"Impracticability" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... successfully communistic in every respect for many years. But the modern Socialist is not a communist; the modern Socialist, making his scheme of social reconstruction for the whole world and for every type of character, recognizes the entire impracticability of such dreams, recognizing, too, it may be, the sacrifice of human personality ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... self-interest. The contempt we have been taught to entertain for the blacks makes us fancy many things that are founded neither in reason nor experience; and an unwillingness to part with property of so valuable a kind will furnish a thousand arguments to show the impracticability, or pernicious tendency, of a scheme which requires such sacrifices. But it should be considered that if we do not make use of them in this way, the enemy probably will; and that the best way to counteract the temptations they will hold out, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... force on so strong a position have been justified. One further principle of warfare, by no means new, was justified to the hilt—no frontal attack should ever be attempted unless all counter attack from a flank is impossible, or unless sufficient forces are available to render such an attack an impracticability. The ultimate capture of the Hill necessitated nearly two months' artillery preparation and the employment at intervals of two Brigades. Perhaps there is one further illustration of the uncertainty of modern warfare in the history ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... first decline he gives no intelligible account; he would not have liked to admit the most probable causes of the fall of his ideal State, which to us would appear to be the impracticability of communism or the natural antagonism of the ruling and subject classes. He throws a veil of mystery over the origin of the decline, which he attributes to ignorance of the law of population. Of this law the famous geometrical figure or number is the expression. Like the ancients in general, ...
— The Republic • Plato
... to be distinguished from another Alhazen who translated Ptolemy's Almagest in the 10th century. Having boasted that he could construct a machine for regulating the inundations of the Nile, he was summoned to Egypt by the caliph Hakim; but, aware of the impracticability of his scheme, and fearing the caliph's anger, he feigned madness until Hakim's death in 1021. Alhazen was, nevertheless, a diligent and successful student, being the first great discoverer in optics ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... step,—there was creeping upon him the idea that his power of cohesion was sought for, and perhaps found, not in his political capacity, but in his rank and wealth. It might, in fact, be the case that it was his wife the Duchess,—that Lady Glencora of whose wild impulses and general impracticability he had always been in dread,—that she with her dinner parties and receptions, with her crowded saloons, her music, her picnics, and social temptations, was Prime Minister rather than he himself. It might be that this had ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... stream, called Crooked creek, emptying into the former of these, from the North east,[14] whose banks are tolerably high, and were then covered with a thick and luxuriant growth of weeds. Seeing the impracticability of dislodging the Indians, by the most vigorous attack, and sensible of the great danger, which must arise to his army, if the contest were not decided before night, General Lewis detached the three companies ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... see me ride whether or no, and in their quite natural ignorance of its character, they request me to perform in the small, roughly-paved court-yard of the hotel, and all sorts of impossible places. I shake my head in disapproval and explanation of the impracticability of granting their request, but unfortunately Adrianople is within the circle where a shake of the head is understood to mean " yes, certainly;" and the happy crowd range around a ridiculously small space, and smiling approvingly at what they consider my willingness to oblige, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... ideas and the impracticability of his scheme must, indeed, have become evident, at the first moment it was brought under consideration. Inexperienced and blinded, as they were, by the delusions of the time and the excitements of the scene, and disposed, as they must have been, by all considerations, to ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... blocks of granite ushabtis for his tomb. The cast is in almost perfect condition, and we can now really study his face, which is full of character. There is no trace of passion in it, but a philosophical calm with great obstinacy and impracticability. He was no vigorous fanatic, but rather a high bred theorist and reformer: not a Cromwell but a Mill. An interesting historical study awaits us here from his physiognomy and his reforms. No such cast remains of any other personage in ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... a certain writer will serve to illustrate the impracticability of writing the final form of the synopsis first. A few years ago, when all editors were asking for the complete script, and when most companies were insisting upon a synopsis of approximately two hundred and fifty words, the editor of a company for which he writes suggested that, instead ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... and laughed at, for the folly and impracticability of their attempts in 1715, and 1745. That they failed, I bless GOD; but cannot join in the ridicule against them. Who does not know that the abilities or defects of leaders and commanders are often hidden, until ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... of the rock, and I strained my eyes to see if I could discern any other spot at which an ascent or descent was possible. The prospect was not encouraging. At some places the face fell sheer away from the edge, and so evident was the impracticability of escape that the only place which I glanced at twice was the western side, that is the one away from the hill. Here it sloped gradually for a few feet. I took off my shoes and went down to the edge. Below, some ten feet, was a ledge, on to which with care ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... Soissons, who was anxious to secure the influence of the Italian Marquis that he might the more readily effect the marriage of his son, eagerly embraced so favourable an opportunity of purchasing his good offices; and consequently represented in stringent terms to his opponent the utter impracticability of refusing to concede to M. d'Ancre the same consideration and indulgence which had been enjoyed by his predecessors in office, together with the danger that he personally incurred by so gratuitously ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... to show the impracticability on any considerable scale of a second possible expedient, namely, borrowing abroad. The amount that could be raised in any foreign market at this moment, in comparison with the sum required, is practically infinitesimal, and, if it were possible ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... crews of gallant British seamen twice round the world, reduced to a certainty the non-existence of a southern continent, about which the learned of all nations were in doubt, settled the boundaries of the earth and sea, and demonstrated the impracticability of a north-west passage from the Atlantic to the great southern ocean, for which our ablest geographers had contended, and in pursuit of which vast sums had been spent in vain, and many ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... Successive expeditions of Portuguese, English, French, and Dutch were sent out only to meet invariable failure in those icy seas, until the terrible hardships the explorers endured gradually brought conviction of the impracticability of this, as of the northwestern, route. What was the origin of this eagerness to reach the Indies? Why did Portuguese, Spaniards, English, French, and Dutch vie with one another in centuries of effort not only to discover new lands, but to seek these sea-routes to the oldest of ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... may possibly recall how the spirit James, while wandering through the darkness of unoccupied Space (about five-and-twenty billions of eons before the commencement of Eternity), conceived a wild idea of the possibility of the existence of worlds—worlds occupied by an impracticability called "man." It will be recollected how the wiser spirit William cast well-merited ridicule upon this insanely impossible phantasy of a disordered mind; nay, even condescended to crush, by perspicuous and irrefutable logic, the grotesque ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... above temples was typical of the irrepressible optimist. His forehead, very full and bulging just below the hair line, showed him to be of the thoughtful, meditative, drearily type, while flatness and narrowness at the brows told as plainly as print of the utter impracticability ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... recommending others to profit by the mistakes regarding contagion which occurred in that country:—"Dr. Sacks, in No. 38 of his Cholera Journal, published here, has again shewn, against Dr. Rush, the fallibility of the doctrine of contagion, as well as the mischievous impracticability of the attempts founded on it to arrest the progress of the disorder by cutting off the communications. It is to be hoped that the alarm so methodically excited by scientific and magisterial authority in the countries ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... shuddered with misery. To wish to get near a man only because he had been kind to her, and had admired her pretty face, and had given her flowers, to nourish a passion all the more because of its hopeless impracticability, were things to dream of, not to tell. Picotee was quite an unreasoning animal. Her sister arranged situations for her, told her how to conduct herself in them, how to make up anew, in unobtrusive shapes, the valuable wearing apparel she sent from time to time—so ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... was Lord Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty, who, in a letter of 14th October, urged Pitt during his stay at Weymouth to represent to the King the importance of attacking the flotilla at Boulogne, if only in order to show the impracticability of Napoleon's scheme. Experienced officers, said Melville, reported that the flotilla must embark the troops in the outer road; yet the work of getting that vast concourse of boats out of the inner harbour could not be accomplished ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the other hand, a good deal of low cunning and selfishness, and understood how valuable an instrument might be a duplicate seal of a deceased monarch. Therefore she instigated her daughter to deny that she possessed it, and worked her up into a state of impracticability, in which Sir Lewis Robsart was unable to deal with her, and only produced so wild a tempest of passion as perfectly to appal both him ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sufferings of war, reduce the barbarians of Tripoli to the desire of peace on proper terms. Great injury, however, ensues to ourselves, as well as to others interested, from the distance to which prizes must be brought for adjudication and from the impracticability of bringing hither such as ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... puzzled, for there was no getting away from the fact that it was only too possible, not to say probable, that they would find Mr. Ede waiting for them. He thought of disguises and secret doors, and masks and wigs, of the wardrobe-baskets, but a moment's reflection convinced him of the impracticability of stowing Kate away in one of these. He then thought of wrapping a railway rug around his newly-acquired wife, and carrying her thus concealed in his arms; but that would not do either. Mr. Ede would be sure to ask him what he ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... propensities, and with him, their gratification, constitutes the sum total of life and all its enjoyments. He knows no other enjoyment, he has no higher object, or aim. It is therefore, very clear, that abolitionists are contending for an impracticability; that the two races cannot amalgamate and become one people, and enjoy equal rights and privileges; that they cannot live together on terms of perfect equality. The white man has the pre-eminence; it is the gift of God; and the African is doomed to servitude, until he is removed beyond ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... and furnish it with locomotives, or fixed engines where necessary, required a very large capital, beyond the means of ordinary coal-owners; whilst the small amount of interest felt in railways by the general public, and the supposed impracticability of working them to a profit, as yet prevented ordinary capitalists from venturing their money in the promotion of such undertakings. The Hetton Coal Company were, however, possessed of adequate means; and the local reputation of the Killingworth engine-wright pointed him out as the man ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... and to love them, seemed madness. At the same time he had a feeling that in that madness itself there was something mightier than all philosophies so far. He thought that because of its madness it was impracticable, but because of its impracticability it was divine. In his soul he rejected it; but he felt that he was parting as if from a field full of spikenard, a kind of intoxicating incense; when a man has once breathed of this he must, as in the ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... enemies had been at work behind him, and the edge of the copse through which he was about to pass, was blockaded with bars in like manner with the path in front. He heard the shouts of the ruffians in the rear—he felt the danger, if not impracticability of his pausing for the removal of the rails, and, in the spirit which had heretofore marked his conduct, he determined upon the most daring endeavor. Throwing off all restraint from his steed, and fixing himself firmly in the stirrup and saddle, he plunged onward to the ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... to move only the clinical instruction to Detroit. Dr. Angell took a vigorous stand in opposition and by a careful and well-reasoned statement of the case convinced the Regents of the inexpediency and impracticability of such a measure. Though echoes of this project are even now heard occasionally, Dr. Angell's masterly and diplomatic course at this time assured, apparently once for all, the integrity of the University in Ann Arbor. Two members of the Medical Faculty, however, were so committed ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... scrupulosity of political conscience, which had characterized him as an independent member, and often served, in the opinion both of friend and of foe, to give the attribute of general impracticability to a mind that, in all details, was so essentially and laboriously practical, might perhaps have founded Trevanion's reputation as a minister if he could have been a minister without colleagues,—if, standing ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... place where they could see the gap made by the river on entering the mountain. To that place he said he would conduct captain Clarke if he desired it by the next evening. But he was in need of no further evidence to convince him of the utter impracticability of the route before him. He had already witnessed the difficulties of part of the road, yet after all these dangers his guide, whose intelligence and fidelity he could not doubt, now assured him that the difficulties were ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... teams on the double trip, going and returning, from Gauley Bridge to the narrows of New River where the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad crossed upon an important bridge which was several times made the objective point of an expedition. This alone proved the impracticability of the plan McClellan first conceived, of making the Kanawha valley the line of an important movement into eastern Virginia. It pointed very plainly, also, to the true theory of operations in that country. Gauley Bridge should have been held with ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to Union, affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who, in any quarter, may endeavor to ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... of the war I published an article headed "The War That Will End War," at once Mr. W.L. George hastened to reprove my dreaming impracticability. "War there has always been." Great is the magic of a word! He was quite oblivious to the fact that war has changed completely in its character half a dozen times in half a dozen centuries; that the war we fought in South Africa and ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... of the roadside planting of fruit trees so common in portions of Europe, and while there are possibilities of useful development along this line, most American efforts in this direction have proved disappointing because of the impracticability of giving the trees the care and attention they require. While often promising at the start they have quickly become infested with San Jose and other scales, borers, blights and rots which can only ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... needs no deep study of human nature, or yet of these novels, to understand the impracticability of two such minds long remaining together in unity. Genius, in private life, is apt to be a torment—its foibles demanding infinite patience, forbearance, nay, affectionate blindness, in those who would minister to its happiness, and mitigate the worst results ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... to find a passage by the north-west had been abandoned by the English for twenty years, they had not, however, given up the idea of seeking by that way, for a passage which was only to be discovered in our own days, and of which the absolute impracticability was then to be ascertained. A clever sailor, Henry Hudson, of whom Ellis says, "that never did any one better understand the seafaring profession, that his courage was equal to any emergency, and that his application was indefatigable," concluded an agreement ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... received me with much civility, and most obligingly placed his house at my disposal, although compelled to start for Spolatro on business. For some reason best known to himself, he begged of me to return to Mostar, insisting on the impracticability of travelling in Bosnia in the present state of political feeling. This, coupled with the specimen of priestly civility which I had experienced in the convent of Goritza, inclined me to alter the ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... so interested in my discoveries that I forgot altogether my own critical position, the impracticability of escape till Frank had gone to sleep, the chance of arousing him as I went out, or, more alarming still, the awful possibility of his lying awake all night. When morning dawned, concealment could no longer be preserved, and what to do then? I meditated a bold stroke. To rush from my hiding-place, ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... receive my poor fellow's pretty wife, and I shall always make a point of being on the most affectionate terms with her. But as to these terms, semi-family and semi-stranger, semi-goring and semi-boring, they form a state of things quite amusing in its impracticability. I assure ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... teeth of my adversaries. This would have been very spirited and chivalrous, no doubt, but unfortunately, the obstacles that opposed themselves to this plan were legion. No sooner did I convince myself of the impracticability of such a mode of procedure, than other plans would present themselves, which, in their turn would have to be relinquished when submitted to the rigorous test of practicability. This constant strain on my mind interposed ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... tendered him the Treasury. The only alternative was Madison; but he, with all his reputation as a statesman and party leader, was without skill as a financier, and in the debate on the Funding Bill in 1790 had shown his ignorance in the impracticability of his plans. If Jefferson ever entertained the thought of nominating Madison to the Treasury, political necessity absolutely forbade it. That necessity Mr. Gallatin, by his persistent assaults on the financial policy of the Federalists, had himself created, ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... things and their relations shall be denoted by signs, not words: so that any person, whatever may be his mother tongue, may read it in his own words. This is an obvious possibility, and, I am afraid, an obvious impracticability. One man may construct such a system—Bishop Wilkins has done it—but where is the man who will learn it? The second tongue makes a language, as the second blow makes a fray. There has been very little curiosity about his performance, the work ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... powers of Europe, who are convinced of the justice of the American cause, (and where is one to be found that is not?) should make haste to acknowledge the independence of the United States, and form equitable treaties with them, as the surest means of convincing Great Britain of the impracticability of her pursuits? Whether the late marine treaty concerning the rights of neutral vessels, noble and useful as it is, can be established against Great Britain, who will never adopt it, nor submit to it, but from necessity, without the independence ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... not criticised. Its consistency only was challenged. After giving a history of the various steps in organizing the three Territories in 1861, and of the great need, by reason of the pressure of thousands of emigrants, of providing a government therefor, and the impracticability of passing a Territorial bill with an anti-slavery proviso, Mr. Grow, in a letter to the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... within one mile of Steele's Bayou, thus saving an important part of this difficult navigation. The expedition failed, probably more from want of knowledge as to what would be required to open this route than from any impracticability in the navigation of the streams and bayous through which it was proposed to pass. Want of this knowledge led the expedition on until difficulties were encountered, and then it would become necessary to send back to Young's Point for the means of removing them. This gave ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... the object of this paper to show the impracticability of such systems when considered from a commercial standpoint, so long as the supply of coal lasts, and prices ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885 • Various
... refusal Anthony had started to the telegraph office intending to wire Gloria to come South—he reached the door and receded despairingly, seeing the utter impracticability of such a move. Then he had spent the evening quarrelling irritably with Dot, and returned to camp morose and angry with the world. There had been a disagreeable scene, in the midst of which he had precipitately ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... as September, 1919, the Coal Commission had to face the physical impracticability of enforcing the demands of the Treaty, and agreed to modify them as follows:—"Germany shall in the next six months make deliveries corresponding to an annual delivery of 20 million tons as compared with 43 millions as provided in the Peace Treaty. ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... in noticing this gorgeous dream of 'the Committee,' except to show its fallacy—its impracticability, in fact, its absurdity. No sensible man, whatever his color, should be for a moment deceived by ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... idea of the impracticability of her own views flitted across her brain. Perhaps it was necessary that races doomed to live on the same soil should give way to each other, and adopt each other's pursuits. Perhaps it was impossible that after more than five centuries ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... be accompanied by cattle. Now, from my previous examination of the country to the westward of the located parts of South Australia, I had in 1839 fully satisfied myself, not only of the difficulty, but of the utter impracticability of opening an overland route for stock in that direction, and I at once stated my opinion to that effect, and endeavoured to turn the general attention from the Westward to the North, as being the more promising opening, either for the discovery of a good country, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... endeavours, by which we may reasonably expect the rising generation will be greatly improved, render particularly due to you, any examples which may teach those virtues that are not easily learnt by precept and shew the facility of what, in mere speculation, might appear surrounded with a discouraging impracticability: you are the best judge, whether, by being made public, they may be conducive to your great end of benefiting the world. I therefore submit the future fate of the following sheets entirely to you, and shall not think any prefatory apology for the publication at all requisite; for though a man ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... me more than I can tell, or most folk would understand nowadays. I knew so well how the god of business (which served to cover all individual pursuit of money or pleasure) would have been invoked to prove the utter impracticability of this—one short year before. I looked back toward my Fleet Street days, and I thanked God for the awakening of England, which ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... when a few weeks, either way, make little or no difference in the computation. This was the nearest that Mr. and Mrs. Bingle ever came to being blessed with twins. For awhile they hoped that they could make twins out of these infants, but, as the children grew older, the impracticability of such a thought—or ambition— became clear to them, and they reluctantly abandoned the project. Henrietta revealed all the characteristics of being of Italian extraction, while ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... a rash moment, she had made some silly wager that she could give a Punch and Judy show on her own in the village of Lynn Hammer and the vicinity. Of course, she had not meant it. She had spoken quite idly, secure in the very impracticability of the thing. But certain evil-disposed persons—referred to mysteriously as 'they'—had fastened greedily upon her words, and, waving aside her objection that she had no paraphernalia, deliberately proceeded to provide ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... through Beering's Strait. Enquiry into the Extent of the North-East Coast of Asia. Reasons for rejecting Muller's Map of the Promontory of the Tschutski. Reasons for believing the Coast does not reach a higher Latitude than 70-2/3 deg. North. General Observations on the Impracticability of a North-East or North-West Passage from the Atlantic into the Pacific Ocean. Comparative View of the Progress made in the Years 1778 and 1779. Remarks on the Sea and Sea-coasts, North of Beering's Strait. History of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... were formerly made in England to rectify the orthography of the language.[14] But I apprehend their schemes failed of success rather on account of their intrinsic difficulties than on account of any necessary impracticability of a reform. It was proposed, in most of these schemes, not merely to throw out superfluous and silent letters, but to introduce a number of new characters. Any attempt on such a plan must undoubtedly prove ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... criminal prosecution. I laid their report before the Legislature with a message in which I said: "There is probably no lawyer of high standing in the State who, after studying the report of counsel in this case and the testimony taken by the investigating commission, would disagree with them as to the impracticability of a successful prosecution. Under such circumstances the one remedy was a thorough change in the methods and management. This change has ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... kept certain Senators who recognized the impracticability of the maximum rate, but feared for the constitutionality of the absolute rate, in ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... particularly at night; and for other similar purposes. To satisfy all these conditions, these cyclist detachments require a sufficient tactical training, but in times of peace one sees in this respect feats performed whose impracticability in War are glaringly apparent. For instance, men keep their cycles with them right up in the firing line, and when they want to retreat or break off the fight they try to mount under fire. As they are generally tied to the roads, they then file off to the flanks. I have, indeed, often ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... Abul Hacen, after the loss of more than two thousand of his bravest troops in these precipitate assaults, became convinced of the impracticability of forcing a position, whose natural strength was so ably seconded by the valor of its defenders, and he determined to reduce the place by the more tardy but certain method of blockade. In this he was favored by one or two circumstances. The town, having but a single well ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... Wellington. Some of his supporters will doubt this assertion; and will point to the Emancipation Act as a proof that the Duke wanted the firmness to act up to his avowed principles. This involves a wrong assumption. It is one thing obstinately to adhere to an opinion in defiance of its impracticability: another to retract that opinion so soon as its impracticability is demonstrated. Whether the Duke was right or wrong in his opinions, no one will deny that it required great moral courage for him to stand up in the face of the country, braving the ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... educated and enterprising, the leaders of their race. Why? Let the facts answer. I have already said that the Church strove to continue after the war the same method of dealing with the negroes as before. She tried to keep the races together; but she has found it impractical, that impracticability growing more and more clear as the years have run on. The races have been steadily drifting apart in all social or semi-social life; the better class of each race is coming less and less into contact with each other; and race prejudice is increasing and deepening in the great masses of both the ...
— Church work among the Negroes in the South - The Hale Memorial Sermon No. 2 • Robert Strange
... both acquainted with the proprietor of this ruin. Shortly afterwards, in fact, they informed me that the owner had no objection to letting me this large room at a low rent, but at the same time they pointed out the utter impracticability of carrying out my plan; nobody, they said, would be either able or willing to act as my servant there, for, amongst other things, there was no well, and the only water obtainable was from a cistern lying at a frightful depth down in the keep, and ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... calculations depend upon the validity of the data; and no authority is unshakable in science, because no man can possess omniscience. It was Lord Kelvin who, but a few years before the thing was actually accomplished, declared that aerial navigation was an impracticable dream, and demonstrated its impracticability by calculation. However the connection may be brought about, it is as certain as evidence can make it that solar outbursts are coincident with terrestial magnetic disturbances, and coincident in such a way as to make ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... you to my letter of the 20th of April, for a perfect statement of matters in this quarter; and as little alteration has taken place since that period, your Excellency will readily perceive the impracticability of the movement expected by Congress, (and mentioned in your letter to Count de Rochambeau,) especially too, when you consider how unprepared we are to encounter any expense, that can ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... of the legion cavalry, was charged with the flag, and instructed to communicate faithfully the inevitable destruction impending, and the impracticability of relief, as Lord Rawdon had not yet passed the Santee; with an assurance that longer perseverance in vain resistance, would place the garrison at the mercy of the conqueror; who was not regardless of the policy of preventing waste of time by inflicting ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... as Mrs. Ellis could do to convince Charlie and Kinch of the impracticability of their scheme of carrying off to Warmouth the pig in question. She suggested, as it was the exclusive property of Kinch, and he was so exceedingly anxious to make Charlie a parting gift, that she should purchase it, which she did, on the spot; and Kinch invested all the money in ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... designed by divine wisdom that it should exist. The whole structure of society must be changed, even in this country, ere it could exist among ourselves, and the change would not have been made a month before the utter impracticability of such a social fusion would make itself ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... much interest. His attainments and accomplishments, which were really remarkable, won lively admiration. His warm regard for a man like Baron Bunsen seemed to afford the best augury for the liberality of his sentiments. As yet the danger of impracticability, discouragement, confusion, and paralysis of all that had been hoped for, was but faintly indicated in the dreaminess ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... Monastery, Captain Haas and his men were able to study the situation in the city. The impracticability of an assault on any one of the stubborn, well-guarded gates was at once recognised. A force of seven hundred men, no matter how well trained or determined, could not be expected to surmount walls that had often withstood the attack of as many thousands. ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the natural strength and resources of the country, directed to a common interest, would baffle all the combinations of European jealousy to restrain our growth. This situation would even take away the motive to such combinations, by inducing an impracticability of success. An active commerce, an extensive navigation, and a flourishing marine would then be the offspring of moral and physical necessity. We might defy the little arts of the little politicians to control or vary the irresistible and unchangeable ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... understanding how his offer could be carried out, but still of a nature that should, he thought, have bound his brother to his service. But Jack had simply answered him by sermons;—by sermons and an assurance of the impracticability of his scheme. Nevertheless he was by no means sure that his scheme was impracticable. He was at least sure of this,—that no human power could force him to adopt a mode of life that was distasteful ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... expressed ten years ago upon the impracticability of supplanting to any extent the Tagal language by the Spanish. The same considerations apply equally well to English. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... the movements of the enemy in front of General Pope, the supposed impracticability of the route, and to some distrust as to the abilities of General McClellan by the authorities at Washington, peremptory orders had been sent to him to remove his army as quickly as ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... of the Lut Desert and Beloochistan is but a confirmation of my own already-arrived-at conclusions concerning the utter impracticability of crossing either in the summer and with a bicycle; but the wish gives birth to the thought that perhaps he may not unlikely be indulging in the Persian weakness for exaggeration in his graphic portrayal of the difficulties presented by ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... then nobody seems to know. The greater part of the force will, it is believed, follow the Bengalees to Candahar, who marched from Shikarpoor for that purpose, under Sir Willoughby Cotton, on the 22nd, but have since been detained, owing to the impracticability of the country. One regiment of our brigade (the Grenadier regiment, Native Infantry) is under orders for Bukkur, an island fort on the Indus, about twenty-five miles from Shikarpoor, which (i.e., Bukkur) is to be our depot for stores, &c., and where all the present unfits, in the ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... the Constitution [Mr. MADISON], whose expositions of that instrument all classes, all parties, have heretofore received, and still receive, or pretend to receive, with profound deference and respect, has left on record his views of the injustice, impracticability, and inefficacy of force as a means of coercing States ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... infidels. That religious intolerance which foreign historians consider a purely Spanish product was really imported by the German Caesars. It was the German friar who came with his devout brutality and his crazy theology, not tempered as in Spain by Semitic culture. With their intolerance and impracticability they provoked the revolution of the Reformation in the northern countries, and, driven out of them, they came here to plant afresh their ignorance and fanaticism. The ground was well prepared. When the free towns whose municipalities were republics fell, the ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... long-established opium habit while the patient continues his daily avocations and remains at home, [Footnote: In my article upon opium-eating, entitled, "What Shall They Do to be Saved?" published in Harper's Magazine for the month of August, 1867, and hereto prefixed, I have referred to this impracticability in fuller detail. It arises from the fact that in his own house a man can not isolate himself from the hourly hearing of matters for which he feels responsible, yet to which he can give no adequate attention without his accustomed stimulus; that his best friends are apt to upbraid him ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... that would ensue from these and a thousand other sources. For this reason the old federation of the States was an experience of inexpressible value. It settled forever, in the minds of all communities who are governed by cool common sense and not mad passion, the utter impracticability (for efficient cooeperation, and peaceful union) of a mere league or confederacy among sovereign and independent States. While the seven years' war of independence lasted, it managed to hold the States together; but when peace was restored the evils of the league were so glaring, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... justice of our cause, the nature and stability of our union, and the solemn engagements by which not only the States but his Most Christian Majesty, are reciprocally bound to maintain the sovereignty, rights and jurisdiction of each of the thirteen States inviolably; and the utter impracticability of our acceding to any treaty of peace with Great Britain, on the principles of a uti possidetis, or on any other terms than such as shall imply an express or tacit acknowledgment of the sovereignty of each and every part, and which shall be consistent with the letter ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... of association existed, but what it was, considered with the impracticability of unobserved entrance and exit, ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... ought to get on the jump quicker," insisted his cousin. "If we had an airship, for instance!" and he laughed at the impracticability of his remark. ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... Concerning these lectures, Leigh Hunt remarked that it seemed "as if some Puritan had come to life again, liberalized by German philosophy and his own intense reflections and experience." Another critic, a Scotch writer, could see nothing but wild impracticability in them, and exclaimed, "Can any living man point to a single practical passage in any of these lectures? If not, what is the real value of Mr. Carlyle's teachings? What is Mr. Carlyle himself ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... all this wondrous History, I profess myself at a loss to see what special note of impracticability it presents that I should hesitate to embrace it, in the plain natural sense of the words, with both the arms of my heart. That it is not such an account of the manner of the Creation as you or I should have ourselves invented, or anticipated, or on questionable ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... love was nothing, and flaunted without the least modification the most ideal theories as to the relation between man and woman. Not that he ever went actually wrong. His boyish education, his natural purity, and a fear never wholly suppressed, restrained him. He exasperated people by his impracticability, and it must be acknowledged that it is very irritating in a difficult complexity demanding the gravest consideration—the balancing of this against that—to hear a man suddenly propose some naked principle with which everybody is acquainted, and decide by it solely. I came to know him ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... W.N.W. of Yass Plains there is a remarkable hill, called Pouni, remarkable not so much on account of its height, as of its commanding position. It had, I believe, already been ascended by one of the Surveyor-general's assistants. The impracticability of the country to the south of it, obliged us to pass under its opposite base, from which an open forest country extended to the northward. We had already recrossed the Yass River, and passed Mr. Barber's station, to that of Mr. Hume's father, at which ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... instructions of May 7th, 1784, was under debate in Congress, it was proposed that neither party should make the other pay, in their ports, greater duties, than they paid in the ports of the other. One objection to this was, its impracticability; another, that it would put it out of our power to lay such duties on alien importation as might encourage importation by natives. Some members, much attached to English policy, thought such a distinction ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... which every day takes place in science and mechanics, I was encouraged to hope my present attempts would at least lay the foundations of future success. Nor could I consider the magnitude and complexity of my plan as any argument of its impracticability. It was with these feelings that I began the creation of a human being. As the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved, contrary to my first intention, to make the being of a gigantic ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... in the gallery. This she refused to do, and the consequence has been that the Exhibition has been deprived of some of its rarest specimens of art. The reason Mrs. Peachey assigns for not sending her works to the gallery is the impracticability of their being carried up stairs without being, from their extreme fragility, seriously injured, perhaps mutilated. Even were they to be slung up by tackle, she says they would be subject to the same risk, and her two principal works, viz.—an enormous bouquet of the most exquisitely ...
— The Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling • Emma Peachey
... I find I am getting the whip out, although I promised not to thrash this wretched old economic hack. Only just one little parting crack of the lash. Dealing with "unearned increment" being an impracticability, perhaps it would be well for landlords who benefit immensely by the accident of circumstances to recognise the fact that they do pocket a great "unearned increment," and be ungrudgingly generous in return ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... Beaumont perceived and acknowledged the impracticability of managing a fool for a single hour, it was one of the favourite objects of her manoeuvres to obtain this very fool for a daughter-in-law, with the hope of governing her for life. So inconsistent are cunning people, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... in his own estimation than those capital fellows W—— and B——, who walk in glory and in joy behind their ploughs upon your mountain sides. The Brunswick canal project was descanted upon, and pronounced, without a shadow of dissent, a scheme the impracticability of which all but convicted its projectors of insanity. Certainly, if, as I hear the monied men of Boston have gone largely into this speculation, their habitual sagacity must have been seriously at fault; for here on the spot nobody mentions the ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... required that the road which we had formed on landing should be continued to the very margin of the lake; whilst appearances seemed to indicate the total impracticability of the scheme. From firm ground to the water's edge was here a distance of many miles, through the very centre of a morass where human foot had never before trodden. Yet it was desirable at least to make the attempt; for if it failed we should only be reduced to our former alternative of ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... of complaint or disappointment, that he often conferred offices on men who immediately coincided with the opponents and became calumniators of his administration. He was soon made to realize the impracticability of disregarding the old lines of party. On being informed, by some of his friends in the Southern States, that the objections to the appointment of Federalists were insuperable, and would everywhere affect the popularity of his administration, he observed: ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... spoke to the following effect:—Sir, however I may be convinced in my own opinion of the impracticability of the inquiry now proposed, whatever confidence I may repose in the extensive knowledge and long experience of those, by whom it has been openly pronounced not only difficult but impossible, I think there are arguments against the motion, which though, perhaps, not stronger in themselves, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... not!" said Cecilia, "but the utter impracticability of preparing her for this blow, obviously as it has long been impending, makes it now fall so heavily I wish much to assist her,—but a debt so ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... and religious instruction. Mr. Schoolcraft depicted the adverse circumstances under which the masses had heretofore labored, in coming under plans of instruction and Christianity, owing to their poverty; their dispersion over large areas of country for large parts of the year; the impracticability of their finding subsistence in large bodies at one place; and the deleterious influence of the commerce in furs and peltries, on their moral and mental character. He submitted a report of the proceedings of the St. Mary's committee, showing, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... are sixty pupils," said I; for I knew the number, and with my usual base habit of cowardice, I shrank into my sloth like a snail into its shell, and alleged incapacity and impracticability as a pretext to escape action. If left to myself, I should infallibly have let this chance slip. Inadventurous, unstirred by impulses of practical ambition, I was capable of sitting twenty years teaching infants the hornbook, turning silk dresses and making ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... jocular in their tone, reminding him of his chronic impecuniosity, and his well-known impracticability in every thing relating to money. These jocular letters, however, never failed to remind him that, as he had made a rich match, there was no reason why he should not pay his debts, especially as the writers were hard up, and had waited so long ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... magnified by popular report into the revenues of a Croesus. Audley Egerton succeeded in parliament beyond the early expectations formed of him. He took, from the first, that station in the House which it requires tact to establish, and great knowledge of the world to free from the charge of impracticability and crotchet, but which, once established, is peculiarly imposing from the rarity of its independence; that is to say, the station of the moderate man who belongs sufficiently to a party to obtain its support, but is yet sufficiently disengaged ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... should contain only one idea. Every thought expressed has some specific work to do, and it can do it far more effectively if it stands by itself as a unit. The awkwardness and impracticability of proving the truth or falsity of a statement that makes several assertions has been treated under the head of Combined Propositions. Obviously, there are unwarrantable difficulties in grouping explanation or proof about such a statement as, "Municipal ownership has failed in Philadelphia, ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... persons in Pennsylvania," as is observed in the representation, "whose names and association lie before your Majesty in Council, for the purpose of making settlements in Nova Scotia," have, several years since, been convinced of the impracticability of exciting settlers to move from the middle colonies, and settle in that province; and even of those who were prevailed on to go to Nova Scotia, the greater part of them returned with great complaints against the severity ...
— Report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations on the Petition of the Honourable Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, John Sargent, and Samuel Wharton, Esquires, and their Associates • Great Britain Board of Trade
... of the times, and which were readily sold to the adventurers to the Indies. With these small means he departed, having communicated his project to no one except to a beloved sister, whose tears could not prevail to keep the lad at home; the impetuous impulse had blinded him to the perils and the impracticability of his wild project. He reached Madrid, where the great VELASQUEZ, his countryman, was struck by the ingenuous simplicity of the youth, who urgently requested letters for Rome; but when that noble genius understood the purport of this romantic journey, VELASQUEZ assured him that ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... visits received in honour of my newly acquired titles hourly entailed upon me. It was arranged that we were to proceed to Cahergillagh, one of the Glenfallen estates, lying, however, in a southern county, so that a tedious journey (then owing to the impracticability of the roads,) of three days intervened. I set forth with my noble companion, followed by the regrets of some, and by the envy of many, though God knows I little deserved the latter; the three days of travel were now almost spent, when passing ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... of the broken bone, creates almost insuperable difficulties in the average instance. And unless the practitioner distinctly explains to his client the various reasons which make treatment an economic impracticability, dissatisfaction is likely to follow if treatment is instituted ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... had already received, and that at once the most splendid and the least suitable which Europe could afford. Philip of Spain, loth to relinquish his hold upon England, but long since aware of the impracticability of establishing any claims of his own in opposition to the title of Elizabeth, now sought to reign by her; and to the formal announcement which she conveyed to him of the death of his late wife, accompanied with expressions of her anxiety to preserve ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... the trappers could not understand my reasons, I refused to consent to its burial in the wilderness. In spite of their superior knowledge of the country and the weather conditions, I felt that the body could be taken down to the post later, but recognised the impracticability, if not impossibility, of undertaking the ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... sent a considerable body of troops into the valleys, swearing that if the people would not change their religion, he would have them flayed alive. The commander of the troops soon found the impracticability of conquering them with the number of men he had with him, he, therefore, sent word to the duke, that the idea of subjugating the Waldenses, with so small a force, was ridiculous; that those people were better acquainted with the country than any that were ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... has the disadvantage of radiated heat in the workings, of loss by the radiation, and, worse still, of the impracticability of placing and operating a highly efficient steam-engine underground. It is all but impossible to derive benefit from the vacuum, as any form of surface condenser here is impossible, and there can be no return of the hot ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover
... wept—for Wolfe had fallen in the hour of victory! Joy, grief, curiosity, astonishment were painted in every countenance; the more they inquired, the higher their admiration rose. Not an incident but was heroic and affecting! Wolfe between persuasion of the impracticability, unwillingness to leave any attempt untried that could be proposed, and weariness and anxiety of mind and body, had determined to make one last effort above the town. He embarked his forces at one in the morning, and passed the French sentinels in silence that were ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... Gentlemen of the Court, if I were to spend further speech in the refutation of this discovery of the public prosecutor—that impracticability is the test of science—I should be insulting ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... allowed them in which to save their little fortress. For Palmyre's assurance that the candle burning would certainly cause the rent-money to be forthcoming in time was to Clotilde unknown, and to Aurora it was poor stuff to make peace of mind of. But there was a degree of impracticability in these ladies, which, if it was unfortunate, was, nevertheless, a part of their Creole beauty, and made the absence of any really brilliant outlook what the galaxy makes a moonless sky. Perhaps they had not been as diligent as they might have ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... the cork, and the pail filled up with fresh materials. It is scarcely necessary to add, that if any of the melted ice and salt is allowed to mix with the cream, the latter is spoiled. From the difficulty of obtaining ice in places distant from large towns, and in hot countries, and from the impracticability of keeping it any length of time, or, in fact, of keeping small quantities more than a few hours its use is much limited, and many have been the attempts to obtain an efficient substitute. For this purpose various salts have been employed, which, when dissolved in water, or in acids, absorb a ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... ears of the scholars and the servants; and Dr. Glennie had, one day, the pain of overhearing a school-fellow of his noble pupil say to him, "Byron, your mother is a fool;" to which the other answered gloomily, "I know it." In consequence of all this violence and impracticability of temper, Lord Carlisle at length ceased to have any intercourse with the mother of his ward; and on a further application from the instructor, for the exertion of his influence, said, "I can have nothing more to do with Mrs. Byron,—you must now ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... foregoing notes were written the impracticability of the universal or even of the general application of the principle has been fully demonstrated. Mr. Wilson resurrected "the consent of the governed" regardless of the fact that history denied its value as a practical guide in modern political relations. He proclaimed it in the ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... very moment the impracticability to which poor Winterborne's suit had been reduced was touching Grace's heart to a warmer sentiment on his behalf than she had ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... news brought by Paco, and of the plan he had devised for the rescue of Rita. Thunderstruck at the temerity of the project, Torres undertook, but at first with small success, to convince Herrera of its impracticability, and induce him to abandon it, at least for ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... be not adapted to realization. If environment or internal inhibitions prevent this realization, however, the craving: lying back of the fancy must be diverted to a more practical channel—the normal solution—or the fancy must persist in spite of its impracticability. This latter process is the germ of the psychosis. But not its development. A certain compromise may be reached—he who digs for gold in his back-yard is not so crazy as he who reaches out his hand for the moon. Nor is the ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... of the colonists, to forget imperial interests, to misapply the funds and pervert the labor belonging to the crown. The precision of his injunctions left no alternative but to obey. Had Wilmot at once declared the impracticability of Lord Stanley's schemes he might have been recalled, but the responsibility of an utter failure would have rested with his chief. The interested reports of his subordinate officers unfortunately enabled him to hold out hopes of success ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... probable, that the sandstone found on Sambhu, and the neighbouring hill towards Hilchuck, is composed of this granitic sand reunited into rock. This sandstone is used in a few buildings, but I have seen no large blocks, and the difficulty, or impracticability, of procuring such, has probably occasioned this stone to be in ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... interests—in short, until the same obstacles arise to the choice of an international, artificial, and neutral language, as now prevent the elevation of any national language into a universal medium? The plea of impracticability on the score of dislocation might then be valid. At present it is not. To have an easy language that will carry you anywhere and enable you to read anything, it is sufficient to wish for it. Only, as we Britons are being taught ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... campaign, as the general's extra aide-de-camp, and Lieutenant Hodgson, of the Cornwallis, as also by Lieutenant Heatley. Instantly rushing down the bank, the four officers plunged into the canal and swam across, thus proving the impracticability of ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... felt, or feigned alarm at the fermentation in the public mind, and its possible evolution in great national calamities; and before one act of legislation was accomplished, or he had had a month's experience of the fanatical impracticability of one side, I use his own words, and the intolerant spirit of resistance on the other, he personally proposed to his enemy, Necker, and through him to the queen, "the only man," he said, "connected with the court," to concur, at the price of an embassadorship to Constantinople, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... sad enough for the two girls,—this kind of life. The worst of it, perhaps, was this; that they never knew when to expect him. A word had been said once as to the impracticability of having dinner ready for a gentleman, when the gentleman would never say whether he would want a dinner. It had been an unfortunate remark, for Sir Thomas had taken advantage of it by saying that when he came he would come after dinner, unless he had certified ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... invoked the governor to protect them against the tyranny of the Court; but he endeavored to calm the agitation by representing, that by these violent measures they would only defeat their own object. He counselled them to name deputies to lay their petition before the Crown, stating the impracticability of the present scheme of reform, and praying for the repeal of it; and he conjured them to wait patiently for the arrival of the viceroy, who might be prevailed on to suspend the ordinances till further advices could ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... congenial to them. But the experiment with the manumitted negroes of the District, which was made in compliance with this recommendation of the President and in deference to his personal wishes, frequently and earnestly expressed, demonstrated the impracticability of the plan. Colonization could be effected only by the forcible removal of the colored people, and this would have been a more cruel violation of their natural rights than a continuance of the slavery in which they ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... Lucilla objected to the impracticability of white silk, the inconvenience of unpacking the apparatus, the nuisance of dressing, the lack of time; but Rashe was delighted with the idea, and made light of all, and the gentlemen pressed her strongly, till with rather more of a consent than a refusal, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... discoveries; and there seems good ground for such an accusation, which indeed was confirmed by the evidence of his officers, and not explicitly denied by himself. Government was undoubtedly of opinion that the voyage of Middleton had not determined the non-existence or impracticability of a passage; for the next year an act of parliament was passed, granting a reward of 20,000l. to the person or persons who should discover a northwest passage through Hudson's Straits to the western and ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... down all opposition, while Virginia is unsupported even by those whose interests are similar to hers.[27] Colonel Lee tells me that many who were warm supporters of the government are changing their sentiments, from a conviction of the impracticability of union with states, whose interests are so dissimilar to ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing |
