"Impracticability" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... speculation lagging far behind; the improvement once conceived is in operation by such time as the opposing theorist has satisfactorily demonstrated its impracticability; and the dream of to-day is the reality ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... preserve the independency of Brittany, so able by her power and situation to give effectual and prompt assistance, would permit such an accession of force to her rival. He imagined, therefore, that the ministers of France, convinced of the impracticability of their scheme, would at last embrace pacific views, and would abandon an enterprise so obnoxious to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... Pixie's face. She sobbed and moaned, and with clasped hands repeated her vow to be good, good, good; never to be naughty again so long as she lived! And Bridgie wept too, smiling through her tears at the impracticability of the promise, the while she clasped the dear little sister ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... applications of its principles. Aviation remained very much of a poor sister in the scientific world, held back by all the discredit attaching to the early stunt-flying and by failure to break through the ancient belief in its impracticability for any purposes ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... forthcoming, and the opinions on principles and on details of these imaginative writers are never twice the same. It suffices that proposals such as these, apart from their vagueness and their obvious impracticability in any form, are directly condemned by the fundamental principle that a man shall be responsible for his acts. The endowment of motherhood, as Mr. Wells means it, is simply a phrase for making men responsible for their ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... "Krupp-Kaiser" alliance. But against such writing and such thought we had to count, in those days, great and powerful realities. Even to those who expressed these ideas there lay visibly upon them the shadow of impracticability; they were very "advanced" ideas in 1914, very Utopian. Against them was an unbroken mass of mental habit and public tradition. While we talked of this "war to end war," the diplomatists of the Powers allied against Germany were busily spinning a disastrous ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... foregoing notes were written the impracticability of the universal or even of the general application of the principle has been fully demonstrated. Mr. Wilson resurrected "the consent of the governed" regardless of the fact that history denied its value as a practical guide in modern political relations. He proclaimed it in the phrase ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... at once. It is enough to say the two commanders at the time and on the field saw difficulties and dangers sufficient in the way to rest on their spoils. The President, who was in council with them, after due consideration was convinced of the impracticability of a forward movement. In the first place, no preparation had been made for such an event; that the spoils were so out of proportion to their most sanguine expectations; that the transportation for the troops had to be employed in its removal; ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... hand, a good deal of low cunning and selfishness, and understood how valuable an instrument might be a duplicate seal of a deceased monarch. Therefore she instigated her daughter to deny that she possessed it, and worked her up into a state of impracticability, in which Sir Lewis Robsart was unable to deal with her, and only produced so wild a tempest of passion as perfectly to appal both him and ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ignorant of the facts. Some enterprising individual goes zealously to work, travels thousands and tens of thousands of miles, ascertains all of the facts bearing upon the question, determines its feasibility or its impracticability, spends years of time and toil, and many thousands of dollars of money, indoctrinates the people of his country with the new and interesting facts, travels, writes, labors day and night for years, finally secures the attention of the Government and Congress, and asks a fair and ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... required that the road which we had formed on landing should be continued to the very margin of the lake; whilst appearances seemed to indicate the total impracticability of the scheme. From firm ground to the water's edge was here a distance of many miles, through the very centre of a morass where human foot had never before trodden. Yet it was desirable at least ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... not!" said Cecilia, "but the utter impracticability of preparing her for this blow, obviously as it has long been impending, makes it now fall so heavily I wish much to assist her,—but a debt so ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a full and fair experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union, affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who, in any quarter, may endeavor to ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... Couche has represented to the head of his department the total impracticability of carrying on the public service without a remittance of specie, or a government paper substitute. He was in expectation of making arrangements with some individuals that would have enabled him to proceed, but I much fear that the whole project ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... Cairo in 1038. He is to be distinguished from another Alhazen who translated Ptolemy's Almagest in the 10th century. Having boasted that he could construct a machine for regulating the inundations of the Nile, he was summoned to Egypt by the caliph Hakim; but, aware of the impracticability of his scheme, and fearing the caliph's anger, he feigned madness until Hakim's death in 1021. Alhazen was, nevertheless, a diligent and successful student, being the first great discoverer in optics ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the arch and the possession of an advanced culture. The poverty of the building materials of this region afforded only the most limited resources for architectural effect. Owing to the flatness of the country and the impracticability of building lofty structures with sun-dried bricks, elevation above the plain could be secured only by erecting buildings of moderate height upon enormous mounds or terraces, built of crude brick and faced with hard brick or stone. This led to the development of the stepped pyramid ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... wisdom of the course was not criticised. Its consistency only was challenged. After giving a history of the various steps in organizing the three Territories in 1861, and of the great need, by reason of the pressure of thousands of emigrants, of providing a government therefor, and the impracticability of passing a Territorial bill with an anti-slavery proviso, Mr. Grow, in a letter ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... to take the field. For the past twenty minutes Thompson had been leaning over the table making suggestions in his thick voice, and McNally had sat back and quietly annihilated them by demonstrating their impracticability, or by stating that they had been ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... decision. The ties of love and honour are doubtless of sufficient strength to bind congenial souls—they are doubtless indissoluble, but by the brutish force of power; they are delicate and satisfactory. Yet the arguments of impracticability, and what is even worse, the disproportionate sacrifice which the female is called upon to make—these arguments, which you have urged in a manner immediately irresistible, I cannot withstand. Not that I suppose it to be likely that ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... after crossing one division, Stoneman found that it would probably be isolated on account of the impracticability of crossing the rest of the corps, and consequently ordered its immediate return. And this was accomplished none too soon, by ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... court, but Washington, when he heard of the plan, took a very different view. He sent at once a long dispatch to Congress, urging every possible objection to the proposed campaign, on the ground of its utter impracticability, and with this official letter, which was necessarily confined to the military side of the question, went another addressed to President Laurens personally, which contained the deeper reasons of his opposition. He said that there was an objection not touched upon in his public letter, which ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... N. difficulty; hardness &c. adj.; impracticability &c. (impossibility) 471; tough work, hard work, uphill work; hard task, Herculean task, Augean task[obs3]; task of Sisyphus, Sisyphean labor, tough job, teaser, rasper[obs3], dead lift. dilemma, embarrassment; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Theory with Practice. Employment of MAGNETISM as a moving power—its impracticability. Relation of Coals and Zinc as economic sources of Force. Manufacture of Beet-root Sugar—its ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig
... fairly worn out, and had to go to St. Sebastian to recruit his health. It was alleged that he went there so as to avoid taking any side in the civil war between the Parliament of Versailles and the Commune; but after the Communist Government had been at work a fortnight, and when the impracticability of its aims was fully disclosed, he took care to let it be known that he was on the side of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... infidels. That religious intolerance which foreign historians consider a purely Spanish product was really imported by the German Caesars. It was the German friar who came with his devout brutality and his crazy theology, not tempered as in Spain by Semitic culture. With their intolerance and impracticability they provoked the revolution of the Reformation in the northern countries, and, driven out of them, they came here to plant afresh their ignorance and fanaticism. The ground was well prepared. When the free towns whose ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... frightened at what she thought was the fast-approaching wreck of all happiness for her dear friend, Billy, Alice did not know which way to turn. At the first she had told herself confidently that she would "speak to somebody." But, as time passed, she saw the impracticability of that idea. Speak to somebody, indeed! To whom? When? Where? What should she say? Where was her right to say anything? She was not dealing with a parcel of naughty children who had pilfered the cake jar! She was dealing with grown men and women, who, presumedly, knew their own affairs, and who, ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... show the impracticability on any considerable scale of a second possible expedient, namely, borrowing abroad. The amount that could be raised in any foreign market at this moment, in comparison with the sum required, is practically ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... the execution of the scheme. It was never seriously taken up again, and, though never explicitly abandoned, died a natural death from inanition, somewhat to the relief of Miss Barrett, who had come to recognise its impracticability. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... execution of the masons. It was not worth my reader's while to occupy himself with the alterations by which bungling practice corrects absurd theory. Such an investigation would be endless: because every day's past experience of impracticability has driven, and every day's future experience will drive, those men to new devices as exceptionable as the old, and which are no otherwise worthy of observation than as they give a daily proof of the delusion of their promises and the falsehood of their professions. Had ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... might help me in the fulfilment of my wishes, as they were both acquainted with the proprietor of this ruin. Shortly afterwards, in fact, they informed me that the owner had no objection to letting me this large room at a low rent, but at the same time they pointed out the utter impracticability of carrying out my plan; nobody, they said, would be either able or willing to act as my servant there, for, amongst other things, there was no well, and the only water obtainable was from a cistern lying at a frightful depth down in the keep, and even ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... Beaumont perceived and acknowledged the impracticability of managing a fool for a single hour, it was one of the favourite objects of her manoeuvres to obtain this very fool for a daughter-in-law, with the hope of governing her for life. So inconsistent are cunning people, even of the best abilities; so ill do they calculate the value ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... new duke was greatly exasperated, and sent a considerable body of troops into the valleys, swearing that if the people would not change their religion, he would have them flayed alive. The commander of the troops soon found the impracticability of conquering them with the number of men he had with him, he, therefore, sent word to the duke, that the idea of subjugating the Waldenses, with so small a force, was ridiculous; that those people were better acquainted with the country than any that were ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... not only omitted to point out the means, but acknowledged that he knows them not, he will excuse me if I adhere to my former opinion. No person is more anxious for the dependence of America; but being convinced of its total impracticability, I would retain the colonists as allies, and thus prevent them from throwing themselves into the arms of France. The noble earl, as a reason for war, has mentioned the inherent rights of the heir apparent. To recover these ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... days had made something of a study of the feminine nature, and he realized now the utter impracticability of any ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... incapable of realization, but humane and beautiful. Since he did not live to endeavor to transform it into a fact, and thereby perhaps to have his efforts cause even seriously injurious results, it is open to us to forget the impracticability of the fancy and to revere the nature which in such an hour could give birth to such ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... behalf of the colonists, to forget imperial interests, to misapply the funds and pervert the labor belonging to the crown. The precision of his injunctions left no alternative but to obey. Had Wilmot at once declared the impracticability of Lord Stanley's schemes he might have been recalled, but the responsibility of an utter failure would have rested with his chief. The interested reports of his subordinate officers unfortunately enabled him to hold out hopes of success which were never realised ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... lost. Naturally, too, he cried out, but his lamentations, though echoed shrilly by the demagogues, seem to have been unavailing. Even the rudimentary intelligence of that primitive people discerned the impracticability of laws forbidding the seller to set his own price on the thing he would sell and declare it worth that price. Then, as now, nobody had to believe him. Of the few who bought these "watered" stocks in good faith as an investment in the honest hope of dividends it seems sufficient to say, in the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... He realized the present impracticability of such a Union as he had in mind for his master, the King of Prussia; that to urge it too soon would simply bring a new revolution, and God knows there had been enough blood-letting for the sake of power in and around ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... Hancock's line should extend to Bottom's bridge on the Chickahominy. The enemy's early discovery of the movement and his concentration of troops on the north side prevented Hancock from accomplishing the programme laid out for him. Its impracticability was demonstrated early on the 27th, and Hancock's soldierly instincts told him this the moment he unexpectedly discovered Kershaw blocking the New Market and Charles City roads. To Hancock the temptation to assault Kershaw's position was strong indeed, but if he carried it there would ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... We may readily accept the saturating influence of sex on woman's mind. I mean a deep-lying distinction, not superficial and to be explained away as due to outside things, but based on the essential fact of her womanhood—her capacity for maternity. But the impracticability of making any definite statement as to the exact nature or extent of such mental sexual differentiation is evident. First must be cleared up the difficulty of distinguishing between those differences that are fundamental and constitutional as being ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... be given in his own words, recited in his pidgin English, broken by cautions of secrecy and digressions as to the impracticability of enlightening his young ladies. It was a story only to be comprehended by one familiar with his peculiar phraseology, and understanding the complex mental processes and intricate methods of his race. Condensed and ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... Harriet remained in amicable correspondence with Shelley; and not only so, but, while she altogether abstained from opposing his new connection, she was actually on friendly terms with Mary. It is easy to understand how a limited nature like Harriet's should be worn out by the exaction and impracticability of one like Shelley; for to her most impracticable would seem his lofty and ideal requirements. On the other hand, it is evident that Shelley regarded the unfortunate girl with feelings of deep commiseration; and I know that he not only ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... the comfort of a private room, for there was none other to be had. Of the tea and coffee it might be said as once it was said of two bad roads—"whichever one you take you will wish you had taken the other;" the beefsteak was a problem of impracticability; and the chickens—Fleda could not help thinking that a well-to-do rooster which she saw flapping his wings in the yard, must in all probability be at that very moment endeavouring to account for a sudden breach in his social circle; and if the oysters had been some very fine ladies ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... such an accusation, which indeed was confirmed by the evidence of his officers, and not explicitly denied by himself. Government was undoubtedly of opinion that the voyage of Middleton had not determined the non-existence or impracticability of a passage; for the next year an act of parliament was passed, granting a reward of 20,000l. to the person or persons who should discover a northwest passage through Hudson's Straits to the western ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... ten years ago upon the impracticability of supplanting to any extent the Tagal language by the Spanish. The same considerations apply equally well to English. Estadismo, ii, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... was astonished at being told she must send her articles to No. 29, in the gallery. This she refused to do, and the consequence has been that the Exhibition has been deprived of some of its rarest specimens of art. The reason Mrs. Peachey assigns for not sending her works to the gallery is the impracticability of their being carried up stairs without being, from their extreme fragility, seriously injured, perhaps mutilated. Even were they to be slung up by tackle, she says they would be subject to the same risk, and her two principal works, viz.—an enormous bouquet ...
— The Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling • Emma Peachey
... understand my reasons, I refused to consent to its burial in the wilderness. In spite of their superior knowledge of the country and the weather conditions, I felt that the body could be taken down to the post later, but recognised the impracticability, if not impossibility, ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... more apparent. Wynne wrote to press upon me the expedience of trying our scheme of Pantisocracy in Wales, knowing how impracticable it would be any where; knowing also, that there was no hope of convincing me of its impracticability, at that time. In our former plan we were all agreed, and expected that what the earth failed to produce for us, the pen would supply. Such were our views in January 1795; when S. T. Coleridge gave his first and second lectures in the Corn Market, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... eighteen days of grace allowed them in which to save their little fortress. For Palmyre's assurance that the candle burning would certainly cause the rent-money to be forthcoming in time was to Clotilde unknown, and to Aurora it was poor stuff to make peace of mind of. But there was a degree of impracticability in these ladies, which, if it was unfortunate, was, nevertheless, a part of their Creole beauty, and made the absence of any really brilliant outlook what the galaxy makes a moonless sky. Perhaps they had not been as diligent as they might have been in canvassing ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... had received my letters. The coup d'etat was a grand thing, dramatically and poetically speaking, and the appeal to the people justified it in my eyes, considering the immense difficulty of the circumstances, the impossibility of the old constitution and the impracticability of the House of Assembly. Now that's all over. For the rest—the new constitution—I can't say as much for it; it disappoints me immensely. Absolute government, no, while the taxes and acceptance of law lies, as he leaves it, with the people; but there are stupidities ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... and laughed at, for the folly and impracticability of their attempts in 1715, and 1745. That they failed, I bless GOD; but cannot join in the ridicule against them. Who does not know that the abilities or defects of leaders and commanders are often hidden, until put to the touchstone of exigency; and that there is a caprice of fortune, an omnipotence ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... fellow's pretty wife, and I shall always make a point of being on the most affectionate terms with her. But as to these terms, semi-family and semi-stranger, semi-goring and semi-boring, they form a state of things quite amusing in its impracticability. I ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... to be nothing more than decayed granite; and I think it probable, that the sandstone found on Sambhu, and the neighbouring hill towards Hilchuck, is composed of this granitic sand reunited into rock. This sandstone is used in a few buildings, but I have seen no large blocks, and the difficulty, or impracticability, of procuring such, has probably occasioned this stone to be ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... followings and vested interests—in short, until the same obstacles arise to the choice of an international, artificial, and neutral language, as now prevent the elevation of any national language into a universal medium? The plea of impracticability on the score of dislocation might then be valid. At present it is not. To have an easy language that will carry you anywhere and enable you to read anything, it is sufficient to wish for it. Only, as we Britons are being taught to ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... relieve St. Philip's fort, and, therefore, they ought to make the best of their way back to Gibraltar, which might require immediate protection. They unanimously concurred with his sentiments, and thither he directed his course accordingly. How he came to be so well acquainted with the impracticability of relieving general Blakeney, it is not easy to determine, as no experiment was made for that purpose. Indeed, the neglect of such a trial seems to have been the least excusable part of his conduct; for it afterwards appeared that the officers and soldiers belonging to the garrison ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... tyranny of the Court; but he endeavored to calm the agitation by representing, that by these violent measures they would only defeat their own object. He counselled them to name deputies to lay their petition before the Crown, stating the impracticability of the present scheme of reform, and praying for the repeal of it; and he conjured them to wait patiently for the arrival of the viceroy, who might be prevailed on to suspend the ordinances till further advices ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... poor friend Hollingsworth. Possibly he was in your thoughts when you spoke thus. Poor fellow! It is a pity that, by the fault of a narrow education, he should have so completely immolated himself to that one idea of his, especially as the slightest modicum of common-sense would teach him its utter impracticability. Now that I have returned into the world, and can look at his project from a distance, it requires quite all my real regard for this respectable and well-intentioned man to prevent me laughing at him,—as I find society at ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sally port with their axes and made themselves masters of the fort. Thus, in a few hours, and without losing a single man, had "the spirited resolution of Commodore James destroyed the timorous prejudices which had for twenty years been entertained of the impracticability of reducing ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... distantly it is true—to his false position in society. Lavretsky did not lose his temper, nor did he raise his voice; he remembered that Mikhalevich also had called him a retrograde, and, at the same time a disciple of Voltaire; but he calmly beat Panshine on every point. He proved the impracticability of reforming by sudden bounds, and of introducing changes haughtily schemed on the heights of official self-complacency—changes which were not justified by any intimate acquaintance with the country, nor by a living ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... gives no intelligible account; he would not have liked to admit the most probable causes of the fall of his ideal State, which to us would appear to be the impracticability of communism or the natural antagonism of the ruling and subject classes. He throws a veil of mystery over the origin of the decline, which he attributes to ignorance of the law of population. Of this law the famous geometrical figure or number is the expression. Like the ancients in general, ...
— The Republic • Plato
... world, he thought to himself, where you have to use dirigibles for planetary travel. But a dirigible was the only practical aircraft when you had to use steam turbine engines because of the lack of gasoline and the economic impracticability of transporting it in the limited cargo holds of the occasional spacers that ...
— Narakan Rifles, About Face! • Jan Smith
... been abandoned by the English for twenty years, they had not, however, given up the idea of seeking by that way, for a passage which was only to be discovered in our own days, and of which the absolute impracticability was then to be ascertained. A clever sailor, Henry Hudson, of whom Ellis says, "that never did any one better understand the seafaring profession, that his courage was equal to any emergency, and that his application was indefatigable," concluded an agreement with a company ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... will be greatly improved, render particularly due to you, any examples which may teach those virtues that are not easily learnt by precept and shew the facility of what, in mere speculation, might appear surrounded with a discouraging impracticability: you are the best judge, whether, by being made public, they may be conducive to your great end of benefiting the world. I therefore submit the future fate of the following sheets entirely to you, and shall not think any prefatory apology for the publication at all requisite; for though a man who ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... one to be found that is not?) should make haste to acknowledge the independence of the United States, and form equitable treaties with them, as the surest means of convincing Great Britain of the impracticability of her pursuits? Whether the late marine treaty concerning the rights of neutral vessels, noble and useful as it is, can be established against Great Britain, who will never adopt it, nor submit to it, but from necessity, without the ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... long-established opium habit while the patient continues his daily avocations and remains at home, [Footnote: In my article upon opium-eating, entitled, "What Shall They Do to be Saved?" published in Harper's Magazine for the month of August, 1867, and hereto prefixed, I have referred to this impracticability in fuller detail. It arises from the fact that in his own house a man can not isolate himself from the hourly hearing of matters for which he feels responsible, yet to which he can give no adequate attention without his accustomed stimulus; ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... of the impracticability of her own views flitted across her brain. Perhaps it was necessary that races doomed to live on the same soil should give way to each other, and adopt each other's pursuits. Perhaps it was impossible that after more ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... its favor than from any love for the reform itself on the part of legislators, and it has lived and grown and flourished in spite of the covert as well as open hostility of spoilsmen and notwithstanding the querulous impracticability of many self-constituted guardians. Beneath all the vagaries and sublimated theories which are attracted to it there underlies this reform a sturdy common-sense principle not only suited to this mundane sphere, but whose application our people are more and more recognizing to be ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... a place where they could see the gap made by the river on entering the mountain. To that place he said he would conduct captain Clarke if he desired it by the next evening. But he was in need of no further evidence to convince him of the utter impracticability of the route before him. He had already witnessed the difficulties of part of the road, yet after all these dangers his guide, whose intelligence and fidelity he could not doubt, now assured him that the difficulties ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... The sane, practical man shakes his head, smiles pityingly at my dreamy impracticability, and ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... so interested in my discoveries that I forgot altogether my own critical position, the impracticability of escape till Frank had gone to sleep, the chance of arousing him as I went out, or, more alarming still, the awful possibility of his lying awake all night. When morning dawned, concealment could no longer be preserved, ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... it would seem that a wise government must recognize the impracticability of indefinitely maintaining its present demand for self-sacrifice, must perceive the necessity of encouraging talent, inviting fair competition, and making the prizes of life large enough to stimulate healthy egoism. But it is possible that ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... rashness and apparent impracticability of his undertaking, the strange horseman, checking his rein, and burying the rowels of his spurs deep into the flanks of his steed, sent him bounding and plunging into the lake, in pursuit ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... Austin Selwyn the party presented an infinite chance for study, as well as an unlooked-for opportunity to meet Elise Durwent under circumstances which should either cement their friendship or else demonstrate its utter impracticability. ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... category of evils—the category under which would come those of drinking and betting—the rational legislative reformer would recognise the complete impracticability of abolishing by legislative prohibition physiological indulgences and the evils ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... Anthony had started to the telegraph office intending to wire Gloria to come South—he reached the door and receded despairingly, seeing the utter impracticability of such a move. Then he had spent the evening quarrelling irritably with Dot, and returned to camp morose and angry with the world. There had been a disagreeable scene, in the midst of which he had precipitately departed. What was to be done with her ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... obstacle to the successful operation of disability insurance has been the difficulty experienced in its administration—largely on account of the impracticability of closely defining permanent or total disability. With almost every revision of the constitutions changes were made in the definition of the term "disability." Strict construction of the law by the executive officials led to dissatisfaction ...
— Beneficiary Features of American Trade Unions • James B. Kennedy
... which I still chafe in vain is the impracticability of ascertaining so apparently simple a matter as the number of kinsfolk of each person in each specific degree of near kinship, without troublesome solicitations. It was specially asked for in the circular, but by no means generally ...
— Noteworthy Families (Modern Science) • Francis Galton and Edgar Schuster
... the most essential quality of a satisfactory expositor, namely, sympathy with his subject. He does not appear to have realised that development and adaptability to new situations, far from being marks of impracticability, are rather the signs of vitality and of elasticity. This is not the place to discuss how far the doctrine of the late fifteenth differed from that of the early thirteenth century; that is a matter which will appear below when each ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... Let the facts answer. I have already said that the Church strove to continue after the war the same method of dealing with the negroes as before. She tried to keep the races together; but she has found it impractical, that impracticability growing more and more clear as the years have run on. The races have been steadily drifting apart in all social or semi-social life; the better class of each race is coming less and less into contact with each other; and race prejudice is increasing ...
— Church work among the Negroes in the South - The Hale Memorial Sermon No. 2 • Robert Strange
... the excited Figgins, quite forgetting the impracticability of such an arrangement and the disadvantages ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... that very moment the impracticability to which poor Winterborne's suit had been reduced was touching Grace's heart to a warmer sentiment on his behalf than she had felt for ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... accept my proposition to retain their places with the object of becoming mediators between society and the needy, an awkward silence ensued. Then two orators made speeches. These speeches in some measure corrected the awkwardness of my proposal; sympathy for me was expressed, but the impracticability of my proposition, which all had approved, was demonstrated. Everybody breathed more freely. But when, still desirous of gaining my object, I afterwards asked the superintendents separately: Were they willing, while ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... repent. I thought of nothing else. At one time I would think of devoting all my intelligence and all my money to kindling an amorous passion in her heart, and then to revenge myself by treating her with contempt. But I soon realized the impracticability of such a plan, for even supposing that I should succeed in finding my way to her heart, was I the man to resist my own success with such a woman? I certainly could not flatter myself that I was so strong-minded. But I was the pet child of fortune, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... nevertheless, took no less than three hours! This man is employed in hunting strayed cattle; yet, well as he must know the woods, he was not long since lost for two whole days, and had nothing to eat. These facts convey a good idea of the impracticability of the forests of these countries. A question often occurred to me—how long does any vestige of a fallen tree remain? This man showed me one which a party of fugitive royalists had cut down fourteen years ago; ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... sad enough for the two girls,—this kind of life. The worst of it, perhaps, was this; that they never knew when to expect him. A word had been said once as to the impracticability of having dinner ready for a gentleman, when the gentleman would never say whether he would want a dinner. It had been an unfortunate remark, for Sir Thomas had taken advantage of it by saying that when he ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... marquis of Carmarthen, the earls of Devonshire, Dorset, Nottingham, and Rochester, together with the lords Sidney and Cornwallis, to consult with the admiral, who demonstrated the impracticability of making an effectual descent upon the coast of France at that season of the year. The design was therefore laid aside, and the forces were transported to Flanders. The higher the hopes of the nation had been raised by this armament, the deeper they felt their disappointment. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... of an attempt to escape, a thing which never entered his head whilst he could see Rosa every day; but the more he thought of it, the more clearly he saw the impracticability of such an attempt. He was one of those choice spirits who abhor everything that is common, and who often lose a good chance through not taking the way of the vulgar, that high road of mediocrity which ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... this reason the old federation of the States was an experience of inexpressible value. It settled forever, in the minds of all communities who are governed by cool common sense and not mad passion, the utter impracticability (for efficient cooeperation, and peaceful union) of a mere league or confederacy among sovereign and independent States. While the seven years' war of independence lasted, it managed to hold the States together; but when peace was ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... girl should have her dinner in the middle of the day. The exigencies of city life make this arrangement in some cases inconvenient, and yet inconvenience is less often than is popularly supposed synonymous with impracticability. If this cannot be done, and luncheons must be carried to school, the filling of the lunch-basket should never be left, except under exact directions, to the kind-hearted servant, or to the girl herself; and she should under no circumstances be allowed to buy her luncheon each day of the ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... his enemies had been at work behind him, and the edge of the copse through which he was about to pass, was blockaded with bars in like manner with the path in front. He heard the shouts of the ruffians in the rear—he felt the danger, if not impracticability of his pausing for the removal of the rails, and, in the spirit which had heretofore marked his conduct, he determined upon the most daring endeavor. Throwing off all restraint from his steed, and ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... reputation was at its zenith; a little skilful engineering of the success thus gained might have extricated him from his difficulties, and enabled him to keep his head above water for the remainder of his days. But, owing chiefly to his own impracticability, his story from this point is one of decline, gradual at first, but increasing in velocity, until the end came in disaster ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... discountenance it. Mere gentlemanly considerations has scarce shielded Farmer Blaize, and certain very ungentlemanly schemes were coming to ghastly heads in the tumult of his brain; rejected solely from their glaring impracticability even to his young intelligence. A sweeping and consummate vengeance for the indignity alone should satisfy him. Something tremendous must be done; and done without delay. At one moment he thought of killing all the farmer's cattle; next ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the object of this paper to show the impracticability of such systems when considered from a commercial standpoint, so long as the supply of coal lasts, and prices keep ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885 • Various
... in 1830, and went to live in London. After the death of my mother, he began to squander his immense fortune—from sorrow, he said. When, in his time, he died at the period of the Prichard affair, he left me barely a thousand pounds sterling of income, plus two or three systems of gaming, the impracticability of which I ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... Warden). In 1832, the Resident Physician, Dr. James Macdonald, who had just returned from Europe after having spent a year in visiting the institutions for mental disorders there, made a report in which he rather significantly referred to the impracticability of making a sharp distinction between the medical and moral treatment of the patients, it being difficult to say where the one ended and the other began, or to put one into successful operation without bringing in the other. At this time the position of Attending Physician ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... her hopes in the impracticability of Lord Hampstead. Such men as that, she had told herself, were likely to keep themselves altogether free of marriage. He would not improbably, she thought, entertain some abominable but not unlucky idea that marriage in itself was an absurdity. At any rate, there ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... of The Mirror, appeared a paper headed "The Habits of the Common Snake," purported to be extracted from the Magazine of Natural History. The doctrine enforced by the writer of this article, as regards the impracticability of domesticating a snake, has been proved entirely erroneous by the fact recited; and were there no positive instance adduced to the contrary, it does not follow that, because his effort, were ineffectual, such a thing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 576 - Vol. 20 No. 576., Saturday, November 17, 1832 • Various
... movement of the arm above the shoulders signifies vivid imagination, or impracticability. It may be read as an indication of lightness of character or of a tendency to go off on a tangent. Conversely, gestures outward from the lower part of the body denote power, or an inclination to ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... on April 26th, Kane set out on what, to use his own words, "was to be the crowning expedition of the campaign, to attain the Ultima Thule of the Greenland shore." Impressed with the impracticability of a direct journey across the main ice-pack, he decided to follow the shore-line, five men dragging a sledge, while Kane and Godfrey travelled by dog-team. He had been led by his resolute spirit to overestimate the physical strength of his men and himself, and the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... impracticable, is (if it be so) the very thing I desire to be considered. I am not setting down these plans or schemes as at present possible. I do not know how far they are possible; but it seems to me that God has plainly commanded them, and that, therefore, their impracticability is a thing to ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... war, reduce the barbarians of Tripoli to the desire of peace on proper terms. Great injury, however, ensues to ourselves, as well as to others interested, from the distance to which prizes must be brought for adjudication and from the impracticability of bringing hither such ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Thomas Jefferson • Thomas Jefferson
... if any of the melted ice and salt is allowed to mix with the cream, the latter is spoiled. From the difficulty of obtaining ice in places distant from large towns, and in hot countries, and from the impracticability of keeping it any length of time, or, in fact, of keeping small quantities more than a few hours its use is much limited, and many have been the attempts to obtain an efficient substitute. For this purpose various salts have been employed, which, when dissolved ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... General Montgomery, at the head of a considerable force of congress troops, captured the forts of Chambly and St. Johns on the Richelieu, and a few days later occupied Montreal, which had been hastily evacuated by Carleton, who at once recognised the impracticability of defending it with any chance of success, since he had an insufficient force, and could not even depend on the fealty of the inhabitants. Quebec, at this juncture, was the key to Canada, and there he determined to make his fight. He passed in the night-time ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... I strained my eyes to see if I could discern any other spot at which an ascent or descent was possible. The prospect was not encouraging. At some places the face fell sheer away from the edge, and so evident was the impracticability of escape that the only place which I glanced at twice was the western side, that is the one away from the hill. Here it sloped gradually for a few feet. I took off my shoes and went down to the edge. Below, some ten feet, was a ledge, on to which with care I could get down, but below that ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... from prejudice and self-interest. The contempt we have been taught to entertain for the blacks makes us fancy many things that are founded neither in reason nor experience; and an unwillingness to part with property of so valuable a kind will furnish a thousand arguments to show the impracticability, or pernicious tendency, of a scheme which requires such sacrifices. But it should be considered that if we do not make use of them in this way, the enemy probably will; and that the best way to counteract the temptations they will hold ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... and their relations shall be denoted by signs, not words: so that any person, whatever may be his mother tongue, may read it in his own words. This is an obvious possibility, and, I am afraid, an obvious impracticability. One man may construct such a system—Bishop Wilkins has done it—but where is the man who will learn it? The second tongue makes a language, as the second blow makes a fray. There has been very ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... uselessness,—transferred from what had become public evils to their original and inherent purpose of public benefits, instead of being sacrilegiously alienated by a transfer to private proprietors. That this was impracticable, is historically true; but no less true is it philosophically, that this impracticability, arising wholly from moral causes, (namely, the loose manners and corrupt principles of a great majority in all classes during the dynasty of the Tudors,) does not prevent this wholesale sacrilege, from deserving the character ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... where, while she applied dressings of herbs to the wound of her favourite, she suffered her mind to ruminate on the singularity of the appearance of a man so immediately in the vicinity of their retreat. The supposed impracticability of the ascent I had accomplished, satisfied, even while (as she admitted) it disappointed her. I must of necessity retrace my way over the dangerous ridge. Great, therefore, was her surprise, when, after having been attracted by the rustling noise of the bushes ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... it is the ideals of life that determine the conduct of life. It is ideals that rule the world; hence the importance of right ideals based upon a comprehensive understanding of the real nature and deepest implications of human fellowship. The alleged impracticability is not in the ideal but in the difficulty of making the ideal such a dominant part of our being that it shall consistently direct our activities under every circumstance. One of the essential conditions of human progress is the conviction that such ideals are vital to the highest ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... same fog it might be possible for us to take once more to the cutter, and, letting her drift with the current, in that way slip unobserved away down the river. But a very few minutes' consideration of that scheme sufficed to convince me of its impracticability. I felt convinced that our enemies were quite shrewd enough to anticipate and make due provision for any such attempt on our part. I felt certain, indeed, that would the fog but lift for a moment, of which, ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... fleet in Basque Roads, then threatening our West India possessions, might be destroyed at one blow; this extraordinary request from a junior captain, after the most experienced officers in the navy had pronounced its impracticability, forcibly proving the very high opinion entertained by the Admiralty of Lord Cochrane's skill and resources. He gave in a plan, and was ordered to execute it, which order he reluctantly obeyed, having done all ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... the natural strength and resources of the country, directed to a common interest, would baffle all the combinations of European jealousy to restrain our growth. This situation would even take away the motive to such combinations, by inducing an impracticability of success. An active commerce, an extensive navigation, and a flourishing marine would then be the offspring of moral and physical necessity. We might defy the little arts of the little politicians to control or vary the irresistible and ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... In July (1495) an expedition sailed from Flanders to place Perkin on the English throne. Maximilian's hopes were high: he bragged to the Venetians that the "Duke of York" would immediately unseat the Tudor, and when he was on the throne, England would be at the beck of the League. The Emperor's impracticability was sufficiently shown by his having procured from Perkin his own recognition as heir, if the pretender should die without issue. The expedition attempted to land at Deal, but the men of Kent assembled in arms, and drove it off with ignominious ease. For once Henry was severe, and ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... impracticability of keeping the convicts within the limits prescribed for them became every day more evident. Almost every month since our arrival had produced one or more accidents, occasioned principally by a non-compliance with the orders which had been given solely with a view to their security; ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... any other nation could ever boast of, who led his crews of gallant British seamen twice round the world, reduced to a certainty the non-existence of a southern continent, about which the learned of all nations were in doubt, settled the boundaries of the earth and sea, and demonstrated the impracticability of a north-west passage from the Atlantic to the great southern ocean, for which our ablest geographers had contended, and in pursuit of which vast sums had been spent in vain, and many ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... step,—there was creeping upon him the idea that his power of cohesion was sought for, and perhaps found, not in his political capacity, but in his rank and wealth. It might, in fact, be the case that it was his wife the Duchess,—that Lady Glencora of whose wild impulses and general impracticability he had always been in dread,—that she with her dinner parties and receptions, with her crowded saloons, her music, her picnics, and social temptations, was Prime Minister rather than he himself. ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... never designed by divine wisdom that it should exist. The whole structure of society must be changed, even in this country, ere it could exist among ourselves, and the change would not have been made a month before the utter impracticability of such a social fusion would make itself felt ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... stop a war by a general international strike is never mentioned during the first rally to the national flag at the outbreak of a war; but it is there all the time, ready to break out again if the supplies of food and glory run short. Its gravity lies in its impracticability. If it were practicable, every sane man would advocate it. As it is, it might easily mean that British troops would be coercing British strikers at home when they should be fighting Potsdam abroad, thus producing a disastrous and detestable division of popular ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... Nay, almost every, one, he believed, appeared to wish that the further importation of slaves might cease, provided, it could be made out that, the population of the West Indies could be maintained without it. He proposed, therefore, to consider the latter point; for, as the impracticability of keeping up the population there appeared to operate as the chief objection, he trusted that, by showing it to be ill founded, he should clear away all other obstacles whatever; so that, having no ground either ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... principal bad feature of capped elbow the most important consideration is that of devising a means for its prevention. To prevent the animal from lying down is evidently the simplest method of keeping the heels and the elbow apart; but the impracticability of this prescription is apparent, since most animals are obliged to lie down when they sleep, though it is true that a few take their sleep on their feet. The question of shoeing here enters into the discussion. The shortening of the inside ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... suit last. No replication or decree is recorded. The litigation apparently terminated in a compromise, doubtless hastened by Mrs. Nash's second marriage. Perhaps Edward Nash by this time realized the injustice or the impracticability of his claim. The only further allusion to it occurs in Lady Barnard's will.[201] She directs her trustees to dispose of New Place with the proviso "that my loving cousin, Edward Nash, Esq., shall have the first offer or refusal ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... this assertion; and will point to the Emancipation Act as a proof that the Duke wanted the firmness to act up to his avowed principles. This involves a wrong assumption. It is one thing obstinately to adhere to an opinion in defiance of its impracticability: another to retract that opinion so soon as its impracticability is demonstrated. Whether the Duke was right or wrong in his opinions, no one will deny that it required great moral courage for him to stand up in the face of the country, braving the anger of his old associates, and declare ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... a review of all this wondrous History, I profess myself at a loss to see what special note of impracticability it presents that I should hesitate to embrace it, in the plain natural sense of the words, with both the arms of my heart. That it is not such an account of the manner of the Creation as you or I should have ourselves invented, or anticipated, or on questionable ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... general, sensible of the impracticability of reducing Quebec, unless he should be enabled to erect his batteries on the north side of the St. Lawrence, determined to use his utmost endeavours to bring Montcalm to an engagement. After several unavailing attempts to draw that ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... the American Oneida community, was successfully communistic in every respect for many years. But the modern Socialist is not a communist; the modern Socialist, making his scheme of social reconstruction for the whole world and for every type of character, recognizes the entire impracticability of such dreams, recognizing, too, it may be, the sacrifice of human personality and distinction such ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells |
