"Incapable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... minds cannot imagine motion without some Power moving through the medium of some subordinate agency, ever acting on the sun, to send such floods of light and heat to our otherwise cold and dark terrestrial ball; but it is the overwhelming magnitude of such power that we are incapable of comprehending. The agency necessary to throw out the floods of flame seen during the few moments of a total eclipse of the sun, and the power requisite to burst open a cavity in its surface, such as could entirely engulph our earth, will ever set all the ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... anything equal to it on shore. We were seated on the deck, women and all, in the serenest evening that can be imagined. Not a single cloud presented itself to our view, and the sun himself was the only object which engrossed our whole attention. He did indeed set with a majesty which is incapable of description, with which, while the horizon was yet blazing with glory, our eyes were called off to the opposite part to survey the moon, which was then at full, and which in rising presented us with the second object that this world hath offered to our vision. Compared to these the pageantry ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... Hopes have indeed been expressed by some Austrophils in the good-will of the new Austrian Emperor on account of his amiable character. The Slavs have ample reason to distrust the Habsburgs who have proved to be treacherous autocrats in the past, and whose records show them as an incapable and degenerate family. As a political power Kaiser Karl is the same menace to his subject Slavs as his predecessors. Above all, however, he is of necessity a blind tool in the hands of Germany, and he cannot possibly extricate himself from her firm ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... hesitation. "The Old Prospector, you know, before his death had made a very rich find, but died without staking his claim. The secret of its location he entrusted to Mr. Macgregor and the doctor. The doctor, in a fit of drunkenness, gave the secret away to Carroll and Crawley, who, leaving him incapable from drink, set off at ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... was said on the subject of adaptation as a universal phenomenon of nature. It was not contended that perfection is attained by any living mechanism, but it was held that no place exists in nature for an organism that is incapable of adjusting itself to the manifold conditions of life. A modus vivendi must be established and some satisfactory degree of adaptation must be attained, or else an animal or a species must perish. With this ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... inevitable. When a political refugee is quiet his person should be held sacred; and it was very dastardly on the part of the French to demand to have this Arab Sheikh given up. But the French mind is incapable of comprehending what is a political asylum, or even what is constitutional freedom. Local politics still stick close to our ghafalah, and the people have such faith in my power and influence, that they really believe I could, if I would, get Ghadames ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... slave-driving, Virginian, Jeffersonian school; principled against all improvement; with all the interests and passions and vices of slavery rooted in his moral and political constitution; with talents not above mediocrity, and a spirit incapable of expansion to the dimensions of the station on which he has been cast by the hand of Providence, unseen, through the apparent agency of chance. To that benign and healing hand of Providence I trust, in humble hope of the good ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... after a girl is fifteen years old, in this country, she considers herself a person of sound judgment, and the parents look up to these sprites with a sort of deferential fear. These girls are simply living pictures walking about the earth, deriding everything they are incapable of understanding. And who could be charmed with such women? with such 'Grecian Bends,' Grecian noses? The genuine well-bred woman will shine out from beneath the plainest garb; and shoddy vulgarity, even should it be incased ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... second boche who like the first had been squatted down rose to his feet, slowly, it seemed, alongside me. We were both bereft of speech from the surprise; the fellow under me was incapable of locomotion as well, for while I felt him squirm ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... despair, was only a bondage and a pain to her. She loved best of all the animals, that were single and unsocial as she herself was. She loved the horses and cows in the field. Each was single and to itself, magical. It was not referred away to some detestable social principle. It was incapable of soulfulness and tragedy, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... works of other writers who could see. That foolish fellow Spence has laboured to explain philosophically how Blacklock may have done, by his own faculties, what it is impossible he should do. The solution, as I have given it, is plain. Suppose I know a man to be so lame that he is absolutely incapable to move himself, and I find him in a different room from that in which I left him, shall I puzzle myself with idle conjectures that perhaps his nerves have, by some unknown change, all at once become effective? No, sir; it is clear how he got into ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... to lose!" cried Mr. Effingham, on whose bosom Eve lay, nearly incapable of motion. "The food and water are in the boat, and in the name of a merciful God, let us escape from this scene of ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... may be pursued, and such works may be performed, with a common share of judgment, experience, and industry. The genius of Cicero and Virgil was more sensibly felt, as each revolving age had been found incapable of producing a similar or a second: but the most eminent teachers of the law were assured of leaving disciples equal or superior to themselves in ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... women will redeem mankind. On men he builds little hope. To speak roughly, men are all in Peer Gynt's case, or Torvald Helmer's. They are swathed in timid conventions, blindfolded with selfishness, so that they cannot perceive, and unable with their own hands to tear off these bandages. They are incapable of the highest renunciation. "No man," says Torvald Helmer, "sacrifices his honor, even for one he loves." Those who heard Miss Achurch deliver Nora's reply will not easily forget it. "Millions of women have done so." The effect in the ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was never above mediocrity, and was dropped as corporal in the junior class and served the last year as a private. W. H. Seward was called "too stupid to learn." Napoleon graduated forty-second in his class. "Who," asks Swift, "were the forty-one above him?" Darwin was singularly incapable of mastering any language. "When he left school," he says, "I was considered by all my masters and by my father as a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect. To my deep mortification, my father ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... present moment, the great majority of Buddhists would probably be quite incapable of understanding the abstract speculation of their ancient masters. The view taken of Nirvana in China, Mongolia, and Tatary may probably be as gross as that which most of the Mohammedans form of their ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... Rhyme is incapable of expressing the greatest thoughts, naturally; and the lowest, it cannot, with any grace. For what is more unbefitting the majesty of Verse, than 'to call a servant,' or 'bid a door be shut' in Rhyme? And yet, this miserable necessity ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... Boyden is a gentle, brave and honest man, and utterly incapable of committing such a crime," cried Violet, with much feeling. "Besides, sir, he can have had no possible reason ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... the stone mazes furrowing this Atlantic seafloor, Captain Nemo moved forward without hesitation. He knew this dark path. No doubt he had often traveled it and was incapable of losing his way. I followed him with unshakeable confidence. He seemed like some Spirit of the Sea, and as he walked ahead of me, I marveled at his tall figure, which stood out in black against the ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... that the Church is not susceptible of being reformed in her doctrines. The Church is the work of an Incarnate God. Like all God's works, it is perfect. It is, therefore, incapable of reform. Is it not the height of presumption for men to attempt to improve upon the work of God? Is it not ridiculous for the Luthers, the Calvins, the Knoxes and the Henries and a thousand lesser lights to be offering their amendments to the Constitution of the Church, as if it were ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... the 18th Brumaire, to you within an hour?"—"I defy you to do it."—"I have made myself responsible for him, and I know what I am about. He is violent in his politics; but he is a man of honour, incapable of failing in his word."—" Well, we shall see. Go and find him." I was very sure of doing what I had promised, for within an hour before I had seen M. Moreau de Worms. He had been concealed since the 13th Brumaire, and had not ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... than the former, though this was done only at the tower of Antonia. So Caesar went his rounds through the legions, and hastened on the works, and showed the robbers that they were now in his hands. But these men, and these only, were incapable of repenting of the wickednesses they had been guilty of; and separating their souls from their bodies, they used them both as if they belonged to other folks, and not to themselves. For no gentle affection could touch their souls, nor could any ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... opposite shore—another commodious pan. In the black water of the arm there floated white blocks of ice. Some were manifestly substantial: a leaping man could pause to rest; but many—necessary pans, these, to a crossing of the lane—were as manifestly incapable of ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... below the Enns, only 3.8 per cent. of the soil is barren; in the Tyrol, 29 per cent.; in Dalmatia, 48.1 per cent. (Springer). In the French Pyrenees, 43 per cent. is considered incapable of cultivation; in the Alps, in Landes and Morbihan, 42 per cent.; in the departments of Nord and Somme, 1.3 per cent. (Schnitzler). Franscini considers 36 per cent. of Switzerland unfit for tillage. The idea "barren" is a very vague one, and hence a ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... restore the fortune of the day. Much room could not be found in this disorderly battle for the talents of a general; but the king fled before the hero, and the Vandals, accustomed only to a Moorish enemy, were incapable of withstanding the arms and ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... Romans and the Emperor Anastasius. Now when this Ambazouces had reached an advanced age and was near to death, he sent to Anastasius asking that money be given him, on condition that he hand over the fortress and the Caspian Gates to the Romans. But the Emperor Anastasius was incapable of doing anything without careful investigation, nor was it his custom to act thus: reasoning, therefore, that it was impossible for him to support soldiers in a place which was destitute of all good things, and which had nowhere in the neighbourhood a nation subject to the Romans, ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... said that the constant progression of the powers of the mind affords another proof of its immortality. Concerning this, Addison remarks, "Were a human soul ever thus at a stand in her acquirements, were her faculties to be full blown and incapable of further enlargement, I could imagine that she might fall away insensibly and drop at once into a state of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking being that is in a perpetual progress of improvement, and traveling on from perfection to perfection after having just looked abroad into the ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... candle in his hand, than she started back in a most terrible fright, and might perhaps have swooned away, had he not now recollected his being undrest, and put an end to her terrors by desiring her to stay without the door till he had thrown some cloathes over his back, and was become incapable of shocking the pure eyes of Mrs Deborah Wilkins, who, though in the fifty-second year of her age, vowed she had never beheld a man without his coat. Sneerers and prophane wits may perhaps laugh at her first fright; yet my graver ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... morning could not be far off. He rode mechanically, his horse, which knew the road, taking him at its own pace. The night was cold, but he did not feel it. All power of feeling anything seemed gone from him. The last two days and nights of suspense and high-strung emotion seemed to have left him incapable of any further sensation at present beyond that of ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... a word?" She would have thought herself to be utterly incapable, before Ruth had come, of showing so much weakness; but her reserve gave way as she admitted in her own heart the kindness of Rebecca, and she became conquered and humbled. She was so terribly in want of his love at this moment! "And has he sent no word of a message ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... comes to them. Oftentimes the most immediate and drastic means of bringing them to themselves is to elect them to legislative or executive office. That will reduce over-sanguine persons to their simplest terms. Not because they find their fellow legislators or officials incapable of high purpose or indifferent to the betterment of the communities which they represent. Only cynics hold that to be the chief reason why we approach the millennium so slowly, and cynics are usually very ill-informed ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... twelve Jane Haden, who had been sitting quietly at home, went up to the "Chequers" to look after her husband, and to see about his being brought home should he be incapable of walking. The music was still playing in the dancing booths, but the dancing was kept up without spirit, for a number of young men and lads were gathered outside. As she passed she caught a few words which were sufficient to inform her of what was going on. ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... which echoed from three or four different corners of the house. The waiters were so distracted by a variety of calls, that they stood motionless, in the state of the schoolman's ass between two bundles of hay, incapable of determining where they should ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... XV., vicious, selfish and incapable, always tied to the petticoat and caprices of some new mistress, and the unfortunate Nicholas II., well-intentioned, and almost fanatically religious, the affectionate father and the devoted husband, no comparison is possible, except as regards their ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... out her paper and blotting-book, intending, as she said to herself, to write to Fanny, knowing, however, that the letter when written would be destroyed; but she was not able even to form a word. Her hand was unsteady and her eyes were dim and her thoughts were incapable of being fixed. She could only sit, and think, and wonder and hope; occasionally wiping the tears from her eyes, and asking herself why her present frame of mind was so painful to her? During the last two or three months ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... that day, saying she certainly was tired; but, the next, she insisted on getting up; and Dr. Donaldson gave his consent to her returning into the drawing-room. She was restless and uncomfortable in every position, and before night she became very feverish. Mr. Hale was utterly listless, and incapable of deciding on anything. ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... "You are incapable," answered Morton, boldly, "of appreciating my feelings towards that young lady; but all that I have done I would have ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... What was his standpoint? He explained it to you. He was detached, unbiased, putting on to his canvas that which he saw behind the mere outer mask. When I saw Forbes's bust, one of two things was certain: either he was incapable of seeing below the surface, or in this particular case he was incapable of doing so. I could not decide until I had seen other work of his. To-day I know he is as capable with his chisel as Musgrave is with his brush. You have only to study the standing ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... a regiment of which he commanded, he writes: "I often have seen them march with a broken or compound fractured arm in splints, and using the other to fire the rifle or revolver. Those with a fractured thigh or wounds which rendered them incapable of removal, shot themselves. Such men do not turn up in the average of everyday life, nor do I ever expect to see their like again. All military science failed on a suddenly given field before such assailants, who came at a run to close with their revolvers and who thought little ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... always say the same thing. It is none the less certain that after the lapse of a year she retained but an indistinct recollection of some of the important acts of her life. Finally, her constant hallucinations generally rendered her incapable of distinguishing between the ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... could hear was the gurgle and hissing of the water as it curled over the gunwales and eddied in the bottom of the boat. Bagg felt the water rise over his legs—creep to his waist—rise to his chest—and still ascend. Through those seconds he was incapable of action. He did ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... he was incapable of moving, of helping himself, at any rate until assistance came. And the water was rising, of course. Would rescue or the water ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... justice, endeavor to punish him for another's misdeeds by telling him that, if he please, you would prefer to ride alone. As he reins back, you feel a decided sinking of the heart and again become conscious that you are oddly incapable of doing anything properly, and then, suddenly, it flashes upon you that the master was right in his judgment, and you fly into a small fury of determination to show him that you can exist "without a gentleman." Down go your hands, ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... assassins in the dark, undermined their fair fame, and morally murdered them, long before their deaths, by daily traducing virtues the slanderers never possessed, from mere jealousy of the glory they knew themselves incapable ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... sell his children, "a girl up to fourteen, a boy under seven." And after that period a wayward or troublesome son or daughter, or any of the offspring, when the parents could be proved financially incapable of their care, could be ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... incapable of doing any thing. The good Etienne, touched with my condition, took his fowling-piece, and went into the neighbouring woods, to endeavour to shoot me some game. An old vulture was the only produce of the chase. He brought ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... advance to the propositions laid down by Professor Rankine, as the exponent of the hitherto received theory of the whole subject. When a screw or paddle wheel is put in motion, a body of water is driven astern and the ship is driven ahead. Water, from its excessive mobility, is incapable of giving any resistance to the screw or paddle save that due to its inertia. If, for example, we conceive of the existence of a sea without any inertia, then we can readily understand that the water composing such a sea would offer no resistance to being pushed astern by paddle or screw. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... supposing that principles, which are to regulate the conduct of responsible beings, should be left to the chance of being unfolded by processes of reasoning, in which different minds may arrive at different conclusions, and in regard to which many are incapable of following out any argument at all. What is called the argument a priori for the existence and attributes of the Deity, for instance, conveys little that is conclusive to most minds, and to many is entirely incomprehensible. The same observation may be applied to those well-intended and able ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... the King spoke very harshly to Louvois, but certainly he did not treat him as has been pretended, for the King was incapable of such an action. Louvois was a brute and an insolent person; but he served the King faithfully, and much better than any other person. He did not, however, forget his own interest, and played his cards very well. He was horribly depraved, and by his impoliteness and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... sun, in the change of day and night, of spring and winter, of birth and death. But, although the Divine presence was felt everywhere, it was impossible in that early period of thought, and with a language incapable as yet of expressing anything but material objects, to conceive the idea of God in its purity and fullness, or to assign to it an adequate and worthy expression. Children cannot think the thoughts ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... United States. Some of them I fear are unfit for the positions they occupy. But the cause in which we are embarked will require, to be successful, the efforts of every man. Those capable of performing military duty, must perform it; and those physically incapable of wielding the bayonet and the sword, must wield the pen. It is no time to stand on ceremony or antecedents. The post of duty is the post of honor. In the mighty winnowing we must go through, the wheat will be separated from the chaff. And many a true man who this day ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... the Powers have in the past been so hampered by the traditions of a tortuous diplomacy, so tossed and perturbed within by the cross-currents of intrigue, that they have shown themselves almost childishly incapable of arriving at clear-cut decisions. Old policies, old formulae, old jealousies, old dynastic influences still hold control of the majority of the chancelleries of Continental Europe, and these things it is that have made questions simple ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... me. Worn out in mind and body alike, I was perfectly incapable of pursuing any regular train of thought. I vaguely felt—if I left things as they were—that I could never hope to remove the shadow which now rested on the married life that had begun so brightly. We might live together, so as to save ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... dear wife.' You understand that, Raoul. However brutal my reasoning may appear, I conjure you, then, to believe me, and to turn away your thoughts from those early days of youth in which you took up this habit of love—days of effeminate carelessness, which soften the heart and render it incapable of consuming those strong, bitter draughts called glory and adversity. Therefore, Raoul, I repeat to you, you should see in my counsel only the desire of being useful to you, only the ambition of seeing you prosper. I believe you capable of ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... one but two. This being premised, let us consider whether one is capable either of motion or rest. For motion is either change of substance, or motion on an axis, or from one place to another. But the one is incapable of change of substance, which implies that it ceases to be itself, or of motion on an axis, because there would be parts around the axis; and any other motion involves change of place. But existence in place has been already shown to be impossible; and yet more impossible ...
— Parmenides • Plato
... so till after long ages it is re-discovered, and valued as belonging to a neo-rubbish age—containing, perhaps, traces of a still older paleo-rubbish civilisation. So when people are old, indigent, and in all respects incapable, we hold them in greater and greater contempt as their poverty and impotence increase, till they reach the pitch when they are actually at the point to die, whereon they become sublime. Then we place every resource our hospitals can command at their disposal, and ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... little friend's reproach, and saw that she had done her injustice in thinking her youth rendered her incapable of that perfection of friendship, which might justify the accepting of her offer; she acknowledged her error, and assured her she would comply if she had no other means of obtaining the instruction she proposed to purchase for her; but that was not the ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... never heard the story of the return of Captain Bartlett in detail; his Esquimo boys were incapable of telling it, and Captain Bartlett is altogether ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... unfamiliar dress was introduced to awaken the critical spirit. The young men, looking in their Sunday clothes like awkward and tawdry imitations of their workaday selves, were instructed by Brother Spence; and Brother Bowden, being the kindliest, gentlest, most incapable man of the band of brothers, was given the charge of the boys' Second Class, a class of youthful heathen, rampageous, fightable, and flippant, who made the good man's life a misery to him, and were at war with all authority. Peterson, Jacker Mack, Dolf Belman, ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... possessed me, I spoke of the revival as a possible thing in the hearing of the servants. The whole household accompanied us to the Deadhouse, at the opposite extremity of the building. What we saw there, I am utterly incapable of describing to you. I was in time to take the necessary measures for keeping Mrs. Wagner composed, and for removing her without injury to Mr. Keller's house. Having successfully accomplished this, I presumed that my anxieties were at an ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... he said. "I think I will," and he turned and left the room. He still seemed dazed and incapable of realising what was ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... rather penetrated by sudden affliction than by joy. But how different was all within to what appeared without! My partner-in-all received it at his bureau, and felt an impatience so unconquerable to communicate so extreme a pleasure that he quitted everything to hasten home; for he was incapable of going on with his business. How satisfactory, also, is all the intelligence ! how gaily, with what spirit written ! . ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... which you cite, are justified by remarks in this Report and some previous judgments of the same tribunal, which appear to you so inconsistent with each other as to make it difficult to believe that the Court was impartial, or "incapable of regarding the documents before it in the light of a plastic material, which might be made to support conclusions held to be advisable at the moment, and on independent grounds." I wish these words had never been written. They will, I fear, be understood as conveying ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... demonstrated scientific truths, and the uncertain, though probable conclusions deduced from them; and when the latter, as occasionally happened, proved to be at variance with practice, it is not surprising: that this should have produced a feeling of distrust on the part of persons incapable, from an imperfect, and still oftener from no knowledge of science, of drawing the line of demarcation, which Liebig frequently omitted to do, between the positive fact and the hypothetical inference, which, however ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... active in disintegrating feldspar and the clay derived from its decomposition. ... The leaves belong to the soil. Without them it cannot preserve its fertility, and cannot furnish nutriment to the beech. The trees languish, produce seed incapable of germination, and the spontaneous self-sowing, which is an indispensable element in the best systems of sylviculture, fails altogether in the bared and impoverished soil." [Footnote: Vaupell, Bogens Indvandring i ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... in his utterances? was there no cant, no hypocrisy? Did he never conceal the ambition and domineering spirit of the soldier under the humility of the saint? Another matter quite. Because a man is religious in the main, it follows not that he is incapable of occasionally practising hypocrisy: he may lapse as well into this, as into any crime of the decalogue. Although we might find it difficult to put our finger exactly upon the spot, and say, Here speaks the hypocrite, we are not without suspicion ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... events do spring. The skipper sprang four yards, and let off a screech which was the subject of much comment on the barque which had just passed. When Bob, who came shuffling up at the double, reached him he was leaning against the side, incapable of speech, ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... vultis and the enclitic -ne, which is used to introduce a question, and is incapable of translation. Num (line 21) introduces a question to which a negative answer is expected, and is likewise not to be translated, except in so far as its effect is reproduced by the form of the question or the tone of incredulity with ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.
... been claimed for Father Lana and his mathematical and other attainments that it seems only right to insist on the weakness of his reasoning. An air ship simply drifting with the wind is incapable of altering its course in the slightest degree by either sail or rudder. It is simply like a log borne along in a torrent; but to compare such a log properly with the air ship we must conceive it ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... judgment and discretion were so necessary in political affairs, all the circumstances combined to hasten a perilous crisis, and to give full scope to the passionate impulses of Mackenzie's nature. Sir John Colborne was replaced in the government of the province by one of the most incapable governors ever chosen by the colonial office, Sir Francis Bond Head. He had been chiefly known in England as a sprightly writer of travels, and had had no political experience except such as could be gathered in the discharge of the duties of a poor-law commissioner in Wales. ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... of a second marriage, and by a first marriage her mother had given birth to a son and a daughter, who were the inheritors of the peerage, both of whom were still living. The son was, however, an idiot, had been declared incapable of attending to his affairs, and was shut up in Saint Lazare, at Paris. The daughter had taken the veil, and was mistress of the novices at the Abbaye-aux-Bois. The peerage had thus, it might almost be said, become extinct, for it was vested in an idiot, who ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... father was a stern, silent man, with but one bright thing in his life,—his love for my mother. Whenever she came before his eyes, the sun rose in his face, but for me he had no great affection; he was incapable of dividing his heart. I have now and then seen a man with ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... It must, of course, be held anywhere except "dead on," for then the part round the axis would not get ground; this inoperative portion of the rotating tool must therefore be allowed to distribute its incapable efforts evenly over the nest ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... and Protestants, and summer people. It was generally inert and negative in spirit, seldom actively loyal. At its best it was willing that leaders should lead and pay the price, and be more admired than upheld. At its worst it was alert to private and blind to public interests, peevish of change, incapable of foresight. ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... acute change of feeling so that the subject who, before dinner, had felt she would like to play a new composition on the piano so as to obtain the opinion of the guest who had exhibited the critical tone, after dinner felt incapable of doing so. Her feelings had been hurt on many former occasions by critical remarks made by him in that tone. The critical remarks were not called to memory but there arose the feeling that under no circumstances could she play ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... "He [Paine] is utterly incapable of comprehending his subject. He has not even a moderate portion of learning of any kind. He has learned the instrumental part of literature, without having ever made a previous preparation of study for the use of it. Paine has nothing more than what a man, whose audacity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... thus, I conceive that I am simply honest and truthful, and show a proper regard for the economy of time. So Hume's strong and subtle intellect takes up a great many problems about which we are naturally curious, and shows us that they are essentially questions of lunar politics, in their essence incapable of being answered, and therefore not worth the attention of men who have work to do in the world. And he thus ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... wealth could move him. The subject had not only lost interest, but mere casual thought of its details brought on a faint repetition of the mental lethargy. The sight of the press and its varied appurtenances threw his mind into the defensive blank coma which rendered him incapable of the simplest intellectual effort. This was something as outside Bobby's control as the beating of his heart. He did not understand it, nor attempt ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... uneasiness which arises from the misfortunes of another, so envy is an uneasiness that proceeds from the good success of another: therefore whoever is capable of pity, is capable of envy. But a wise man is incapable of envy, and consequently incapable of pity. But were a wise man used to grieve, to pity also would be familiar to him; therefore to grieve, is a feeling which cannot affect a wise man. Now, though these reasonings ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... quite plainly towards what rock we were drifting. We had met losses at Hochstedt, Gibraltar, and Barcelona; Catalonia and the neighbouring countries were in revolt; Italy yielding us nothing but miserable successes; Spain exhausted; France, failing in men and money, and with incapable generals, protected by the Court against their faults. I saw all these things so plainly that I could not avoid making reflections, or reporting them to my friends in office. I thought that it was time to finish the war before we ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... of handling a complicated business like the railways; as for the Provisional Government, it has shown itself incapable ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... at the highest estimate," he said, "I do not know that you, or even I, Miss Rexford, need hold ourselves incapable of entering into them." This was not exactly what he would have felt if left to himself, but it was what her upbraiding wrung from him. He continued: "Even if we had the sure expectation for to-night ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... married a man she did not love, that she might mount one step higher, and finally she sacrificed her child to her devouring ambition. When she reached the goal she had visioned from the first, she was no longer a human being, with powers of enjoyment or suffering. She was, instead, a monster, incapable of appreciating what she had won, and ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... with all his efforts, he is not able to perform, is undoubtedly to be justified in addicting himself rather to easier studies, and endeavouring to quit that which is above his attainment, for that which nature has not made him incapable of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... turned away. Still, looking back, I caught the waft of a light dress among the fern, and frowned as the sound of laughter came down the wind. These people had been making merry, I thought, at my expense, though I had fancied Miss Carrington incapable of ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... father had accused her of untruthfulness; but an imploring look from her mother, just as she was going to speak, silenced her, and she suffered to herself till her father had gone, and then indignantly declared that John Grange was incapable of telling ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... the proportion of a level teaspoonful to the quart of water. Parents will find the little ear syringe, which may be purchased at any drug store, a most satisfactory instrument for giving enemas to infants, as they do not hold too much, and being soft, are incapable of tearing the delicate tissues of the child. It is of the utmost importance to remember that the salt solution should be tepid, yet not sufficiently hot to scald the infant. As the water when given in this way is expelled very quickly ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... are young intellects so imperfect as to be incapable of distinguishing between fancy and falsehood, it is most desirable to develop in them the power to do so, but, as a rule, in childhood, we appreciate the distinction with a vivacity which as elders our care- ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... Whilst I was thus employed, Mr. Poole and Mr. Stuart were on the ranges, and both, as well as the men generally, continued in good health; but I was exceedingly anxious about Mr. Browne, who had a low fever on him, and was just then incapable of much fatigue; nevertheless he begged so hard to be permitted to accompany me on my contemplated journey, that ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... Louisiana, viz., in 1808, 1825 and 1870. The marriage laws are substantially the same in all, but bear different numbers in each code. The following references are to the code of 1870. Except in a very limited number of cases the husband and wife are incapable of making binding contracts with each other during the marriage. Hence all settlements of property, to be binding, must be executed before marriage and in solemn form, that is, before a notary and two male witnesses having the proper qualifications. The betrothed are ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... do as you think fitt, but let me beg of you to give such Comitions to somebody else; as I never could be the author of any such advice, so I am incapable of acting in an affair that will do you, Sir, infinite prejudice, and cover me with dishonour, and am, besides these Considerations, grown so infirm that I beg your R.H. will be graciously pleased to give me leave to retire. . . . I may have been mistaken in ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... strange if children were quite incapable of doing what is so plainly required of them. It is true that they can be taught to reach the extreme of foolishness in the insignificance of the details that they mention. But it is also true that a fair ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... researches or papers, he would turn away abruptly, as if highly indignant. If he was appealed to as authority upon any point, he would dart away, and perhaps quit the hall for the evening. This man of great genius and vast acquirements was incapable of understanding or enduring praise or flattery. He sought in every possible way to escape recognition or notice, listened attentively to conversation, but seldom asked questions; never spoke of himself, or of what he had accomplished in the ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... as his spirit is free; but let him once be persuaded that his soul is chained down forever in adamantine fetters, and, though, like Prometheus, he may endure with silence, patience, even divinely, he is nevertheless utterly incapable of any positive effort towards recuperation. His faith becomes, by a subtile law of our being, his fact; the mountain is gifted with actual motion, and rewards the temerity of his zeal by falling upon him and crushing ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... downstairs, directing her maid, who cried for joy at the news, and then going out to purchase those needments which had become such tokens of exquisite hope and joy. After this had once begun, she seemed really incapable of sitting still, for every moment she thought of something her boy would want or would like, or hurried to ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... failures of representative government as they knew it. So far, as I have knowledge, no Irishman during the past century of effort for political freedom took the trouble to think out a form of government befitting Irish circumstance and character. We left it absolutely to those whom we declared incapable of understanding us or governing us to devise for us a system by which we might govern ourselves. I do not criticize those who devised the new machinery of self-government, but those who did not devise it, and who discouraged the ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... their structure may be frail, and they may be incapable of violence or harm, but the depth of the footprints indicates a weight of at least one hundred and thirty pounds, and it certainly requires some muscular strength to break off a branch ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... thereafter till the day of his death he may feel it almost a physical impossibility to gulp down a morsel of the offending fruit. So, too, there are people who can bolt their food with the best of us, who yet declare themselves incapable of ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... thousand acres there, and when you have passed your present Inclosure Bill, your income will be doubled, (there's a metaphor, worthy of a Templar, namely, pert and low,) while my wild common is too remote to incommode you, and quite incapable of such fertility. I send you (which return per post, as the printer would say) a curious letter from a friend of mine[83], which will let you into the origin of 'The Giaour.' Write soon. Ever, dear Moore, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... never, unless their views of him are changed. They have no fear of God before their eyes. If mercy absorbed every other attribute, there could be no place for fear. And of what enormity are those incapable who have lost the fear of God? Such corruption of principle is the bane of practice, and prelude of ruin and wretchedness. The history of the Hebrews, and the history of mankind, confirm the truth of ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... was," said he weakly, his shaken mind incapable of comprehending things as they were, his abasement over the breach that he had committed being so profound. She withdrew her hand. When it was gone out of his, he remembered how warm it was with the tide ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... a weak, undeveloped brain center would be incapable of receiving strong mental impulses from its coordinated mind center, and of transmitting them in full strength to the particular muscles governed by that mind center. This is why, if a man's brain center of courage is undeveloped, even ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... Gaea, Demeter and Isis, the deities of inexhaustible fertility and abundance. These early races of men realised themselves only as a part of nature; they had not yet conceived the idea of rising above their condition and setting their intelligence to battle with its blind laws. Incapable of realising their individuality, they bowed in passive submission to nature's undisputed sway. They were members of a tribe, and the fragmentary existence of the single individual was of no importance when it clashed with the welfare of the clan. The family—centred round the mother—and the ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... kind, so hostile, so terrible, that he dared not penetrate it. It was not that an actual restraint lay upon him: he knew, that is, that the door was open; yet it needed an effort of the will of which his paralysis of terror rendered him incapable.... ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... arising from the combustion of coke, producing carbonic acid gas, which in large quantities was fatal to life. He showed, for instance, that in the proposed Box tunnel, on the Great Western Railway, the passage of 100 tons would deposit about 3090 lbs. of noxious gases, incapable of supporting life! Here was an uncomfortable prospect of suffocation for passengers between London and Bristol. But steps were adopted to allay these formidable sources of terror. Solemn documents, in the form of certificates, were got up and published, signed by several of the most distinguished ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... servant is a chilly and statuesque image of propriety. The French is an intelligent and sympathizing friend. You can make of him what you like. But the Italian, and still more the Spaniard, is as gay as a child, and as incapable of intentional disrespect. The Castilian grandee does not regard his dignity as in danger from a moment's chat with a waiter. He has no conception of that ferocious decorum we Anglo-Saxons require from our manservants ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... him—the thought made her smile. But no, he had brothers and sisters, probably uncles and aunts and cousins. He would have to share his half with them. And one of his sisters was the sort of woman she had been taught to despise and abhor. It was all a horrible tangle, which she felt herself incapable to see through at once. She was not sure that she could tell Archie or even her new cousin, anyway not until she had thought it out more clearly and knew the case in ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... much worth having without expense. The main question is only—what is worth doing and having:—Consider, therefore, if this be not. Here is your iron railing, as yet, an uneducated monster; a sombre seneschal, incapable of any words, except his perpetual "Keep out!" and "Away with you!" Would it not be worth some trouble and cost to turn this ungainly ruffian porter into a well-educated servant; who, while he was severe as ever in forbidding entrance to evilly-disposed people, should yet have a kind ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... reason why it is so hard to form any just opinion of detectives in general is that (except by their fruits) there is little opportunity to discriminate between the able and the incapable. Now, the more difficult and complicated his task the less likely is the sleuth (honest or otherwise) to succeed. The chances are a good deal more than even that he will never solve the mystery for which he ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... or too destitute of fellow-feeling, should rather reflect on ourselves, who have been so much better favoured, yet have neglected to teach them, than on those who, whilst they are sinning, know not what they are doing. To say a negro is incapable of instruction, is a mere absurdity; for those few boys who have been educated in our schools have proved themselves even quicker than our own at learning; whilst, amongst themselves, the deepness of their cunning and their power of repartee ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... brains in civilization, is but slightly drawn upon or exercised; she is not so much wasted as not used. Having by fortune and tradition nothing to do, she remains passive till events and time make her incapable of doing, while the world glitters past in its various activity, throwing her incapacity into ever stronger relief, till her time is over and the general muddle is given a kind of sacredness, even of beauty, by ceasing. She has done nothing but live and been nothing but alive, both ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... his system of morals on the severest mathematical lines, taking as his starting-point a vacuum and atoms, and who after stretching his intellect on a constant rack of searching inquiry for years, came at last to the unhappy conclusion that man is absolutely incapable of positive knowledge, and that even if truth is in his possession he can never be certain of it. Was he, Theos Alwyn, wiser than Democritus? ... or was this stately Chaldean monk, with the clear, pathetic eyes and tender smile, and the symbol of Christ on his breast, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... cards had only been dealt and the hand was yet to play. Put your marks on each of the places named—Mafeking, Kimberley, De Aar, Naauwport, Stormberg—note their individual and relative importance, the distances severing them from one another, the small bodies of men scattered among them, incapable through weakness and remoteness of supporting each other, and with no common supports behind. Mafeking is from Kimberley 223 miles; Kimberley from De Aar, 146; De Aar from Naauwport, 69; Naauwport from Stormberg 80, as the crow flies over a difficult country, at least 130 by rail. All ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the dangers of invasions from ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... these islands, within fifteen days one hundred and sixty adults and five children forsook the dark wilderness of infidelity for the light of the gospel. Among them was one old woman one hundred and thirty years of age—blind, deaf, incapable of motion; for, wherever she was carried, there she remained like an unmoving stone. Afterward in other places there were baptized five hundred adults and two infants. When they returned on a second mission, after an interval of three months, eight hundred and thirty-seven were ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... who are incapable of invention, are tempted at once by their indolence, and by the hope of not being discovered or minded in their borrowing from others, to give stale or hackneyed compositions, which having seen in one country, they flatter themselves they may palm for new and original upon the ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... difference of view becomes at once a difference of aim. The moral element enters immediately, and those who believe otherwise are designated unbelievers, though we do not at once stamp those who think otherwise as incapable of thought. Here lies the great difficulty in considering and treating calmly religious, or rather, theological questions. There is little hope of reaching a mutual understanding when the first attack is characterised by such vigour as was shown by the Horseherd ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... cannot help breaking out into an expression of impatience. Indeed, not only Plato, but Athens itself, represents to Dr. Draper's mind the mere raw youth, the mere ambitious immaturity of Grecian intellect, amusing itself with "faith" because incapable of "reason." He finds its higher and only rational stage at Alexandria, at Syracuse, or wherever results in physical science were attained. In Aristotle, indeed, he is able to have some complacency, since the Stagirite ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... read no more, for the tall printer, seemingly incapable of coherent speech, kicked the desk impotently, threw his arms above his head, and, his companions confidently looking to see him foam at the mouth, lost his balance and toppled over backward, his extensive legs waving wildly in the ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... one made on even ground, and that from the roofs. [363] Respecting the connection of nisi—videtur, instead of the complete expression nisi hoc constat—eum videri, see p. 92, note 2 [note 153]. Intestabilis, properly, 'a person unfit to give his evidence, and incapable of making a will;' hence, according to Roman usage, equivalent to 'infamous;' detestabilis, which also properly signifies 'one deserving to be excluded in the will,' or 'to ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)
... from the beggar's position, from the place of weakness. There are some whose existence depends upon the response given to their supplications, who throw themselves directly on the charity and tender-heartedness of society. Inefficient, incapable of separate existence, this parasitic class is known to every social service group, to every rich or powerful man who helps at least in part to maintain them. I do not mean those who are physically or intellectually unable to cope ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... regard as a wise policy by sympathy with the oppressed, by generosity towards the fallen, by a philanthropy so enlarged that it took in all nations, by love of peace,—a love which in him was second only to the love of freedom,—and by the magnanimous credulity of a mind which was as incapable of suspecting as of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... attempt has ever been made to lead out the water either of the Zambesi or any of its tributaries; no machinery has ever been used to raise it even from the stream, but droughts and starvations are endured, as if they were inevitable dispensations of Providence, incapable of being mitigated. ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... verses have been written, proclaiming its waters to be so sweet that any one who drinks of them never desires to leave Bucarest. What its retentive properties may have been in former times we are not able to say, but we can quite imagine any person who ventures to drink of the water being incapable of leaving the city for ever afterwards. However, the prosaic authorities are not greatly impressed by their national poetry in this instance. The river is being 'canalised,' or confined within stone embankments, and there is a plentiful supply of apa dulce from another ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... this time. Jo was a good fellow but wholly incapable of grasping, single-handed, the problem of daily life for himself and brood. There were ten children in almost as many years. Understanding so little of life's responsibilities the man's dependence upon his wife was pitiful, if not criminal. With tears streaming ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... to tremble again. All her body felt weak and incapable, like the body of an old person whose life was drawing to an end. The hill, not very steep, faced her like a precipice, and it seemed to her that she would not be able to mount it. In the road the deep dust surely clung to her feet, refusing to let her lift them. And she felt sick and contemptible, ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... evil and good, for which and against which much may be argued on both sides, and many things that are true be said for and against both. To some such choice as this has our poor country now come. Experience has taught us that she is incapable of uniting all her forces and of making of herself one compact, united kingdom. That course, and that alone, would be her true salvation; but that course she will not take, and failing that, she has to choose between being torn and rent by ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... powerless souls! you are better fitted to answer God's purposes, and, if you are faithful, your devotion will be more pleasing to Him, than that of those great intellects which make prayer a study rather than a devotion. More than this, I say that such souls as these, who appear so powerless and so incapable, are worthy of consideration, provided they only knock at the door, and wait with a humble patience until it be opened to them. Those persons of great intellect and subtle understanding, who cannot remain a moment in silence before God, who make a continual Babel, who are so well able ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... know, so that he who does not know this could not be numbered with the Christians nor be admitted to any Sacrament, just as a mechanic who does not understand the rules and customs of his trade is expelled and considered incapable. Therefore we must have the young learn the parts which belong to the Catechism or instruction for children well and fluently and diligently exercise themselves in them and keep ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... existence in the best and truest manner. The brain and other organs of the body are affected by the quality of the blood which nourishes them, and since the blood is made of the food eaten, it follows that the use of poor food will result in poor blood, poor muscles, poor brains, and poor bodies, incapable of first-class work in any capacity. Very few persons, however, ever stop to inquire what particular foods are best adapted to the manufacture of good blood and the maintenance of perfect health; ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... or slay them. In theology? No; it has not yet forgiven the daughters of Eve the fault which ruined us,—a sin of which they have retained at least a little share. In the records of the law, then? No, again; for men make the laws. Woman is, in their eyes, nothing but a minor, legally incapable of governing herself. God only knows what is, here, as in all things, the difference between the fact and the law. Are these good women to be found in plays, romances, or novels? No, still; for they are but the perpetual ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... person, or the English Constitution? Every fear, taken separately, is so glaringly absurd, that no man has the folly or the boldness to state it. Every one conceals his ignorance, or his baseness, in a stupid general panic, which, when called on, he is utterly incapable of explaining. Whatever you think of the Catholics, there they are—you cannot get rid of them; your alternative is to give them a lawful place for stating their grievances, or an unlawful one: if you do not admit them to the House of Commons, they will hold their parliament ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... take my word for it? I am incapable of telling a lie. I have come to you to defend my own cause; and yet I can only do it by my bare word of assertion. You are not a stranger to the circumstances of my family, Mr. Dean; and I honestly avow that if this post is taken ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... "How utterly incapable of affording satisfaction is wealth unless honestly obtained and righteously employed!" he remarked. "We have also before us an example of the little reliance which can be placed on wealth. These two poor men have lost theirs and their minds at the same ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... for as a matter of fact the latter was not visible at all, but only the snow that covered its upper heights, surrounded above, below, and on all sides by the thin gray sky of evening. By night there was music in the plaza. But how can there be life and laughter where a half-dozen blankets are incapable of keeping the promenaders comfortable? In all the frigid town there was not a single fire, except in the little bricked holes full of charcoal over which the place does its cooking. Close to my hotel was ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... officialdom in Australia, and he did not like it. The tent was thronged with miners eager to secure their papers; they were met with cold-blooded intolerance by a class of officials often bred to their business in the infamous convict system, and now incapable of putting off their tyrannous insolence in the faces of free men. Several foot police—Vandemonians from the convict settlements—were stationed in the tent to enforce the mandate of Commissioner McPhee, or any understrapper who might resent the impatience of a ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... French, also. To this day, a French system of theology is the strongest and most coercive over the strongest of countries—Scotland and America; and yet shallow thinkers flippantly say the French are incapable of ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Alone among the hydrogen lines, crimson C glows in its spectrum, while all the others are dark. Luminosity of the Wolf-Rayet kind is particularly constant, both in quantity and quality. It seems to be incapable of developing save under galactic conditions. All the stars marked by it lie near the central line of the Milky Way, or in the Magellanic Clouds. They tend also to gather into groups. Circles of four degrees radius include respectively ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... conscious of the background. Fielding, on the other hand, although he had recognised that the novel was nothing else than an epic in prose, wrote in the spirit not of the epic, but of the drama. This is not, of course, to say that the drama was in any way incapable of a regeneration similar in kind to that of which I am now speaking with regard to the novel. The notorious contrary fact is sufficient to guard the reader against such a misconstruction. All that is meant is, ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the type of innocence and purity, without a tinge of colour, although her dreadful confession was enough to paint the cheeks of the most degraded woman with the colour of shame. She seemed to have no bashfulness, no sense of shame, and to be wholly incapable of realising her offence. And I had not believed in a Devil! Here he was before me, in the shape of this fair woman, who had tempted me with her angel's mien to sell my soul for her, and now she was dragging me down with her to eternal ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... a modern play or novel as a kind of degenerate; a shifty-eyed moral maniac with a twist in his soul's backbone and green blood in his veins. The mediaevals were quite capable of boiling him in melted lead, but they would have been quite incapable of despairing of his soul in the modern fashion. A striking a fortiori case is that of the strange mediaeval legend of Robert the Devil. Robert was represented as a monstrous birth sent to an embittered woman actually in answer ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... the entire piece an elegiac mood prevails. The composer paints with psychologic truthfulness a fragment out of the life of a deeply clouded soul. He lets a broken heart, filled with grief, proclaim its sorrow in a language of pain which is incapable of being misunderstood. The heart has lost— not something, but everything. The tones, however, do not always bear the impress of a quiet, melancholy resignation. More passionate impulses awaken, and the still plaint becomes ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... rediscovered classical culture; and in discussing this problem, and developing the theories of the Pleiad, he has lighted upon many principles of permanent truth and applicability. There were some who despaired of the French language altogether, who thought it naturally incapable of the fulness and elegance of Greek and Latin—cette elegance et copie qui est en la langue Grecque et Romaine—that science could be adequately discussed, and poetry nobly written, only in the dead languages. "Those who speak thus," ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... though the county was seething with excitement, and a few notable men went out with the Earl, his personal following did not exceed seventy in all. Then followed the march which ended so disastrously in pitiful surrender at Preston that fatal November day. However gallant personally, Forster was an incapable soldier, no leader of men, and General Wills had but to spread wide his net to sweep in the bulk of the insurgents—Forster, Derwentwater, Kenmure, Nithsdale, Carwath, Wintoun, and men less exalted in rank by the score and the hundred. The bag ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang |
