"Impracticable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to-day than usual—only twelve of them. Of these, eight had only impracticable schemes to propose. In fact, one of them wanted to revive painting, an art fallen into desuetude owing to the progress made in color-photography. Another, a physician, boasted that he had discovered ...
— In the Year 2889 • Jules Verne and Michel Verne
... more or less inglorious obscurity, leavens the entire lump of humanity. Mr. Mullen, who regarded him with the active suspicion with which he viewed all living examples of Christian charity, spoke of him condescendingly as a "man of impracticable ideas"—a phrase which introduced his index prohibitory of opinions. But the old clergyman, having attained a serviceable sense of humour, as well as a heavenly fortitude, went on quietly doing good after the fashion in which he was made. In his impracticable ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... scarcely more than a mile from Ay, owing to the steepness of the slopes and to the roads through the vineyards being impracticable for carts, the grapes were being conveyed to the press-houses in baskets slung across the backs of mules and donkeys, who, on account of their known partiality for the ripe fruit, were most of them muzzled while thus employed. The vin brut ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... armed vessel, the Clement, loaded with ammunition and supplies and having on board 150 armed men. When the vessel neared St. John, it was discovered that Charnisay had established a blockade at the mouth of the harbor and that entrance was impracticable. In this emergency la Tour resolved to seek aid from the people of New England, whose trade and friendship he had begun to cultivate. Boston was then but a straggling village, in its 13th year, with houses principally of boards or logs ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... gratifying decisiveness, guards the conscience of the nation in the question of continuing the submarine war," but it criticises the note for possibly going too far in making concessions, which "may prove impracticable and result ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... the interior, too, how many hundreds of miles of roads now intersect regions not long ago deemed impracticable!—firm on the fen, in safety flung across the chasm—and winding smoothly amidst shatterings of rocks, round the huge mountain bases, and down the glens once felt as if interminable, now travelled almost with the speed of ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... joint was suddenly turned in a direction in which Nature had not contemplated its ever turning: and the joint never played quite smoothly and sweetly again. In this sense, we should discern in the use of the word screw, something analogous to the expressive Scotticism, which says of a perverse and impracticable man, that he is a thrown person; that is, a person who has got a thraw or twist; or rather, a person the machinery of whose mind works as machinery might be conceived to work which had got a thraw or twist. The reflective reader will ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... while de Baudricourt was anxiously waiting to hear whether his protector, the Duc de Bar, whom Bedford had summoned to enter into a treaty with the English, would not be prevailed upon to do so. If he consented, this would make the knight's tenure of Vaucouleurs impracticable. It was probably owing to this state of affairs that, on her second interview with the knight of Vaucouleurs, Joan of Arc was favourably received by him. Since the first visit to de Baudricourt by the Maid of Domremy, her name had become familiar to many of the people in and ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... them had acquired from the spoils of the clergy, induced them to widen the breach between England and Rome; and by establishing a contrariety of speculative tenets, as well as of discipline and worship, to render a coalition with the mother church altogether impracticable.[*] Their rapacity also, the chief source of their reforming spirit, was excited by the prospect of pillaging the secular, as they had already done the regular clergy; and they knew that while any share of the old principles remained, or any regard to the ecclesiastics, they could never ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... her eyes fixed on Peter. It was but another of his benevolent finds; it had been the son of an old music teacher the winter before, and a boy struggling through college last spring;—always somebody who wanted to get ahead in one direction or another, no matter how impracticable his ambitions might be. This young man, however, seemed different; certain remarks had a true ring. Perhaps, after all, her foolish old brother—foolish when his heart misled him—might have found somebody at last who would pay for the time he spent upon him. The name, too, had a familiar ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... minimum cargo to two hundred tons, and the minimum average speed of three miles per hour. But these limitations must cover a superior economy of freight transportation to that by the former trials with steam. Else, they are worthless; else, they are failures, as in 1862, and their general introduction impracticable. ...
— History of Steam on the Erie Canal • Anonymous
... change alternately presented itself. God vindicated reason and justice, by condemning the genius which had so recklessly braved both, to sink in hesitation and uncertainty, under the weight of its own incompatible objects and impracticable desires. ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... encountered from the Sovereign, and by the absence of any real or solid moderate constitutional party in the Chamber of Deputies, Mamiani could carry out very few of the improvements he desired to effect, and in August he retired from an impracticable task, to be replaced by men of less note and talent ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... he had been thinking of our confined situation[707]. He would fain have gone in a boat from hence, instead of riding back to Slate. A scheme for it was proposed. He said, 'We'll not be driven tamely from it:'-but it proved impracticable. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... likelihood, and the thing is even impossible and incredible, whatever may be the number and quality of those who have believed it, or appeared to believe it, I shall always say that the return (to earth) of the vampires is unmaintainable and impracticable. ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... of Beauvais, erect, although the storms of six or seven centuries have prostrated, over and over again, every other social or political or juristic shelter. Compared with it, all modern systems are complex and chaotic, crowded with self-contradictions, anomalies, impracticable functions and outworn inheritances; but beyond all their practical shortcomings is their fragmentary character. An economic civilization troubles itself about the universe much as a hive of honey-bees troubles about the ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... the conduct of Thistlewood did not differ more widely than the cry for Parliamentary Reform and the cry for the Repeal of the Union. The Reform Bill I believe to be a blessing to the nation. Repeal I know to be a mere delusion. I know it to be impracticable: and I know that, if it were practicable, it would be pernicious to every part of the empire, and utterly ruinous to Ireland. Is it not then absurd to say that, because I wished last year to quiet the English people ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... The brig's lights had disappeared. Nothing could be seen of her. It was blowing great guns, with a heavy sea. We continued in a state of great anxiety till morning. At last, by the first rays of daylight, we saw our consort dismasted. She signalled to us for a tow, which was quite impracticable in the state of the sea. All we could do was to stand by her, while she tried to get to Syra. with her foresail, the only one left her. This she succeeded in doing. But the extraordinary thing is that what dismasted her ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... are ill, which are everywhere to be found: I endeavour to render myself as agreeable as I see others offensive; as constant as I see others fickle; as affable as I see others rough; as good as I see others evil: but I propose to myself impracticable measures. ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... "Impracticable! You cannot know, Father, all that love and youth will dare; but I, whose earthly life has given me experience in such matters, have seen the impossibilities of sober minds yield to the irresistible energy of two plighted hearts. Oh, no; ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... of the dread zymotic types—and death; death peering through the doors of godowns, where the ivory tusks are piled; death in the dark back-streets of the bazaar, where tired policemen wage lop-sided warfare against insanitary habits and a quite impracticable legal code; death on the beach, where cannibal crabs parade in thousands and devour all helpless things; death in the scrub (all green and beautiful) where the tiny streets leave off and snakes claim heritage; death in the grim red desert ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... of administrative authority at one point has proved impracticable, first because of the great amount of red tape involved in the handling of the endless detail, and second because of the resulting destruction of initiative and enterprise. Such a centralization of social function would be just as cumbersome as a like centralization of all bodily functions ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... her husband's reason was entrenched against the facts of his own life, in a citadel defended by human experience at bay, she wavered in her resolution of a few hours since—or, rather, she saw the impossibility of forcing the position, thinking contentedly that at least if it was so impracticable to her it would be equally so to other agencies, and he might be relied on to remain in the dark. The status quo would be the happiest, if it could be preserved. So when, after a two hours' walk through the evening glow and the moonrise, Rosalind came home to Sally's revelation, ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... cabra would daily continue to live in insolent impunity, was enough to give him convulsions of rage; he would foam at the mouth, gnash his teeth and, in that obtuse brain of his, concoct scheme upon scheme of vengeance, almost all of them impracticable, for he was chained to the ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... though I am sorry to say, it seems to be the mode amongst gentlemen to grow fat, and I am told I am at least fourteen pound below the fashion. However, I decrease instead of enlarging, which is extraordinary, as violent exercise in London is impracticable; but I attribute the phenomenon to our evening squeezes at public and private parties. I heard from Ridge this morning (the 14th, my letter was begun yesterday): he says the poems go on as well as can be wished; the seventy-five sent to town are circulated, and a demand ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... and killed two of his chief officers. Repulsed from Porto Rico, the admiral steered for the Spanish main, where he burnt several towns, and among them Nombre de Dios. He then sent a strong detachment of 750 men against Panama; but they found the capture of that city impracticable. Soon afterward he fell sick of a fever, and died January 28, 1596. His death, like that of his coadjutor, is attributed to mental distress, and nothing is more probable than that disappointment may have made that noxious climate more deadly. Hints of poisoning were thrown out, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... now began his preparations for the journey from Linyanti to Loanda. Sekeletu was kind and generous. The road was impracticable for wagons, and the native trader, George Fleming, returned to Kuruman, The Kuruman guides had not done well, so that Livingstone resolved to send them back, and to get Makololo men instead. Here is the record of his ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... either side being covered with vegetation,— till we reached a rocky ledge on one side, over which the water had apparently at one time flowed. A low waterfall a slight distance ahead showed that further progress was impracticable. We accordingly landed on the ledge, and once more attempted to make our way up the mountain. We had much the same sort of ground to go over as that on which the master had made his first essay; but as the belt of forest which separated us from the steep side of the ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... record. The body of Loudon the factor was found on the Monday morning below the cliffs, his neck broken by a fall. In the darkness and confusion he must have tried to escape in that direction, and he had chosen an impracticable road or had slipped on the edge. It was returned as "death by misadventure," and the CARRICK HERALD and the AUCHENLOCHAN ADVERTISER excelled themselves in eulogy. Mr. Loudon, they said, had been widely known in the south-west ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... the reading of the Bible was a medium of communication by God's spirit, its importance was secondary to the immediate movements of the spirit. The works of the Labadists disclose a high form of faith and aspiration, but vitiated by many visionary and impracticable features, in Maryland by the mercenary instincts of their leader, Sluyter. Nor was the general state of religion in Maryland at the time of their experiment such as to foster a profoundly pietistical community. ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... taking a part which was somewhat original in its nature. He was confident that if the savages found it impracticable to cross the Xingu in sight of the explorers, they would pass down stream and endeavor to do so, at a point where they could not be observed ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... Morse tested his wire. It would not work. No trace of an electric current could be got through it. The insulation was evidently imperfect. What was to be done? He would be charged with wasting the public money on an impracticable experiment. Yet if he stopped he might expect a roar of newspaper disapprobation of his whole scheme. He was in a serious dilemma. How should ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... are slow in the making. He wondered now if hard, fast living had robbed him of the punch to make a new beginning; he wondered, too, if the vague plans at the back of his mind had anything to them or if they were entirely impracticable. Here was opportunity, definite, concrete, and spelled with a capital O, here was a deliberate invitation to avail himself of a short cut out of his embarrassment. A mere scratch of a pen and he would ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... for the evil of freeing illegally imported Negroes,—in making the penalty so severe that none will be brought in; if the South is sincere, "they will unite to a man to execute the law."[39] To free such Negroes is dangerous; to enslave them, wrong; to return them, impracticable; to indenture them, difficult,—therefore, by a death penalty, keep them from being imported.[40] Here the East had a chance to throw back the taunts of the South, by urging the South to unite with them in hanging the New England slave-traders, ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... remains of the treaty of peace to be fulfilled on their part (by which we are to understand the delivery of the posts and payment for property carried off) till performance on our part, and compensation where the delay has rendered the performance now impracticable; that on the subject of a treaty of commerce they avoided direct answers, so as to satisfy Mr. Morris they did not mean to enter into one unless it could be extended to a treaty of alliance offensive and defensive, or unless in the event of a ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... system of notation, as it had developed itself since Pope Gregory's time, was sufficient for all musical requirements. He certainly could not withhold some appreciation for Chevet, but refused to indorse the certificate granted by the Institute in his favor; the system he thought impracticable. ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... by the missionaries as unexampled in Europe and peculiar to the Chinese; whereas it is common in many parts of Europe. The mountains of the Pays de Vaud, between Lausanne and Vevay, are cultivated in this manner to their summits with vines. "This would have been impracticable," says Doctor Moore, "on account of the steepness, had not the proprietors built strong stone walls at proper intervals, one above the other, which support the soil, and form little terraces from the bottom to the top of the mountains." But this method of terracing ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... and as it used to be, and as, some day, it will be. But there it is, and if you are going to live out and out like a Christian man, you will get the old sneers flung at you. You will be 'crotchety,' 'impracticable,' 'spoiling sport,' 'not to be dealt with,' 'a wet blanket,' 'pharisaical,' 'bigoted,' and all the rest of the pretty words which have been so frequently used about the men that try to live like Jesus ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... altogether false. Excellent in itself, Jenkins's scheme was difficult, almost impracticable in its application. Yet, God knows, the affair had been started and carried out with the greatest enthusiasm to the last details, with as much money and as large a staff as were requisite. At its head, one ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... written hastily, nor in fact is there one the substance of which has not been for several years in my mind; indeed, in many instances, not only the substance, but the proofs in detail have been actually written: but to have inserted them here would have been impracticable, as they would have been in themselves a volume. Neither have I knowingly remained in ignorance of any argument which may have been used in defence of Mr. Newman's system; I have always desired to know what he and his friends say, and on what grounds they say it; although, ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... failures were regarded by our adventurers with some surprise. Had it never held, there would have been no cause for this; and after so many attempts, they would have been the more inclined to yield up their plan, deeming it impracticable. But the fact of their first success sustained them in the hope that success might again be obtained; and, in this belief, they were encouraged to ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... by no means improperly (for it was a legal requirement, though often evaded, that four months' residence per annum should be observed), persisted; and Scott, after a pleasing but impracticable dream of taking up his summer residence in the Tower of Harden itself, which was offered to him, took a lease of Ashestiel, a pleasant country house,—'a decent farmhouse,' he calls it, in his usual way,—the owner of which was his ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... half bog, it was quite impracticable for heavy-armed soldiers, and hence it offered a refuge to bands of patriots from all the neighbouring districts when worsted ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... in the Russian church), their labours among their flocks, the scanty support which most of them receive, together with their isolated situation in country villages, where few traces of education and civilized life have yet entered, render this almost impracticable." ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various
... stores which such a raft as they intended to build could carry, they at once commenced forming one. The mizzen and part of the mainmast still remained standing; Tom proposed forming shears and trying to hoist out the former; but as this was found impracticable, they cut both the masts away, to serve as the main beams of their raft. Several more spars were got up, and they then began cutting away the spar-deck. They worked on until it was dark, when Pat cooked some supper—the first food they ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... admiration! Men who salute a neighbour as a man of the world, paying him the greatest compliment they know in acknowledging him of their kind, recoil with a sort of fear from the man alien to their thoughts, and impracticable for their purposes. They say "He is beyond me," and despise him. So is there a great world beyond them with which they hold a frightful relationship—that of unrecognized, unattempted duty! Lord Mergwain regarded the odd-looking laird as a fool; the laird looked on him with something ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... Veronese, and entrenched himself by a ditch that extended from Soave to the marshes of the Adige. The count, finding his passage by the plain cut off, resolved to proceed by the mountains, and thus reach Verona, thinking Niccolo would imagine this way to be so rugged and elevated as to be impracticable, or if he thought otherwise, he would not be in time to prevent him; so, with provisions for eight days, he took the mountain path, and with his forces, arrived in the plain, below Soave. Niccolo had, even upon this route, erected some bastions for the purpose of preventing ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... thoughtful men as it was to Lincoln that military force only could save the nation. But now as then, there are men who are discouraged and who say that this process of education will take a long time, and so, once more, the air is full of impracticable remedies—to take the ballot from the Negro—to transport him to Africa, to the West, to the North! The cry is, "the white man's supremacy" at any price. Now, again, is the time for Lincoln's motto, "keep pegging away," and that not merely in a perfunctory way, but by pushing more and more vigorously. ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various
... defendant to be arraigned did not bar a trial before a new jury.[27] The withdrawal of charges after a trial by a general court martial had begun, because the tactical situation brought about by the rapid advance of the army made continuance of the trial impracticable, did not bar a trial before a second court martial.[28] An accused is not put in jeopardy by preliminary examination and discharged by the examining magistrate,[29] by an indictment which is quashed,[30] nor by arraignment and pleading to the indictment.[31] ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... strong in defence of their rights. And money had failed. It was determined that each gentleman should give his plate to be made into coin to supply the needs of the Congregation, as they had the Mint in their hands: but the officials stole away with the "irons" and this was made impracticable. They then sent for a supply to the English envoys who were anxiously watching the progress of events at Berwick: but the sum sent to them in answer to their application was intercepted by the Earl of Bothwell—his first appearance in history, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... difference in their conditions melted away like ice in the sunshine. Would not the result be fraught with tragedy for her? For himself, he was willing, for the sake of his present pleasure, to risk a future wrestling with his impracticable sentiments; but what must be the cost of such a struggle to a frail, sensitive girl, with no compensations whatever in any single phase of her life? Clearly, he was treading on dangerous ground. ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... Eskimoes are trying to push it off, and among the rest two women are standing in the water and pushing manfully. Their position and occupation illustrate the utility of their national female costume of trousers and boots. Skirts would be impracticable when they go out boating and fishing with their husbands or trudge through the deep snow, which lies on the ground more than half a year. Nevertheless they look odd to an unaccustomed eye. The children ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... coast is probably as dangerous for shipping as any round the kingdom. The sandbanks extend in a north-westerly direction for at least six miles, so as to render the navigation extremely difficult even to the natives, and impracticable for strangers. Hence shipwrecks are very frequent;" and "in a coming tide, accompanied by a strong westerly wind, it is almost impossible for boats to put off or to live ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... always anxious to secure articles from Taylor for the Monthly, and even books for his publishing-house. Hence the introduction from Taylor that Borrow carried to London might have been most effective if Phillips had had any use for poor and impracticable ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... idea of joining the rebels by sea impracticable, and as to go by land was perilous in the extreme, I made up my mind to send Nunn back to Havana and to make the venture alone. I did not care to chance his life, and I also felt that it was safer for ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... It was impracticable to descend by means of the fore hatch. That means of communication had already been closed and battened down, owing to the constant flow of water over the bows. Even the after hatch, in spite of the protection afforded by the conning-tower and the raised coaming, ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... goes up to the Upper Town without a continuation of houses; it is impossible to climb up the rock from the Lower Town, as I was employed three weeks upon it with miners and other workmen, to render all the footpaths impracticable; we finished only a few days before the arrival of the English fleet (in 1759). A town built upon a vast extent of ground, which would require an army to defend it, such as Ghent in Flanders, and which might be approached ...
— The Campaign of 1760 in Canada - A Narrative Attributed to Chevalier Johnstone • Chevalier Johnstone
... the morning, and the time the country round, the roads and the station were all lighted up a giorno, by the thousands of lamps of my kind host. What a strange power of suggestion the darkness has! I thought I had travelled a long way that night, and it seemed to me that the roads were impracticable. It proved to be quite a short distance, and the roads were charming, although they were now covered with snow. Imagination had played a great part during the journey to Edison's house, but reality played a much greater ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... together. The Turkish army was nowhere in force or spirit to penetrate into the interior, and the demoralization was such that soldiers deserted from battalions ordered for Crete. The military hospitals in Crete were full, and the troops so mutinous that operations had become impracticable beyond holding and keeping up communication with the blockhouses and posts within ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... stood me in fivepence previous to its arrival at my printer's; though the subscription money was not to be received till the twenty- first week after the commencement of the work; and, lastly, though it was in nine cases out of ten impracticable for me to receive the money for two or three numbers without paying an equal sum for ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... encountering serious difficulties in maintaining our forces at even these reduced levels. Occupation troops are barely sufficient to carry out the duties which our foreign policy requires. Our forces at home are at a point where further reduction is impracticable. We should like an Army and a Navy composed entirely of long-term volunteers, but in spite of liberal inducements the basic needs of the Army are not now being ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... civilized society. It may easily be supposed, that amongst such characters as composed the colony, there must be numbers to whom these sentiments of insubordination must be congenial, and who would eagerly grasp at any projects, however absurd and impracticable, the proposed object of which was their emancipation from the punishment which their crimes had drawn upon them. Men who have obtained a proficiency in crime, and are callous to the voice of conscience, science, are seldom very ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... said, turning to a door, which led to a still more gloomy bedroom, where the only articles of furniture were a great carved bed, with curtains of some undefined dark colour, and an oaken chest. The window was a mere slit, and even more impracticable than that of the outer room. However, this did not seem to horrify Mary so much as it did her daughter. "They cannot mean to keep us here long," she said; "perhaps only for the day, while they make their search—their unsuccessful search—thanks to—we ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mysteries began to haunt the house, and Jo frequently convulsed the family by proposing utterly impossible or magnificently absurd ceremonies, in honor of this unusually merry Christmas. Laurie was equally impracticable, and would have had bonfires, skyrockets, and triumphal arches, if he had had his own way. After many skirmishes and snubbings, the ambitious pair were considered effectually quenched and went about with forlorn faces, which were rather ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... by a strong iron bridge. Leaving the west end of that bridge, we look out of the rear car and send our final message to the Atlantic by the last stream which we shall find going thither. A stupendous, but not impracticable, system of grades next carries us over the axial water-shed of the continent, by the way of Bridger's Pass. One hundred and fifty miles of tortuous descent brings us to Green River,—the stream which farther down becomes the mysterious ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... Byron said, "Crabbe's the man, but he has got a coarse and impracticable subject." (Moore's Life and Letters of Byron, Vol. IV, pp. 63-4.) Leslie Stephen remarks that Crabbe "was admired by Byron in his rather wayward mood of Pope-worship, as the last representative of the legitimate school." (English Literature and Society in the ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... telegraphic message and read, "Scheme impracticable. Cannot compromise with Mortimer. Harper and the Syndicate against ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... vague and impracticable title 'My Novel'! It must really be changed before the work goes in due form ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... retreat of Prague in 1742 the French army, commanded by Marshal Belle-Isle, little accustomed to a winter campaign, was forced to traverse impracticable defiles across mountains and ravines covered with snow. In ten days 4 thousand men perished of cold and misery; food and clothing were deficient, the soldiers died in anguish and despair, and a great many of the officers and soldiers had their ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... his shoulders, and did not answer. He evidently thought the suggestion an impracticable one. These boys are wont to regard the padrone as above all law. His power seems to them absolute, and they never dream of any interference. And, indeed, there is some reason for their cherishing this opinion. However brutal his treatment, ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... laid himself open to the charge of inconsistency. But, though philosophically in the wrong, we cannot but believe that he was poetically in the right. This task, which almost any other writer would have found impracticable, was easy to him. The peculiar art which he possessed of communicating his meaning circuitously through a long succession of associated ideas, and of intimating more than he expressed, enabled him to disguise those incongruities which he ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... governments, but that all governments are, and must always be, mixed. But we may safely challenge Mr Mill to give any definition of power, or to make any classification of governments, which shall bear him out in his assertion that a lasting division of authority is impracticable. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was filled with the tumult of this struggle between democracy and chivalry. The Italian towns, foremost in intelligence and civilisation, led the way with democratic constitutions of an ideal and generally an impracticable type. The Swiss cast off the yoke of Austria. Two long chains of free cities arose, along the valley of the Rhine, and across the heart of Germany. The citizens of Paris got possession of the king, reformed the State, and began their ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... this proposal in cold blood just nineteen hundred years after it was made, it may seem foolishly impracticable; to her, whose whole life was spent in unselfish devotion to her husband's interests, whose warm love for him was always mingled with discretion, it was simply an act of pietas—of wifely duty. Yet he could not for a moment think so himself: his indignation ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... no passages of Scripture which positively require immersion, but various scriptural considerations against it, besides its being always inconvenient, and not unfrequently impracticable, the Pedobaptists have ever thought it fit and requisite, as a general rule, to practise baptism by ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... which he cherished in his large heart, and again of the 'sentiment, jealously hidden but genuine, which extracts the venom from that formidable Thackeray'. Large-hearted and generous to one another, they were ready to face adventure, eager to fight for an ideal, however impracticable it seemed. This was as true of Tennyson, Browning, Matthew Arnold, and all the genus irritabile vatum, as of the politicians and the men of action. They made many mistakes; they were combative, often difficult to deal with. Some of them were deficient in judgement, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... now venerable 'leader' (whom, as he mournfully said, no one would follow), in favour of setting up again an English Presbyterian system which should swallow up all the many designations and varieties of association hitherto prevailing among Unitarians. The proposal was considered impracticable, and the dream of a 'Catholicity' which should embrace all who espoused the free religious position, whatever their doctrines, seemed farther than ever from fulfilment. In later years the idea has, however, continued to be mooted, and some ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant
... local guests of hers. Soon, however, a scheme of putting that discovery to use broke in on her musings. The old friendship must, she feared, be counted dead. General Frayling's existence, in the capacity of husband, rendered any resurrection of it impracticable. She recognized that. Yet exhibition of its tombstone, were such exhibition compassable, could not fail to bring her honour and respect. She would shine by a reflected light, her glory all the greater that the witnesses ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... I must own to missing anything—is companionship and sympathy outside of household affairs. My newspaper work—which she always calls "my business"—has remained a business. The literary aspirations I once had were long since laid aside as impracticable. And the only thing I miss in life beyond my home is, well—as a matter of fact, I don't have any life beyond my home—except, of ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... character of the ancient forms of property. Sometimes the patrimony of the family is absolutely inalienable, as was the case with the Sclavonians, and still oftener, though alienations may not be entirely illegitimate, they are virtually impracticable, as among most of the Germanic tribes, from the necessity of having the consent of a large number of persons to the transfer. Where these impediments do not exist, or can be surmounted, the act of conveyance itself is generally burdened with a ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled," is the central beatitude; in a measure it embraces all the others, for every virtue they inculcate is included in righteousness. But it is often rejected as impracticable because fanciful teachers who substitute subtle definitions for simple duties have twisted its plain words until righteousness is made something so unreasonable as to be repulsive to a right mind. As a matter of fact, it means no more than rightness; the hunger and thirst ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... smile of Plato and of his absolute ideas; and it is impossible to deny that Plato's ideas do often seem unpractical and impracticable, and especially when one views them in connection with the life of a great work-a-day world like the United States. The necessary staple of the life of such a world Plato regards with disdain; handicraft and trade and the working professions he regards with disdain; but ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... "Second—Is it impracticable to put into force the ancient laws limiting the rights of the Jews in the matter of buying and farming land, and in ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... discipline cannot be exerted, unless a proper number of soldiers are united into one body, and actuated by one soul. With a handful of men, such a union would be ineffectual; with an unwieldy host, it would be impracticable; and the powers of the machine would be alike destroyed by the extreme minuteness or the excessive weight of its springs. To illustrate this observation, we need only reflect, that there is no superiority of natural strength, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... left wing of the Pompeians which was the most remote from the base of retreat felt this; but the retreat at least of their centre and their right wing was not accomplished in such haste as to be impracticable under the given conditions. Caesar and his copyists are silent as to the crossing of the river, because this would place in too clear a light the eagerness for battle of the Pompeians apparent otherwise from the whole narrative, and they are also silent as to the conditions ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... pointed out by this finger-post of thought, I sat down and allowed my fancy to carry me into all manner of worthless and impracticable plans of rescue in which I could dispense with Brunow's aid. I was engaged in this unprofitable exercise, when I suddenly discerned a carriage near the hill-top. It came on with difficulty, and the two horses that drew it were dead blown when they reached the level, and stood trembling with their ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... never wasted a moment. Nor, with the very different views of the policy to be pursued, which the emperor and the King of Prussia entertained (Frederick being an advocate of an armed intervention in the affairs of France, which Leopold opposed as impracticable, and, if practicable, impolitic), was it easy to see how a congress could have brought those monarchs to agree on any united system of action. But all projects of that kind necessarily fell to the ground in consequence of the death of the emperor, which took place, after a very short illness, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... on the Sinai Front will then be clear. Naturally it is possible that the position here may demand the inclusion of further effectives and the Yilderim operation consequently become impracticable. This, however, will only prove that the determining factor of the decisive operation for Turkey during the winter of 1917-1918 lies in Palestine and not in Mesopotamia. An offensive on the Sinai Front is ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... permanent and itinerant, were closed. The plan was conceived of not allowing them to be reoepened until they could be occupied by Russian performers. But as the Government recovered from its first rage, this was found to be impracticable. The officers of the garrisons in Poland, however numerous, could never support Russian theaters, and besides, where were the performers to come from? In Warsaw, however, it was determined to force a theater into existence, and ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... justly respected president of one of the oldest Eastern universities published a treatise, which was widely circulated, to prove that the main ideas on which the new university was based were utterly impracticable; and especially that the presentation of various courses of instruction suited to young men of various aims and tastes, with liberty of choice between them, was preposterous. It is interesting to note that this same eminent gentleman was afterward led to adopt this same "impracticable'' ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... definitely sixth-century British or Saxon, as in Blair Leighton's fine painting of the dead Elaine; others—for example, Watts' Sir Galahad—show knight and charger in fifteenth-century armour; while the warriors of Burne Jones wear strangely impracticable armour of some mystic period. Each of these painters was free to follow his own conception, putting the figures into whatever period most appealed to his imagination; for he was not illustrating the actual tales written by Sir Thomas Malory, otherwise he would have found himself face to face ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... in gold dust (if one may believe his word) if it could have been set down in that cabin at that particular moment. He studied the small cuts of the chairs, holding Lovin Child off the page by main strength the while. Wishing one out of the catalogue and into the room being impracticable, he went after the essential features, thinking to make one that ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... north, who opposed the Nebraska and Kansas law was that the law was a violation of existing compromises, designed to extend slavery over free territory, that it ought to be repealed, but, if repeal was impracticable, organized effort should be made to make both territories free states. "Slavery shall gain no advantage over freedom by violating compromises," was the cry of a new party, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... which they masked their designs at the outset—as it were a bit of oiled paper—was soon torn away; the plot betrayed its inherent wickedness from step to step; the instruments selected to execute it have one after another abandoned the task, as quite impracticable for any honest mortal; and now these whilom advocates of "Popular Sovereignty" stand exposed to the scorn and derision of the country, as nothing less than what their opponents all along declared ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... That to run up a Hundred Mile into the Country, and leave the Enemies Towns untaken, and their Armies in a Condition to Recruit, cut off their Convoys and Communication, and make their Subsistence impracticable, was the ready way to destroy them, as has been seen by a woful Example in Spain. But the General was wiser, and regarded more the Safety of the Army, and the Honour of his Mistress; and therefore, by the unanimous Approbation of ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe
... include Goldsmith's Life among the Lives of the Poets. 'The copy-right of She Stoops to Conquer was the property of Carnan the bookseller (surviving partner of F. Newbery); and Carnan being "a most impracticable man and at variance with all his brethren," in the words of Malone to the Bishop, he refused his assent, and the project for the time fell to the ground.' But Percy clearly implies that it was a separate work and not one of the Lives ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... of the strangest kind, is forced on our attention. From a careful review of all the surroundings, we think the Wyoming experiment will lead to beneficial results. By proving that lady jurors are altogether impracticable—that they cannot sit as the peers of men without setting at defiance all the laws of delicacy and propriety—the conclusion may be reached that it will be far better to let nature alone in regulating the relations of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... inoculation taking place here, Merret was inoculated with his family; so that a period of twenty-five years had elapsed from his having the Cow Pox to this time. However, though the variolous matter was repeatedly inserted into his arm, I found it impracticable to infect him with it; an efflorescence only, taking on an erysipelatous look about the centre, appearing on the skin near the punctured parts. During the whole time that his family had the Small Pox, one of whom had it very full, he remained in the house with them, ...
— An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae • Edward Jenner
... Import enporti. Importance graveco. Important grava. Importunate trudema. Importune trudi, trudigxi. Impose (put on) trudi. Impose on trompi. Impossible neebla. Impost imposto. Impostor trompanto. Impotence neebleco. Impoverish malricxigi. Impracticable nefarebla. Impregnable fortika. Impress impresi. Impress (print) presi. Impression (printing) presajxo. Impression impreso. Impressionable impresebla. Impressive impresa. Imprison malliberigi. Improbable neversxajna. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... us set out together, under the pretext of quite a different journey. For two days we walked in the midst of mountains, by paths almost impracticable. The third day we reached a torrent, the bed of which was blocked up by enormous stones. This ravine was the only road by which we could get to Tapuzi; it was the natural and impregnable rampart which defended the village against the attack of the ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere |
