. The female characters are admirable, and but for the opinion, believed by some, from its frequent repetition, that Mr. Cooper is incapable of depicting a woman, Maud Meredith would be regarded as among the very first class of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... country dependent on England that requires the application to the conduct of its affairs of a firm, considered, and consistent policy, that country is South Africa. Boers and Natives are quite incapable of realising the political necessities of any of our parties, or of understanding why their true interests should be sacrificed in order to minister to those necessities. It is our wavering and uncertain policy, as applied to peoples, who look upon every hesitating ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... manliness and bravery, but something more than these were wanted in the absence of a leader like the great Duke; and although the type selected is an extreme one, the result may be indicated by my Lord Cardigan, who, though equal to any amount of endurance and heroism, proved himself incapable of the exercise of the smallest particle of common sense. The scandal of the then existing system of purchase was aptly exposed by the artist in vol. xxviii., where we find a rich titled old lady in a shop ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... braggart asserted, in the House of Commons, "amidst the loudest cheering, that he knew the Americans very well, and was certain they would not fight; 'that they were not soldiers and never could be made so, being naturally pusillanimous and incapable of discipline; that a very slight force would be more than sufficient for their complete reduction'; and he fortified his statement by repeating their peculiar expressions, and ridiculing their religious enthusiasm, manners and ways of living, greatly ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... cut-and-dried fragments of what was once wisdom, or he will confine himself to a few incoherent details. He had a good dinner to-day and a bad toothache yesterday, and a family affliction or blessing the day before. But he is as incapable of summing up his impressions as an infant of performing an operation in the differential calculus. It is as rare as it is refreshing to find a man who can stand on his own legs and be conscious of his own feelings, who ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... consider myself a man like the rest of mankind, and one who therefore must live like the rest by his own labour and as poorly as his brother men, or those who consider themselves to be specially selected sacred people, knowing the whole truth and incapable of error; and who interpret ...
— The Light Shines in Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... is already gone." [This was at any rate disingenuous, as she had been very severe when at Buttercup on all the Carstairs family because of their declared and perverse friendship for the Doctor.] "Mr. Momson, though he is quite incapable of seeing the meaning of anything, has determined to take his boy away. She may thank me at any rate for that. I have heard that Lady Anne Clifford's two boys will both leave." [In one sense she had heard it, because the suggestion had been made by herself at Buttercup.] "I do hope that Mr. Talbot's ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... by trying to lean on it that Spencer Clay got hold of the facts of the case; and when young Clay got hold of anything, Marois Bay at large had it hot and fresh a few hours later; for Spencer was one of those slack-jawed youths who are constitutionally incapable of ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... explain philosophically how Blacklock may have done, by his own faculties, what it is impossible he should do. The solution, as I have given it, is plain. Suppose I know a man to be so lame that he is absolutely incapable to move himself, and I find him in a different room from that in which I left him, shall I puzzle myself with idle conjectures that perhaps his nerves have, by some unknown change, all at once become effective? No, sir; it is clear how he got into a different ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... catch in her voice stopped him. "Don't say such horrid things! I could tell: a woman always can. I know you would be incapable of such a thing. Papa knows it, too. No one has ever got ahead of papa, and he says you are a fine, steady, Christian man, and he would rather see ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... said Paul, stroking the point of his fair beard, 'only—was not the Prince d'Athis incapable of contracting when he ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... for no man was more incapable of flashy make-believe than Mr. Casaubon: he was as genuine a character as any ruminant animal, and he had not actively assisted in creating any illusions about himself. How was it that in the weeks since her marriage, Dorothea had ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... hurried, as most men, by gusts of violent passion, which often nip a project in the bud, and make the snail, that was just putting out his horns to meet the inviter, withdraw into its shell—a man who has no regard to his word or oath to the sex; the lady scrupulously strict to her word, incapable of art or design; apt therefore to believe well of others—it would be a miracle if she stood such an attempter, such attempts, and such snares, as I see will be laid for her. And, after all, I see not when men are so frail without importunity, that so much should be ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... landing there made a little speech, telling them that here they could settle down, build a town, that here, in fact, "they might have some Place to call their own; and a Receptacle, when Age or Wounds had render'd them incapable of Hardship, where they might enjoy the Fruits of their Labour, and go to their Graves ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... The momentary flare up of her righteous indignation at Sanderson's outrageous proposition that she should go away had sapped her strength and she made ready to meet one of the great crises of life with nerveless, trembling body and a mind incapable of action. ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... had been abused in Ireland for several years back. Whether I have succeeded in this attempt, I leave to Englishmen, who know and value freedom and constitution, to determine. For myself I shall only say, that my mind is incapable of feeling a greater degree of moral certainty, than that the people of Ireland are innocent of causeless discontent and of ingratitude; and that all the evils which now lacerate that unhappy country, (for the mere suppression of present discontents will not end ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... that Murrell would not condone if it came to his knowledge. He had also acquired a very proper and wholesome fear of Judge Slocum Price. He stepped close to Ware's side. "What'll come of the girl, Tom? Can you figure that out?" he questioned, sinking his voice almost to a whisper. But Ware was incapable of speech, again his terrors completely overwhelmed him. "I reckon you'll have to find another overseer. I'm going to strike out ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... fought the Britishers in the wars of the Revolution. Possibly, too, he had heard as a boy, in his native Vermont village, tales of British perfidy in the recent war of 1812. At all events, he was utterly incapable of anything but bitter animosity toward Great Britain. This unreasoning prejudice blinded his judgment in matters of diplomacy, and vitiated his utterances on ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... were pouring out their blood to defend my country. Besides, remember this well, that deserters are despised everywhere; after having committed such an act, they have no kindred or home anywhere. They have neither father, mother, church nor country. They are incapable of fulfilling the first duty of man—to love and sustain their country, even though she be in ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... better, in every respect: to say No, therefore, would belie her wishes and convictions; yet to say Yes, would spoil the effect of her lecture. There was moreover, a dim impression on her mind that Phoebe was incapable of perceiving the delicate distinction between them, which made it inevitable that Rhoda should be better than Phoebe, and highly indecorous that Phoebe should attempt to be better than Rhoda. On the whole, it seemed desirable to ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... the shallow creature he is, and does the endless mischief that he does, largely for lack of imagination. He never thinks—neither before he speaks nor after he has spoken. He never put himself in another man's place all his days. He is incapable of doing that. He has neither the head nor the heart to do that. He never once said, How would I like that said about me? or, How would I like that done to me? or, How would that look and taste and feel to me if I were in So- and-so's place? It needs ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... but still a discoverer. It was I who destroyed Ehrenberg's theory that the Volvox globator was an animal, and proved that his "nomads" with stomachs and eyes were merely phases of the formation of a vegetable cell, and were, when they reached their mature state, incapable of the act of conjugation, or any true generative act, without which no organism rising to any stage of life higher than vegetable can be said to be complete. It was I who resolved the singular problem of ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... flatly incapable of understanding the Moratorium; what it was or how it worked. Mr Pamphlett, for his part, was uncertain about the details. But he explained them ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... slightly. "Well, no!" he said, gravely, "he's not doing well at all. I've been rather worried over him lately. The man's relapsed into a curious state of inertia—seems incapable of being roused. Organically he's nothing to fear now; I'll stake my professional reputation on that. But when a man gets down like he is now, why, the mind often reacts on the body with serious results. If he was in a tropical climate he'd snuff out like ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... uncommon person in many respects; quite capable of such an eccentricity, but incapable, I should say, of crime. He's a gifted talker and so well read that he can hold one's attention for hours. Of his tastes, I can only say that they appear to be mainly scientific. But he is not averse to society, and is ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... startled concern for her rendering him all but incapable of resuming the business with the customer. He had to go out to the farmer's wagon to read the marks on the cotton-bale for record, and even as he made the notes in his book and directed the unloading of ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... results the streaming of the endolymph from the semicircular canals into the cochlea. When, as a consequence of the rapid whirling movements, a great part of the endolymph is hurled into the scala tympani, the organ of Corti in the scala vestibuli is fixed and its parts are rendered incapable of vibration. The condition of atrophy which is observable in the sense cells and in the nerve elements is probably due to the impossibility of functional activity; it is an atrophy caused by disuse ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... this town, containing between four and five thousand inhabitants, at least one thousand are without regular employment, six or seven hundred entirely destitute, and there are upward of two hundred mendicants in the town—persons incapable of work."—Inglis's Ireland ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... condition is without its heroes. The least incapable general in a nation is its Caesar, the least imbecile statesman its Solon, the least confused thinker its Socrates, the least commonplace ...
— Maxims for Revolutionists • George Bernard Shaw
... enterprise against the posts at King's Ferry, comprehending a double attack, to be made at the same time, on both. But the difficulty of a perfect co-operation of detachments, incapable of communicating with each other, determined him to postpone the attack on Verplank's, and to make that part of the plan dependent on the success of the first. His whole attention therefore was turned to Stony Point; and the troops destined for this critical service, proceeded on it as ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... and the champions of the South Eastern and the Brighton, having piled up additional defenses in the shape of personal recollections of delay and mismanagement quite beyond belief, made a combined attack upon the newcomer. He was evidently incapable, their remarks implied, of knowing a bad railway when he saw one. To suggest that the characterless and inoffensive Chatham-and-Dover, so commonplace in its tame virtues, was to be mentioned in the same breath with the daringly inventive and resourceful malefactors whose ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... conjuror depend on a similar principle. The performer tells his audience that he is about to do a certain thing, for example, take a number of animals out of a small box which is incapable of holding them. The hearers, intent on what has been said, vividly represent to themselves the action described. And in this way their attention becomes bribed, so to speak, beforehand, and fails to notice the inconspicuous movements which would at ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... remain in office, do it with the utmost chagrin and unwillingness; and among the other considerations which operate upon them the feeling that they are embarking in an Administration under a head totally incapable to carry it on and which must of course soon be an object of ridicule is uppermost in their minds. Add to this that, though they will not certainly enter into faction and opposition, all the aristocracy of the country at present cordially connected with Government, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the former camp, laid up their arms in their tents, and quitted the entrenchments in order to bring what they had left behind them, because the design of marching being adopted in a hurry, they had left a considerable part of their waggons and luggage behind. Being thus incapable of pursuing, as Caesar had foreseen, about noon he gave the signal for marching, led out his army, and doubling that day's march, he advanced eight miles beyond Pompey's camp; who could not pursue him, because his ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... age and was near to death, he sent to Anastasius asking that money be given him, on condition that he hand over the fortress and the Caspian Gates to the Romans. But the Emperor Anastasius was incapable of doing anything without careful investigation, nor was it his custom to act thus: reasoning, therefore, that it was impossible for him to support soldiers in a place which was destitute of all good things, and which had nowhere in the ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... king, which some reactionaries imputed to him as a crime, was his bad English. He spoke our language, but not well. Our literature he was incapable of enjoying or understanding. He never once appeared in the theatre. The poets who wrote Pindaric verse in his praise complained that their flights of sublimity were beyond his comprehension. But his wife did her best to supply what was wanting. She was excellently qualified to be the head of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... entitle a word or collection of words to be called a term, it is not necessary that it should be capable of standing by itself as a subject. Many terms which can be used as predicates are incapable of being used as subjects: but every term which can be used as a subject (with the doubtful exception of proper names) can be used also as a predicate. The attributives 'swift' and 'galloping' ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... admission of courts and jurists in Europe, again and again promulgated in our country, slavery can be derived only from clear and special recognition. "The state of Slavery," said Lord Mansfield, pronouncing judgment in the great case of Sommersett, "is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law.... It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it but ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... defend their interests. The Mensheviks object to the identification of the Trades Unions with the Government apparatus on the ground that when this change, which they expect comes about, the Trade Union movement will be so far emasculated as to be incapable of defending the town workers against the peasants who will then be the ruling class. Thus they attack the present Trades Union leaders for being directly influenced by the Government in fixing the rate of wages, on the ground that this establishes a precedent from which, ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... who advises a young man with the thought that some day he will be able to harvest personal advantage from that young man's success, has probably by that very thought been rendered incapable of giving sound advice or profitable help. Help the young man for his sake, for the sake of the great humanity of which he is a fresh and beautiful part, for the sake of that abstract good which, after all, is the only reward in this life worthy the consideration ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge |
