"Incapable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have come back. She can never change, though her beauty grow graver, and all knowledge of the vile usage of the world have passed before her young eyes. Artemis no more, for she has stooped to the lot of women; but still invincibly pure, incapable of sin, though she know it all. It can never touch her; she goes her way. She wears a blue gown now, not a white one. Demeter, the sad, bountiful Mother she will be—yet the same woman, the sweet and grave, the inflexible, the eternal. And, standing as she has ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... wife like Natalie without a penny. Such a treasure bestowed upon him might surely release her from a guardianship account. How many men had bought the women they loved by greater sacrifices? Why should a man do less for a wife than for a mistress? Besides, Paul was a nullity, a man of no force, incapable; she would spend the best resources of her mind upon him and open to him a fine career; he should owe his future power and position to her influence; in that way she could pay her debt. He would indeed be a fool to refuse such a future; and for what? a few paltry thousands, more or less. He would ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... was ill again, but both Mr Sargent and the Judge were very kind to him; so also was M'Carthy, who declared that a person incapable of protecting himself, and sickly, such as this little Jew, is always sure of kind treatment and compassion, even from the ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... me a-thinking. How was it that the existing hammers were incapable of forging a wrought-iron shaft of thirty inches diameter? Simply because of their want of compass, of range and fall, as well as of their want of power of blow. A few moment's rapid thought satisfied me that it was ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... constables, and was being inspected by a large crowd. He looked very quiet, and upon listening to the affidavits, remarked that Mr. Hyatt must have misunderstood the ladies, for he was perfectly incapable of having alarmed them to the extent indicated; that he certainly admired Miss Ida, and desired to marry her, but that he would not willingly injure or alarm the humblest creature—adding reproachfully that those affidavits would suffice to condemn him to State ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... expected that the boy either would or could do all that he undertook; but the world was full of compromises; and there was hardly any engagement which would bear being interpreted literally. Human language was too gross a vehicle of thought—thought being incapable of absolute translation. He added, that as there can be no translation from one language into another which shall not scant the meaning somewhat, or enlarge upon it, so there is no language which can render thought without a jarring and a harshness somewhere—and so forth; all ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... any person shall offend against any of the prohibitions of this act he shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor and forfeit to the United States the penalty of $3,000, and shall upon conviction be removed from office and forever thereafter incapable of holding any office under the United States: Provided, That if any other person than a public prosecutor shall give information of any such offense, upon which a prosecution and conviction shall be had, one-half the aforesaid penalty of $3,000, when recovered, shall be for the use ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... is a characteristic letter to General Crawford, concerning the dismissal of an officer, whom Cromwell would have restored. "Ay, but the man is an Anabaptist. Are you sure of that? Admit he be, shall that render him incapable to serve the public? Sir, the state, in choosing men to serve it, takes no notice of their opinions. Take heed of being too sharp against those to whom you can object little but that they square not with you in every opinion concerning ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... elaborated. So I have examined a heifer with a properly formed but very small womb and an extremely narrow vagina and vulva, the walls of which were very muscular, that could never be made to conceive. A post-mortem examination would probably have disclosed an imperfectly formed ovary incapable ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... himself with four languages—that is to say, he laid in a stock of four words for one idea. Then he came back, and certain tedious dowagers, styled 'conquests' abroad, were left disconsolate. Godefroid came back, shy, scarcely formed, a good fellow with a confiding disposition, incapable of saying ill of any one who honored him with an admittance to his house, too staunch to be a diplomatist, altogether he was what we call ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... new species. But we may thus deceive ourselves, for to ascertain whether a small isolated area, or a large open area like a continent, has been most favourable for the production of new organic forms, we ought to make the comparison within equal times; and this we are incapable of doing. ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... has had the courage to do so. Greatness is spontaneous; simplicity, trust in some one clear instinct, are essential to it; but the spontaneous variation must be in the direction of some possible sort of order; it must exclude and leave behind what is incapable of being moralised. How, then, should there be any great heroes, saints, artists, philosophers, or legislators in an age when nobody trusts himself, or feels any confidence in reason, in an age when the word dogmatic is a term of reproach? Greatness ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... bell, said, "No matter; it is of no importance," and turning around again toward the Prince asked indifferently how other things were going in Dresden and what had occurred during his absence. Then, incapable of hiding his inner state of mind, he saluted him with a wave of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... in allusion to his mother's familiarity with David Rizzio. And in this very passage of the essay on Atheism we also see the grovelling side of Lord Bacon, with a corresponding perversion of intelligence. Being incapable of understanding martyrdom, except under the expectation of a reward in heaven, his lordship cannot appreciate the act of an Atheist in suffering for his convictions. His concluding words are positively mean. Surely the Atheist might trouble ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... were some ships which proceeded quietly to their positions and others which did the same after tumult amounting to rebellion. And naturally there were a few others which seemed incapable of co-operation with anybody. They went careening through the other ships' paths in what must have seemed to the planet's sunset area like a most ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... money enough so that they all could live in comfort; the rest of their lives. As the professor was getting quite old, and incapable of making any more wonderful inventions, he closed up his workshop and settled down to a quiet life. As for Washington, Andy, and Bill and Tom, they invested their money received from the sale of the diamonds in different business ventures, and ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... expressions; now how can we be benefited by the excitement of these feelings? Pity is at the best but a feminine virtue, and by giving way to it, the mind, if not enervated, is at any rate not strengthened; and with regard to terror, a man under its influence is incapable of any reflection whatever. When we witness, for instance, the tragedy of Macbeth, the mind, after such a scene of human villany is rather inclined to become morbid than to feel either dignified ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... were lost to sight in the coming blackness and wondered that so intelligent a creature as a crow should waste his energies in that vain chase. Still one could understand it and even sympathize with him. For the kestrel is a most insulting creature towards the bigger birds. He knows that they are incapable of paying him out, and when he finds them off their guard he will drop down and inflict a blow just for the fun of the thing. This outraged crow appeared determined to have ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... and Thursa's good-humour came back. "Now, then, Arthur, run along, because I am going to have a long sleep, and then I have some very serious thinking to do. The aunts said that is what I am incapable of doing, but I've done some that would have surprised them if they had just heard me at it. Now I am going to do some more. It's so horrible to be in a quandary. It is as bad as it was when I was choosing a gown for my first party; I lay awake nearly a whole night trying to decide between ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... he is suffering, from, I can't say," the doctor stated, "but it is something serious, I fear. It was something that made him incapable of helping himself or ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... political, in the social world, who through intellectual pride are so wrapped in their own conceits and prejudices that larger and later revelations of truth can find no entrance to them; and instead of growing and expanding, they are becoming dwarfed and stunted, and still more incapable of receiving truth. Instead of actively aiding in the progress of the world, they are as so many dead sticks in the way that would retard the wheels of progress. This, however, they can never do. Such always in time get bruised, broken, and left behind, ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... distinguish between pure wool and the raw fibre. The incrusting substance is technically known as "Yolk," or "Suint," and is principally composed of a kind of natural soap, consisting of the potash salts of certain fatty acids, together with some fats which are incapable ...
— The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech
... circumstance, to which my situation exposed me, was the caprice of ignorant people. Had I been incapable of acting, they would have carried the boat on shore as soon as we made the island of Timor, without considering that landing among the natives, at a distance from the European settlement, might have been as dangerous as among ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh
... was invited by the Lombard town of Brescia to assist it against the Lord of Verona, Mastino della Scala. King John at once dropped the useful business, dashed in amongst the squabbling Italians and won a number of victories which gave him possession of a fair slice of Italy. He proved quite incapable of holding it, and his gains rapidly melted away like snow on the sunny southern slopes of those mountains that shut off the smiling plains of Venetia against the barbarous north. Here John's eldest son Charles comes upon the ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... German wings rested on the sea; one on the Euxine, one on the North Sea. That in itself would not have given strength; for the Roman fleets were masters of the seas. But the lands in the rear, on either flank, were deserts, incapable of supporting an army. What would have been the fate of a force landed at the mouth of the Weser on the north, or at the mouth of the Dnieper at the west? Starvation among wild moors, and bogs, and steppes, if they attempted to leave their base of operations on the coast. The Romans ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... guilty of leze-majesty, and shall forfeit their lives and possessions. The lives of their sons, though justly forfeited, are spared only by the particular bounty of the Emperor; but they are declared incapable of holding any property, honor, or dignity, and doomed to perpetual poverty. The daughters are permitted to enjoy ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... painting, you will get a notion of trying to write mine in ignorance of music. Bradlaugh was a tremendous platform heavyweight; but he had never in his life, as far as I could make out, seen anything, heard anything or read anything in the artistic sense. He was almost beyond belief incapable of intercourse in private conversation. He could tell you his adventures provided you didn't interrupt him (which you were mostly afraid to do, as the man was a mesmeric terror); but as to exchanging ideas, or expressing the universal part of his soul, ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... tongues, these two. They were born in different lands. They were children of the same God, although one might have doubted it, but no one could mistake the woman's name. For there Frank Yeovil and Jean Marteau, incapable of doing each other any further harm, each ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... perplexing, we can only be thankful that the work of Farmer Green and Tom Robinson, the two despoilers mentioned by the earliest investigators, has been prevented in their descendants, and that though the circles are incapable of restoration, the few stones that remain will be preserved ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... external causes it is dependent. When it is conditioned by internal causes which are part of its own nature, it is free. No other freedom is known. An Indian would say that a man's nature is limited by Karma. Some minds are incapable of the higher forms of virtue and wisdom, just as some bodies are incapable of athletic feats. But within the limits of his own nature a human being is free. Indian theology is not much hampered by the mad doctrine that God has predestined ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... as surely as American women persist in disregarding this subtle yet unmistakable truth, just so surely will they lay themselves open to these soul-bruises from foreign husbands which American men, as a race, are incapable of inflicting. I say they are incapable of inflicting them, because American men, in the face of everything said and written to the contrary, are, in regard to women, the finest-grained race of men in ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... mass, have their efficacy. Therefore he was offered but once with the shedding of blood—viz. upon the cross; today he is offered in the mass as a peace making and sacramental victim. Then he was offered in a visible form capable of suffering; today he is offered in the mass veiled in mysteries, incapable of suffering, just as in the Old Testament he was sacrificed typically and under a figure. Finally, the force of the word shows that the mass is a sacrifice, since "mass" is nothing but "oblation," and has received its name from the Hebrew word misbeach, altar—in Greek thysiasterion, on account ...
— The Confutatio Pontificia • Anonymous
... drift into Chancery, just when a vigorous policy is required to make the venture a success. If Monty were here and in his right mind, I think we could come to terms, but, when I saw him last at any rate, he was quite incapable, and he might become a tool to anything. The Bears might get hold of him and ruin us all. In ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... because it had no rudder; an ornamental butterfly driving aimlessly before the nearest breeze. He meant well, in a general way, but his good intentions proved descending paving-stones because he was constitutionally incapable of meaning ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... four months of the year, two or three negro servants. Though all the negroes at the quarters, which were only a quarter of a mile from the mansion, knew the valuable contents of the chest, it was never disturbed. They stole small things, but seemed incapable of committing ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... which it was easy to lose one's way. Her assurance, her satisfaction, her enthusiasm had vanished. Nothing was well ordered; everything was haphazard. People did the most unexpected things. And there was ugliness and deceit parading about in broad daylight. She suddenly felt herself utterly incapable of passing judgment ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... plant has proven by no means a vision incapable of realization. To-day men and women realize painfully the need for one in their home community and are prevented from the fulfilment of their dream by only two obstacles—lack of funds and adequate organization ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp
... my wife thinks me a fool," he once complained to me. "She thinks I don't see it. Do you understand, David? She looks up to me for my learning, but otherwise she thinks I have no sense. It hurts, you know." He was absolutely incapable of keeping a secret or of saying or acting anything that did not come from the depths of his heart. He often talked to me of God and His throne, of the world to come, and of the eternal bliss of the righteous, quoting from a certain book of exhortations and adding ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... appealed to the head rather than to the emotions. Unlike Lloyd George, he was not by way of being a prophet. He could not by sheer intensity sway the House of Commons. Mr. Asquith, moreover, was quite incapable of stirring a public audience on the platform outside the House, and he lacked that terrific energy which distinguished his principal colleague. But he was, nevertheless, a first-rate partner. His steady, cold brain would carry into effect with precision an intricate, ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... my deliverance from this temptation, such strange apprehensions of the grace of God, that I could hardly bear up under it, it was so out of measure amazing, when I thought it could reach me, that I do think, if that sense of it had abode long upon me, it would have made me incapable for business.' ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... full retreat, and Joe's squad was part of the rear-guard. The terrain had been mountainous, the High Sierra Military Reservation. Four of his men had copped one, two so badly that they had to be left behind, incapable of being moved. Joe, under the pressure of long hours of retreat under fire, had finally sent the others on back, and found himself a crevice, near the top of a sierra, which was ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... and country, by the unbounded fury of the Presbyterians, he changed his religion, and went beyond sea, in order to recommend himself to some Popish preferment in Paris; but being a mere scholar was incapable of executing his new plan of a livelihood. Mr. Abraham Cowley hearing of his being there, endeavoured to find him out, which he did, and to his great surprize saw him in a very miserable plight: this happened in the year 1646. This generous ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... you could cut his ear off and it wouldn't bleed. I ain't going to run the Judge against no such proposition like that." Of course the poor chap was speaking his own backwoods metaphor, as I am quite sure he would have been incapable of mutilating Belknap-Jackson, or even of imprisoning him in a goods van of beef. I mean to say, it was merely his way of speaking and was not to ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... 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 becoming ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... think that those who are fit for the greater functions of politics are incapable of qualifying themselves for the less? Is there any reason, in the nature of things, that the wives and sisters of princes should, whenever called on, be found as competent as the princes themselves to their business, but that the wives and sisters of statesmen, and administrators, and directors ...
— Women and Politics • Charles Kingsley
... body, that carried him through the labours of the field and of the cabinet. In speaking on this subject Napoleon himself observed that. nature had endowed him with two peculiarities: one was the power of sleeping at any hour or in any place; the other, his being incapable of committing any excess either in eating or drinking: "If," said he, "I go the least beyond my mark my stomach instantly revolts." He was subject to nausea from very slight causes, and to colds from any change ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... brought back to their original composition and condition, we have the cell just as it was before we used it for the production of an electrical pressure. The cell can now again be used as a source of electricity as long as the electrolyte acts upon the electrodes, or until it is "discharged" and incapable of any further production of electrical pressure. Sending a current through a discharged cell, so as to reverse the chemical actions which brought about the discharged conditions, ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... womanly; and a woman is incapable of a benevolence and sympathy that are measured out by the yard—so much to each one, according to the dictates of judgment. You were so fortunate as to move Mrs. Yocomb somewhat as she touched your feelings; and ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... The new Prince, himself incapable, disliked and distrusted talent. The years passed, and the Baron obtained no appointment. Still he strained his resources to the utmost to visit the Court as often as possible; still he believed that sooner or later a turn of the wheel ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... hour for the interview arrived, he went to the rendezvous in a pitiable state of hope and fear. He had always his whole life through carried all his eggs in one basket, and had been incapable of undertaking more than one emotional enterprise at a time. To lose Madge now would be to lose everything, and his former experiences of the healing powers of time—which were possibly numerous and striking enough—were of no value to him. Obeying ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... and remained in that crushed attitude while Heyst talked to him soothingly with the utmost courtesy. The Swede was as much distressed as Morrison; for he understood the other's feelings perfectly. No decent feeling was ever scorned by Heyst. But he was incapable of outward cordiality of manner, and he felt acutely his defect. Consummate politeness is not the right tonic for an emotional collapse. They must have had, both of them, a fairly painful time of it in the cabin of the ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... conclusions to which science had, up to that time, been led in its investigations of matter. Throughout the natural universe it had been shewn, by Spectrum Analysis, that matter is built up of {69} molecules. These molecules, according to the most competent judgment, were incapable of sub-division without change of substance, and were absolutely fixed for each substance. "A molecule of hydrogen, for example, whether in Sirius, or in Arcturus, executes its vibrations in precisely the same time." The relations of the parts and movements of the planetary systems ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... hand, and her eyes were caught by two other eyes, and held as if by a spell. She was conscious, as she stood blushing, that the stranger had been astonished at her appearance, but she certainly did not dream that it was her great beauty which had for one moment made him incapable of controlling his sense of it. It was only one moment, in the next he turned to David, and offered to pay him two shillings a day for the use of his vacant room, and a share of ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... listen. "You taunted me with being a woman," she said through a fresh burst of tears. "A woman was incapable of friendship and sacrifices. She was intended to be a man's plaything. Do you think I want to be my husband's mistress? I want to be his wife, to share his fate, whatever it may be, for good or ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... especially under this state of facts —nothing could excuse or palliate that shocking and disgraceful and barbarous crime against humanity; and the human mind is incapable of understanding how such savagery can be accounted for, except upon the theory that "He that nameth Rebellion nameth not a singular, or one only sin, as is theft, robbery, murder, and such like; but he nameth the whole puddle ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... pathological lying had been a prominent symptom. As an example, when he married against his father's will, he at the wedding read a false dispatch, pretending it to be congratulations from his family. Koppen suggests that this individual was incapable of meeting life as it really was and he therefore wove a mass of phantasies. II. A young man charged with grave falsifications. He had come from an epileptic family and himself had slight attacks in childhood. He bore various pathological stigmata. Koppen considered ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... than a year since his misadventure in the mountains. He had suffered for his own wrong-headedness over that matter, but he had not profited by his experience; he was incapable of doing so. His length of service and reputation for hard work had saved him from dismissal, but Chillingwood was less fortunate; subordinates in Government service generally are less fortunate ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... pride of this Cuban libre. It is manifested the very first time you suggest anything like manual labor—he is incapable of any other—even for such purposes as camp sanitation, carrying rations, or for any other purpose. His manly chest swells with pride and he exclaims in accents of wounded dignity, "Yo soy soldado!" Still his pride does not by any chance get him knowingly under fire. ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... the subject of the blessed hope that sustained the dying Christian. He only survived Pat's departure four days. On the third of February the last symptoms came on; the death-damps began to ooze out, his legs were swelled to the size of his body, and he sat in that state, incapable of receiving warmth, scarcely able to swallow, yet clear, bright, and tranquil, for thirty hours. The morning of the last day was marked by such a revival of strength that he walked across the room with little help, and talked incessantly to me, and to all who came near ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... have not become hard and suspicious, they are generally obtuse to the minor indications by which shrewd men of education know the impostor, and they are perversely indulgent to little meannesses in their fellows which they are incapable of committing themselves. In Lincoln this was aggravated by an immense good-nature—as he confessed, he could hardly say "no";—it was an obstinate good-nature, which found a naughty pleasure in refusing to be corrected; and if it should happen that the object of ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... over, and with returning sobriety came profound contrition and disgust. A few still held out against the return of reason. There are some men who never own that they have been in the wrong, and a few men who are forever incapable of seeing it. Stoughton, with his bull-dog stubbornness, that might in other times have made him a St. Dominic, continued to insist that the business had been all right, and that the only mistake was ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... he was inactive and apathetic, confining his operations to an aimless expedition whose advance extended only as far as Blain's crossroads, whence it was soon withdrawn. Meanwhile General Foster had superseded Burnside, but physical disabilities rendered him incapable of remaining in the field, and then the chief authority devolved on Parke. By this time the transmission of power seemed almost a disease; at any rate it was catching, so, while we were en route to Dandridge, Parke transferred ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... of them are incapable of noticing anything." A cynical smile stirred on his face. "It is no wonder," he commented, "that we are known as a danger to provincial towns. You see the state of confusion we reduce the young bloods to." His eyes passed ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... damn happy, Kelly thought. Too contented. If they ran into a real emergency now, the ship would be finished. The Crew in the tank was, itself, incapable of action of any overt kind. It could not manipulate anything. It could ...
— Has Anyone Here Seen Kelly? • Bryce Walton
... derivative creation, physical science is also incapable of conflict; for the objections drawn by some writers seemingly from physical science, are, as has been already ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... I purposely render it as concise as possible, but I am utterly incapable of imparting to it the dramatic effect of her recital, heightened and added ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... Englishman, and there are not any mean things told about him, though," Steven Strong continued, "and indeed sometimes he lives the simplest country life with his horses and dogs, and his own people worship him, I believe. But there is no wildest prank he is incapable of if ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... touches it through and through, is in one way entirely favourable. Many of the most telling popular objections to the idea of Atonement rest on an atomic conception of personality—a conception according to which every human being is a closed system, incapable in the last resort of helping or being helped, of injuring or being injured, by another. This conception has been finally discredited by biology, and so far the evangelist must be grateful. The Atonement presupposes ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney
... 'S.E.' homophones: and that something better should win the first place, I hold to be the most desirable of possible events. But perhaps our 'S.E.' is not yet so far committed to the process of decay as to be incapable of reform, and the machinery that we use for penetration may be used as well for organizing a reform and for enforcing it. There is as much fashion as inevitable law in our 'P.S.P.' or 'S.E.' talk, and if the fashion for a better, that is a more distinct and conservative, pronunciation should ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... with fatigue and want of sleep, and with the perspiration dropping from the point of his enormous nose, plucked up heart to raise himself and assert that that was true. He further suggested that Colonel Blare might play to them on the cornet. But Colonel Blare was incapable by that time of playing even on a penny trumpet. Dr Bassoon was reduced so low as to be obliged to half whisper his incapacity to sing bass, and as for the great tenor, Lieutenant Limp—a piece of tape was ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... withdraw the light, I should turn again to be dead and hard, as iron on the cold anvil." In this way, Shanty often used to talk to Mrs. Margaret, and after a while to Tamar; but the old lady for many years remained incapable of entering so entirely as he could wish, into his views of the sufficiency of the Redeemer. She could not give up entirely her notions of the need of some works, not as evidences of the salvation of an individual, but as means of ensuring that salvation, and ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... crowd, with the forced composure of one who well knew that authority was most efficient when most calm. The command of the vessel was now virtually with him, Baptiste, enervated by the extraordinary crisis, and choking with passion, being utterly incapable of giving a distinct or a useful order. It was fortunate for those in the bark that the substitute was so good, for more fearful signs never impended over the Leman than those ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... land have had lavished upon them the blessings of education to an extent that was unprofitable both to them and to the cause. They have received an education and training which not only carried them away far outside the social realm for which they were intended by nature; it also left them incapable of doing the higher thing for which they ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... Treasury authorised the construction of seven sloops for service off the coast of Scotland. The smugglers had in fact become so desperate, the English Channel was so thoroughly infested with them, and the Revenue service was so incapable of dealing with them in the manner that was obviously essential for effectiveness, that the Admiralty ordered the captains and commanders of His Majesty's ships to assist the Revenue officers all they could in order to prevent the ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... lain at Okazaki town, Dentatsu incapable of movement after the mad run along the classic highway in the darkness of that fearful night. As refugees from the stricken town they met with kind reception. The greater part of Yoshida town lay in ashes; and so great the disaster, so unsuspected ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... any disposition, or any level of capacity, since there is nothing to make them read the same papers, gather in the same places, or feel any sort of sympathy with each other beyond the universal sympathy of man for man, they will, one may anticipate, be incapable of any concerted action to defend the income they draw from society against any resolute attack. Such crude and obvious denials of the essential principles of their existence as the various Socialistic bodies have proclaimed ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... strength of some of Mohamad's people being present, "We want to buy ivory too;" not knowing its value they think that this is a mere subterfuge to plunder them. Much palm-wine to-day at different parts made them incapable of reasoning further; they seemed inclined to fight, but after a great deal of talk ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... enforced by the unanimous verdict of his comrades; and even if it were so that he had more than made amends for his crime, the rules that held good for ordinary sinners were not applicable to an officer of the army. He must be a man above suspicion, incapable of wrong or fraud, and once stained he was forever ineligible as a gentleman. It was a subject on which she waxed declamatory rather too often, and the youngsters of her own regiment wearied of it. As Mr. Foster once expressed it in speaking of this very case, "Mrs. ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... where a dramatist must be content to pull the wires. Shakespeare is really as much present in his plays as Fielding in his novels; but he does not let us know it; whereas the excellent Fielding seems to be quite incapable of hiding his broad shoulders and lofty ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... 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. ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... all accord with Mr. Kendal's views. He had an unavowed distrust of Gilbert's letters, he did not fancy a tutor thus selected, and believed the boy to be physically incapable of the proposed amount of study. So he wrote a very grave but merciful ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wife being one person could not contract nor enter into a business partnership with each other; neither could one convey property to the other without the intervention of a third party. The wife was incapable of receiving a legacy unless it was willed to another person as trustee, for her use and benefit, and if a legacy were paid directly to her, the husband could compel the executor to pay it again ...
— Legal Status Of Women In Iowa • Jennie Lansley Wilson
... Bridemaids, as it was mentioned, are to come again alone; and so much the more, because her Master is daily expected home. Who then finally coming in, is not ordinarily welcomed, for she is so full of joy that her husband is come home, that both her tongue and actions are incapable of demonstrating her felicity; and he on the t'other side, is so glad to find his dearly Beloved in good health, and all things in decent order, that it ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... the Company's affairs, more might be said to his prejudice—not in respect of his integrity, for, I believe him to have been a most honourable man, and incapable of any meanness—but in regard to his management. Although, as the original projector of the Canada Company, he evinced much cleverness, and afterwards displayed considerable judgment in the choice of the best situations for building towns and ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... 600-300 than it came to be afterward. For the Macedonian conquests had the effect of diluting and corrupting Hellenism, by spreading an exterior varnish of Hellenic tastes and manners over a wide area of incongruous foreigners who were incapable of the real elevation of the Hellenic character; so that although in later times the games continued undiminished both in attraction and in number of visitors, the spirit of pan-Hellenic communion which had once animated ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... hours afterward I thought almost every moment that the next would be my last, for the Taugwalders, utterly unnerved, were not only incapable of giving assistance, but were in such a state that a slip might have been expected from them at any moment. After a time we were able to do that which should have been done at first, and fixt rope to firm rocks, in ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... gleam of amusement flitted through the mind of Caius at the thought of the sidelight this threw on Jim's character. For Jim was not incapable of casting stones at even so rare a ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... the most determined opponents of every kind of improvement. So, too, the lack of lawyers, editors and physicians of sufficiently broad and thorough training to be able to defend their weaker brethren against designers or incapable advisers is a very discouraging feature of the situation. The negroes do not, as a rule, seek the leadership or counsel of competent and honest whites in matters of religion or of business, hence the greater need of well-qualified men ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... part of this letter, with her extreme reluctance to bring the writer of it and her cousin Edmund together, would have made her (as she felt) incapable of judging impartially whether the concluding offer might be accepted or not. To herself, individually, it was most tempting. To be finding herself, perhaps within three days, transported to Mansfield, was an image of the greatest felicity, but it would ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... and violence increase until the "reign of terror" appears with all its indescribable horrors. The rest is plain. Having levelled all government to the ground, having destroyed all authority, having shown themselves incapable of self-government, the French people are ready for Napoleon. Under his command and pretense they march forth to liberate humanity from oppression in other nations, but in reality ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... Branston delights in society. He is generally well enough to sit in the drawing-room and look on at his wife's parties. He doesn't talk much on those occasions. Indeed, I believe he is quite incapable of conversing about anything except the rise and fall of Indian stock, or the fluctuations in the value of indigo. And, you see, Adela married him with the intention of enjoying her life. She confesses as much sometimes with ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... were on a much higher plane of material civilization than the Hebrews, they ultimately fell a prey to those hardy invaders of the desert: (1) Because they were incapable of strong united action, and (2) because their civilization was corrupt and enervating. Courage and real patriotism were almost unknown to them even as early as the seventeenth century B.C., when the Egyptian king Thutmose III invaded the land of Palestine. Their strong walls and their ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... more insensible to the impressions of a life thus passed among the ensigns of mortality. His mind was closed against all general considerations. He was incapable of interest in the fate and fortunes of another, the slave of his own desires and low ambitions. Cold, light, and selfish in the last resort, he had that modicum of prudence, miscalled morality, which keeps a man from inconvenient drunkenness or ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... subject, as burning does a house and death a man. But as to that, Cornelius informed him that there was a natural death and a logical death; and that though a man after his natural death was incapable of the least parish office, yet he might still keep his stall among the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... against the other it had flattered itself with being able to retain its power. Yet the opposition was not stated on any special ground. The manifestoes of the Whigs attacked it on the ground of incapacity; but in what they were incapable was not shown. The Duke of Wellington was said by them to be a domineering soldier, unfitted to conduct alone the government of the nation, yet determined to surround himself with men of mean capacity and dependent spirit, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... were sent out at a cheaper rate in another way, and the consequence was that, instead of the whole force going together in one large vessel, with ample and comfortable accommodation, they were sent out in two parties, in two miserable little vessels totally unfitted for such work, and quite incapable of berthing more than half the number packed on board. The first ship to start was a small screw boat, re-christened for the occasion the Melazzo, after the late Garibaldian victory. The men were huddled ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... is the reading sanctioned by the Commentator, viz. putro' nanya'sritadravyah, signifying, that, on failure of those before designated, a son who would be otherwise incapable, by reason of blindness, &c. is to be deemed capable. Another reading may be, as suggested by the Commentator, putro nu'aya'sritadraoyah, "not the son whose paternal estate another holds," which is adopted by Colebrooke, and by his ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya
... truth, who, incapable of submitting their reason to Holy Scripture, distort at will the meaning of the Holy Scriptures, pretend that these words mean matter. For it is matter, they say, which from its nature is without form and invisible—being ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... atmosphere are much obliged to you, but we must stand up for the rights of other atmospheres. I know a great deal more about Mr Marlowe's atmosphere than you know about mine even now. I saw him constantly for several years. I don't pretend to know all about him; but I do know that he is incapable of a crime of bloodshed. The idea of his planning a murder is as unthinkable to me as the idea of your picking a poor woman's pocket, Mr Trent. I can imagine you killing a man, you know... if the man deserved it and had an equal chance of killing you. I could kill a person myself in some circumstances. ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... through the town dispelled the Lord George Sanger illusion at one fell blow, the rustic-urban mind being incapable of conceiving that that self-named nobleman could demean himself to the ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... without consciousness of free will or individual thought. It was enough that for one moment his anger should cease to give life to his resistance; it was sufficient that Unorna should touch him thus, and speak softly, his eyelids quivered and his look became fixed, his strength was absorbed in hers and incapable of acting except under her direction. So long as she might please the ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... their souls in efforts to clothe in the stiff garments of European conventionalities, the naked, brown limbs of Orientalism. The natives, who, for the most part, are frank Vandals, also admire efforts of which they are aware that they are themselves incapable, and even the laudator temporis acti has his mouth stopped by the cheap and often tawdry luxury, which the coming of the Europeans has placed within his reach. So effectually has the heel of the white man been ground into the face of Perak and Selangor, that these Native States are now ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... was likely to be, whether a few years or many centuries, he would still have her image in his memory so. And here she lay among his broken hopes, now shattered as completely as the goblet which held his draught, and as incapable of being ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... All who fall on the pavement of Paris rebound against these yellow-gray walls, on which a philanthropist who was not a speculator might read a justification of the numerous suicides complained of by hypocritical writers who are incapable of taking a step to prevent them—for that justification is written in that ante-room, like a preface to the dramas of the Morgue, or to those enacted on the Place de ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... not true, then I know not what truth is. If it is not a perfectly plain and patent truth, on the very face of it, then I am utterly incapable of distinguishing between truth and falsehood. Yet, if it is true, how account for the tight-lacing among women who are in a position to be just as intelligent as the doctor and the ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... pleasure of knowing? What if intellect, or what is now called intellect, did not make the world, or the smallest wheel or cog of it? What if, for want of obeying the laws of nature, parents bred up neither a genius nor an athlete, but only an incapable unhappy personage, with a huge upright forehead, like that of a Byzantine Greek, filled with some sort of pap instead of brains, and tempted alternately to fanaticism and strong drink? We must, in the great majority of cases, have the CORPUS ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... its very virtues as a paper were its defects as an address. The points wanted elaboration. Before they had fairly mastered one argument, the jury were hurried on to another. Mr. Ramsey is by no means incapable of making a forcible speech, and I think he should have trusted to his power of improvisation. There was no need for a long effort. He might have concentrated himself on a few salient points of our defence, and pressed them on the jury with all his might. His own sentiments, ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... Outside, and can [therefore] only frame a Judgment of us from our exterior Actions and Behaviour; but how unfit these are to give us a right Notion of each others Perfections, may appear from several Considerations. There are many Virtues, which in their own Nature are incapable of any outward Representation: Many silent Perfections in the Soul of a good Man, which are great Ornaments to human Nature, but not able to discover themselves to the Knowledge of others; they are transacted in private, without Noise or Show, and are only visible to the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... light breaking in upon her. "I see, but I did not then understand you, I suppose;" rallying from her embarrassment, "my mind was so occupied with our feast, I was incapable of thinking of anything else; so please consider this an apology for the condition in which you find us, to yourself and your friend, whom, you will pardon me for reminding you, you have not introduced," and Cyn looking laughingly at ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... to carry in the wood for him, might moreover be construed as indicating a desire to make amends to him for unjust suspicions secretly cherished. As for asking Prudence directly whether she was expecting to go away, that would have been a piece of hardihood of which the bashful youth was quite incapable. If he could not have ascertained her intentions otherwise than by such a desperate measure, he would have waited till the Hamlins set out, and then been on hand to see for himself whether she went ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... property holders to vote for representatives in Parliament, and who claimed that the word "man" in Parliamentary statutes should be interpreted to include women. In the case of the 5,346 householders of Manchester, the court held that "every woman is personally incapable" in a legal sense.[288] This legal contest had been fully reported in The Revolution, and disappointing as the verdict was, Susan looked upon this attempt to establish justice as an indication of a great ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... wide into the Realm of night, Scorning surprize. Or could we break our way By force, and at our heels all Hell should rise With blackest Insurrection, to confound Heav'ns purest Light, yet our great Enemie All incorruptible would on his Throne Sit unpolluted, and th' Ethereal mould Incapable of stain would soon expel 140 Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire Victorious. Thus repuls'd, our final hope Is flat despair: we must exasperate Th' Almighty Victor to spend all his rage, And that must end us, that must be our cure, To be no more; sad ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... heat and occasional fatigues of the preceding campaign, have so impaired my health and constitution as to render me incapable of immediate service. I have, for three months past, taken every advisable step for my recovery, but have the mortification to find, upon my return to duty, a return of sickness, and that every relapse is more dangerous than the ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... was of little use. Again I trusted in Providence to come to our help. Both plans involved thousands of kilometres of navigation of a diabolical river, in an almost uncontrollable canoe, with an insufficient and absolutely incapable crew. Then would come the crossing of the virgin forest on foot, for some hundreds of kilometres—nobody knew how many. The least number of men necessary in order to be able to carry provisions sufficient to execute ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... away from her. She did not change colour, but for the moment her delicate features appeared thickened, as by a rush of blood. She was almost plain. Yet the effect was inexpressibly touching. It was as though she had received some mysterious injury which she was dumb, incapable to express. She let her hands drop at her sides, turned away and walked to the far end ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... never dreamed of, but which in reality she had only declined because it did not present itself to her under all the conditions required by her refined and sensitive mind. Claude, who was an excellent fellow, but incapable of comprehending her or sacrificing himself, never swerved from grateful deference to her; but I could observe, that as the state of her feelings became more apparent, he took greater care to mark the character of his sentiments ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... laugh' will doubtless prefer this book, which is packed from cover to cover with mirth-provoking material, to those other books by the same author, in which humour acts chiefly as train-bearer to tragedy. The determination of Charles to invent for himself a greatness which he is incapable of otherwise achieving, and its effect on his circle of intimates, are set forth in an exceedingly lively story, the plot of which it would be unfair to ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... to Henry IV. by transferring to him his ring. A paper was put into Richard's hands, from which he read an acknowledgment of being incapable of the royal office, and worthy, from his past conduct, to be deposed; that he freely absolved his subjects from their allegiance, and swore by the holy Gospels never to act in opposition to this surrender: adding, that if it were left wholly to him to name the future monarch, it should ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... temptation, and have fought, and won or lost, our battles with sin. It is one of the weaknesses of nations, as well as of children, that they come to consider their political fathers as saints. I smile when I think of the way people nowadays think of our great President, as of a mild genius, incapable of being moved to anger or great mirth, a man unspotted of the world. They should have heard him at Monmouth, when Lee failed him in a time of peril, or seen him, as I have seen him, soberly merry over his wine with Knox. But some day you ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... eldest and the family and sphere to which she belonged. Julia, she hoped, would one day do her honour. As for the islands of the South Seas, or the peculiar views and habits of life entertained by those white people who chose them for their residence, Mrs. Powle declared she was incapable from very ignorance of understanding or giving judgment about them. She made the whole question, together with her daughter, over to her sister Mrs. Caxton, who she did not doubt would do wisely according to her notions. But as ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... each may move without injuring others are fixed by the law, as the boundary between two fields is fixed by the fence. The freedom in question is the freedom of the individual as an isolated atom thrown back upon itself. Why, according to Bauer, is the Jew incapable of receiving the rights of man? "So long as he is a Jew, the limiting quality which makes him a Jew must triumph over the human quality which binds him as a man to other men, and must separate him from gentiles." But the right of man to ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... persons have, at several times, suffered death, rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end. Many hundred large volumes have been published upon this controversy, but the books of the Big-endians have been long forbidden, and the whole party rendered incapable, by law, of holding employments. During the course of these troubles, the Emperors of Blefuscu did frequently expostulate, by their ambassadors, accusing us of making a schism in religion, by offending against a fundamental doctrine of our great prophet Lustrog, in the fifty-fourth chapter of ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... now proposed by the Viceroy. This was, to execute him solemnly in effigy, to drag his escutcheon through the streets at the tails of horses, and after having broken it in pieces, and thus cancelled his armorial bearings, to declare him and his descendants, ignoble, infamous, and incapable of holding property or estates. Could a leaf or two of future history have been unrolled to King, Cardinal, and Governor, they might have found the destined fortune of the illustrious rebel's house not exactly in accordance with the plan of summary ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... this book defines its scope, it does not indicate its main purpose. That is to show that the Celtic race has been misrepresented by a number of historians, from Mommsen to Froude, as incapable of self-government; and to prove, by inference, its fitness for Home Rule.... The major argument is based by Mommsen and his school on the assumption of permanent distinctions among races; and therefore ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... dropped her work, and was staring at Pauline with wide-open, terrified eyes. She made no effort to answer her. She was incapable ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke
... style of her class, conveying a vague impression that she and the Duke had arranged to commit suicide together if Perkins didn't "chuck" any previous engagement he had made. And Perkins had felt in a slipshod sort of way—for at this period he was incapable of ordered thought—he might as well be ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... may be better understood we must go back. Ivan had killed his ablest son, as told in a previous story, and Feodor, the present czar, was a feeble, timid, sickly incapable, who was a mere tool in the hands of his ambitious minister, Boris Godunof. Boris craved the throne. Between him and this lofty goal lay only the feeble Feodor and the child Dmitri, the sole direct survivors of the dynasty of ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... without pleasure, because he could not see that it proved any thing. But we are not to judge from the taste of such men, of what is suitable to affect the majority. The multitude are not mere thinkers or great readers. From their necessary habits they are incapable of following a long discussion except it be made inviting by the circumstances attending it, or the manner of conducting it. Their attention must be excited and maintained by some external ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware
... after thanking him. He hoped that she was not going to interrogate the Italian in his presence. Surely she would be incapable of such clumsiness! Still, women without imagination—and the majority of women were without imagination—did ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... conduct of a subordinate who is incapable of understanding the merit of a maneuver which has been ordered, and who will commit grave faults in its execution, may produce the same result of causing the failure of the plans ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... 28. Turgenef therefore was incapable of creating a Levin, because he had not the faith which makes the Levins of Tolstoy possible. He was filled with the pessimistic woe of the world, believed at bottom that man, born in sorrow, must also live in sorrow. With the sublimity of a prophet, Turgenef cries: "From the inmost depths ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... must also follow that our thought, in its purely logical form, is incapable of presenting the true nature of life, the full meaning of the evolutionary movement. Created by life, in definite circumstances, to act on definite things, how can it embrace life, of which it is only an emanation or an aspect? Deposited by ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... oh, happy day!" he murmured, "when the sun rises, no other rival will that bright orb have but me. That man shall fall so low, that when people look at the utter ruin which my anger shall have wrought, they will be forced to confess at least that I am indeed greater than he." The king, who was incapable of mastering his emotions any longer, knocked over with a blow of his fist a small table placed close to his bedside, and in the bitterness of feeling from which he was suffering, almost weeping, and ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... he said, "going through the farce of asking what I do wrong, because I know the answer. It's not the right one, but you seem incapable of giving any other." ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... concluded the argument in a tone of sorrow, which deeply expressed her sense of the degradation of her people, embittered perhaps by the idea that Ivanhoe considered her as one not entitled to interfere in a case of honour, and incapable of entertaining or expressing sentiments of ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... early part of his life this unlucky author had not been without ambition; it was only when disappointed in his political projects that he resolved to devote himself to literature. As he was incapable of attempting original composition, he became known by his detestable versions. He wrote above eighty volumes, which have never found favour in the eyes of the critics; yet his translations are not without their use, though ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... disturbed about it," she said slowly, "I can reassure you. You say that you do not know Dr. Callandar. But I do know him. The whole situation rests upon that. He is a man incapable of the caddish villainy you impute. Why he could not repair the car, I cannot say. I think," with a smile, "that he does not know quite as much about cars as he thinks he does. But he did his best, I know that! When we found his efforts useless we took the only course possible and made at once ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... all the obstacles to her marriage with the man she loved; but, alas! before the triumph was fully accomplished, the love was gone. Darnley was selfish, unfeeling, and incapable of requiting affection like Mary's. He treated her with the most heartless indifference, though she had done every thing to awaken his gratitude and win his love. She bestowed upon him every honor which it was in her power to grant. She gave him the title of king. She admitted him to share ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... past, everything comes out better and brighter than before,—not a bird is killed, not the frailest flower destroyed. But man comes, and in one day he will make a desolation that centuries cannot repair. Ignorant boor that he is, and all incapable of appreciating the glorious works of Nature, it seems to be his glory to be able to destroy in a few hours what it was the work of ages to produce. The noble oak, that has been cut away to build this contemptible ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... dreadfully muddy state, and for five miles we went plunging through the swamps. Most of the mules fell several times, and we had great difficulty in getting them up again. We passed two travellers with their mules up to their girths in mud, and incapable of extricating themselves, but could not help them, as we dared not allow ours to stand, or they would stick fast also. We had met, at San Ubaldo, the son of Dr. Seemann, on his way home to England. His pack-mule had stuck fast in the plains the night before, and he ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... that to the virtues and merits of the civilised Westerner there has become historically added—though this is not his chief point—a capacity for acquiring capital; whereas, not only is the Russian incapable of acquiring capital, but also he exhausts it wantonly and of sheer folly. None the less we Russians often need money; wherefore, we are glad of, and greatly devoted to, a method of acquisition like roulette—whereby, in a couple of hours, one may grow rich without ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... waste for ever—that concerns not thee. Indifferent thou tramplest in the dust Their happiness, who most are thine. The god Whom thou dost serve, is no benignant deity. Like as the blind irreconcileable 50 Fierce element, incapable of compact, Thy heart's wild impulse only dost ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... this to be the case. But now it struck him as a very strange thing that Miss Annie did not attend to her husband, but allowed his mistress and himself to do everything that was done for him. It was a question which his mind was totally incapable of solving, but when he reached the house, he spoke to Letty on the subject. "Bress your soul!" exclaimed that well-nourished person, "dat's not Mister Null, wot married Miss Annie. Dat's Mister Crof', an' he aint married to nobody. Mister ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... same time he observed that Humphrey had descended from the tree, recovered his gun, and was now safe again upon the lower bough. The first bull was advancing again to attack Smoker, who appeared incapable of getting away, so much was he injured by the fall, when the other bull, who apparently must have been an old antagonist of the first, roared and attacked him; and now the two boys were up in the tree, ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... happiness is to be sought in the conscience, not in external objects, can give a real zest to life. In less than one month I had made up my mind, I will not say perfectly, but in a tolerable degree, as to the part I should adopt. I saw that, being incapable of the mean action of obtaining impunity by procuring the destruction of others, the only prospect that lay before me was the scaffold, or long protracted captivity. It was necessary that I should prepare myself. I will live, I said to myself, so ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... the savage conqueror of Gaul was incapable of examining the proofs of a religion, which depends on the laborious investigation of historic evidence, and speculative theology. He was still more incapable of feeling the mild influence of the Gospel, which persuades and purifies the ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... found, whereby this or that Concrete, if not all Firme Bodies, may be resolv'd into parts so very minute and so unapt to stick close to one another, that none of them may be fixt enough to stay behind in a strong Fire, and to be incapable of Distillation; nor consequently to be look'd upon as Earth. But to return to Helmont, the same Authour somewhere supply's me with another Argument against the Earth's being such an Element as my Adversaries would have it. For he ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... died on the way,—and nine-tenths of them would have perished, had they encountered the storms of the preceding winter among the mountains. But the majority hung around the camp. To some of these the Quartermaster was able to furnish work, but he was obviously incapable of affording this assistance to all. Thefts and assaults became frequent, and promised to multiply as the season advanced. To remedy this trouble, Colonel Johnston assumed the responsibility of organizing a volunteer battalion. The term of service for which the men enlisted was nine months. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... for my advice," he says to Philip V. (20th August, 1704), "and I write you what I think; but the best advice becomes useless when it is only asked for and followed after the mischief has happened.... You have hitherto given your confidence to incapable or interested persons.... (And speaking of the recall of Orry and of another agent) it seems, however, that the interest of those particular persons wholly engages your attention, and at a time when you ought only to have ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... the muscles at the base of the skull were sore and sensitive, but the hurt had not gone deep. He felt incapable of thinking it out—the reasons, and all that it meant. He wondered if his attacker had thought to ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... followed her into her room, when she went to prepare for bed, and there in the gentlest manner informed her of the truth. Helen at first was in such a state of violent grief, that she could listen to nothing her father said, and indeed for some hours was utterly incapable either of reasoning or exertion; but at last, lifting up her head, and seeing her poor father, pale and exhausted, leaning over her, she started up, and throwing herself into his arms, cried "Forgive me, ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... that an army looks ill without its general and a castle without its castellan, and I say that a young married woman looks still worse without her husband unless there are very good reasons for it. I find myself so ill at ease without you, and so incapable of enduring this separation, that unless you return quickly I shall have to go for relief to my parents' house, even if I leave yours without a protector; for the one you left me, if indeed he deserved that title, has, I think, more regard to his own pleasure than to what concerns you: as you ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... effects of light upon the eye: when it has acted violently for some time on the optic nerve, it diminishes the excitability of that nerve, and renders it incapable of being affected by a quantity of light, that would at other times affect it. When we have been walking out in the snow, if we come into a room, we shall scarcely be able to see ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... because each element by itself is incapable of producing an effect. Such incapability is declared by Scripture and tradition alike. The text 'Having entered these beings with this jiva soul let me reveal names and forms—let me make each of these ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... of slaves caused the wages of the free labourer to be low. But the slaves were treated with humanity. From early times it was a law that if a slave were hired to another, the hirer should pay a penalty to his master whenever he was incapable of work, thus preventing "sweating" or overwork. Similarly, injuries to a slave were punished by a fine. The slave could trade and acquire property for himself, could receive wages for his work when hired ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... incessantly; Locke, as usual, sat facing the entrance, his eyes watchful, his countenance alert. In spite of the fact that he had constantly plied his companion with liquor in the hope of stilling his tongue, Higgins seemed incapable of silence, and kept breaking forth into loud, garbled recitals of the scene at Padden's, which caused the Missourian to shiver with apprehension. To a sober eye it would have been patent that Locke was ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... youth and circumstances, into a design upon her, and even dared to make free with names that she ought never to mention but with reverence and gratitude; what would you say to that?—Say, sir! said she, I cannot tell what to say. But I hope Pamela incapable of such ingratitude. ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... tones, incapable of slowness or solemnity, began to return thanks for himself, and pronounce this to be the happy day to which he had been looking throughout his life—the day of restoring the family inheritance to his mother, and the child of his elder ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... possible, and every observation taken that there are instruments devised to record, surely the soul is dead that feels no more and sees no further than the instruments do, that stirs with no other emotion than the mercury in the tube or the dial at its point of suspension, that is incapable of awe, of reverence, of worshipful uplift, and does not feel that "the Lord even the most mighty God hath spoken, and called the world from the rising of the sun even to the going down of the same," in the ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... redress; and thus the spark was kindled into flames, which for thirty years continued to rage throughout all Germany. At the death of Matthias in 1619, the Bohemians refused to receive Ferdinand II as their king; and elected the Protestant palatine Frederic V, a generous prince, but incapable of affording them support. The battle at the White Mountain, near Prague, in 1620, decided the destiny of Bohemia. Twenty-seven of the leaders of the insurrection were publicly executed; sixteen were exiled or condemned to prison for life; their property, as also the possessions of seven ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... they were stupefied with amazement. That peasants and townspeople, the plain workers of the land, should have opinions of their own about government and the rights of man was to them a thing too monstrous to be endured, but for the time being they were so dumfounded as to be incapable ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... September. Hecht, the Arnauds, all their friends, were out of Paris. They had no one to turn to. Christophe was beside himself, and talked of going part of the way on foot. Olivier begged him to wait for an hour, and promised to procure the money somehow. Christophe submitted: he was incapable of a single idea himself. Olivier ran to the pawnshop: it was the first time he had been there: for his own sake, he would much rather have been left with nothing than pledge any of his possessions, which ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... through many generations of this inconvenience or danger would be the stoppage of speech, leading possibly to a complete loss of the faculty. I am satisfied that they were incapable of vocalization, for even the women did not talk! But that is ahead of ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... to inherit, the child must be born alive, must be born during the lifetime of the mother, and must be born capable of inheriting—that is to say, monsters are incapable of inheriting. There is a mode of inheritance called 'tenancy by courtesy.' When a man marries a woman possessed of an estate or inheritance, and has, by her, issue born alive in her lifetime capable ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... the law. To this group also belong those high-strung individuals with early antisocial tendencies, who from childhood show a marked degree of egotism and self-love; who are very vindictive and revengeful in their reaction to frictions in social life. Upon falling into the hands of the law, they are incapable of adjustment to the new situation, react in an insane and wild manner to the prison routine, and, in consequence, frequently commit ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... Japanese, whom he had known in England and lived with in Japan.... Their only religion is patriotism, and their prayers to the Emperor are formal merely, yet they are reckless of life and eager to die for Fatherland; indeed, so incapable of retreating before an enemy as sometimes seriously to damage strategic plans. Were they launched against the West, they would ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... artist in the old mountebank, and I was quite sure that he was altogether incapable of any trickery, and I told him so, while expressing my admiration to him; and he had been touched, both by my admiration, and above all by the justice I had done him. Thus we became good friends, and he explained to me, very modestly, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... occasionally to European larvae, as in the case observed in the Italian Alps by F. de Filippi. Nevertheless, in the axolotl the latent tendency can still be revived, as we have seen above and as is proved by the experiments of Marie von Chauvin. When once sexually ripe the axolotl are apparently incapable of changing, but their ancestral course of evolution is still latent in them, and will, if favoured by ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various |
