"Incapable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... recovery, and almost baffled the doctor's skill. She would lie for hours without speaking or moving, apparently asleep, but only in a sort of waking dream. She took no interest in anything, and appeared quite incapable of making any effort to overcome this apathy. Emily tried her best to amuse her; but after taking pains to relate everything that she thought of interest that had occurred, Isabel would smile and thank her, in a way that proved ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... receipts, of seventy-five millions of our money. But a large revenue becomes of diminished value unless it is associated with sound finance. The public expenditure showed a steady increase; the emperor and his advisers were incapable of checking the outlay, and extravagance, combined with improvidence, soon depleted the exchequer. Internal troubles occurred to further embarrass the executive, and the resources of the state were ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Characeae, which possess only vegetative functions. These cells grow vigorously and their cytoplasm increases, their growth being accompanied by a correspondingly direct multiplication of the nuclei. They serve chiefly to nourish the plant, but, unlike the other cells, they are incapable of producing any offspring. This is a very instructive case, because it clearly shows that the nuclei are not only carriers of hereditary characters, but that they also play a definite part in ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... amounting to thirty thousand men, was commanded by as many as fifteen generals, almost of equal rank, among whom there was little concert or agreement. Induced to take the offensive by the retirement of the Persian king, these incapable officers invaded Persarmenia with all their troops, and proceeded to plunder its rich plains and fertile valleys. Encountering suddenly and unexpectedly the Persian general Nabedes, who, with a small force, was strongly posted at a village ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... incapable of uttering a single word. Her head rested on her brother's shoulder, and she clasped one of his hands tightly between her own. Orso, though secretly somewhat annoyed by her peroration, was too much alarmed to reprove ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... Colonel's orders as unmoved as if nothing had happened. I did my duty with habitual precision,—my hand was steady, my limbs were firm; but my tongue was incapable of uttering a word. My comrades as they came towards me, suddenly halted, and turned aside,—strangers looked at me, as if I bore the impress of some fearful thing. I was removed, as it were, out of myself—I was in another state ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 399, Supplementary Number • Various
... of the new aeon on which we are entering. What are to be the final consequences of this wide intercourse? Can a people change its character? Can a nation fully possessed by one type of civilization reject it, and adopt one radically different? Do races have "souls" which are fixed and incapable of radical transformations? What has taken place in Japan, a profound, or only a superficial change in psychical character? Are the destinies of the Oriental races ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... count and countess expressing my feelings as to this magnificent gift, and will send the letter to the embassy to be forwarded at the first possible opportunity. And now what is the next thing to be done, for I feel almost incapable of forming ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... born in him have been fed and trained by any of the "sane and mighty masters of English song"; but, born to the inheritance of a narrow and ferocious creed, with no power left to even admit the existence of the beautiful, he was "forever incapable of giving utterance to his genius—except in a dialect unworthy of it," and became simply "the explicit and unshrinking rhymer of ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... eyes that turned from the one to the other half questioningly, but content without reply. The mother seemed physically overwhelmed by the shock, and ready to accept absolute collapse, if not indeed incapable of movement. She made no attempt to ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... this sleep is a state of torpidity— from which the animal is incapable of awaking himself or of being awakened, until the regular period of indulgence in it may have passed. This, however, is not the case; for bears are often surprised in their sleep, and when aroused by the hunters act just as is usual ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... suit me," replied Morgan, in a tone of sadness of which he seemed incapable, "if the duel itself could take place. You have taken an oath, and you mean to keep it, you say. Well, every initiate who enters the Company of Jehu swears that he will not expose in any personal quarrel a life that belongs to the cause and ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... general poll tax, which was to be paid by every one above sixteen years of age, was established in 1379 and another one in the following year to meet the expenses of the hopeless French war which was now being conducted by incapable ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... chromatophores must have been in a state of relaxation; and this specimen was as distinct from its companions as from the bottom of the aquarium. Closer investigation proved that the creature was totally blind,[99] and thus incapable of assuming the color of the objects around it, the eyes being unable to act as a medium of communication between them and the chromatophores of the skin."[100] Thus far Pouchet had only confirmed Lister's observations, although it is highly ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... very soon have been succeeded by another if a very unexpected & most shocking domestick calamity had not rendered me wholly incapable of attending to every kind of business. I have however lately read your Tragedy over & over with the strictest attention, and after considering it again & again, not without a real partiality to the Author, & the strongest desire of encouraging the ...
— A Pindarick Ode on Painting - Addressed to Joshua Reynolds, Esq. • Thomas Morrison
... his mother's heart and dashed her hopes by an unfeeling letter, in which he declared her incapable of being treated with, since she was a prisoner and deposed. The not unreasonable expectation, that his manhood might reverse the proceedings wrought in his name in his infancy, was frustrated. Mary could no longer believe that he was constrained by ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... two 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 ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... before his canvas. He could never imitate his illustrious master. He was incapable of painting anything but what he saw, and his brush, after reproducing the blue and white raiment, stopped, hesitating at the face, calling in vain on imagination. After futile efforts it was the grotesque mask of Rodriguez that ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... immediate change of tone, and unfortunately the difference of view becomes at once a difference of aim. The moral element enters immediately, and those who believe otherwise are designated unbelievers, though we do not at once stamp those who think otherwise as incapable of thought. Here lies the great difficulty in considering and treating calmly religious, or rather, theological questions. There is little hope of reaching a mutual understanding when the first attack is characterised ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... Thebans, he expected, would, in return for the services done them, allow him in everything else to have his way, and, so far from thwarting or impeding him, would fight on his side if he required it. You are judged by these to be the only people incapable of betraying for lucre the national rights of Greece, or bartering your attachment to her for any obligation or benefit. And this opinion of you he has naturally formed, not only from a view of present times, but by reflection on ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... the Powers have in the past been so hampered by the traditions of a tortuous diplomacy, so tossed and perturbed within by the cross-currents of intrigue, that they have shown themselves almost childishly incapable of arriving at clear-cut decisions. Old policies, old formulae, old jealousies, old dynastic influences still hold control of the majority of the chancelleries of Continental Europe, and these things it is that have made questions simple in themselves ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... And I felt some difficulty whom to choose of the few who had not yet spoken, so as to avoid, as far as possible, a tone that would jar upon our mood. Finally, I selected Coryat, the poet, knowing he was incapable of a false note, and hoping he might perhaps begin to pull us, as it were, up out of the pit into which we had slipped. He responded from the darkness, with the hesitation and incoherence which, in him, I have always found ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... had lived in the closest intimacy for many years. He understood perfectly my love for my mistress and had several times intimated that bonds of this kind were sacred to a friend, and that he would be incapable of an attempt to supplant me even if he loved the same woman. In short, I had perfect confidence in him and I had perhaps never pressed the hand of any human creature more cordially ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... then!" he said, greatly daring. (He knew perfectly well that the dignity of Lady Ambermere would not permit rude vulgar whistling, of which he was hopelessly incapable, to summon her motor. She made a feint of stopping her ears ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... transplanting, is not the work of a blind destiny. While civilisation in the East succumbed and died out before the advance of races incapable of culture, it was welcomed in the West by races possessing the requisite capacity, which by their inborn force gave it new forms and indestructible bases for its outward existence. Nor have the nations and kingdoms arisen each from its mother earth, as it ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... that melted the frozen torrents and set them boiling; with that sun removed, they froze again, and the army and all France became what they had been before, mere dead corpses—that and nothing more; incapable of thought, hope, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... one premise, and want of power over another, infer want of power over a conclusion. {335} As "Some men are not capable of tracing consequences; we cannot be sure that there are beings responsible for consequences who are incapable of tracing consequences; therefore, we cannot be sure that all men are responsible for the ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... morning she tried to get up, but fainted away on the floor. Her children were still asleep, and were not even awakened by her fall. It was some time before she recovered sufficiently to crawl upon the bed; and there she lay; almost incapable of thought or motion, for hours. As feeble nature reacted again, and she was able to think over her situation, she made up her mind to send in her little boy again to Mrs.—, with an apology for not using the sago, and request her to give her some little thing from ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... the greater 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 have been a material drawback ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... "History of the Blacks," that Mrs. Embree once distinguished herself on a trip from Eastport to the Isthmus. The captain was incapable of managing the boat through drink, and there was no man to take his place. Mrs. Embree took the helm and brought the ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman
... of unanalysed sensations she was incapable of making a plan which should have any effect upon her state of mind. She abandoned herself to the mercy of accidents, missing Terence one day, meeting him the next, receiving his letters always with a start of surprise. Any woman experienced in the progress of courtship would ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... direction. He thought the matter over for a time, and then, finding himself unable to sleep, got up and wrote an article for a leading review on the subject of the Doxology. The article was subsequently rejected—which proves that Providence is not altogether incapable of a kindly action—but it served its purpose by ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... danger. Capable, besides, of high flights of idealism, which result in epics, but rarely in actions, owing to the Slavonic inaptitude for sustained and organised effort. The Englishman by contrast appears cold and calculating, incapable of rising above questions of practical utility; neither interested in other men's antecedents and experiences nor willing to retail his own. The catechism which Plato puts Pierre through on their first encounter ("War and Peace") as to his family, possessions, and what not, are precisely similar ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... unfamiliar dress was introduced to awaken the critical spirit. The young men, looking in their Sunday clothes like awkward and tawdry imitations of their workaday selves, were instructed by Brother Spence; and Brother Bowden, being the kindliest, gentlest, most incapable man of the band of brothers, was given the charge of the boys' Second Class, a class of youthful heathen, rampageous, fightable, and flippant, who made the good man's life a misery to him, and were at war with all authority. Peterson, ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... frequently she said these words angrily and in a choked voice, 'Husbands, or sons, or friends, or brothers, or father, have I none! Nor have I thee, O thou slayer of Madhu, for ye all, beholding me treated so cruelly by inferior foes, sit still unmoved! My grief at Karna's ridicule is incapable of being assuaged! On these grounds I deserve to be ever protected by thee, O Kesava, viz., our relationship, thy respect (for me), our friendship, and thy ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... Alice, however, was carefully searched every time she passed in and out of the Tower, to see that she supplied no books nor writing-materials to the prisoner, nor took any letters from her. Poor Margery! the care was needless, for she was just then as incapable of writing as if she had ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... Incapable of the least utterance or composition, Emendation, conservation of the "better tradition", Refinement of medium, elimination of superfluities, August attraction ...
— Hugh Selwyn Mauberley • Ezra Pound
... 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 ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... of professional authorship; he had studied the literary world both high and low, and had seen enough to convince him that it was an impossible thing to produce art in such a society. The modern world did not know what art was, it was incapable of forming such a concept. That which it called "art" was fraud and parasitism—its very heart ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... that infuriated him. He could not get free: and he was ashamed. He had one or two sweethearts, starting with them in the hope of speedy development. But when he had a nice girl, he found that he was incapable of pushing the desired development. The very presence of the girl beside him made it impossible. He could not think of her like that, he could not think of her actual nakedness. She was a girl and he liked her, and dreaded violently even ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... revived by Coper'nicus and fully established by Newton. With respect to God, Pythagoras appears to have taught that he is the universal, ever-existent mind, the first principle of the universe, the source and cause of all animal life and motion, in substance similar to light, in nature like truth, incapable of pain, invisible, incorruptible, and only to be comprehended by the mind. His philosophy and teachings are thus ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... woman has only to be obedient. That is her whole duty, The line does not mean, as it has been said, that 'she is incapable of good or evil;' but it is not her part to take the initiative even ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... bronze (the spoils of the Pantheon and of the temple of Jerusalem); the profusion of gilding and ornament of all sorts and where in spite of this profusion there seems rien de trop. At first entrance the eye is so dazzled with the magnificent tout ensemble as to be incapable for a long time of examining any thing in detail. Each chapel abounds in the choicest marbles and precious stones: in a word it would seem as if the whole wealth of the Earth were concentrated here. Without impiety or exaggeration, I felt on entering this ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... his eyes with his hand. He was drinking just then a very bitter cup: and it was none the sweeter for the recollection that he had mixed it himself. His favourite child—for Blanche was that—seemed to be going headlong to her ruin: and her mother not only refused to aid in saving her, but was incapable of seeing any need that she should ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... spite of the wounded man's groans, he was quickly dressed and his hands tied behind him. As he opened his mouth to give expression to his protests, he found himself suddenly gagged by Brandt, who stood behind him. Then a strap was buckled about his feet, and he lay on the floor helpless and incapable of making ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... kind): but the general mass, tempered with such admixtures, is of the Platt-Deutsch, Saxon or even Anglish character we are familiar with here at home. A patient stout people; meaning considerable things, and very incapable of ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... it retains for a time its spiral form; it then straightens itself, and again commences to revolve. The long, much-inclined shoot of the Ceropegia previously alluded to offered some curious peculiarities. The lower and older internodes, which continued to revolve, were incapable, on repeated trials, of twining round a thin stick; showing that, although the power of movement was retained, this was not sufficient to enable the plant to twine. I then moved the stick to a greater distance, so that it was struck ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin
... assurances of her husband's death and of her own complete freedom. To this he may have intended to add some final messages of love and confidence from the man she had been so ready to forget; but nothing worse. Wallace Pfeiffer was incapable of anything worse, and if she had only resigned herself to her seeming fate and consented to see ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... admiring herself; she was incapable even of suspecting that so expensive a pendant could not suit ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... communicated a whistling small vibration to my whole frame. This intensified, became more pronounced. Perceptibly, in that magnificent refinement of speed, our enormous pace I felt to decrease ever so little. Still we had so far outstripped intelligence as that I was incapable of considering the ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... strange impressiveness with which the request was proffered, or that the softened mood of Hedges rendered him incapable of contention, certain it was that he granted it; and most likely would wonder at himself for it all his after-life. Crossing the hall with silent tread, and taking up a candle as he went, he led the way to ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... We have left behind the theoretic enthusiast, perplexed by the contrast between the semi-barbarism of the country and the old-fashioned apathy of its rulers; we have no more descriptions, serious or sarcastic, of rakish subalterns and disorderly regiments under ancient, incapable colonels; we are introduced to a reformed Anglo-India, full of hard-working, efficient officers, civil and military, and sufficiently decorous, except where hill-stations foster flirting and the ordinary dissipation of any garrison town. It is, however, still ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... concerning such wonderful mysteries as the Immaculate Conception (the Mystic Birth), the Crucifixion (the Mystic Death), the cleansing blood, the atonement, and other doctrines of the Church, which the intellect refuses to believe, as they are incapable of demonstration, and seemingly at war with natural law. Material advancement may be furthered when intellect is dominant and the longings of the heart unsatisfied, but soul growth will be retarded until the heart ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... "and speaking to you as a gentleman who is incapable of betraying me, I will confess, that if I thought myself a prisoner here, neither walls nor water should ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... suppose our tete-a-tete was long, but it was a lively period while it lasted. He drank like a fish or an Englishman; shouted, beat the table, roared out songs, quarrelled, made it up again, and at last tried to throw the dinner-plates through the window, a feat of which he was at that time quite incapable. For a party of fugitives, condemned to the most rigorous discretion, there was never seen so noisy a carnival; and through it all the Colonel continued to sleep like a child. Seeing the Major so well advanced, and no retreat possible, I made a fair ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... saw God in all the manifestations of Nature. This did not satisfy him nor resolve his doubts, and he therefore confessed that reason could not compass the exalted aims of philosophy. But there was no cynicism in his doubt. It was the soul-sickening consciousness that reason was incapable of solving the mighty questions that he burned to know. There was no way to arrive at the truth, "for," said he, "error is spread over all things." It was not disdain of knowledge, it was the combat of contradictory opinions that oppressed him. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... a man who can only use it to read the signs on the public houses and possibly a pamphlet which he is incapable of understanding—the kind of education we have had from the time of Riurik: and village life has remained exactly as it was then. Not education is wanted but freedom for the full development of spiritual capacities. Not schools ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... their anxiety to become masters of his possessions, they grew at last impatient and, weary of his living so long, formed a conspiracy against him, and accused him before the Areopagus, of being insane, a driveller incapable of governing his family, or managing his concerns—in short, a fool, a madman. He had fortunately, at that time, just finished his OEDIPUS AT COLONOS. When he heard the charge made against him by his ingrate sons, he offered no defence but this tragedy, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... he had lost five thousand men. The hospitals were crowded with sick. The tribesmen had ceased to send in provisions. Even should he succeed in taking the town after another assault, his force would be so far reduced as to be incapable of further action. Its strength had already fallen from sixteen thousand to eight thousand men. Ten of his generals had been killed. Of his eight aides-de-camp, four had been ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... Suppose your own heredity had proven tricky—it does sometimes, you know—and you had been found incapable of scientific thought. You would have been deranked and perhaps made a record clerk—no personal reflections, but such things do happen—and if you now were filing cards all day you would surely be much ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... incapable of action until the four figures were remote and small, and then he rose up possessed with the one idea of pursuit. For a space he feared he had lost them, and then he came upon Elizabeth and her chaperone again in one of the streets of moving platforms that intersected ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... struck with a passage in a powerful article upon 'The Hope that is within Us,' in a late foreign periodical, wherein the fruitful theme of our correspondent is touched upon. 'If matter,' says the writer, 'be incapable of consciousness, as JOHNSON so powerfully argues in Rasselas, then the animus of brutes must be an anima, and immaterial; for the dog and the elephant not merely exhibit 'consciousness,' but a 'half-reasoning' power. And ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... you see, and no longer able to serve them [her grown children]. When they kill game, I am too feeble to aid in carrying home the flesh; I am incapable of gathering wood to make fire, and I cannot carry their children on my back as ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... their entire self-possession, their elegant but unaffected bearing, and the choiceness of their language, would enable them to make a creditable appearance in any foreign drawing-room." Their natural talents are of a high order; but we must add that the senoras are uneducated, and are incapable of either great vices or great virtues. Their minds, like the soil of their native country, are fertile, but uncultivated; and their hearts, like the climate, are of a mean temperature. Prayer-books and French novels (imported, as wanted, for there is not ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... true Protestant and a heroic patriot—"I own all authority that hath its prescriptives and limitations from the word of God; but I cannot own this usurper as lawful king—seeing both by the word of God, such a one is incapable to bear rule, and likewise by the ancient laws of the kingdom, which admit none to the crown of Scotland until he swear to defend the Protestant religion, which a man ...
— The Life of James Renwick • Thomas Houston
... under-parts of a lioness. The other, then, was a lion! With a sort of gurgling in his throat he turned his eyes to it, and he saw it trotting up straight for him, its shaggy mane giving to its head and shoulders an enormous size. He felt spell-bound, incapable of moving hand or foot. It was the silence of the ferocious beasts that paralyzed him. Then the jackal howled behind him, and his blood rushed through his veins. His tongue no longer clave to the roof of his mouth, and when the great beast was within ten yards of ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... our pinnace incapable of farther use, we took out her four bases, anchor, and every thing of value, and set her on fire, after which we ran along the coast. On the 3d February we anchored about 4 leagues from a town, which we saluted with two guns, on which the chief ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... means to fasten both rulers and people in her thrall. With far-sighted policy she perceived that in order to enslave men effectually, the shackles must be bound upon their souls; that the surest way to prevent them from escaping their bondage was to render them incapable of freedom. A thousandfold more terrible than the physical suffering which resulted from her policy, was the moral degradation. Deprived of the Bible, and abandoned to the teachings of bigotry and selfishness, the ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... in England, in which a large number of children have been allowed to grow up unvaccinated, have always been visited sooner or later by a serious outbreak of smallpox. It must be so; the laws of natural phenomena can not be changed to suit the taste of those persons who are mentally incapable of understanding them. They can not be evaded; ignorance of the law is no more an excuse in the realm of ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... of his broken-heart theory. But even if Shakespear had had no failures, it was not possible for a man of his powers to observe the political and moral conduct of his contemporaries without perceiving that they were incapable of dealing with the problems raised by their own civilization, and that their attempts to carry out the codes of law and to practise the religions offered to them by great prophets and law-givers were and still are so foolish that we now call for ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... speaker who brings in this kind of argument makes use neither of reasoning nor of legitimate persuasion. He neglects his proposition and attempts to excite the feelings of his audience to such an extent as to render them incapable of forming a dispassionate judgment upon ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... in love. These young men were sure of themselves and of each other; the enemy of one was the enemy of all; the most urgent personal considerations would have been shattered if they had clashed with the sacred solidarity of their fellowship. All alike incapable of disloyalty, they could oppose a formidable No to any accusation brought against the absent and defend them with perfect confidence. With a like nobility of nature and strength of feeling, it was possible to think ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... room where the explosion took place?" asked Jennie. "Yes." "And is this the only entrance?" "The only entrance, madame." "Were the men on guard in this doorway injured by the explosion?" "Yes. They were not seriously injured, but were rendered incapable for a time of attending to their duties." "Then a person could have escaped without their seeing him?" "A whole regiment of persons might have escaped. You will understand the situation exactly if I compare this corridor to a long cannon, the room at the ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... existed between the family of the proprietor of the Knoll and his own, growing no narrower; and an active cupidity, with the hopes of confiscations, or an abandonment of the estate, came in aid of this rankling jealousy of station; the most uneasy, as it is the meanest of all our vices. Utterly incapable of appreciating the width of that void which separates the gentleman from the man of coarse feelings and illiterate vulgarity, he began to preach that doctrine of exaggerated and mistaken equality which says "one man is as good as another," a doctrine that is nowhere engrafted ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... Mensheviks object to the identification of the Trades Unions with the Government apparatus on the ground that when this change, which they expect comes about, the Trade Union movement will be so far emasculated as to be incapable of defending the town workers against the peasants who will then be the ruling class. Thus they attack the present Trades Union leaders for being directly influenced by the Government in fixing the rate of wages, on the ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... ridiculous complications, you know—that must be the explanation of it. You have only to talk to him, and clear up the whole affair," said the Squire, recovering himself a little. He believed in "talking to," like Louisa, and like most people who are utterly incapable of talking to any purpose. He took some courage from the thought, and recovered his colour a little. "There is the bell for luncheon, and I am very glad of it," he said; "a glass of sherry will set me all right. Don't say anything ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... or honor, or shall, without the consent of Congress, accept and retain any present, pension, office, or emolument of any kind whatever from any emperor, king, prince, or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States, and shall be incapable of holding any office of profit or trust under them, or either of them." This proposed amendment did not become a part of the Constitution, failing of ratification by ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 10. • James D. Richardson
... confesses, there is no doubt as to that; but the country finds in them one more cause to be proud: "It hath ben often seen in Englond that three or four thefes, for povertie hath sett upon seven or eight true men and robbyd them al." The thieves of France are incapable of such admirable boldness. On this account "it is right seld that French men be hangyd for robberye," says Fortescue, who had never, judging by the way he talks, passed by Montfaucon, nor come across ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... the dreadful slaughter in their ranks seemed to render the affrighted creatures incapable of action, for they came to a ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... kindred doctrines may be inferentially drawn from Carlyle's defence of Cromwell; namely, that a popular assembly is incapable of guiding successfully the destinies of a nation; that behind all constitutions lies an ultimate law of force; that majorities, as such, have no more right to rule than kings and nobles; that the strongest are the best, and the best are the strongest; that the right to rule lies with those who ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... shot past, pursued by mounted men. And very soon the herd was gone, and all was again quiet. Then followed a moment that was full of embarrassment. Keenly, Lounsbury looked from father to daughter, the one striving to assume an easy air, the other incapable of hiding alarm. All at once, he felt certain they shared Old Michael's information. He determined to tell them that he, too, knew what ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... complainings of a cabinet piano, wasting away, a string a day, and faintly resounding to the noises of the street in its jangling and distracted brain. Of motionless clocks that never stirred a finger, and seemed as incapable of being successfully wound up, as the pecuniary affairs of their former owners, there was always great choice in Mr Brogley's shop; and various looking-glasses, accidentally placed at compound interest of reflection and refraction, presented to ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... "I'm incapable of caring now," I groaned, "what has happened to any of them. If an earthquake has swallowed up our mountain, and Anthony's married Monny, and Brigit's been abducted, or vice versa, and Miss Guest has gone off with the jewels, it will ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... would clear most minds—especially old ones. You see, the brain is a muscle and thought is its physical exercise. It learns certain thoughts—to go through certain exercises. These become a habit, and in time the muscle becomes stiff and incapable of learning any new movements—also incapable of leaving off the old. The religion of an old person is merely so much reflex nervous action. It is beyond the reach of reason. The individual's mind can affect it as little as it can teach the ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... up! Git up, honey, an' go in the house. You ought to 'a' been abed long ago. Git up honey." Chichester stood like one paralyzed. For the moment, he was incapable of ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... darted about at its own will. It had an object; was advancing somewhere rapidly. The thing had something of the form of a jester's bauble with points, which hung flabby and undulating. It seemed covered with a dust incapable of being washed away by the water. It was more than horrible; it was foul. It seemed to be seeking the darker portion of the cavern, where at ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... clucked her tongue in sympathy. It must be terrible not to be sure, so ... well, it must be just terrible. And I was such a kind man, too. I didn't quite get the connection, until I remembered there are some patterns which believe a human being would be incapable of being kind unless through hope of reward ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... unfortunately, does inebriate, although whether from joy or grief at the anticipated change does not transpire; anyhow, the result was that on attempting to drive Mr and Mrs Montefiore back from the ball he was found totally incapable of guiding the horses, and, notwithstanding the efforts made by the footman to come to his assistance, they had to leave the carriage before arriving at their destination, and complete ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... merely repeated themselves over and over, just as so many delicious syllables which tickled the ear and rolled succulently under the tongue. For, you see, Tom was only an ordinary battered Arizona cow-puncher, and so, of course, according to the fireside moralists, quite incapable of the higher feelings. But the words reacted to arouse memories of black-eyed Anne, and the memories in turn brought ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... beautiful France has experienced. These errors have necessarily led to the rule of the men of blood. In fact, who has proclaimed the principle of insurrection as a duty? Who has paid adulation to the nation while claiming for it a sovereignty which it was incapable of exercising? Who has destroyed the sanctity and respect for the laws, in making them depend, not on the sacred principles of justice, or the nature of things and on civil justice, but simply on the will of an assembly of men strangers to the knowledge of civil, criminal, administrative, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the Malay race seems rather deficient. They are incapable of anything beyond the simplest combinations of ideas, and have little taste or energy for the acquirement of knowledge. Their civilization, such as it is, does not seem to be indigenous, as it is entirely confined to those nations who have been converted to the Mahometan ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... been accustomed to consider the Gypsy as a wandering outcast, incapable of appreciating the blessings of a settled and civilised life, or - if abandoning vagabond propensities, and becoming stationary - as one who never ascends higher than the condition of a low trafficker, will be surprised to learn, that amongst the Gypsies of Moscow ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... popular about the end of the eleventh century. The idea of woman is purer in the early poems. There is no description of the body; there is no gallantry. The beautiful Aude apprehends the death of Roland; she falls dead. In the second half of the twelfth century our poets would have been incapable of so simple and noble a conception. We find, even in 'Amis et Amelis,' women who are still very German in physiognomy, and alluring, but they are Germans, so to say, of the second manner. They have a habit ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... challenge became more marked upon the swarthy face. The smile had vanished. "And you think I am incapable of that?" ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... may come for that by and by," said Mr Jefferson. "In the meantime let us be content to hold our own till assistance can arrive from the town, or till the rebels have discovered that they are incapable ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... task of the Canal Department in the Panjab has been the extension of irrigation to the Rechna and Jech Doabs and the lower part of the Bari Doab. All three contained large areas of waste belonging to the State, mostly good soil, but incapable of cultivation owing to the scanty rainfall. Colonization has therefore been an important part of all the later canal projects. The operations have embraced ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... its mere vital organization, might ravage and destroy, as the tiger and the serpent may destroy and ravage, and, the moment after, would sport in the sunlight harmless and rejoicing, because, like the serpent and the tiger, it is incapable of remorse." ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... had stood motionless, growing paler and paler. Like most noble natures, when absolutely in the right, he was incapable of defending himself against misunderstandings. He was too wounded; he was hurt to ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... The man that takes this as the sole principle by which to guide his moral conduct, not only writes himself down "depraved," but an intellectual imbecile. What does he mean? He means that he is incapable of thinking for himself; that he has no fixed chart, but is tossed about in the eddy of fashion; that he has no principle to guide his own conduct by, but has to look to the street and follow where ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... I contemplated the possibility that they had a scheme to develop a nuclear bomb, and to explode it over Greater Washington in the belief that in the resulting confusion they might seize power. But, on the face of it their membership is incapable ...
— Status Quo • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... word, not a question," Lance implored. The mere suggestion increased a panic which seemed incapable of increase. "And for the shadow, why, that's true. The pipe's the shadow, and the shadow frightens me. A shadow! Yes! A shadow is a horrible, threatning thing! Show me a shadow cast by nothing and I am with you. But you might as easily ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... men become the most one-sided beings, perhaps, in the whole human family. To moral beauty Mr. Taylor seemed quite blind; his mental vision resembled the physical sight of those individuals whose eyes, though perfect in every other respect, are incapable of receiving any impression of an object tinged with blue—the colour of the heavens. Even the few ideas he had upon religious subjects partook of the character of loss and gain; the simple spirit of true piety could never enter into a mind in the state of his. ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Halbert, "I am incapable of a lie. I should choke on one were my life to require that I pronounced it. I say, that this sword of my father was through the body—the point came out behind his back—the hilt pressed upon his breast-bone. And ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... more pleasure in commending the beauties than exposing the blemishes of a laudable writing. Like Horace, in a long work he can bear some deformities, and justly lay them on the imperfection of human nature, which is incapable of faultless productions. When an excellent drama appears in public, and by its intrinsic worth attracts a general applause, he is not stung with envy and spleen; nor does he express a savage nature in fastening upon the celebrated author, dwelling upon his imaginary defects, and ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... in his public life. Possessed of an astonishing memory, knowledge of vast extent, and an unfailing flow of ready and effective speech, he shone alike as a parliamentary orator and a conversationalist. In his writings he spared no pains in the collection and arrangement of his materials, and he was incapable of deliberate unfairness. Nevertheless, his mind was strongly cast in the mould of the orator and the pleader: and the vivid contrasts, antitheses, and even paradoxes which were his natural forms of expression do ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... Mr. Thomas Mitton and to Mrs. Hulkes (an esteemed friend and neighbour) are graphic descriptions of this disaster. But they do NOT tell of the wonderful presence of mind and energy shown by Charles Dickens when most of the terrified passengers were incapable of thought or action, or of his gentleness and goodness to the dead and dying. The Mr. Dickenson[14] mentioned in the letter to Mrs. Hulkes soon recovered. He always considers that he owes his life to Charles Dickens, the latter having ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... into confusion. It is an event which the ministry would find it difficult to resist, and therefore cannot, I presume, be willing to encounter."[1] But he added, "There is here an opinion, which many do not hesitate to avow, that the United States are, by the nature of their Government, incapable of any great, vigorous, or persevering exertion."[125] This impression, for which it must sorrowfully be confessed there was much seeming ground in contemporary events, and the idiosyncrasies of Jefferson and Madison, in their full dependence upon commercial ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... traits of Grant's character was that which lay always on the surface, visible to all who had eyes to see it. That was his moral and intellectual integrity, sincerity, veracity, and justice. He was incapable of any attempt to deceive anybody, except for a legitimate purpose, as in military strategy; and, above all, he was incapable of deceiving himself. He possessed that rarest of all human faculties, the power of a perfectly ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... an enuious sliuer broke, When downe the weedy Trophies, and her selfe, Fell in the weeping Brooke, her cloathes spred wide, And Mermaid-like, a while they bore her vp, Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes, As one incapable of her owne distresse, Or like a creature Natiue, and indued Vnto that Element: but long it could not be, Till that her garments, heauy with her drinke, Pul'd the poore wretch from her melodious buy, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... to meet alone the hostile proceedings and influence of the London Wesleyan Committee. In order to sustain myself in these reverses, and especially in the last, but most painful one, I have been compelled to put forth physical and intellectual efforts that I am absolutely incapable of repeating. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... his loyalty cried out that he was wronging her. Juliet—his Juliet of the steadfast eyes and low, sincere voice—was surely incapable of double dealing! Whatever her life in the past had been, however frivolous, however artificial, it had been given to him—perhaps to him alone—to know her as she was. A great wave of self-reproach went over him. How had he ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... again resume my pen. I was willing you should be acquainted with all the distress and softness of my heart. I was willing to furnish you with every motive to redeem the character of a man, before it were too late. Do not however think me incapable of a spirited and a steady resolution. It were easy for me to address a letter to the family of Aranda, I might describe to them all my wrong, and prevent that dreaded union, the thought of which distresses me. My letter might probably arrive before ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... of the Southern regiments disappeared in the deep woods, Dick and many of those around him sank exhausted upon the ground. Even had they been ordered to follow they would have been incapable of it. Complete nervous collapse followed such days and nights as those through which they ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... ability to command. The people looked to their rulers to repel the invaders; the rulers looked to the people. There was no common intelligence or will between them. Everything was wanting; nothing was as it should be. And so Mandalay fell without a shot, and King Thibaw, the young, incapable, kind-hearted ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... him on board my barge (he was a native of France): he was much indisposed from his sudden fall into the sea, and incapable of speaking; after some time, however, he recovered, and gave the following account of himself, viz.: "About seven or eight days since, I cannot tell which, for I have lost my reckoning, having been most of the time where the sun never sets, I ascended from the ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... the peace and the guardians of the public safety? It was incredible, it was monstrous, degrading, nay, intolerable, and a remedy would have to be found either in the reorganisation of an inefficient police force or in the resignation of an incapable Ministry. ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... the man at first sight—gathered from different quarters and confided to Jacob were often disquieting. It was said that at Simla he had entrapped this little heiress, and her obviously foolish and incapable mother, by devices generally held to be discreditable; and it had taken two angry guardians to warn him off. What was the state of the case now no one exactly knew; though it was shrewdly suspected that the engagement was only ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sycee. This want of a currency arises from their utter lack of confidence in the coinage of their own country. No currency that the Imperial Government might issue, not like the copper cash, or tsien, incapable of adulteration, would be above suspicion; and while the shameless system of mandarin plunder and fraud continues, it is hopeless to expect a proper currency in China, unless the foreigners interfere ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... not two nations among them—two nations radically opposed to each other and incapable of coalescing? Supposing a resurrection of the people, which of the two is to prevail—the numerical majority, or the so far influential minority? In either event, it is fair to suppose a new state of helotism for the one party or the other. Is this the spectacle which ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... possible this defect of Imagination may not be in the Soul it self, but as it acts in Conjunction with the Body. Perhaps there may not be room in the Brain for such a variety of Impressions, or the Animal Spirits may be incapable of figuring them in such a manner, as is necessary to excite so very large or very minute Ideas. However it be, we may well suppose that Beings of a higher Nature very much excel us in this respect, as it is probable the Soul of Man will be infinitely ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... to those bitter words, for it was only too easy just then to make her accuse herself of anything. She sat meekly suffering, and thinking that the other was quite justified in all her anger. Mrs. Roberts was, of course, quite incapable of appreciating her mood, and continued to pour out her sarcasm, and to grow more and more bitter. To tell the truth, the worthy matron had not been half so unselfish in her hopes about Helen as she liked to pretend, and she showed then that like most people of the world who are perfectly ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... seething with excitement, and a few notable men went out with the Earl, his personal following did not exceed seventy in all. Then followed the march which ended so disastrously in pitiful surrender at Preston that fatal November day. However gallant personally, Forster was an incapable soldier, no leader of men, and General Wills had but to spread wide his net to sweep in the bulk of the insurgents—Forster, Derwentwater, Kenmure, Nithsdale, Carwath, Wintoun, and men less exalted in rank by the score and the hundred. ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... of furnishing products useful for the social economy. But all the elements indispensable for obtaining such a result fail us utterly just here. We do not yet know what ought to be, in general terms, the composition of a soil incapable of producing malaria, yet retaining those properties which are suitable for vegetation. When we shall have arrived at this first stage, there will still be a long road to travel; and the most difficult part will be to discover a practical means of imparting this ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... avoid the faces that were familiar to him, but he had forgotten that he must be seen and recognized by people unknown to him. Miss Giltinan's clear and candid mind rejected these rumours for lying inventions, incapable of belief that her idol, Jonah, would carry on with any woman. They talked about him going upstairs to hear the piano. What was more natural when he couldn't play it himself? And she dismissed the matter from her mind and went ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... great severity. The consequence might have been fatal, had I not immediately interposed, and with some difficulty rescued the officers from the hands of the enraged multitude. My children, who looked upon my delivery now as certain, appeared transported with joy, and were incapable of containing their raptures. But they were soon undeceived, upon hearing me address the poor deluded people, who came, as they ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... seemed to be incapable of further speech. The waiter looked sympathetic; it was no fault of his. And the salt was there, ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... I had not resolved to become invulnerable to woman, but I had determined that she by whom I would let myself be wounded should be one vastly unlike any in Catherine's train. When I should find the woman pure as beautiful, incapable of guile, I would love. "Somewhere in France," I often said to myself, "that woman exists. I shall know her when I see her." As in the former affair, I had my ideal already formed, and was already in love, watching for the embodiment of that ideal to appear. But this second ideal was different ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... sympathy that will be felt for Lady Ida is the sympathy which is commonly felt for the spendthrift—for the person who, no matter what his income, is congenitally incapable of making ends meet. The miser has no friends; but the spendthrift has generally too many. We avoid Harpagon as though he were a leper; but Falstaff, who, like Lady Ida, could "find no cure for this intolerable consumption of the purse," never lacked ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... the Comte he knew him to be absolutely incapable of telling a deliberate lie, and absolutely incapable of bartering his word of honour for the ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... punishment of their sins. The idea—the miserable fancy rather—has terribly corrupted the preaching of the gospel. The message of the good news has not been truly delivered. Unable to believe in the forgiveness of their Father in heaven, imagining him not at liberty to forgive, or incapable of forgiving forthright; not really believing him God our Saviour, but a God bound, either in his own nature or by a law above him and compulsory upon him, to exact some recompense or satisfaction ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... Bursting with anger, but incapable of speech, Innes shouldered his rod, made a gesture of farewell, and strode off down the burn-side. Archie watched him go without moving. He was sorry, but quite unashamed. He hated to be inhospitable, but in one ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... path of the gods to the world of Brahman, there to remain for ever in some blissful state. But, according to /S/a@nkara, all these texts are meant to set forth the result of a certain inferior knowledge only, of the knowledge of the conditioned Brahman. Even in a passage apparently so entirely incapable of more than one interpretation as B/ri/. Up. VI, 2, 15, the 'True,' which the holy hermits in the forest are said to worship, is not to be the highest Brahman, but only Hira/n/yagarbha!—And why?—Only because ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... other day to come on board of my ship and talk with me, and your refusal has occasioned many disasters. But now that we have met again, let us profit by this opportunity to talk seriously and like rational men. You see you are here on a floating ice-bank, without food, and seriously wounded, incapable by your own efforts of escaping the most cruel death. My adopted father and myself have all that you need, food, fire-arms, and brandy. We will share with you, and take care of you until you are well again. In return for our ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne |
